by Ajeet Sharma
‘Hey, MD,’ greeted Kohli who got up to hug her. An all-time sari freak, she wore a black net—tightly draped round her body—for the night.
‘Kabir, look at you!’ she said.
The three walked into the garden.
‘How’re you, MD?’ Kabir sat down on a cane sofa. He always found her big red bindi repulsive.
‘Having the time of my life. You?’ She sat beside him and inclined purposefully towards him.
‘Just fine.’ Kabir wasn’t responsive to flirtation. He got up and pretended to make a call. Desai cursed and diverted her attention to other guests trickling in.
In no time, Kohli’s property was a clamorous place, as more guests—Bollywood luminaries, industrialists, politicians, and other celebrities—turned up.
Kohli organised shindigs of unmatched standards. As always, he had deployed a team of swift waiters, brilliant cooks, experienced DJs, and untiring bartenders and attendants to take care of anything the guests could ask for—whether Chilean salad or lissom women, who were from Eastern Europe this time.
The party went on, and as usual, more liquor was consumed than food. Those who had dinner had it only after three in the morning. Others, including Kabir, decided to go for a round of ‘powder’. Kabir was no longer the kind of addict he was in America, but couldn’t resist indulging himself at such parties. ‘Wings we shall grow!’ he would say.
The next day, he woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. ‘Oh,’ he moaned, as his head ached. He inspected himself: a stained shirt, soiled jeans, and untied shoe laces. Damn, what happened this time? The phone continued to play its tune. He tried to figure out where the sound came from. He peeped under the bed. It was there. Stretching his hand underneath, he drew out his Vertu.
‘Hello,’ he groaned, without reading the caller’s name, kneading his head with a hand.
‘Kabir!’ It was Shinde. He sounded as though he had been looking for him the whole night and morning.
‘Shinde, you dog! It had to be you … this early in the morning,’ he complained, pressing his forehead.
‘Sorry, but you have two shoots lined up in the evening.’
‘I thought Sundays were off.’
‘Yes, but if you remember, I had told you about the change in—’
‘Oh, shut up.’
‘Besides, it’s not so early. It’s ten past one in the afternoon and you must come back to Mumbai in time.’
Kabir hung up on him and tried to recall if anything untoward had happened the previous night, but the heavy hangover failed him.
The previous night, another night that Kabir was unable to recall, too was like a walk on a trampoline. After he was done with vodka, he did several rounds of Hennessy and Carlsberg.
Then he hit the dance floor and danced incessantly for the next two hours until he was soaked in sweat. Bollywood starlet, Anisha Gill, who had a cosmetically enhanced body, gave him good company, on the floor and off the floor—together they smoked weed after the blissful moments. As she fell asleep under a tree, Kabir returned to the dance floor.
Then Rini Kapoor, an upcoming actress, shimmied herself to Kabir as the jockey played her popular raunchy number. That evoked a loud applause from everyone. She shook her body to the beats, now and then, snuggling up to him. He danced with her, step for step.
Kabir remembered nothing of that.
Then he went for more drinks and smoked marijuana until he felt the world was going to end. Sometime later, he staggered to his allotted room and fell on the couch as though he would never get up again. In an hour, he rose and climbed the stairs to the terrace, where he snorted with Nilesh Rawat, a cabinet minister’s son; Anil Shah, a diamond merchant; Sameer Lohia, the scion of a family that owned a medical insurance company; Anna Ross, an American television anchor; and film producers Rajesh Anand and Kamal Kohli. He gossiped with them incoherently until he felt again that the world was going to end. When he returned to his room, he saw, perched on his bed, two young and willowy women from Belarus. They got him busy for the next one and a half hours until the morning sunlight streamed through the side-window and he crashed on the bed.
Kabir remembered nothing of that.
Shinde called again. He received the call and before he could spit out a long expletive into the phone, Shinde spoke, ‘Forgot to remind you. You also have a meeting with Ricky Pinto late in the evening. Okay, brother?’
Kabir’s limbs trembled in rage. Bollywood had it that if there was one man who had the courage to take his ire, it was Harish Shinde. Kabir screamed, ‘Who Ricky Pinto, you son of a—’
‘He is the one who is creating the ads and managing the shoots for Freedom. You have signed an endorsement contract with this company for its soft drinks. Remember?’
‘What does he want from me? Creative juice?’
‘Oh, c’mon. You’re the brand ambassador and he wants you to understand what is expected of you in the ads.’
‘All right, I’m coming back … and then, the first thing I’m gonna do, is break your ribcage.’ Kabir hung up.
The door swung open and Kohli entered the room. The host was glad to see he was up. This time, Kabir was very sober, thought Kohli, recalling the commotion he had caused at one such party. He had fallen into an argument with a co-star’s husband and turned abusive. Other guests were unable to understand what resulted in the altercation, and nor was Kabir, when he got up the next morning. The man swore never to attend a gathering where the foul-mouthed actor showed his presence. From then on, every host would keep an eye on him until he passed out. They understood that the only way to keep a mishap away was to keep him in the company of the best women with whom he could dance, drink, and dope through the night.
‘So, is the devil awake?’ Kohli went to his bed.
Kabir pressed his head again with both hands. ‘Hey, Kamal.’
‘Come. Have some coffee. Eat something and you’ll feel better.’ Kohli gripped his arm and helped him get off the bed.
They joined the other guests at the patio. It was a horrible sight of red eyes, swollen faces, messy hair, and crushed clothes. Mansi Desai had slept through the morning in her ultra-expensive sari, which was now slipping out of her petticoat and off her heavy bust. Nilesh Rawat had red nostrils—too much powder. Anisha Gill was in pyjamas and looked as if she were mugged somewhere. Sameer Lohia and Anna Ross sat close together on a swing, like a couple newly in love—the night seemed to have worked for them.
Kohli, fond of talking to large audiences, informed everyone that he was up early in the morning as there was an emergency. Gagan Mehta, a twenty-three-year-old actor and the latest source of madness among the young female audience, was found lying in a state of unconsciousness in the garden and had to be rushed to hospital. ‘Fortunately, he came round after the doctor gave him a shot. Much as I insisted that he should stay back here and recover, the lad drove back in the morning,’ said Kohli. ‘Good kid. Has a long way to go. God bless him.’
The guests, who had caused a tempest the previous night, had their breakfast silently. Nobody cared a dime about Gagan Mehta. The after-effects of the night had begun and would last a couple of days. By the time the breakfast ended, it was two in the afternoon and everyone wanted to get out of there.
28
New Delhi.
Leena met Paresh and Shigeru in a presidential suite of the Mayford Ritz Hotel.
Shigeru was thinking. With his tonsured head, glowing skin, and alert eyes, anyone could mistake him for a Buddhist monk if he ever wore a robe. The Japanese hotelier, who meditated daily from four to six in the morning, was a lean sixty-one-year-old man and did not look a day older than forty-five—a result of a vegan diet and total abstinence.
Leena observed that Shigeru was not one bit flustered by what she found out in Goa.
‘Menon, you have a very committed team member in Leena Goswami,’ said Shigeru in his Japanese accent.
‘Oh, she’s done a marvellous job,’ agreed Paresh Menon.
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br /> ‘Thanks, Shigeru,’ said Leena.
‘The good work should not stop,’ said Shigeru.
She looked at Paresh questioningly. He ignored her.
‘Sure, Shigeru. It will not,’ said Paresh.
‘What’s the next move?’ asked Shigeru.
‘You have to order. We’re waiting for your instructions,’ said Paresh.
The chairman of the hotel advised, ‘Leena, continue with your surveillance. If you need any help, sound Menon about it. And be cautious.’
‘But isn’t my role over?’
Paresh smartly intervened. ‘Leena, Balraj is a crook and who knows this better than you? We can’t stop at this stage and take chances. So continue with your work and … keep us updated.’
‘Good words,’ remarked Shigeru with a nod of his head. His eyes seemed shut as he grinned at Leena.
After a few minutes of trivia about her job with Balraj Infrastructure, the meeting was over and Paresh escorted her out of the suite.
‘What does he want now? You told me the Goa job would be the last one,’ she complained angrily as they reached an elevator.
‘Shh. Quiet, babe. I’ll explain everything later.’
‘Fuck you, Paresh!’ she screamed. ‘I’m not doing this anymore. Go tell that—’
At once, Paresh covered her mouth with his hand. ‘Keep shut for heaven’s sake and go before Shigeru hears anything,’ he pleaded and hurriedly pressed a button on the wall to call the elevator. ‘Trust me, my love, you’ve almost crossed the river.’
She stood, stopping herself from clawing at his face, until the doors of the elevator opened and Paresh almost pushed her into it, blowing her a good-night kiss.
A uniformed chauffeur placed Surendra Pal Singh’s luggage inside a silver Land Cruiser Prado. Opening the rear door, he gracefully gestured to the old man to board the vehicle.
‘Take care and call me when you reach,’ said Surendra Pal’s wife, an old Punjabi woman.
‘You take care too,’ he said adoringly, getting inside the vehicle.
The sports utility vehicle wheeled out of the premises of his house in Maharani Bagh, Delhi and sped off towards the airport. It was drizzling and the cool breeze brought the temperature down, making it an odd and pleasant day in the warm month of April.
Surendra Pal had a meeting with the promoter of a media company in Chicago. The two would discuss ways in which they could associate for the three million Indians living in the US.
What started as a cable television business in Janakpuri, Delhi twenty-one years ago was now a large broadcasting company called Northern Television Network. Pal was the chairman of the company that had its presence in the south-east Asian region. The network had more than a hundred channels in various genres and Indian languages, with market leadership in Hindi news, Hindi cinema, and sports.
Minutes later, the Cruiser was speeding along a field, a few kilometres before the airport.
‘Aren’t we slightly early, Tejbir?’ Pal asked his driver.
‘Yes, sahib, there’s time.’
‘Great. Why don’t you stop for a few minutes near the field?
‘Yes, sahib.’ Tejbir slowed the vehicle and pulled up near the field.
Pal stepped out of the vehicle and walked into the field that had tall and dense grass stalks along its boundary. He looked up at the sky. It was dark and cloudy. Tejbir chuckled at his quirky employer, a nature worshipper. He recalled once he had driven the whole family to Fagu. He took four extra hours to reach the hill station as Pal insisted on spending a few minutes by a river on the way. The few minutes turned into hours, as he would not lift his feet out of the running water.
Surendra Pal thanked the good weather that he got a chance to breathe in some fragrant air. He spread his arms like a bat spreading its wings and as the raindrops fell on his face, he closed his eyes, enjoying the feeling.
Tejbir, standing beside the vehicle, laughed as he saw his master falling on his back. That was the way the old man had once fallen playfully on a haystack on their way to his village in Punjab.
Seeing Pal lie motionless even when it started raining heavily, Tejbir sensed there was something wrong. He ran to him.
Reaching the spot, he noticed the yellow grass around the old man’s head turning dark red, and realised his master was gone. Terrified, he looked in all directions, but the killer had scampered back faster than a doe, causing a meandering stir between the grass stalks.
29
Within an hour, all news channels were broadcasting: ‘Surendra Pal Singh shot dead’, ‘Media monarch murdered in the field’, ‘Media industry loses its king’ …
It was a Sunday. Leena surfed from one channel to another while trying to contact Paresh, but her calls went unanswered. One of the four men she spied on in Goa had been murdered.
Two hours later, Paresh returned her calls.
‘What the hell, Paresh! What took you so long to call back?’ she shrieked.
‘I was with Shigeru. You know I never take any calls when I am with him.’
‘Have you watched the news?’
‘Yeah, Surendra Pal Singh has been shot dead by an unknown assailant.’
‘Unknown assailant?’ Leena jumped off her couch. ‘Isn’t Shigeru behind it?’
‘Butterball, I’ll wait for you at TGIF at nine in the evening.’ He ended the call.
Her phone rang again after some time. She sat bolt upright, staring at the name flashing on the screen. The caller was Jaggi Balraj. Composing herself, she received the call. ‘Hi, sir.’
‘Leena, how early can you meet me?’ Balraj sounded as if his office were on fire.
‘You mean today?’
‘Right now.’
Meeting on a Sunday? ‘What’s the matter, sir?’ She tried not to sound nervous.
‘We’ll not talk about it on the phone. I am waiting for you in my office.’
‘I’ll … I’ll be there.’
Leena changed into a white tunic and black leggings, and then left her house. Within forty-five minutes, she was sitting before Balraj in his larger-than-lounge office.
‘This is confidential. Do not share this with anyone,’ he cautioned.
‘Sure.’
He adjusted a ring on a finger. ‘I want you to help me, Leena.’
‘Okay?’
‘I have a feeling that Singh’s killing has to do with Mayford. You know he was knocked off today, don’t you?’
‘It was in the news. But in what ways do you think it has to do with Mayford?’ Leena had never been so scared.
Balraj ignored her question. ‘Surendra Pal Singh and my father were good friends. Together they opposed various unreasonable industrial policies of the governments. Since I had a high regard for the old man, it’s my moral responsibility to find out who killed a man who never squished an ant.’ He brushed down his horseshoe moustache and said, ‘Find out who is behind all this at Mayford.’
‘How do I …?’
‘Oh, come on. You have friends there. Right?’
Leena met Paresh at TGIF, Connaught Place, late in the evening.
‘I’m scared, Paresh. Why does he want me to find out?’ She palmed her sweaty forehead.
‘Because you have worked with Mayford. Simple.’ Paresh took a sip of his mojito.
‘I think he has learnt we’re seeing each other.’
‘Possible.’
‘Have you told anyone about us?’
‘Not a single bird.’
‘If Balraj knows about us, he also knows I will never spy on anyone at Mayford.’
‘The bugger wants you to spy on me and Shigeru. Isn’t it so obvious?’
‘Oh god. What if he is aware I’ve been snooping on him?’
‘I don’t think so. Listen. Don’t give him the feeling that you don’t want to do the snooping in Mayford.’
Her lips quivered. ‘I just want to end my life.’
‘Leena …’ Paresh’s voice trailed off as a waiter placed
a plate of chicken fingers on the table. ‘Ah. Here.’ He forwarded the plate to her.
‘Shove it all.’
‘You don’t have a choice, Leena. Take it as an opportunity. Do what he tells you to do, win his trust, get closer to him … and extract more out of him—for Shigeru.’
‘Do I tell him it’s Shigeru?’
‘Get this out of your head that Shigeru is behind the killing.’ Paresh was angry. ‘Give Balraj a secure feeling by passing on some information to him … information which is unimportant. You know your job, don’t you?’
‘I think I should quit his company.’
‘Think again,’ cautioned Paresh, as though he were predicting an earthquake. ‘Would Shigeru take you back in Mayford if you quit before finishing your task?’
‘I’ve had enough of this undercover operation. I’ll find another job.’
‘If only our decisions were so easy to implement, my dove, life would be a smooth road,’ he said and leered at a woman sitting at a table behind Leena.
Balraj had to call an impromptu meeting at his office a day after the murder. The attendees were Manoj Sarraf, Rustom Patel, and T.C. Virani.
In their Goa meeting the previous month, after a long negotiation, certain decisions were taken. The four Mayford board directors had unanimously come into an agreement with Balraj to approve his Mayford buyout offer. To pacify Surendra Pal Singh, Balraj had paid him an amount worth 16 per cent of his shareholding. The other three were to receive amounts worth 12 per cent of their respective holdings.
The one who was paid was dead. That could cause a big monetary loss to the builder, not to mention the possible loss of a chance to climb the Mayford board.
Balraj began his speech to the three directors. ‘Friends, what a loss.’ He grimaced. He was never too good with compassion and condolences. ‘Mr Surendra Pal was my father figure and—’