A low sound of weight striking the ground came to Jeet Singh’s ears. He felt as if Rajaram had lost his balance and barely saved himself from falling flat on the ground.
Jeet Singh handed the toolkit to him, and then jumped down the way Rajaram did.
He immediately realized why Rajaram had lost his balance after landing on the ground inside.
The ground down there was wet and soft, and he felt his feet sinking ankle-deep in it.
‘These are flowerbeds,’ Rajaram whispered, ‘it seems they have been freshly watered. That rascal, the cook, didn’t tell us about these, too. Let me get hold of him, I’ll teach him a good lesson. Badri, on our return, too, our shoes will leave deep marks in the flowerbeds here. If we succeed, then on our way back, we’ll have to discard the shoes. Do keep this in mind.’
‘My new shoes …’
‘Spend fifty lakhs of your money on shoes then. You’ll get thousands of pairs.’
‘Boss, is this the time to talk like this?’
‘Rub your shoes on the grass and clean them so that we do not leave mud prints inside the house.’
Both of them spent some time and effort in cleaning their shoes.
Then they moved ahead stealthily, and located the tree, a branch of which was going to give them access to a first-floor window supposed to be left open by the cook.
It was a huge neem tree, only one thick branch of which reached the wall. They climbed the tree, reached the branch that was their target and then faced a new problem.
The window was so far away that it could not be touched even by a fully outstretched hand.
Rajaram broke off a thin branch from overhead, and used it to pull open the window panels that opened on the outside. He then pushed the mesh panels with the stick, and they opened inwards.
The window was open, but now they had a new problem.
The distance between the branch and the window was too wide to just step onto the window-sill from the branch.
‘Damn!’ cursed Rajaram. ‘May Fazal Haq get bitten by a snake.’
‘Dogs!’ Jeet Singh said. ‘There are no snakes around.’
‘Enough of it, now. You are young, you can jump from the branch to the ledge, no?’
‘What will you do?’
‘I will also jump, but you have to catch me in case I stumble, ok?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give me the toolkit and go ahead.’
Jeet Singh did as told.
‘Jump!’
Jeet Singh cautiously jumped. There was no light in the room of that window, so it was difficult to see the ledge, but thankfully he reached the ledge and then the room safely.
Rajaram extended his arm to hand him the toolkit, and Jeet Singh had to not only stretch his arm, but also hang out his upper torso from the window to hold it.
Then Rajaram jumped.
He was about to lose his balance once he landed on the sill, but Jeet Singh caught his arm and helped him get in safely.
Then he closed the window.
Both of them were now inside the bungalow.
Rajaram switched on his mobile for the little light that it could emit, and they reached a door on the other end of the room.
‘That bastard will get a bullet,’ he said, ‘if this door is locked.’
‘Bullet! Are you carrying a gun?’
‘No, I just said it as a figure of speech.’
‘I’m saying this since you’ve mentioned the gun. We should have had a weapon with us.’
‘No, it’s not needed. This is a neat job, neat and straight. If something unexpected, unforeseen happens, we will be charged for thievery. But carrying a gun has its own implications like a bloodbath, a murder. A big crime means big punishment. I don’t subscribe to that.’
‘You are right.’
The door was not locked.
They silently stepped out into the corridor, at the far end of which were the stairs. Once he got the hang of the darkened passage, Rajaram switched off the phone light.
They reached the stairs and started descending stealthily.
‘You know the way ahead?’ Jeet Singh whispered.
‘Yes, I know everything,’ Rajaram scolded him in a whisper, ‘now just shut up.’
They reached the study.
There, it was not possible to function without any proper light.
There were two windows in the study with double curtains—the outer one light and translucent and the inner one thick and heavy. Rajaram adjusted the curtains well, and also made sure that the curtain on the door too was in place.
The button used to operate the special bookshelf was fixed under the table on the executive chair side like a call-bell button. The bookshelf moved silently to one side as Rajaram pushed the button, and a three into four feet safe was revealed.
Jeet Singh reached the safe with his toolkit.
There was a sofa at some distance from the safe, beside which was a pedestal lamp with a round lampshade. Rajaram switched it on, lifted it, and placed it near the safe. The lamp cable was stretched to its limit, but its light reached the safe as needed.
‘It won’t be safe to switch on the other lights,’ Rajaram whispered, ‘would you be able to work in this much light?’
‘Yes,’ Jeet Singh said with confidence.
‘Fine, then get started.’
Jeet Singh started the work in which he was exceptionally gifted by the grace of God.
He opened the safe in the next thirty minutes. He pulled the heavy door of the safe, and moved aside for Rajaram.
Rajaram came forward and stood beside him.
The safe was packed with thousand-rupee currency notes.
When roughly counted, they were found to be two hundred and ten wads.
That was two crore ten lakh rupees.
‘Two hundred and ten wads,’ Jeet Singh said mockingly, ‘can easily be in our pockets!’
‘Are you mad? The cook will be here anytime now.’
‘What will he do—make a package for us?’
‘He will come with two suitcases.’
‘Oh! How expertly you arrange things, boss!’
Rajaram did not reply. He punched a previously-fed number on the phone, and ended the call after one ring.
They waited for some time.
After some two minutes, the door of the study opened slowly, and a thin man in his fifties stepped inside. He had a suitcase in each hand. He closed the door behind him, moved a little ahead and stopped.
‘Done?’ he asked.
‘Can’t you see that?’ snapped Rajaram.
‘Great! How much is it?’
‘Two crore ten lakhs. Two hundred and ten wads of thousand-rupee notes. Now, you’ll say you want to count!’
Fazal Haq’s eyes shone even in the semi-darkness of the room. He placed both the suitcases on the floor and said authoritatively, ‘Take seventy wads out and place them on the table.’
‘Let us transfer our share to the suitcases, the rest you can take on your own.’
‘Do as I ask you to do, or …’
‘Or what?’
‘… or you will be sorry.’
‘Is that how it is?’
‘Yes, it is. The house will wake up at the snap of a finger.’
‘Oh no!’
‘Oh yes!’
Rajaram started counting the wads and placing them neatly on the table.
‘And this,’ he said in the end, ‘is the seventieth. Happy now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Now pass us the suitcases.’
Fazal Haq pushed the suitcases towards them from a distance.
‘And now depart this mortal world.’
A gun with a silencer suddenly appeared in Rajaram’s hand, and he shot the cook point blank.
Fazal Haq collapsed on the carpeted floor without a sound.
Jeet Singh’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
Rajaram bent down to confirm that the man was dead.
‘He
had the push button of the cordless bell in his pocket,’ Rajaram said. ‘That’s why he said the house will wake up at the snap of a finger.’
‘God! God!’
Rajaram straightened up, and turned towards Jeet Singh.
‘Don’t worry, you are going to meet him.’
‘Whom?’
‘God!’
‘Wh-what … what did you say?’
‘Right before Him! Face to face! Now!’
His straightened the hand with the gun.
‘Netaji!’ Jeet Singh shouted in a shrill tone looking above Rajaram’s shoulder. ‘Don’t shoot! I didn’t do anything. He did all of it.’
Rajaram laughed.
‘These tricks have become outdated, kiddo,’ he said, ‘I am not going to look behind, for I know there is nobody there.’
‘So, you are ready to be shot!’
‘You … you’re ready to be shot. The bookshelf behind you has glass panels, and I can see the reflection of everything behind me in that. I can see there is nobody behind me.’
The tightened cable of the pedestal lamp was just close to Jeet Singh’s foot. By that time, he had entangled his shoe’s toe in it. Suddenly, he pulled his foot back forcefully. The lamp fell down with a thud, its bulb broke immediately and everything in the room went dark.
Jeet Singh lost his balance, he stretched his hand forward to balance his body, but it struck the opened safe door. That destabilized him more, and he doubled up to prevent a fall. That saved his life, for immediately he heard a pit sound, and a bullet hit the wall behind him.
He tried to save himself from falling, as his foot was still entangled in the lamp cable. In an attempt to do that, one of his hands hit the wads placed on the table. Some of them fell on the floor, while one landed in his hand.
Rajaram could have switched on the light but he preferred to use his mobile’s light.
Jeet Singh felt even the dim light of its screen to be too much in that darkness.
He picked up a paperweight from the table and threw it at Rajaram with force.
The paperweight hit Rajaram on the forehead. A suppressed cry emerged from his throat and the mobile fell from his hand as he clutched his forehead.
Jeet Singh leapt to the window within a second. He pulled the curtains with such force that they came right out of the wall and fell on him. He hurriedly pushed them aside, climbed the sill and jumped out. His feet hit the thick grass of the yard outside, his knees bent. He rolled once, got up and started running towards the main gate.
The gate was bolted from inside, but there was no lock in the bolt. He unbolted it and opened only as much of the gate as he could pass through. He closed the gate behind him and rushed to the car parked outside.
The watchman did not appear till he got in the car. He started it, took a U-turn, and sped away.
When the car passed the gate, he found it to be closed in the position he had left it in.
The road was deserted at that hour of the night, which ensured him that nobody was following him.
He was not as sorry for Rajaram’s deceit as he was for his toolkit having been left behind. But that too was not a total loss, for a wad of notes was in his pocket.
Thursday: 28 May
It was around five in the morning when Jeet Singh reached south Mumbai.
Most of the people on the road at that time were either milkmen or newspaper vendors.
Tired and sleep-deprived, he kept driving till he reached Dhobi Talao, and then Gailo’s chawl in Jambuwadi. Gailo’s room was on the first floor of the building, and he was sleeping on a mat in the corridor outside his room. There were many other people who were sleeping out in the long corridor in the hot weather.
Jeet Singh woke him up forcefully.
He sat up, looked at Jeet Singh while rubbing his eyes, then recognized him.
‘What is it, yaar?’ he said, and started falling back on the mat.
Jeet Singh caught hold of his arm and instead of letting him sit, made him stand on his feet.
‘Come to your senses now,’ he said sternly.
‘I am in my senses, am I not?’
‘No, you’re not. Now, do as I say. I’ve an important matter to discuss with you. I haven’t come here to bother you for the heck of it.’
Gailo then became alert, and opened his eyes wide.
‘What’s the time?’
‘Five.’
‘I slept at two.’
‘If you stay so late at that bewra adda of yours …’
‘Arre, the bewra adda doesn’t open for that long. I have to earn my living too or not! You think the bewra is available for free! I was bloody hauling passengers till two in the morning.’
‘Bravo! Now, come to your kholi.’
They went in. Jeet Singh closed the door and switched on the light.
‘Now tell me,’ Gailo said, ‘what is it?’
‘I have an urgent errand for you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘You remember that fellow you tailed from Paramount Bar, Dadar? The one who first visited some house in Worli …’
‘The one who then went to Lower Parel and then to Chetna restaurant? Name Rajaram Lokhande?’
‘So, you do remember him. Then you must remember that later Pardesi was on his tail and he came out with this info that he was staying at Hotel Anand in Ghatkopar!’
‘Yes, I do.’’
‘Room number 605!’
‘Yes.’
‘You have to reach there now and keep a watch on him.
‘He’s there at this time?’
‘No, he is not, but he will surely reach there.’
‘From where?’
‘From Khandala. He was right behind me. I’ve taken his car. Now he has to arrange some conveyance, and there could also be some other problems.’
‘What’s the story?’
‘It’s a long story. I don’t have time to narrate it to you. Gailo, do what I am asking you to do and do it fast. Believe me, if luck does not fuck us this time, then we are going to hit the jackpot.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Now is not the time to go into details. You just come with me this minute.’
‘I am coming, but Pardesi was closer to Ghatkopar. You could have asked him.’
‘He does not have a taxi like you. He would have wasted precious time in arranging one. By that time, you’ll already be there.’
‘ok.’
‘Secondly, I have something else in mind for him. He can’t handle two things at one time.’
‘Who can?’
‘That’s what I said. If he accomplished my job, I’ll take him to Ghatkopar with him.’
‘So you have to come there after all?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s the story?’
‘You started that again. I said I’d tell you. Now, don’t waste time. Come.’
‘I’m coming.’
David Pardesi lived in Transit Camp, Dharavi.
He too was sleeping when Jeet Singh went and woke him up.
‘What gives?’ he asked, alarmed.
‘I’ve something to be done very urgently, otherwise I would not have come at this hour.’
‘Hmm. Go to the dhaba.’
‘It will be open at this time?’
‘Yes, it never closes. Go there and order tea, I’ll come.’
Jeet Singh reached Ajmer Singh’s dhaba, which was Pardesi’s regular haunt. If one couldn’t get him anywhere, he could get him there or could know of his whereabouts from there.
There were eight to ten people there even that early in the morning, sipping their tea and munching at buns.
Jeet Singh ordered tea for two.
Pardesi reached there by the time the tea was served.
He had discarded his lungi-baniyan, and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt now. His hair was also combed.
He came and sat before Jeet Singh who placed a glass of tea before him.
‘Tell me now,’ he sai
d, ‘what you want so early in the morning?’
‘First I’ll tell you what I don’t want. I don’t need your lecture, your preaching, your sermon telling me what’s good and what’s not good for me, your advice that I should keep away from trouble. And I don’t want a razor.’
‘I got it, Jeete,’ Pardesi said with a sigh, ‘you want a gun.’
‘You are smart, aren’t you?’
‘You won’t ever change. You won’t ever resist provoking trouble. You just cannot.’
‘Why are you nagging me when you know?’
‘Because I’m your friend, your well-wisher.’
‘Then do what your friend is asking you to do.’
‘What did you do with the gun I arranged for you in April?’
‘I got rid of it. You yourself said that I must not keep a hot gun with me.’
‘Hmm.’
‘I don’t have time for your hmms. And let me tell you, I don’t want a country-made pistol, I don’t want locally fabricated stuff. I want the real thing, and with a silencer.’
‘That would come quite expensive. You have the dough?’
‘Yes,’ Jeet Singh showed him the wad of thousand-rupee notes.
‘Hmm,’ he got up, ‘I’ll be back, you just wait here.’
He left.
Jeet Singh lit a cigarette, and started taking small puffs, immersed in his thoughts.
Pardesi returned in ten minutes.
‘Revolver,’ he said while sitting before him, ‘lightweight, Smith and Wesson, point three eight calibre, with a four-inch silencer. The registration number has been erased. Forty-five.’
‘How much will he pay if I return it?’
‘Twenty-two-and-a-half.’
‘How many rounds with it?’
‘As many as the gun’s capacity. The chamber will be fully loaded.’
‘ok, done.’
Jeet Singh paid him forty-five thousand rupees.
Hearing in Sushmita’s case began in the trial court on Thursday morning.
The public prosecutor in the case was an aged lawyer named Bhuvnesh Dixit. He was a very senior lawyer on the panel of public prosecutors and his record of convictions was very impressive.
He first briefed the judge about the outline of the case built by the police, and then summoned Alok Changulani as a witness against the accused, Sushmita.
The Colaba Conspiracy Page 32