Sacred Games (42 page)

‘It took a long time. I started in this salon cleaning the hair from the floor, washing the scissors and combs.'

‘Did you see her again?'

‘Two, three times. The judge makes you go to counselling before they let you get a divorce. She was there to meet him afterwards. I didn't speak to her. Then I saw her when the judge granted the divorce.'

‘And after that?'

‘I heard about them once or twice, from relatives and friends. They were living in Goregaon. Still trying to get her into films, anything. I saw her on television once, some advertisement for saris. Bas, that was it.'

‘You never spoke to her again?'

‘No. My mother was very angry at her also. Ma was sick, and Jojo tried to get in touch, but Ma said no, she didn't want to speak to her, to that sinful, shameless girl. She died without ever speaking to Jojo. And I didn't really want to know anything about Jojo.'

‘So, not even a little news from somewhere?'

She shook her head. ‘Once. Maybe two, three years ago. I have an aunt in Bangalore. My mother's sister. She said she saw Jojo at the airport.'

‘Your aunty spoke to her?'

‘No. She knew what she had done.'

‘Jojo was getting on a plane?'

‘Yes. She must have made money. I don't know how. I don't know anything about her. About what happened to her.'

What happened to her. How an ambitious, lovelorn teenager became a trader in bodies, how she ended up dead, murdered by a suicidal bhai. He didn't know how, but he could imagine it, the descent from filmi parties into many kinds of underworld. ‘We also have very little information about her,' he said. ‘She worked in television, produced some shows. There were some other activities.'

‘Activities?'

‘We are investigating. When we know more, I will tell you. If you hear anything, anything at all, please call me.' She would, Sartaj thought. She had a certain hope in him now. From these little scraps, these fragments, maybe she could reconstruct her sister, and forgive her, and herself. ‘I'm glad you spoke to me,' he said.

‘She was a sweet girl,' Mary said. ‘When we were small, she was scared of thunder. She used to crawl into my side of the bed late at night and push her head into my stomach and sleep.'

Sartaj nodded. Yes, Jojo was also that scared little girl, holding on to her sister. It was a good thing to know. He drove Mary home. From the car, he watched her climb the stairs to her room. The light went on inside, and he reversed out into the main road. On the way home, as he veered left into the curve at Juhu Chowpatty, it began to rain.

 

Iffat-bibi called Sartaj just as he was finishing his dinner of Afghan chicken and tandoori roti from the Sardar's Grill down the road. ‘Saab, I have an answer.'

‘To my question?'

‘Yes. Bunty was thokoed by two freelance shooters.'

‘Working for whom?'

‘Nobody. It was personal. Bunty took a girl from one of them some three, four years ago.'

‘Took?'

‘She liked Bunty's money better than the freelancer. This idiot freelancer was in love with her.'

So Bunty had died for a woman, not land or gold. Or for anything to do with Ganesh Gaitonde. ‘Okay,' Sartaj said. Bunty had wounded a lover, and the lover had waited and nursed his anger and been patient until Bunty's fortunes fell into steep decline. ‘Okay.'

‘You want them?'

‘Who?'

‘The freelancers. We know where they are right now, where they will spend the night. Where they will be tomorrow.'

‘You want to give them to me?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why?'

‘Think of it as just a gift between new friends.' Her Urdu was impeccable, and her voice could go cushiony and soft.

Sartaj got up, stretched and walked to the balcony. He leaned over the railing, and watched the treetops swaying in the damp breeze. The lamps threw the shadows of their leaves across the smooth surfaces of the cars.

‘Saab?'

‘Iffat-bibi, I am not worthy of such a gift. You have an old relationship with Parulkar Saab. Why don't you give it to him? I don't handle these bhai and company and shooter matters.'

‘Is this true? Or do you think I am not worthy of giving you something?'

‘Arre, no, Bibi. I am just afraid that when the time comes, I will have nothing equal to give you in return. I am a small man.'

She made a smacking sound full of exasperation. ‘The son is just like the father. All right, all right.'

‘Bibi, I meant no offence.'

‘I know. But really, I used to tell this to Sardar Saab also, how will you get ahead if you don't make the big deals? And he always said, “Iffat-bibi, I have flown as high as I can. Let my son go further.”'

‘He said that?'

‘Yes, he spoke about you often. I remember when you passed your twelfth, he distributed sweets. Pedas and burfis.'

Sartaj remembered the pedas, the saffrony taste of them that contained
all the future. ‘Maybe I am like him also, yes. Parulkar Saab moved ahead.'

‘Yes, with Sardar Saab's help all the time. Parulkar was a sharp one from the beginning, see. Always thinking, thinking. There was this case, a robbery gang on the docks.'

She told him then about this gang, which had people on the inside and outside of the docks. They pilfered goods, of course, but they also took equipment and fuel, anything worth a little money. Parulkar had broken the case, with lots of Sardar Saab's help, his contacts and sources, all of which Sardar Saab was glad to give him. But when the time came for arrests, Parulkar let a senior inspector take the apradhis in and enjoy all the credit. ‘It would have been a big case for Parulkar, but he saw ahead, see? Lose some heavy arrests now, but profit later.'

‘He's fast like that.'

‘How fast, you don't even know. But you haven't learnt much from him.' He knew she was smiling, and couldn't help smiling back.

‘What to do, Bibi? We are who we are.'

‘Yes, we are as Allah makes us.'

They said their farewells, and Sartaj went back to picking at his chicken. He was craving a peda, but it was late and he was tired. He comforted himself with another shot of whisky, and promised himself two pedas at lunch. He was sure it was going to be a good day.

 

By the next morning the rain had turned into one of those endless monsoon drenchings that felt as if the sky had collapsed under the weight of water. Sartaj ran from the car to the station, and by the time he was under cover his shoulders were drenched. He could feel the water inside his shoes.

‘Your girlfriend's waiting for you, Sartaj Saab,' Kamble said from his perch on the first-floor balustrade above. He was leaning out, head close to the smooth fall of water from the roof, a cigarette in one hand.

‘Kamble, my friend,' Sartaj said, ‘you are full of bad habits and bad beliefs.' He had to raise his voice to be heard above the drumming of the water on the bricks. Kamble grinned back at him, very comfortable with his badness. By the time Sartaj got up the stairs, he was lighting another cigarette and he had his answer ready.

‘Sometimes you need a bad one like me, Sartaj Saab,' he said, ‘for all the bad work that has to be done in this world.'

‘Since when have you become a philosopher, chutiya? You never
needed any excuses before, so don't start blaming the world now. Who is waiting?'

‘Arre, your CBI girlfriend, boss. You have so many you don't know which one is coming to visit?'

Anjali Mathur was at the station. ‘Where?' Sartaj said.

‘Parulkar Saab's office.'

‘And is Parulkar Saab there?'

‘No, he got a call, he had to rush to a meeting with the CM at the Juhu Centaur.'

‘With the CM. Very impressive.'

‘Our Parulkar Saab is a very impressive man. But I don't think he likes your chavvi very much, Sartaj Saab. I just see something in his look. Maybe he wants her also.'

Sartaj thumped Kamble on the shoulder. ‘You have a very dirty mind. Let me see what this is about.' He walked down the corridor. Kamble was indeed dirty, but maybe it was just that he took more pleasure in the same dirt that everyone was swimming in. He certainly understood the politics of the station, and knew everything that went on in it. Sartaj nodded at Sardesai, Parulkar's PA, who waved him towards Parulkar's door. Sartaj knocked and went in. Anjali Mathur was sitting alone on the sofa at the rear of the room, at the end furthest from Parulkar's desk.

‘Namaste, madam,' Sartaj said.

‘Namaste,' she said. ‘Please sit.'

Sartaj sat and told her what he had learned from Mary, which was very little. As usual, she took in the news, such as it was, and then stayed perfectly still. She was deliberating. Today she was in a dark red salwar-kameez. Wine-coloured, Sartaj thought. An interesting hue on her dark-brown skin, but it was loose, and covered her quite impersonally. There was no cut there, no personality. She carried her face the same way, shut off. Not hostile, just guarded, closed.

‘Shabash,' she said. ‘Every little thing is important. You know that. You never know what will open up a case. Now, I have two things to tell you. One, that Delhi has decided to halt this investigation. We were interested in Ganesh Gaitonde's return to Mumbai, the reasons for it, what he wanted here. But from what we have found out so far, Delhi doesn't think there's enough there to justify further enquiries. Frankly, nobody cares. They say, Gaitonde is dead, he's finished.'

‘But you don't think he's finished.'

‘I don't understand why he was here, why he killed himself, what he
was looking for. Who he was looking for. But I have been called back to Delhi. There are more important things to work on, it is felt.'

‘At the national level.'

‘Yes. At the national level. But I would appreciate it very much if you would continue looking into the matter a little. I appreciate very much your hard work. If you could continue, maybe we would have some answers to our questions.'

‘Why are you so interested in Ganesh Gaitonde? He was a common gangster. He's dead.'

She thought for a moment, considered her options. ‘There is not much I am allowed to tell you. But I am interested in him because he was connected to certain very important people, to events at a national level. Whatever brought him back here, that could have an effect on future events.'

And you want me to risk my head under these huge juggernauts, Sartaj thought. You want me to put my golis in the path of those oncoming, grinding wheels. You want to involve me in Research and Analysis Wing matters. International intrigue, derring-do in foreign lands, desi James Bonds. He knew the agency existed somewhere, he had been told it did exist, but it was all very fantastic and very far from his very ordinary life. He had never really felt it was real, all that sinister spy stuff. And yet here was serious, small Anjali Mathur, in her dark red salwar-kameez, sitting on the sofa a few feet from him. And she was interested in the death and life of Ganesh Gaitonde.

The next question was obvious, but Sartaj kept himself from asking it: why does RAW have an interest in our friend Ganesh Gaitonde at all? Maybe some of the important people that Gaitonde had connections with were in RAW, maybe some mutual dealings had existed between the agency and Gaitonde, but Sartaj didn't want to know. He didn't want to be in this room any more, with quiet Anjali Mathur. He wanted to be back in his own life. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘Very true.' He was quiet. These RAW things happened far away from him, as they should. He didn't have any questions, he didn't want answers. He was done.

‘I have to go back,' Anjali Mathur said finally. ‘To Delhi. But I would be grateful if you would continue to investigate this issue. For you to do so would be completely logical, expected. If you learn anything, here is my number in Delhi. Please call me.'

He took the card, and stood up. ‘I will,' he said.

She nodded, but he knew she saw his nerviness, his desire to be out of
the room, away. Outside, Kamble was sitting on the visitor's bench, one leg crossed comfortably over the other. ‘So what happened, boss?' he said with his customary leer.

‘Nothing,' Sartaj said. ‘Absolutely nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing will.'

 

Ordinary life had its own savoury pleasures. Sartaj was eating a very hot chicken Hyderabadi with Kamble when his mobile rang and began to skid slowly across the table. Sartaj nudged it back with a knuckle, and saw that Wasim Zafar Ali Ahmad was calling. ‘Arre, tissue, tissue!' he called to the waiter and thumbed the phone. ‘Hold,' he managed to get out before a cough caught at his throat.

‘Saab, take a sip of water,' Wasim Zafar Ali Ahmad said paternally when Sartaj finally got the phone up to his ear.

‘What do you want?'

‘You are eating lunch, saab. I have your dessert.'

‘The Bihari and the boys?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where? When?'

‘They are coming tonight after midnight to collect money from a receiver.'

‘After midnight, when?'

‘I only know that the meeting is after midnight, saab. Maybe they are being careful. But I have an exact address.'

Sartaj wrote down the street and the landmarks and the name of the receiver. Wasim was very exact indeed. ‘Saab, there are many kholis on the track side of the road, and there are always people moving around there, even late at night. So you must go in carefully, otherwise there will be trouble.'

‘Chutiya, we have done a thousand of these arrests. This one will be nothing special.'

‘Yes, yes, saab. Of course you are the master of these matters. I didn't mean…'

‘All that matters is that the information should be good. Is the information good?'

‘Saab, it is solid. You don't even know what I went through to get it.'