Sacred Games (91 page)

Sartaj slid a photograph out of his pocket and put it on the table, between Ramu and Tej. ‘This was the woman you took the package from,' he said. ‘Remember now?'

‘I told you,' said Ramu with exaggerated patience. ‘I didn't do anything like that.' He was getting into the part now. He raised his hands, let them drop.

But Tej had stopped eating, and was staring at the studio glamour shot of Mrs Kamala Pandey.

‘Maybe you don't remember,' Sartaj said. ‘But Tej knows her all right.'

Tej tried his best now, his chin sticky with rice and grease. ‘No, no, I don't know her,' he said.

Sartaj put a fifty-rupee note next to his plate. ‘Yes, you do. I saw you look. She's like a film star, isn't she?'

‘Be quiet,' Ramu said to Tej, who had a dreamy fix on the money as he gathered up another large chunk of rice in his fingers.

‘Ramu,' Sartaj said. ‘Why do you want to fight with me? Are the men who hired you to get the package your friends? You think you have to protect them? Or are you scared of them? You think if you tell me, you'll get into trouble?'

‘I'm not afraid of anyone.'

Ramu had his head down, and his shoulders up, and his voice low. Sartaj recognized the anger: it was Amitabh Bachchan in
Deewar
, or Shah Rukh in any of his films. ‘I don't mean to insult you, boss,' Sartaj said. ‘You have information I need. You name your price.'

Ramu leaned back, rubbed at his nose with the back of his hand. He was very thoughtful. Sartaj thought he had a price in mind already, but he was being the businessman for the benefit of his followers. He announced it finally. ‘Five hundred rupees.'

‘Too much,' Sartaj said. ‘I'll give you two hundred.'

Ramu came forward now, his eyes sharp. He put his elbows on the table. ‘Three-fifty.'

‘Let's settle at three hundred,' Sartaj said. ‘Not yours and not mine.'

‘Fine. Let's see the cash.'

Sartaj suppressed a smile, and put the money on the table. ‘Let's see the information,' he said. ‘So who were they?'

Ramu took the currency notes, riffled professionally through them, put them away. ‘I don't know who they were. They just found us near the cinema.'

‘How many of them?'

‘Two.'

‘Old, young, what?'

‘Old.'

‘How old? Like Uncle here? Or like me?'

Ramu stabbed a contemptuous thumb towards Kamble. ‘No, old like him here.'

Kamble knuckled the top of Ramu's head, crisply enough to make him wince. Tej and Jatin grinned. ‘Careful, chutiya,' Kamble said. ‘I'm not as nice as Saab over there. So, these two men, you got names?'

‘No. They didn't give names.'

‘So how did it work?' Sartaj said.

‘They came up to us just before the evening show. They said they would pay us to get a package.'

‘Then?'

‘We walked with them.'

‘Down the road?'

‘Yes, a little bit. They showed us the car. They stayed on one side of the road. I went across. I knocked on the window. The woman rolled down the window. She gave me the package.'

‘Did you say anything?'

‘Yes, I said, “Give me the package.” They had been speaking to her on her mobile. She was expecting me.'

‘So you brought the package back?'

‘Yes. And gave it to them. One of them made a call on his mobile. They walked away, they went. Bas, that was it.'

‘You ever saw those two again?'

‘No.'

‘What did they look like?'

‘Nothing special. Just ordinary.'

‘Ramu, your information is not worth the money. Come on. Try again.'

‘There's nothing to tell you. They were wearing shirts and pants. Bas, what else to tell you?'

‘Something useful, Ramu. Something useful. How tall?'

‘Not like you. Like him,' Ramu said, jabbing a thumb towards Jayanth.

That was all Ramu had. ‘Tej, did you notice anything?' Sartaj said.

Tej shrugged. ‘No, they were like he said.'

‘Tell me anyway. What did you see?'

But prompting Tej elicited nothing but the same vague impression of two average men wearing average clothes.

Jatin, the little one, hadn't said a word so far. He didn't look up now, and kept turning his glass.

‘Jatin, you also tell me. What were these men like?'

‘They were both wearing black jeans,' Jatin said. Kamble blinked, and leaned over the back of the seat, trying to get a look at Jatin. And Jatin went on steadily, ‘One of them was half-taklu, no hair over here. The one who had the phone, that one, he was this taklu.' Jatin tapped the front of his head. He spoke without looking up, in a quiet, small voice, and said ‘jins' for ‘jeans', but he was very sure about the two men.

‘That's good,' Sartaj said. ‘Now, this taklu one, what kind of shirt was he wearing?'

‘White T-shirt. And the other one, he had a blue shirt with long sleeves.'

Jatin was smaller than the others, with a malnourished mouse-face. He tilted his head when he spoke, towards Sartaj's breast pocket, and in that quick glimpse Sartaj saw that he had a bit of a wandering eye. He wouldn't look at you if you were looking at him, and so he passed unnoticed, with his bony shoulders and his drooping head. Sartaj took a tissue and began to fold it, over and over, and he kept his eyes on it. ‘Yes, Jatin,' he said, ‘so what else did you notice?'

Jatin was shy now. He turned his head away from the table, and twisted his arms together. But Ramu, with the money in his pocket, was feeling magnanimous. ‘Ay, Jatin,' he said. ‘Tell him if you know anything. It's all right.' And then, to Sartaj, with a little twirling motion of the forefinger at his temple, ‘He's always like this. But he remembers everything.'

Sartaj unfolded his piece of paper, and then began folding it again. ‘Jatin, were they driving a car? How did they come?'

‘We didn't see them driving anything,' Ramu said confidently. ‘They weren't the type who would have a car. Maybe they came in a bus.'

Kamble shook his head at Sartaj. Jayanth was starting to look sceptical, now not quite as enthusiastic about the possibilities of successful detection. Sartaj felt the let-down himself: maybe this was all the boys had. Maybe this was a dead end. ‘Were they carrying anything, Jatin?' he said. ‘A book, a newspaper?'

Ramu shook his head patiently. ‘I told you, his bheja is fried.' He tilted his head to one side, and hammed up a cockeyed impression of Jatin. Tej giggled. And Jatin sat very still, not flinching.

‘All right,' Sartaj said. ‘Want a falooda, Jatin?'

Kamble held up a hand. ‘I'm going to go,' he said. ‘Okay, boss?'

‘Yes,' Sartaj said. ‘I'll see you tomorrow at the station.' He motioned at a passing waiter. ‘Three Royal Faloodas over here, quick.'

Jatin reached across the table for a tissue. Kamble unfolded himself out of his booth and walked towards the entrance. He was pressing keys on his mobile phone. Jatin was folding his tissue.

‘Bip-beep-beep-bip,' Jatin said, and his tissue was a triangle now.

‘What?' Sartaj said.

‘Bip-beep-beep-bip-
bip
.' Jatin balanced the triangle on one side. It stayed in place, balanced.

Ramu reached behind Tej and batted the back of Jatin's head. ‘He's my brother, but he's a yeda.'

Jatin started to fold another tissue. ‘Bip-beep-beep-bip-
bip
-bap.'

Sartaj watched Jatin's fingers on the tissue. The other triangle stayed miraculously upright. ‘Kamble!' Sartaj shouted, startling the owner, the waiters and the three other customers. ‘Kamble!'

Jatin had finished his triangle by the time Kamble got back to the table, looking distinctly annoyed. ‘What?'

‘Give me your handy,' Sartaj said. He took the phone, cleared the display and put it flat on the table in front of Jatin, in front of his triangles.

Jatin reached out, and with a very skinny and very dirty finger pressed keys on the phone. When he got to the top of the keypad, the phone began to connect. Sartaj pressed ‘End.'

Kamble was leaning over Jatin's shoulder. ‘It's a mobile number,' he said, with the awestruck voice that he usually reserved for a new sixteen-year-old dancer at the Delite Dance Bar. ‘It's the number I was just dialling.'

Sartaj nodded, and pressed ‘End' again to clear the numbers. ‘Jatin, do you remember the number that Taklu dialled that day?' he said to Jatin. ‘What was it?'

‘Bip-beep-beep-bip-
bip
-bap,' Jatin said. He continued, with more bips and beeps, varied in pitch and tone. Then he nodded, and pressed keys on the phone, moving without hurry and with absolute confidence from one to the next. He finished with a little flourish and went back to folding yet another tissue.

‘This is the number that Taklu dialled, Jatin? After you gave him the package?' Sartaj said, turning the mobile phone around on the table.

‘Yes,' Jatin said, and put another triangle on the table. Along with the other two, the triangle made a perfect larger triangle.

Kamble put his hands on his hips. ‘Maderchod,' he said. ‘Amazing. Give the man a falooda.'

 

‘Very often,' Sartaj told Mary, ‘detection is nothing but luck. Mostly it's like that. You sit around, and something drops into your lap. Then you pretend that you knew what you were doing all along.'

‘That is
not
true in this case,' Mary said. ‘You were not sitting around. You found the pickpocket. You made him find the boys. You gave the boys lunch. You were kind to them, instead of beating them like that fool wanted.'

‘Kamble,' Sartaj said. They were sitting on a bench on the Carter Road seafront, under a truly spectacular sunset full of feathery circles of reddened cloud. The walkers were coming by briskly, and now, for a moment, a passing puppy on a leash nuzzled at their ankles. ‘He was just playing his part. And anyway, getting the apradhi is not going to be that simple. I'm sure of that. We tried calling the number, from two different PCOs, and he didn't pick up. This bastard is careful. I can feel it.'

‘You'll get him. And this Kamble, he would have tried to be rough with the boys if you had let him, and that little one would never have given you that number. You got that success in your detection because you were prepared for it. You were listening for it. You know that.'

Sartaj did know this. He had believed it for years, had learnt it from his father even before he had entered the force, and he had said as much to many a trainee. But still, it was nice to have Mary telling him this, reassuring him with a hand on his wrist. The puppy came back now, tripping in the other direction, and she bent to scratch its ears, and Sartaj felt her hand on his skin even after it was gone, even more acutely. ‘Yes,' he said absently. ‘Yes.'

‘Yes, what?' The puppy was paddling away on its oversized feet, and Mary was looking at Sartaj with a sort of teasing amusement.

‘That only,' Sartaj said hurriedly. ‘You have to be listening, but sometimes the trouble is that you don't know what you're listening for. Like there's a song, but you don't know what the tune is. So you just have to wander around, looking and listening. It can make you feel like a fool.'

She was very direct now, her eyes locked on to his. ‘You are not a fool,' she said.

It was a declaration, and Sartaj didn't hesitate now. He reached out and took her hand, and they sat together, holding hands. He very much wanted to kiss her, but there were walking grandmothers, and babies, and sprinting urchins. So, they sat. Sartaj thought of what Mary had just said: ‘You are not a fool.' If he told Kamble about it, Kamble would mock Sartaj for the smallness of his romance, for the small, back-handed compliment that had finally brought them together. But Kamble was very young. Yes, no ghazal ever declared fervently that the beloved was not a fool, no Majrooh Sultanpuri love song had ever felt it necessary to claim this. Kamble believed in big romance and big tragedy, properly so. But Sartaj was content: to be rescued from one's foolishness was the greatest tenderness. We are all fools, he thought. I know I am. To find one person who forgives you for this, that is big. That is great.

They stayed on the seafront as dusk thickened and the sea receded into darkness, as the waves became uncurling ribbons of white. Mary squeezed his hand suddenly, and said, ‘What will become of those boys?'

‘Which boys? Little Red T-shirt and his gang?'

‘Yes.'

‘They'll survive.'

‘Yes, but how?'

Sartaj shrugged. ‘Like everyone else does.'

She nodded. But Sartaj could see that the boys stayed with her, that she was thinking about them still. He put an arm around her shoulder. He didn't want to tell her what Kamble had said when they had finally left the boys and Jayanth the pocket-maar and the restaurant. They had been talking about the amazing little crazy kid, and then Kamble had said, ‘That Ramu is quite a leader, the bastard. Ten years from now he's going to give us trouble, you'll see.' Sartaj had agreed. Ramu was sharp and brave and hungry. He would be a good apradhi, maybe a shooter. And then Kamble had said, ‘We should take him into the gali and encounter him now. Save us the trouble later of chasing him down, and save him the trouble of growing up.' And Sartaj had laughed and thumped Kamble reprovingly on his back, but he had known that Kamble was probably right. With some kids, you could see their future written on their foreheads. You could see how badly they wanted the good life, and how that life was going to run away from them. But he didn't want to think of Ramu and his troubles and his coming misfortune, not now. So he held Mary, and told her about his own childhood, and how he had never wanted to become a policeman like his father, but had become one anyway.