Compass Box Killer (22 page)

‘And how do you know that? Did you go there with him?’

‘No, no, saheb. I’m a God-fearing man. But occasionally the local taxi drivers who dropped him there turned out to be from my part of the country,’ he smiled slyly.

As he rode off, Virkar couldn’t help laughing to himself, amazed at the quantum of information the chowkidar had. ‘God help those who get on the wrong side of a Mumbai chowkidar!’ he said to himself.

It was almost midnight by the time Virkar reached the Samrat Social Club. It was just another one of the several illegal gambling joints that had sprung up across Mumbai under the guise of legally licensed ‘card rooms’. But Virkar was in no mood to raid the place, so he politely asked the guards standing outside to summon the owner.

‘Look, I don’t want to disturb your business. I just want to speak to a man called Gupte,’ Virkar explained when the owner came out to meet him.

The owner, however, looked extremely unwilling to help. ‘I have two ACPs and three Inspectors playing Rummy inside,’ he proudly announced to Virkar.

‘Good. Then they’ll surely come out and help you when I shoot you in your leg,’ said Virkar, casually stroking his Browning 9mm service revolver that he had tucked into his waistband. Suddenly, the owner’s attitude underwent a sea change. Within five minutes, two muscle-bound men escorted out a trembling, bespectacled, ratty-looking man. Virkar was a little amused to notice the resemblance Gupte had to cartoonist R. K. Laxman’s caricature of the ‘common man’. He motioned for Gupte to sit behind him on the Bullet, and without speaking to him at all, rode all the way back to Gupte’s building. By this time, Gupte was almost on the verge of a breakdown. Virkar let him sweat for a while, and only after he had been ushered inside Gupte’s second-floor flat did Virkar finally speak.

‘Who are the contributors to the Slum Baalak Surakasha?’

‘The money comes in through corporate sources,’ Gupte blurted without hesitation.

‘Who are these corporate sources?’ Gupte shivered but kept quiet. Virkar sighed. He looked towards a family photograph in which a smiling Gupte was pictured with his wife and two little daughters.

‘Have your wife and daughters ever been to the Samrat Social Club?’ Virkar asked casually.

Without wasting another moment, Gupte said, ‘It’s a Trust funded by many leading corporates of Mumbai. It’s administered by CorpsRam—the Corporate Social Responsibility Association of Mumbai.’

‘Who is in charge of this…CorpsRam?’

‘Vasant Dixit.’

‘Who…the man who owns Dixitel?’ asked Virkar surprised.

‘Yes.’

Gupte had just named the man known in the media as the ‘telecom king’ of India.

Virkar felt a strange buzzing in his brain. ‘The telecom king,’ he muttered out loud. His mind instinctively began using the technique that used word associations to enhance creativity and cognition—a technique he had learned in his psychology course.

New words began to tumble about in his brain.

Telecom King…Telephone King…Telephone Operator…Smooth
Operator.

T
here are no tigers left in the forests surrounding the Gadchiroli district in interior Maharashtra. But till the middle of the last century, it had, perhaps, the biggest tiger population in the country. Tiger hunting was still legal then and the Madia tribe of the area had a unique technique of driving the animal of out of its hidden lair in the jungle. The technique was known as ‘haaka’. The tribals gathered up all the metal kitchen utensils in their homes and walked through the jungle clanging them against each other. The loud din created by metal upon metal shocked the tiger into believing that a hunting party was approaching. Fearing for its life, the tiger would run in the opposite direction, straight into the arms of the actual hunting party that was approaching from the other side. During his tenure in Gadchiroli, Virkar had learnt about this technique while scouring the jungle, hunting Maoists along with the tribals. Today, however, he was going to use the haaka in an entirely new way—to flush out a different kind of tiger: one who was not a man-eater, but was equally powerful and dangerous.

Virkar, dressed in a smart shirt and trousers that made him look less like a policeman and more like a mid-rung corporate climber, was standing across the road from the shiny glass multi-story building which housed Dixitel’s global headquarters in the Bandra Kurla Complex. In his head, Virkar had been toying with various ideas that would help him get to the eighteenth-floor office of Vasant Dixit. Ultimately, he had settled upon using his own version of the haaka.

Taking a deep breath, he walked into the shining marble lobby and went straight to the large reception area that was stylishly placed right in the centre of the lobby.

‘I’d like to meet Mr Vasant Dixit, please,’ he told the smart young receptionist.

The woman looked him up and down and said, ‘Mr Dixit is busy. Is there anyone else I could connect you with?’

Virkar nodded. ‘You could connect me to his personal secretary.’

The receptionist flashed him a tiny smile. ‘Sure, let me just check. And may I know where you’ve come from?’

‘I’ve come from the Christian Cemetery in Khandala. I have a message for Mr Dixit from one of its occupants,’ said Virkar.

The receptionist looked at him quizzically. She punched some number on the console in front of her and spoke into the telephone in an undertone. Cupping her hand on the receiver, she looked at Virkar. ‘May I know what your message is?’ Virkar cracked an enigmatic smile. ‘It’s only for Mr Dixit’s ears.’ The receptionist rolled her eyes and repeated Virkar’s words to the person on the other end of the line. She replaced the receiver and motioned Virkar towards the lift on the far side of the lobby. ‘Please take the lift to the eighteenth floor. Mr Dixit’s personal assistant will meet you there,’ she said.

Virkar smiled to himself as he went through the security check before taking the lift. It seemed he had misjudged the situation. The man he had thought to be a tiger had turned out to be a jackal. Virkar rode the lift to the eighteenth floor and was greeted right outside the lift by a young, suited, Parsi man who looked as if he had just stepped out of a Page 3 party. ‘I’m Hozi Sethna, Mr Dixit’s personal assistant. And I didn’t catch your name?’

‘My name is not important,’ said Virkar, ‘where I’ve come from, is.’

‘Right. And you’ve come from some Christian cemetery in Khandala, and you have a message for Mr Dixit?’

‘Yes,’ said Virkar.

‘Okay, so what is the message?’

‘The message is only for Mr Dixit.’

‘Look, Mr Cemetary, Mr Dixit is busy. Give me the message and I’ll make sure it reaches him.’

‘This is too personal.’

Sethna gave Virkar a condescending smile. ‘I know all the personal details of Mr Dixit.’

‘Do you know about his sexual fetishes too?’ asked Virkar nonchalantly. ‘Then I don’t have a problem telling you. But if you don’t, better get me to him fast. I’m busy too, so don’t waste my time.’

Hozi Sethna’s creamy skin turned red. He excused himself and walked away, letting Virkar stand by himself next to the lift. Five minutes later, he was back with two huge men dressed in dark safari suits. The two safari-suited men fell in step on either side of Virkar.

Hozi Sethna looked at the man in the safari suit on Virkar’s left. The look was enough for the man to clamp down a heavy hand on Virkar’s shoulder. Virkar realized that he had just a few seconds left. Suddenly he sat down on his haunches, breaking free from the man’s grasp. Swivelling, Virkar jabbed out with his right hand. His knuckles connected with the safari-suited man’s testicles. A strangled sound escaped the man’s lips as he crashed down to his knees, holding his prized possessions. Safari suit number two had by now unleashed a kick towards the crouched Virkar. The kick was intended to connect with Virkar’s jaw, but Virkar had anticipated this. He thrust his hand upwards, connecting with the man’s calf and using the momentum of the kick to push the leg further along its path till it went past his chin. Finding nothing to connect with, the kick shot out in the blank air, making Safari suit number two lose his balance. His other leg, too, flew out from under him and with a thud, he landed on his backside. Virkar knew that he would spring up in no time, so before the fallen man could gather himself, Virkar stabbed Safari suit number two’s throat with his right knee.

Leaving Safari suit number two gagging on the floor next to his colleague, Virkar stood up and faced a cringing Hozi Sethna. ‘I know that Vasant Dixit paid off Colasco, Akurle and Bhandari. He’s the next target of the Compass Box Killer. Tell him that I know of a way that can save him.’

Hozi Sethna stood frozen, but before Virkar could say anything else, a door to his right burst open and half a dozen similar-looking, safari-suited men rushed towards him. Virkar knew he was outnumbered. In a menacing tone, he said, ‘If they touch me, I’ll…’

He did not have to complete his sentence. Hozi Sethna raised his hand and the safari-suited men stopped in their tracks. ‘Please escort him outside this building politely. And make sure he never comes back,’ he said, betraying no emotion. The safari-suited men fell in double formation around and behind Virkar, forcing him to walk out of the office towards the elevator. As he rode down the elevator to the lobby surrounded by the guards, Virkar smiled to himself. An amusing phrase popped into his head: ‘Haaka laga dhandhe pe, sher aaya phande mein.’ His strategy was working; the quarry had walked into the trap.

‘I
n Breaking News today, we bring to you one of the most bizarre acts of police intimidation ever seen,’ Raashi’s voice speaking in her familiar shrill tones pierced through Virkar’s thoughts, snapping him to attention.

He had been lying on the sofa in front of his television, flipping through channels as he passed the time. After he had left the Dixitel headquarters, the first thing he did was to call Raashi’s mobile phone. When she hadn’t answered, he had sent her a text, asking her to call him back. Making his way back to his office, he had shuffled papers on his desk, pretending to be busy while, in fact, his mind was racing, thinking of every possible outcome of his move to buttonhole Vasant Dixit. As evening came around, he made his way back to his quarters. There he showered and then sat down in front of the television. As 9.00 p.m. drew close, he switched to the CrimeNews Channel for the prime time news update.

Now he stared stonily as Raashi’s sombre face appeared on the screen. ‘Crime Branch Officer, Inspector Virkar, today assaulted two personal bodyguards of respected industrialist Vasant Dixit.’ The screen cut to grainy CCTV footage showing Virkar attacking the two safari-suited security men in Dixitel’s office. Raashi’s voice continued to speak over the visuals. ‘Sometime earlier this morning, Inspector Virkar, who has clearly become unstable after he was removed from the Compass Box Killer case, entered the headquarters of Dixitel and demanded ten lakh rupees to settle a drummed-up case connected to Mr Vasant Dixit’s Khandala bungalow.’

On the screen, Virkar could see himself in the lobby of Dixitel’s headquarters talking to the receptionist. His voice was muffled and the only words that were clear were ‘from…Khandala…occupants there.’ A concerned-looking Raashi came back on the screen. ‘Inspector Virkar was invited up to meet Mr Dixit’s personal assistant to sort out the misunderstanding. Once there, he assaulted Mr Dixit’s personal bodyguards. Had it not been for the restraint shown by Mr Hozi Sethna, Mr Dixit’s P.A., his bodyguards would surely have retaliated. But, in an attempt to avoid any embarrassment to the Mumbai police, Mr Sethna patiently asked his guards to escort Inspector Virkar out of his premises.’

The screen cut to grainy footage of Hozi Sethna asking his guards to politely walk Virkar out of the building. Raashi, now back on the screen, dealt the final blow. ‘Are the authorities going to take note of this kind of behaviour? If important people like Mr Vasant Dixit can be treated with such disdain, what can we expect for the common man? Where does he stand? We posed this question to both the Home Minister and the Police Commissioner, but they remained unavailable for comment. We shall wait for them to become available. And if they don’t, we will go to their houses and demand an answer.’

Virkar smiled to himself. He had been expecting this. The previous day, while researching Vasant Dixit’s background on the Internet, he had come across a news item that had detailed all his holdings and properties. Along with the fact that he owned a palatial bungalow in Khandala, there was also a small mention of the fact that Vasant Dixit was a non-active majority stakeholder of a broadcast company that owned a bouquet of channels. One of them happened to be CrimeNews Channel.

As soon as he came to know this fact, he had made the connection. He had realized that Raashi had been playing him all along—at Vasant Dixit’s behest. She had met him at the Sunny Bar to try and find out how much he knew, but by mistake had let slip Smooth Operator’s connection to the Sade video. To rectify her mistake, she had followed Virkar to Khandala to find out what he was up to. As he got closer to the truth, she had enticed him into opening up to her completely so that he would take her along with him to Belgaum. He felt specially cheated by the way she had made the Hari Prasad story public to draw away attention from the Smooth Operator. Virkar had grown suspicious immediately, but she had distracted him once again—although not enough to put all his doubts to rest.

Virkar lay back on the sofa. After watching Raashi’s show, the huge weight of his suspicions having been confirmed finally hit him smack on his chest. The sting of the betrayal rose within him and made its way to his eyes. But Virkar fought back. In an attempt to sweep aside the anger and hurt, he focused on how foolish he had been. He had let his guard down and let himself be manipulated. He had allowed Raashi to exploit his vulnerability. She had realized that, apart from the physical intimacy, he also needed the companionship that she had begun to provide. He had been fooled into believing, at least for a while, that her reciprocation was real—something that normally would not have happened had it not been for the fact that Raashi had made him…feel. She had made him feel his emotions and his loneliness.