The Benefit Season (26 page)

‘
I see my friend has come
with an empty stomach- and empty hands’, he said, offering Vishal a
goldthread bordered large napkin.

‘
I wish you’d given me
notice, my dear brother’, Vishal said, settling
comfortably.

‘
Death and destiny don’t
come with a notice dear friend’.

‘
I…I kept it at a safe
place’, he said, wishing away the beads of sweat forming at his
temples.

‘
Here’, Shameel said,
reaching across and offering him another napkin,’ this room is too
hot for my friend? Aren’t you safe already? Even with my blessings?
I am hurt! What could possibly worry you?’

‘
Nothing…it’s a huge sum.
One never knows who walks into your home and starts looking
around’.

‘
You are talking in
riddles now. Who would walk into your home- that colony is
protected by us!’

‘
Just making sure…keeping
the trust of one’s friends’.

‘
Hmm. Where is
it?’

‘
Err…I’ll bring it around
tomorrow- I swear.’

‘
Why are you swearing?
Tell me where it is’.

‘
At a friend’s place-
where no one will expect it’.

‘
Friend’s place? Friend of
friends? Do I know this friend?’

‘
Err…not
really’.

‘
If not, do you think I
would like to have my money kept with strangers?’

‘
No…sorry… I meant…’ his
voice trailed off and the sweat began to trickle off the edge of
his jaw.

‘
Let’s go’, Chotta Shameel
said, offering his hand to Vishal. Vishal cowered in his seat, his
knuckles turning white as he gripped his drink.

‘
Where is my money,
Vishal, all 27 crores of it? My bet money- I want it right now
punter’, he said, his voice soft, but a scowl spreading on his
battle-lined face. ‘The money I told you, asked you, with folded
hands, to keep safe at your house, at the safe house whose mortgage
I pay. Where is it.’

‘
It’s gone’, Vishal
whimpered. Keeping his glass on the table, he fell on his knees and
grasped the gangster’s hands and wrapped them around his teary
face. ‘Please, I beg of you, I’ll get it back, all of
it’.

‘
Gone! Where? Gone as in
vanished, disappeared?’

‘
Yes yes! Gone! All of it!
The bitch took off with it!’ he cried.

‘
When we say bitch, is it
a dog or a metaphor that we speak of?

‘
It’s Monal- the bitch!
She’s run off with that big cock Arjun in her office, and taken all
the money!’

‘
Just replay that-
slowly’.

‘
Monal was having an
affair with that new recruit- Arjun- the broad guy you were
introduced to on that yacht. I even caught them red-handed at that
hotel in Diu- you can ask anyone. She ran off with this guy on the
night of our anniversary and took all the money with
her’.

‘
You expect me to believe
that?’

‘
Look- I even filed a
police complaint. Even the cops visited me- some rustic broad with
swollen, dripping boobs, a wee baby and a wee bit manservant; crazy
it sounds but they were there- asking questions’.

Shameel consulted his cronies. ‘That’s not a
manservant. He’s a Secret Agent and her husband. She’s the most
feared detective on the force- has cracked nearly every case that
came her way. And don’t underestimate that midget- he packs the
meanest bone in ‘em trousers. They say this female saw him spraying
the poppies on a trip in the hills in Mussourie and decided then
and there that she wanted to ride him- for life. Anyway, when did
Monal vanish?’

‘
A couple of days
ago’.

‘
And you didn’t tell me?
You’re telling me now? And who’s this Arabic wench you got in your
house? Doesn’t look like you’re grieving not being able to keep the
trust much, eh?’

‘
Look boss, I’ve been
tripping on coke all these days, to keep myself from going to
pieces- it’s driving me nuts! I couldn’t bring myself to face you!
I was hoping these cops will find out where these two are hiding
and I’ll bring your money back, with these same hands that are
folded before you now’.

The gangster gaped for a moment at him and
then burst out laughing. The two runners standing discreetly in a
corner also began to laugh. The laughter grew noisier, and Vishal,
on seeing the general mirth around him, also bounded in and began
to laugh, slowly at first and then with wind at his back, bellowed
full sail ahead.

Suddenly Chotta Shameel, the heavily set
brute dreaded from Dongri to Dubai, lashed out a savage kick in the
kneeling Vishal’s face, sending him sprawling several feet away,
his blood spattering on the knotted-pile soft-pastel colored
antique Anatolia rug.

‘
Look what you’ve done’,
the man screamed, and kicked Vishal till he nearly passed
out.

‘
He’s lying- show him the
path to truth- and remember- truth is pitiless, for black cannot
turn grey out of pity’.

The two cronies dragged a sobbing Vishal
out, leaving a trail of his blood on the ruined priceless Oriental
rug, the raving gangster kicking the nearly lifeless body in their
wake.

They put him in the bathtub and filled it
with cold water. Then they brought out an old army field telephone,
the one with the hand crank powered generator. They attached its
terminals to his nipples and testicles and then cranked the phone
sending a shooting current up his privates- the electric charge
enhanced by the cold water.

‘
You have the right to one
call. Want to call up someone?’ Shamim and Rahim would grin and say
every time before cranking the phone. They kept him in the tub for
two days. They pissed on him after drinking and wouldn’t change the
water and Vishal lay there in his own blood and filth but couldn’t
tell them where Monal or the money had disappeared.

Chotta Shameel finally let him out on the
third day, afraid that if he died he would never be able to know
what happened to the money. So they fished him out, hosed him down
and sent him to a doctor who had been banned from practice by the
MCI.

‘
Do we have a mole in the
Crime Branch’, he asked his confidantes.

‘
Yes boss- Iqbal- he’s a
desk clerk. All files move through him from her table’.

‘
Good- tell him to keep
his eyes peeled and let us know the moment this Haryanvi cop finds
out something- and she will not waste any time if I have heard
right about her’.

‘
Yes boss right away’,
Rahim said and left.

‘
Keep an eye out on
Vishal. Be his blighted shadow. Sooner or later he will lead us to
the money and Monal. And when we find out where they are- finish
him as well as the bitch, but take your time’.

Chotta Shameel shooed his
men out and pondered over the options.
He
could always buy time with the punters, but not too much. The money
wasn’t a huge problem- he’d plenty of fingers in many pies- but the
reputation was. Getting bummed out of 27 crores wasn’t going to put
a clever sheen on his reputation and it would encourage many other
old ass villains waiting in the wings for him to slacken so that
they could do him in. There seemed no further point in hemorrhaging
Vishal- either he was telling the truth, which was unlikely, or he
was remarkably tough- or desperate. But he was sure the female cop
was going to solve the mystery for him QuickTime, all he could do
was wait- something he hated doing. Meanwhile he decided it would
be a good idea to spread the word on the street that he was looking
for information on Monal and that a hefty award and a personal
appreciation awaited such information.

He called some people in
the ghetto and then went into his private chambers for his
namaaz.

ϖ

Chapter
11

Escape to
Captivity

After leaving home in the
midst of her marriage anniversary without a teary
by your leave
, Monal had
taken the first bird out of Mumbai to Delhi. Her trusted driver,
Radhe, who’d come in dowry along with the luxury car her father had
gifted her in marriage, had called in from Delhi as soon as
Vishal’s thugs had kidnapped Arjun from his engagement party, and
he’d had driven the parties to the farmhouse at Rajokri. Vishal had
tasked him to drive the Delhi gang he’d hired to kidnap Arjun, as
he did not trust them completely. Hardly realizing that the driver
would give minute-to-minute account of the events to his beloved
mistress, Monal.

She’d told Radhe to lie
low and keep the car where no one would notice it. So he’d parked
it at the railway station, where once a day he took it out for a
short drive before parking it again- so as not to raise the hackles
of the parking lot mafia. He was glad to come out of hiding from
the damp and smelly Room No. 13 at the seedy Paharganj hotel and
visit her at the hotel
Taj Mansingh
on
Sardar Patel
Marg,
when she was ready to receive
him.

He stood respectfully with his cap in his
hands while Monal relished the evening usual: milk chocolate with
almonds, and Macallan Sherry Oak 12 years old single malt scotch
whiskey, served chilled from an ice tower into a frozen glass.

‘
Madam doesn’t have to do
this’, he grumbled.

She smiled, amused with his steadfast
loyalty.

She had asked him to recce the safe house,
get her the blueprints, the sentry and dog details and security
systems installed there. Arjun was being kept, reasonably
comfortably in one of the many large bedrooms on the ground floor,
guarded round the clock by an armed guard right outside his room.
The room was a steel cage, with its windows barricaded, and the
doors made of steel. He was keeping good health- the driver
confirmed- and was allowed to air himself twice a day, when he ran
on the jogger’s track around the massive grounds, 10 miles each
morning and evening. But he remained deeply anxious about his
family worrying over him missing and letting them down during the
engagement. He often lamented about bringing shame to them. He had
been asking the men guarding him why they were keeping him there.
His family had hardly any wealth, so there could be no expectation
of a ransom. He believed he had no enemies, and he thought he’d
wiped the slate clean with Monal and Vishal by quitting the company
for good. He still thought they were cultured people and wouldn’t
go to the extent of taking the law in their own hands even if they
still harbored a grudge against him. The guards, who though had
begun to like him for his extraordinary gentleness, could not help
him with any answers, as they were simply paid to do a job.

There were sentries on the roof and at the
gates- in pairs at night. And then there were the Akita dogs.
Guards with dogs patrolled the perimeter wall at night. The two
guards would start from the main gate in opposite directions, at
random timings, crossing each other somewhere in the middle. The
timings were revised every week, so one could safely assume they
would continue to be the same for the next seven days from the day
one knew they’d been changed. The wall was 10 feet high having two
feet of concertina-coil double-strand wire on top. And then there
were CCTVs planted in the grounds as well as the entrances to the
house, and inside. If you snipped their wire it would set off the
alarm.

Radhe had no clue how his madam was going to
enter the house and rescue Arjun, which is what she’d horrifically
proposed to do- on her own. She’d always been a wild one- that one,
since childhood, and stubborn to the core. His job was to try and
convince her not to embark on this crazy mission, but if he was to
fail, then it was his job to protect her over his life, if need be.
He had no family- as an orphan he had been brought in and given
shelter by Monal’s father, and Monal was the closest to a daughter
he would ever know. His own wife, a maid at the same house, had
died along with the baby girl during childbirth, leaving him
shattered and forsworn of any ideas of marriage or family
again.

Monal had finally brought him around by
threatening to go it alone if he did not help her. Having no choice
left, he brought to her all the equipment that she demanded of him.
She had patiently explained the plan to him when she was ready with
her equipment. They were to drive to a secluded spot outside the
farmhouse after two days. The timings of the patrol had been
changed this night. He was to wait outside in the car. When the
patrol had passed their location, she would climb over the wall
with a retractable ladder, throw a thick blanket over the
concertina coil, jump over it, and slide down the other end with a
knotted jute rope thrown over the wall. She was going to spray the
CCTV cameras with a contraption she had put together, which would
make them blurred or nearly blind, but raise no alarm. And she had
a truckload of Datura instant knockout darts for any guards or dogs
that came her way.

To spray the high slung cameras she had
taken a long, adjustable aluminum tree pruner and fixed a wine
bottle opener on top of it. Then she’d screwed just below it a
bottle cage, the one found on bicycles. Inside the bottle cage went
a paint spray bottle. At the bottom of the pruner she screwed a
bicycle brake bar with the spring-loaded shaft. She connected the
shaft with one handle of the wine bottle opener with a thin nylon
cord. When you pressed the bicycle brake shaft at the bottom of the
pruner, the nylon rope pulled down the handle of the bottle opener,
which in turn pressed down on the nozzle of the paint spray can,
spraying paint on the cameras slung high on walls or tree branches.
She would neutralize the cameras, and any guards or dogs if they
came her way, and bring Arjun out the same way as she’d entered-
simple. They would hop into his waiting car, and be off! What the
heck was he worrying his silly old head for?