The Case of the Love Commandos (13 page)

“Aah, there you are!”

“Good morning,” he heard himself say in a cordial tone.

“I understand you’re in Lucknow. By a strange coincidence, so am I. Why don’t you come for breakfast? I’m at the Grand—down in the café.”

Puri knew he had no choice but to go.

“I’m very much busy,” he said. “So many meetings and all.”

“I’ll expect you in ten minutes,” said Hari.

• • •

To witness Vish Puri and Hari Kumar greeting each other, one would never have guessed they were bitter rivals. Their firm, matey handshake was accompanied by broad smiles and ho-ho laughter that echoed off the marble walls, momentarily drowning out the café’s Muzak. Each asked after the other’s wife and children and made small talk about the national cricket team’s recent loss to England on home soil.

There was no reference made to the stories they’d planted in the newspapers, nor was there the slightest hint of the anger they had both exhibited independently earlier in the morning. When they inquired after each other’s business, they both answered in turn, “Couldn’t be better,” and “World-class,” their claims to be delighted studies in faultless speciousness.

This was customary. Neither man had ever raised a word of anger at the other, regardless of what they had to say behind each other’s backs. To do so would have been to show weakness and vulnerability. Their infrequent conversations, therefore, were a trial of wits, each trying to provoke and rattle the other with sangfroid. Even their handshake was a tournament of sorts, with neither detective willing to let go before the other.

Standing on either side of Hari’s table, the palms of their hands locked together in an increasingly sweaty grasp, they only disengaged when a waiter approached with a couple of menus, therefore giving both men an excuse to call it a tie.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you where you get your safari suits made,” said Hari as they sat down at the table, ensuring that his guest took his seat first. “I’ve an uncle with a birthday coming up. He goes in for that
style
. But it’s not easy to find old-fashioned tailors these days. They’re a dying breed.”

“A man with taste and refinement, your uncle, evidently,” said Puri. “Not one of these flashy fellows who goes in for foreign cuts and all.”

“ ‘Flashy’ is definitely not a word one would use to describe my uncle. He’s almost ninety after all.”

“Ninety, is it? Just goes to prove the safari is timeless and eternal.”

There was a genial exchange of smiles across the table—the opening round acknowledged by both men as a draw.

The waiter returned and asked to take their order.

Knowing Hari to be a skinflint, at least when it came to spending money on anyone other than himself, Puri was happy to stick him with as large a bill as possible.

“I’ll take one full English breakfast,” he replied. “Bring me one glass of fresh juice and ready-made tea, also.”

“The healthy option for me,” said Hari. “A plate of idli and one mint tea.”

He dismissed the waiter with a wave of his hand and adjusted the silk handkerchief protruding from the breast pocket of his blazer. The silver buttons on his cuff glinted in the fluorescent spotlights pointing down from the ceiling. Puri could taste his aftershave on his tongue, it was so strong.

“So, Mr. Vishwas Puri, I take it you’re not here in Lucknow on vacation,” said Hari, who was one of the few people who ever addressed the detective using his full name. “The newspaper article I read suggested you were investigating the murder of that unfortunate lady who washed up in the canal yesterday.”

“You should never believe what you read in the papers, Hari—journalists being corrupt and complacent and all.”

“Well, you can hardly be taking a vacation. You don’t do that.”

“I’m indeed making inquiries as to the circumstances of
that poor lady’s death. But whatever else was written is a flat-out lie.”

Puri felt another rush of anger as the wording of the article came back to him but didn’t let it show. “And you, Hari? What are you doing in Lucknow, exactly?” he asked.

“Seeking the truth, what else? That is what we do, the two of us, is it not?”

“In our own different ways, yes, I suppose.”

No less than three waiters arrived simultaneously at the table, a testament, if ever there was one, to the abundance of the country’s cheap labor. The first bore Hari’s mint tea, the second Puri’s orange juice and chai, while the third stood and watched. All three then withdrew in perfectly choreographed synergy.

“We’re agreed the killer was six foot tall and left-handed?” said Hari as he stirred a sachet of sugar substitute into his tea.

“Six foot and one inch exactly. Totally ruthless, also. The shot was made at point-blank range.”

Puri pictured Kamlesh’s face again—and that strange, bewildered expression. He almost wished he could ask Hari whether he’d noticed it, too, and what, if anything, he’d made of it.

“Presumably you’ve visited the village and the canal and come to the conclusion that Vishnu Mishra is innocent?”

“Of the murder—yes, there can be no doubt. But is he capable of such a heinous crime? Undoubtedly. He’s not the type I’d want as a client, that is for sure,” Puri said pointedly.

“Aaah, but not all of us are possessed of such faultless moral fiber as your good self, Mr. Puri saar. We mere mortals are made of weaker stuff, I’m afraid.”

Hari sipped his mint tea, studying his adversary over the top of his cup. “I hear there’s been something of a delay in recovering the loot from that jewelry job,” he said. “Don’t tell me India’s number one detective is stumped?”

“A temporary setback, only. We are all prone to facing them from time to time, no? I was thinking of that kidnapping you handled few years back—the Sushil Jha case. Turned out it was your client himself who had the boy locked in the cellar.”

Hari gave a nod, as if to say, “Touché.” The score remained even.

Puri fortified himself with half a cup of chai, then asked, “You came across the hole in the ground behind Ram’s house?” he asked.

“It did not escape my attention,” answered Hari.

Nor the smiley stamp on Kamlesh’s hand, Puri thought to himself. But was there anything else, anything that he might have overlooked and Hari had spotted? He was a hard one to read. His conceit manifested itself in the self-satisfied smirk that was never quite absent from his face. Behind his lingering, confident gaze, Puri always got the impression that he was mocking him.

“Let us get to the point, shall we?” said Hari. “It’s obviously no coincidence that we’re both here. We’re clearly working on the same case. I propose that we put aside our rivalry and combine our resources. Spycatcher and Most Private Investigators united for once.”

A slow grin suffused Puri’s features. He didn’t buy Hari’s pitch for a second. He wasn’t interested in cooperation. The man was only out for himself.

“Whether Vishnu Mishra hangs is of no concern to me,” he replied.

“And you imagine it is to me?” asked Hari.

Puri felt as if the earth had suddenly dropped away beneath him. He’d got it completely wrong, he realized. Hari wasn’t working for Mishra. “No, no, not at all,” he stuttered in an attempt to conceal his surprise. But his miscalculation
wasn’t lost on Hari. He leaned across the table to press home his advantage.

“This thing is bigger than you realize,” he said. “There’s gold at the end of the rainbow.”

“Gold, is it?”

“Twenty-four karat.”

Their food arrived at the table, affording Puri some breathing room. If Hari wasn’t working for Vishnu Mishra, then what was he up to?

“Why don’t you stop all this dancing around and tell me who all you’re working for, Hari?” asked Puri once the waiters had again withdrawn.

“You know I can’t tell you that—not until I meet Ram in person. But I give you my word, my client has the boy’s best interests at heart. He’s also willing to offer you a handsome fee should you produce the boy. Not a paisa less than fifty lakhs.”

Puri couldn’t help but smile again. His competitor’s entire approach—the offer of a financial reward, the whole breakfast, in fact—had been leading up to this crucial question. It was designed to determine whether he knew of Ram’s whereabouts. And it meant that Hari too had been commissioned to find him.

“You’re wasting your time. I might have been born at night, but not last night.” Puri started to tuck into his breakfast. “Now, tell me,” he said, “you watched the Sri Lanka game? Quite an innings from Laxman, no?”

Hari regarded him with something approaching deference. “I missed it,” he said.

“You were on the way from Agra no doubt.”

“No doubt.”

They made more small talk as they ate and then Hari called for the bill. When it was brought to the table, Puri
went through the motions of offering to pay, but his competitor would have none of it.

“You seem to be without your wallet,” he said. “You usually keep it in your jacket pocket.”

Puri managed to feign surprise. “Must be I left it at the hotel,” he replied.

“Really? For a moment there, I thought maybe it was lost or stolen,” said Hari.

“No, no, heaven forbid! Nothing like that,” said Puri with a loud, nervous guffaw.

Hari had an advantage. He’d come to the case from a different angle and saw the bigger picture. In other words, he probably understood what Ram had got himself mixed up in. Which meant that he probably also understood how the young Dalit had come by so much money and what had been inside the metal container buried behind the house, Puri surmised.

In poker terms, this would be called a straight flush.

By contrast, he felt like he was holding a pair of threes.

Still, Puri came away from breakfast heartened by one bit of good news: Ram was of some value and with any luck that meant he was still alive.

The bad news was that Hari’s involvement added operational complications. Certain security precautions were going to have to be put in place.

From breakfast, he went straight to the nearest STD phone booth and called the office. Hari would be trying to eavesdrop on his phone conversations and he wanted to be sure that his line was secure and that no one else could access his call log.

“Boss, your phone’s casing is constructed of nanomaterials to block all RF signals and wave radiation,” Flush assured him.

“Translation?” said Puri.

“Means your phone is secure, Boss.”

“Tip-top.”

“And, Boss—I’ve downloaded Ram’s phone records.”

“Wonderful!”

“Thanks, Boss. Only thing is, someone beat us to it.”

“Meaning?”

“The numbers have been deleted.”

“
Arrey!
”

This smelled of Hari’s handiwork.

“There’s any way of getting them back?” asked Puri.

“I’ll check to see if they’re using a RAID-array multiple system, Boss.”

“Speak proper English, yaar!”

“Means the data might be replicated on another drive.”

“Do it, by God.”

Puri returned to his hotel. A search of his room with his RF detector netted two bugs, one in the hotel phone handset and the second in the light socket—both planted by Hari’s people during breakfast.

Puri took a certain amount of pleasure in crushing them underfoot and then flushing them down the toilet for good measure.

He made a second sweep and, when he was sure the room was clean, sat down to call Tulsi in Agra. She’d been moved again this morning to a new Love Commandos safe house and sounded worried, for not only Ram’s well-being but her father’s as well.

“The news said he’s been taken to Lucknow jail,” she said. “I hope he’s OK. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“Your father had nothing to do with the murder of Ram’s mother—of that I am certain,” said Puri.

“Who could have done such a horrible thing?” asked Tulsi.

“That is exactly and precisely what I am endeavoring to find out.”

Ordinarily he would have added, “And Vish Puri never fails.” But remembering the evil eye, he stopped himself from doing so just in time.

“Sir, I still don’t understand who took Ram. If it wasn’t Papa, then who?” she asked.

“All efforts are being made to answer that question, also,” he said.

“It’s our … our anniversary in a couple of days,” she said. “Anniversary?”

“We went on our first date two years ago—to … to see the Taj during the full moon,” said Tulsi, promptly bursting into tears.

Puri murmured, “Now, now, my dear, God willing you will be reunited,” but he sounded wooden and the sobs duly intensified, forcing him to hold the phone away from his ear and wait for her to calm down.

Finally, he heard her clear her nose.

“Beta, some questions are there,” said Puri, before going on to explain that Ram had given his parents a considerable amount of money in the past couple of months. Did she have any idea how he might have come by it?

“What money?”

He put it to her that Ram might have got involved in some kind of illegal activity. How else could he have come by so much cash?

But she was adamant that he would never break the law.

“He was desperate, no?” the detective said, pressing her. “His mind was turned to one thing only: starting a new life with his dear lady love. In such circumstances even the most honest of young men can go to the dogs so to speak.”

“No, not Ram,” Tulsi insisted. “Ram doesn’t worry about
money. He says that our love will conquer all obstacles. Nothing can stand in the way if we keep our faith in one another.”

Quite the young Dev Anand, this Ram fellow, Puri reflected as he hung up. The girl, who sounded highly impressionable, had fallen for him hook, line and sinker. Had he pulled the wool over her eyes? Puri hoped not for all their sakes. But the detective still had his doubts. Impoverished Dalit students did not simply come by lakhs of rupees by chance.

Tulsi provided a list of Ram’s closest friends and their phone numbers and Puri set about calling them one by one. He soon found that he was following a well-trodden path.

“You’re the second person to call today,” said the first.