The Case of the Love Commandos (4 page)

“Don’t tell me you’re not coming, Chubby!” replied Rumpi, who struggled to make herself heard over a babble of disappointment from the others.

The detective put up his hands in a defensive posture. “Believe me when I say it is not by choice. My heart was set on coming, actually.”

Rumpi stared at him in disbelief.

“My dear, allow me to assure you, I’m the one who is disappointed. But one matter of life and death is there,” he said.

“Something serious?” piped up Mummy.

Sometimes Puri forgot that his mother wore a hearing aid that seemed to give her almost superhuman auditory perception.

“Not at all, Mummy-ji,” he answered.

“But you said ‘life and death,’ na.”

“Must be you heard the words ‘wife’ and ‘theft’ and got them mixed up. I was referring to a minor robbery, only.”

Mummy shot him a skeptical look. “Then why it can’t wait a few days?” she asked.

“Most likely I would be able to join you tomorrow or next day,” he answered, his words addressed to the entire family. “Meantime, sincerest apologies all round and safe travels.”

He took Rumpi to one side. “Believe me, it is not my fault—quite the reverse in fact,” he said. “The situation is a grave one. A young man’s life hangs in the balance.”

She could tell that he was speaking the truth. Chubby might have lied consistently about his calorie consumption, but he never exaggerated about the nature of his work.

“Such a pity,” she said. “I can’t remember the last time we got away. I was hoping we’d perform the darshan together. At least promise me you’ll take a few days once it is all over.”

The train gave a jolt.

“Absolutely, my dear,” he called back to her as he started back down the aisle. “I’ve been invited to lecture at Pune, actually.”

“No, Chubby! None of your conferences! I want to go to Singapore or some such place.”

“Yes, my dear!”

Puri soon found his way blocked by a man coming in the opposite direction. The stranger was his girth twin. Neither of them could pass without the other backing up.

“I would be alighting the train,” explained the detective, who could feel it moving.

But the man didn’t give ground; instead, he turned side-on and the detective was left with no choice but to do the same.

The two men’s stomachs pressed together like a couple of beach balls. For a moment, Puri felt like he was going to get stuck.

“Seems we’re both expecting!” joked the stranger, whose breath reeked of garlic.

Puri responded with an awkward, perfunctory smile and then let out a loud yelp as his toes were crushed underfoot.

“Was that your foot? Clumsy of me! So sorry!” apologized the stranger.

Struggling free, the detective limped to the door and managed to step down onto the platform without causing himself further injury.

“Bloody fool needs to go on a diet,” he muttered to himself as he watched the Jammu Express pull away.

Rajnath, otherwise known by Puri as “Magician Ticket Wallah,” was waiting for the detective on Platform 3. Once again he’d achieved the miraculous at short notice and secured Puri a berth in a first-class, air-conditioned compartment on the next train to Lucknow.

Puri didn’t ask how he’d done it and preferred not to know. He simply took the ticket, thrust it into his pocket and, having thanked Rajnath, sent him on his way. With some twenty minutes to spare before his train departed, the detective then headed to the platform dhaba and, as the coolie waited with his bag, ordered a couple of samosas and a cup of chai. What with the storm and the rush to see Rumpi off, this was the first opportunity he’d found to reflect on Facecream’s phone call.

His Nepali operative had always been an enigma. Details about her past remained few and far between, even after years of unremitting service. But the revelation that she’d become involved with the so-called Love Commandos had come as a shock. Puri had read about the organization in the papers and considered it to be something of a joke. He also disapproved of its work. Love was all well and good, but when it came to marriage, the approval of elders was
sacrosanct in his book. It was not just about a girl marrying a boy; on the day of her shaadi, a bride became a part of her husband’s family. If she hailed from another community or a totally different caste with a conflicting set of values and habits, what then?

His own marriage had been arranged and it had worked because he and Rumpi shared similar backgrounds and their families had got along from the start.

“Our mutual affection and devotion for one another grew over time rather than with so much groping in the back of a cinema hall,” he’d written recently in a letter on the subject of “premarital relations” to the honorable editor of the
Times of India
. “So much of hormones going unchecked are like genies out of the bottle.”

Still, Facecream had never asked for his help before and he wasn’t about to turn her down. The details were these: A young male Dalit student called Ram had been abducted from the Love Commando safe house. His girlfriend’s father, a notorious Thakur by the name of Vishnu Mishra, had vowed to kill him, yet claimed to have no knowledge of the boy’s whereabouts.

“There’s something else going on here—something I’m missing,” Facecream had said over the phone, before going on to explain that Ram and Tulsi had met at the University of Agra, but both hailed from rural Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state. Ram’s village was to the west of the state capital, Lucknow, and it was there that Puri suggested they try to pick up his trail. He had a hunch (which he’d kept to himself) that the young man had decided to go back on his commitment to the girl. No doubt the father, Vishnu Mishra, a wealthy man, had bought Ram off. Thus the boy had staged an abduction and run away.

Puri’s Lucknow-bound train pulled onto the platform.

In the first-class carriage, he found two young men already occupying two of the four berths. They greeted him with respectful nods, eyes lingering on his dirty trouser leg. The coolie placed Puri’s bag on the floor and the detective reached inside his safari suit to take out his wallet.

It wasn’t there.

“By God,” he mumbled, struck by an uncommon panic.

He began to pat himself up and down as if there were insects crawling on his skin. But his pockets were empty. The wallet was gone.

“There’s some problem, Uncle?” asked one of his fellow passengers.

“Yes, I, well … my wallet.” Puri sounded uncharacteristically unsure of himself. “Seems to be gone, actually.”

He thought back to where he might have lost it. He’d definitely had it with him when he’d left the office … the only time he’d needed any money was to pay the dhaba owner and for that he’d used loose change.

And then it came to him.

“Maaderchod!” he cursed to the shocked bemusement of his fellow travelers.

Out on the platform, the station manager was blowing his whistle.

The coolie, who wore a “Likely story, saab” expression, held out his hand. Puri fished out the last hundred rupees from his trouser pocket and handed it to him. The old man touched the note to his lips, then his forehead, and hurried toward the door.

Puri wasn’t one to jump the gun. His father had drummed it into him from an early age never to assume anything. Gather the facts and weigh up the possibilities before drawing conclusions, he’d always said—advice that had proven both invaluable and wise.

In this case, however, Puri was in no doubt as to the identity of the individual who’d stolen his wallet: that fat bloody bastard who’d blocked the aisle on the Jammu train.

He’d used classic distraction tactics—the old stepping on the toes and garlic-pickle-breath ploy—while slipping his hand inside the detective’s safari suit.

“Must be he is a master pickpocket,” Puri explained to his fellow passengers once the train was under way. “He had the advantage, actually. What with the train getting started and all, I was in a hurry to alight.”

“Not to worry, Uncle, it could happen to anyone,” said one of the young men. They were sitting on the lower bunk opposite the detective. “There are pickpockets everywhere these days.”

“But my wits are always about me,” insisted Puri. “Nothing escapes my notice. My radar is working twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, only.”

“You’ve got extrasensory perception is it, Uncle?” asked the second young man with a playful smile.

The fact that he was being teased didn’t escape Puri’s attention. His tone became officious. “There is nothing
extra
about it,” he said, his chin jutting out from the folds of his throat. “It is my job to notice what all is going on around me. I am a private investigator after all.”

“You’re a jasoos?” asked the first, who sounded surprised.

“Perhaps you have heard of me? Vish Puri is my name. Most Private Investigators Ltd. My offices are in Khan Market above Bahri Sons.”

They both shrugged.

“I’m winner of six national awards and one international, also,” he added. “The Federation of World Detectives saw fit to name me super sleuth some years back. My picture was on the cover of
India Today
. Probably you must have seen it.”

“Sorry, Uncle, I think I missed that edition.”

The young men turned to their BlackBerries, their indifference compounding Puri’s sense of indignation at having been robbed.

Fighting his inclination to try to impress them further—another thing Papa had often tried to teach him was never to show off—he considered the best course of action to retrieve his wallet.

Inspector Malhotra, the Jammu deputy chief of police, was a good fellow, both reliable and honest. He was also discreet. Puri could ask him to meet the train and have the pickpocket searched on some pretense or other. But first he needed him located and identified.

He tried to think of someone in any of the towns en route who might be able to help on short notice. Only fellow private investigators came to mind and he ruled them out. Puri would rather have dropped the whole affair and never seen
his wallet again than let it be known in professional circles that he’d been hoodwinked.

There was only one option: he’d have to call Rumpi and ask her to locate the pickpocket’s berth number. By checking the chart—a list of passengers with confirmed berths was always pasted on the outside of each carriage—she should be able to ascertain his name.

Under no circumstances, however, was Mummy to get involved. Not because she wouldn’t be able to help. On the contrary: she had an uncanny knack of getting to the bottom of things. But then he’d never hear the end of it.

As it was, she brought up the Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken every time they met, never failing to remind him of her involvement and how, in her words, she had “solved the case.” And although Rumpi implored him not to rise to the bait, he didn’t always keep his cool.

“Yes—eventually!” Puri would thunder. After keeping vital information about the case to herself and thus jeopardizing its outcome, Mummy had identified the killer. And yes, she had been in a unique position, given her involvement with certain events in 1947, to assist with
his
investigation. But had it not been for his own bold and daring crossing into Pakistan—at a good deal of risk to his own life—the case would not have been successfully resolved.

Furthermore, Mummy was quite wrong in asserting that he’d promised to work with her. He had only given his word to look into the odd matter that she had brought to his attention—and this for the sole purpose of keeping a closer eye on her. She was always going off on her own, sticking her nose in other people’s business, after all. One of these days she was going to land herself in a hot soup.

How many times did he have to reiterate that he was the only detective in the family? Mummy-ji, as he’d put it to
Rumpi recently, should “stick to what she is best at: making gulab jamuns and all.”

Puri stepped into the corridor of his carriage and dialed his wife’s number.

“Chubby, that you? Hello? You’re on another train, is it?” asked a familiar voice.

“Mummy-ji, why are you answering Rumpi’s phone?”

“Just she’s currently indisposed. Something is the matter? Some tension is there?”

“No tension,” Puri lied, feeling his stress levels steadily rising. “Just I—”

“One moment hold. She’s reverted.”

He heard Mummy say, “It’s Chubby. Something urgent sounds like.”

Hands fumbled with the phone before Rumpi’s voice came on the line.

“Anything the matter?”

“I would require a private word if at all possible.”

“You’ll have to speak up. I can hardly hear you.”

The reception was indeed terrible. It didn’t help that Puri’s train was still trundling through Delhi’s moribund outskirts and the driver was blowing his horn to clear the people walking along the tracks ahead.

“I would need a private word, my dear!” repeated the detective, his voice raised and distinctly edgy.

Rumpi made her way to the section of the train between her carriage and the next.

“All that is required is for you to locate the said individual and make a note of where exactly he’s seated,” said Puri after explaining what had happened.

“Yes, I suppose I can do that,” said Rumpi, although she couldn’t have sounded less confident or enthusiastic.

“Tip-top. Once you reach Jammu, Inspector Malhotra
will do the needful. Your help could be required in pointing out the guilty party, that is all.”

“What if he’s dangerous, Chubby?”

“Not to worry, my dear—a common chain snatcher, only.”

She thought it over for a moment and then sighed. “I just don’t understand why you can’t ask Mummy.”

The question provoked a predictable diatribe about how mummies aren’t detectives. She held the phone away from her ear for a moment or two and then said, “OK, Chubby, have it your way. I’ll do my best. What was in your wallet, by the way?”

Puri ran through the contents in his head: a couple of bank cards, a few thousand rupees in cash, various counterfeit IDs, multiple fake business cards and two SIM cards for untraceable mobile numbers.