THE STERADIAN TRAIL: BOOK #0 OF THE INFINITY CYCLE (15 page)

31

J
oshua unburdened himself over a long call with Becky and crashed on the bed a little after three o’clock. Thanks in no small measure to the backbreaking drive to Kanchipuram and the alcohol, he slept like a log. He would have slumbered on till afternoon if the ringing of phone hadn’t shaken him awake. He sat up with a start and grabbed the phone in a fit of panic wondering who was calling so late at night, but he calmed down when he heard the voice of Durai greeting him at the other end.

‘Jeez, it’s morning already?’ he mumbled to himself and said, ‘Yes, Durai?’

‘I have something, sir.’

‘Why don’t you come up to the suite in twenty minutes? I’ll be ready for you then.’

Durai walked into the suite in his bleached white uniform and refused coffee or chair as before. But Joshua was used to it now.

‘A driver told me something today, sir,’ Durai said.

Joshua arched his eyebrows eagerly.

‘Mr Williams was not always alone, sir,’ Durai said. ‘There was another person with him sometimes.’

Joshua had to struggle not to show his shock. ‘You got his name?’

‘No sir. I asked but no one knew.’

‘Did he stay here as well?’

‘No sir,’ Durai said. ‘He didn’t stay here. He stayed in his house.’

‘In
his
house? You mean he’s Indian?’

‘Yes sir,’ Durai said. ‘His house is in Egmore. That’s where he stays.’

Joshua’s brain cells were already pulsating with energy. But he tried to keep a poker-face and said, ‘Egmore. I remember that name.’

‘Yes sir. Sometimes he used to come here to meet Mr Williams and sometimes Mr Williams went to his house.’

‘Did you find out where it is?’

‘Yes sir,’ Durai said with a smile of accomplishment. ‘One driver gave me a good idea of the place. I think I know where it is.’

~

Lakshman was busy on the phone when Joshua tapped on the door and peered in. He signalled five and resumed his conversation. The way he was sitting hunched over at his desk, reading glasses slinking down the aquiline nose and a thoughtful frown etched on his face, Joshua knew it was no trivial matter. He whispered a sorry and withdrew into the corridor.

Lakshman had made a crucial error of omission with regard to the ceremony for Pomonia and was trying to rectify it. While requesting Pomonia’s measurements for the regalia, he had forgotten to ask for his cap size. The dress code for the annual convocation ceremony involved only a gown and Lakshman had gone by those requirements from memory. But Chamundeeswari reminded him of a hoary custom at the Institute as per which elite honourees were crowned with a specially designed bonnet when they were awarded their degree. She suggested that they follow the same protocol for Pomonia to avoid complaints later. Unwilling to take any chances, Lakshman took her advice and got into the act immediately.

Pomonia had assigned his confidant and chief operating officer Sridhar Subramanian to handle all matters relating to the ceremony and asked the Institute to work with him going forward. Popularly known as Srisu, no doubt an archetypal, highly placed Tamil Brahmin, one who lacked the guts and nuts to be the chief crook himself but knew the knack of playing a loyal pet poodle to one, Sridhar Subramanian was now Lakshman’s primary point of contact in Pomonia’s office. Lakshman had read about Srisu in the papers and never imagined he would be dealing with him one day. With just one link separating him from Pomonia, Lakshman couldn’t help a shiver running down his spine as Srisu came alive at the other end. Lakshman suddenly understood what dealing with the high and mighty really meant. Fortunately he had braced himself for the encounter and went about it in a methodical fashion. He introduced himself to Srisu, broke the ice with some flattery and platitudes and got down to brass tacks, requesting Pomonia’s cap size.

‘Before or after staff meeting?’ Srisu asked.

Lakshman was completely flummoxed. ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ he said.

‘Sorry, inside joke,’ Srisu said. ‘After every staff meeting, Pomonia sir comes out so furious shouting at everyone you can see all the veins bulging like snakes on his forehead; the cap size would be much bigger at that time.’

Srisu laughed. But Lakshman didn’t.

‘Why are you academics always so serious?’ Srisu said. ‘You need to learn to loosen up. . . . Anyway don’t worry, I’ll be chasing Pomonia sir with a tailor’s tape wherever he goes. Will email you the size as soon as I’m able to run it around his head. If you need anything else, please feel free to email me.’

Lakshman hung up after thanking Srisu and heaved a sigh of relief. He stepped out of his office to get Joshua waiting in the corridor.

‘Hey, my driver’s got some news,’ Joshua said. ‘Seems like Jeffrey might’ve had a local collaborator.’

‘Local? You mean, here in India?’

‘Here in India and here in this city.’ Joshua filled him in and asked, ‘So want to go with me and check him out?’

‘He knows the place?’

‘He seems to have a good idea. It’s in Egmore.’

Lakshman looked at his watch for a second and said, ‘Okay.’

‘It’s not too far is it?’

‘No, we should be there in forty-five minutes if the traffic isn’t too bad.’

~

‘This is the place, sir.’ Durai Raj pulled up under a tree and pointed at a blue-grey building.

The carving on the front wall read:

Temple View Gardens

32

‘A
re you sure this is the right place?’ Lakshman asked.

‘Fairly sure, sir,’ Durai said and showed him a slip of paper with directions. It had the name Temple View scrawled out near an X mark. ‘Only the other driver can confirm it, but he is driving some people to Tirupathi today. He’ll be back only tomorrow. But he said it’s a blue-grey building named Temple View and there’ll be two big neem trees like sentries in front.’

Both Lakshman and Joshua ran their eyes over the building. It was a gated apartment complex with a wiry-looking watchman in front, sitting on a plastic chair, busy with a magazine. He had a terrifying trident of a namam emblazoned on his forehead, well in sync with the holy month. There were five, possibly six, towers inside the compound, each with at least twenty flats spread across five storeys.

‘Do you know which apartment exactly?’ Lakshman asked.

‘No sir,’ Durai said. ‘The driver said he never went inside, he just waited under the trees here.’

‘Any chance you have his name?’

‘No sir.’

Lakshman and Joshua got down from the car and moved beyond the trees, almost to the next compound, well out of Durai’s earshot.

‘So what do we do?’ Joshua asked.

‘Not sure,’ Lakshman said. ‘I can see three buildings here and probably two or three more on the other side. Twenty apartments in each makes it hundred or hundred and twenty in total. How do we tell where our friend lives?’

Joshua stared pensively at Lakshman. ‘Jeez, I thought when he said he knows the house, we’d be coming to a house. But it’s a concrete jungle out here. How do we single out his apartment? It’s like looking for a needle in a pin-stack.’

‘Yeah. We don’t have a name and we don’t know what he looks like. He could be walking right in front of us and we wouldn’t know,’ Lakshman said. ‘One option is to bring the other driver along; he has seen him so must be able to recognize him. But we can’t do that till tomorrow or day after.’

‘But what can we do today? Right now? Let’s think about that,’ Joshua said.

They stood in helpless silence watching vehicles roar by on the road. Soon they saw Durai approaching them, wiping his face with a handkerchief.

‘If you want we can ask the watchman, sir,’ Durai said to Lakshman. ‘These people see everybody going in and out, they’ll know something.’

‘What do we ask?’ Lakshman said.

‘You don’t worry, sir. I will do the talking. Just come and stand next to me. I don’t want to take Professor because he might get scared seeing a foreigner and may not be willing to talk.’

‘What’s he saying?’ Joshua asked.

When Lakshman told him, he said, ‘It can’t hurt. Why don’t you take a shot? I’ll wait here.’

~

The wiry watchman dropped the magazine he was immersed in and rose from his perch, stiffening his spine in military-fashion when he saw Durai approaching with Lakshman in tow.

‘There’s nothing for rent, there’s nothing for sale. Anything else?’ he asked.

‘We’re not here for that,’ Durai said. ‘Do you have change for a hundred?’

The watchman fished in his pockets while Durai stood with a hundred-rupee bill extended in one hand.

‘I only have eighty,’ the watchman said.

‘Give me what you have,’ Durai said.

The money changed hands and Durai began chatting with the watchman.

There were some things in life a PhD from Georgia Tech had not prepared Lakshman for and this was one of them. The computer scientist that he was, he knew all about databases and information extraction. Give him a big database in any format and he knew how to run a query and retrieve all those bits and bytes of interest. Replace the machine with a man one or two rungs lower in the social ladder and he had no idea where to even begin. He stood next to Durai and watched him as he gave a master-class on the art and science of information extraction from a complete stranger.

‘How long have you been a watchman here?’

‘Come January it’ll be six months.’

‘Where were you before that?’

‘Railways. Retired last year but was feeling bored so took this up.’

‘Egmore station?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s the pension? Five thousand? Six thousand?’

‘Six.’

‘How much do they pay you here?’

‘Thousand a month.’

‘Is there another watchman?’

‘Yes, he’s at the other gate, on the other side.’

‘Is that the main entrance?’

‘No, this is. I am the main watchman. He is only an assistant.’

‘Lot of brahmins in this building?’

‘Yes.’

‘Stingy lot, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah, tell me about it.’

‘Somebody gives you coffee?’

‘Yeah, one good lady does. That’s the main reason I’m still here.’

‘Why don’t you move to Sri Hara in Purasaiwakkam? They pay a little better I heard.’

‘True, but my house is nearby. I can just walk here. If I have to go to Sri Hara, I have to take a bus. Whatever little extra they pay will go away for the bus.’

‘What about Casa Sivaganga? It’s only at end of the road. I’m sure they pay more – they’re a bit upscale. I can get you in if you want.’

‘Oh, that’s a problematic building. Lot of police trouble. That’s why they pay more. No watchman lasts more than a month. They take their first month’s salary and run away. Who wants to go there? It’s not like I need the job so desperately. I still get my pension. I just need some break from my wife’s nagging; I don’t want to jump from frying pan into the fire trying to escape from her.’

‘The same lady I just saw delivering your lunch bag when I was pulling over, the one with a little limp?’

‘Yeah, the same rakshasi.’

‘Why don’t you come and work at my hotel? Hotel Oceanic? They pay you double and you don’t even have to see your wife for lunch. You can eat there for free.’

‘But I have to dye my hair and wear a stupid costume there; and stand in the hot sun and keep saluting complete strangers. Don’t want to do that. I know everybody here. This place is like family.’

Lakshman did not realize when they shifted course; like sailing down a meandering river, he didn’t notice the twists and turns in the flow of conversation. It was a full five minutes later when he realized that Durai had the watchman eating out of his hand . . .

~

Joshua was getting restless under the tree. He could see both Durai and Lakshman; though it was Durai who was clearly leading the conversation, it was Lakshman who looked affected by what was being said. His face had clouded over and, as the minutes passed, he began to look positively stunned.

After what seemed like forever, Lakshman and Durai finally began to walk towards the car.

‘I should have thought of it first, but . . .’ Lakshman shook his head and muttered, half regretful.

‘What happened? Isn’t this the right address? Doesn’t he live here?’ Joshua asked.

‘This is the right address, but he doesn’t live here now,’ Lakshman said.

‘Do you at least have his name?’

‘Yeah,’ Lakshman said. ‘Narasimhan. Narasimhan Thathachari.’

Lakshman signalled to Durai to rev up the engine and before long they were on their way back to the campus.

33

L
akshman opened his office and let Joshua in. By the time the ceiling fan squeaked its way to full speed, Lakshman had unlocked his drawers and was busy foraging through them. He picked out a file and began leafing through the pages, his reading glasses poised on his nose.

‘Is that the register from the conference?’ Joshua asked.

‘Yes,’ Lakshman said. He didn’t even look up.

Soon he turned to a page Joshua had dog-eared earlier for reference. ‘Aha, there it is, on the same page as Jeffrey’s entry,’ he said. He turned the file around and pushed it towards Joshua. ‘Simon Thathachari. Narasimhan Simon Thathachari. Grad student at TDU. Jeffrey’s partner-in-crime.’

Joshua ran his eyes over the entry and gasped in shock. ‘Jeez!’

‘You brought your student Jeffrey to India and now he’s brought his. The conference was their perfect decoy – nobody would suspect them if they were up to anything funny.’

‘So that’s what you meant by his not living there now?’

Lakshman nodded. ‘He was only staying with his parents’ when he was visiting the city; a working vacation, I guess. He went back to the US after that.’

‘So if we could track down his phone number at the
university–’

‘Don’t count on it,’ Lakshman said.

He brought up the web browser on his PC and landed on the TDU website in no time. A couple of mouse clicks and a little clattering of keys . . .

He browsed through the page and turned the monitor towards Joshua. ‘Here.’

It was article in the campus newspaper. The title read:

Grad student dies in freak accident in swimming pool

It was dated one day before Jeffrey’s death.

~

Temple View Gardens, Egmore. Minutes after the Expanzo swallowed Joshua and Lakshman and disappeared in a cloud of smoke, a motorbike carrying two men pulled up at the very spot under the neem tree where Joshua had stood savouring the traffic fumes. The man on the pillion got off the bike and walked up to the watchman at the gate.

The watchman dropped the magazine and sprang up from his seat. ‘There’s nothing for rent, there’s nothing for sale. Anything else?’ he asked.