by Aabid Surti
“That's true,” said the maid looking at him closely, “But Mr. Langdon isn’t here, he is in America since last one month.”
The lift was slowly moving up. By the time it crossed the first floor, Iqbal came up with a convincing reply: “The order for this bouquet too has come from America.”
“How?”
“Like there is an arrangement to send a telegram from one country to another, similarly florists too have their own arrangement.” As if he was explaining to a child, he informed the maid, “If your madam wants to send flowers to her husband in America, she can place an order with our shop in the Taj hotel. We would deliver the flowers in America on the day and time she wants us to deliver.”
This was not a lie but a fact, and it had the desired impact on the maid. She was glad. Her boss was loving in nature. No wonder, he remembered his wife and ordered the flowers from America.
As the lift crossed the second floor, drops of sweat appeared on Iqbal's forehead. He had successfully hoodwinked the two cops downstairs, but what about the third one? He did not have any idea as to where would he be hiding on the third floor. Will he be keeping guard outside the closed apartment? Iqbal did not have a clue. Moreover, the maid had stuck to him like a sticker.
Besides, he had not brought the bouquet of flowers for anyone; he had it with him only as a pretext to get inside the building. On reaching the third floor, he had planned to throw it in a garbage can.
The presence of the maid had poured cold water over his plan. By this time, he found things had come to such a pass that perhaps he would have to return like a fool without accomplishing anything.
As he and the maid stepped out of the lift on the third floor, the third cop appeared before him like the djinn from Alladin's lamp. Although he was muscular, he looked like a half-baked man. “He has come with me,” interjected the maid before Iqbal could say anything. “Our Mr. Langdon has especially ordered for these flowers to be delivered from America.”
He glanced at Iqbal for a second and went back to where he had come from. He had chosen this place after much deliberation. Sitting on the stairs leading to the fourth floor, he could see anyone trying to climb up from below while no one could spot him. Besides, he could also keep an eye on the lift.
Again, the maid moved ahead. Cursing his stars, Iqbal followed her. After a few steps in the long corridor, she stopped. “There…the fourth and the last door, can you see it?”
Iqbal nodded, “Of course.”
“That's our madam's flat.”
He profusely thanked the maid. She entered the lift and went down. Iqbal came up to the third apartment and glanced in the direction of the lift. The cop sitting on the stairs could not see him, nor could he see the cop.
Immediately, he put down the bouquet, took out the key from the pocket and inserted it in the keyhole of the door. Click- came the sound as the door opened.
The sound pricked up the cop’s ears. Half his attention was on opening the lunch packet containing puri-bhaji and the other half in the direction of the sound. He presumed that Mrs. Suzy must have opened the door.
Iqbal quickly entered, closed the apartment door from inside and fastened it with a latch. The door was locked securely. Now, he had to carry out his deed in the shortest possible time. Every second mattered.
He was leaning on the door of the large drawing room. He was taking in everything at a glance. Though nobody lived here, the room lacked nothing. He saw the sofa-set, center-table, side-board, the chandelier dangling from the ceiling, the wall-to-wall carpet, TV and VCR, a well-stocked liquor bar, printed curtains shielding the window and the oil canvasses on the wall. He looked to his right.
There was a narrow passage, as explained by Singh. Taking a few steps, he came up to the door of the first bedroom. On turning the doorknob slowly, the door opened. The same care had been taken to furnish this room as well.
A round double bed, the bedside table lamp, the dressing table and indoor plants were all in matching colours. A painting, of a nude in vibrant colours of Modigliani, was placed on the double bed.
He lifted the Dunlop mattress from the double bed and saw two jackets spread under it. He took off his shirt, placed it on the side table and lifted one jacket. It was heavier than an iron suit of armour. Iqbal knew its exact weight.
Each gold biscuit hidden inside the lining of the jacket weighed 116 grams. There were 100 biscuits in a jacket. This totaled 11 kg and 600 grams. The cloth jacket weighed 150 grams more.
While eating his lunch from a disposable plate seated on the stairs facing the lift, a thought bothered the cop. He had heard the 'click' sound of the opening of the door but thereafter there had been total silence. How can it be? Someone must say something? At least Mrs. Langdon should utter some words! He completed his lunch, crumpled the paper plate, put it down on one side and got up. He looked down the corridor.
The last apartment belonged to Mrs. Langdon. The door was closed. He became suspicious. The maid had gone down, but what about the young man? He walked down the passage.
Iqbal wore one jacket like armour on his chest and the other one on his back. When he tried to put on his shirt, he realised his foolishness. He had calculated everything, except that after putting on the shirt, his chest would swell like the chest of a body builder.
He stood before the mirror of the dressing table and looked at himself and was stunned. One would not be surprised to see an old lady enter a beauty parlour and leave as a young woman; but no one can believe it if an ant enters a house and comes out as an elephant!
When Mrs. Suzy Langdon, dressed in a sleeveless purple T-shirt and shorts covering only half her thighs, opened the door, the cop was standing before her. His face was oblong, hair short and rising straight up. He was not more than 35 years old.
“Yes?” Mrs. Langdon floated the question.
“A young man had come to deliver a bouquet to you.”
“Where is he?”
“I also want to know the same...”
“What?”
“Where has he gone?”
“He is not here.”
“Sure?”
“Then, have I hidden him in my cupboard?” Mrs. Langdon laughed, displaying her ample cleavage.
He thought, this foreigner is a seductress and her husband is always busy globe-trotting. The young man who had come with the bouquet was her young paramour. It won’t be surprising if she had kept him hidden for a few moments of ecstasy.
But how to confirm it? He did not have the right to intrude into the privacy of a tenant. And so long as he could not confirm whether or not the young man was inside this woman's house, he could not ascertain whether he had sneaked into the adjoining apartment.
He was standing there perplexed when Mrs. Langdon smiled and said, stepping aside, “I don't mind if you want to search my house.”
Now the cop was alarmed. Immediately he came to the lift taking long strides and rang the call bell of the lift thrice at an interval of three seconds. This was a signal to his colleagues keeping watch downstairs.
The shorter of the two cops standing in the porch rushed towards the lift while the smart alec with the blue sunglasses ran to call his remaining three colleagues who were keeping vigil around the building.
Iqbal slumped on the sofa in the drawing room. His computer brain had ditched him today. He found a hole or two in all his getaway ruses.
Albeit, it was easy for him to throw the jackets from the window and come out from the main door like a gentleman. The law would not be able to do much without any evidence. But what about the bravado he had shown before Singh of bringing the jackets with him?
At last, he got a brainwave. Though this too was a weak thought, he decided to implement it nevertheless. The cop guarding the third floor was sitting by the wall on the stairs leading up to the fourth floor. He could stealthily go down by the stairs. On reaching the ground floor he would not rush out, but wait for a group of tenants to step out of the lift, mingle wit
h them and thus slip out of the building. This was possible because the cops were keeping strict watch only over people entering the building.
He got up from the sofa, reached the door and was about to open it when the doorbell rang. His hands froze. A barrage of questions swarmed in his mind. Who would have rung the bell? Some neighbour? But why should the neighbours ring the bell? He did not know any of them. No one knew that he was inside.
The doorbell rang again. He became cautious. Surely, the cops must have guessed correctly. He was now certain that if he opened the door he would land straight into the police trap and be handcuffed. The bell rang constantly. He ran back to the bedroom. This time, he locked the bedroom door from inside, shifted the round double bed and blocked the entrance.
Hammer blows started raining on the main door. It would take some time for it to break open. After that, they would have to break open this door too. Iqbal wanted to have more time. Now he came into the bathroom and locked its door too from inside. The sound coming from the hammers hitting the main door was so loud that it could be heard in the bathroom.
He was not worried. He was thinking fast. The bathroom was made of white marble and was as large as Iqbal's room. Everything was sparkling white. The jacuzzi was also carved out from Makrana marble. Attired in white, Iqbal stood like a marble statue. His eyes were fixed on the ventilator.
The main door lock had been broken. The door stood open. Two cops rushed inside waving their revolvers. Four others came later providing them cover.
Outside in the corridor the neighbours had gathered to watch the spectacle in a scattered crowd that included Mrs. Suzy Langdon, Mrs. Irani and a dozen other tenants. “You see,” Mrs. Langdon was saying to no one in particular. “The bouquet lying on the center table was brought for me by that young man.”
Iqbal was pulling out the slanted glass panes from the ventilator and putting them on the commode tank. He was hoping to escape from the ventilator sliding down the drainpipe. His only fear was of the cops on guard downstairs. (He was not aware that all of them had come running up.) The other fear was that some tenant from the nearby buildings may raise an alarm seeing him coming down the drainpipe. However, there was less likelihood of that happening.
He did not expect people to be standing at the window during this time of the day. Moreover, the distance between the two buildings was more than fifty feet. There was a seven foot tall compound wall separating the two buildings. Besides, he could see a tall tree with thick foliage from the ventilator. Surely it would cover him….
The lock on the door of the bedroom cracked with a snap but the door did not budge an inch. The cops could make out that there must be some sort of obstacle behind the door. Four men together applied pressure on the door. Two others were standing behind, prepared for a sudden attack. Inch by inch the door started giving way.
Iqbal had succeeded in getting out of the ventilator with much difficulty. His body was dripping in sweat. His chest had swollen on account of the two jackets, and the ventilator was very narrow. Besides, the jackets weighed almost 12 kilos. Getting out of the ventilator carrying so much weight was like pulling a camel out of the eye of a needle.
He was standing outside the ventilator behind the building holding the drainpipe. First, he looked down, there was no one in sight. Then he looked across and froze for a few seconds.
He batted his eyelids and again looked at the opposite building. He saw a young girl standing in the balcony of the fourth floor. The girl was also staring at him. His legs shook. He felt giddy and was afraid that he might fall down; and no one survives a fall from the third floor on a ground of concrete.
Who was that girl?
Why wasn’t she screaming?
Before climbing down the pipe, he thought of a new strategy: He put his hand through the ventilator window, picked up the glass panes stacked on the commode tank and placed them one by one into the groves of the ventilator, beginning with the top slot.
All the four cops had succeeded in opening the bedroom door. The double bed kept across the door had shifted towards the left. They rushed inside.
There was no one in the room. The door of the bathroom too was closed. They cursed the day they were born. Until now, no crook had fooled them in broad daylight, no racketeer had screwed them so badly as this kid had done.
Immediately they mounted an all out assault on the bathroom door. Their plight resembled a tiger in rage. If they caught Iqbal alive, they would first bash him up thoroughly ignoring the law. Reduce him to pulp if necessary, to vent their anger.
It was not easy to break the lock of this door because the apartment belonged to traffickers. The main door was particularly hard to break. The cops had to take turns to break it. They all had to deal out several blows with the hammer to break it open.
Iqbal slid slowly down the pipe, came up to the first floor and then jumped on to a strong branch of the tree. His task became easy. The compound wall separating the two buildings was close by. Making his way through the foliage he reached the wall and jumped into the compound of the next building.
Meanwhile the bathroom locks too broke open. One thing the cops were certain of: this was the last door. They did not have to break open yet another door: Like a cornered rat, he was trapped.
The shorter one, with a revolver in hand, pushed open the door with his shoulder and stepped inside. Two others followed him, while the remaining three watched from the entrance of the bathroom. The marble walls were bare. The marble tub too was empty. There was a lid on the commode. All the glass panes in the ventilator were intact. Then where the hell had the kid gone? Had he turned into a fly and flown away?
They looked at each other with their mouths open.
Before leaving the compound of the adjoining building, Iqbal again thought of the girl. He looked up. She was still standing in the balcony of the fourth floor. She was staring at him with her neck stretched out like a tortoise.
Now Iqbal was certain that the girl was from his college and from his class. Both had appeared for the first year examinations together. What was her name? He could not recollect.
He strode out, taking long firm steps . Now, he was safe. (So he thought.) On coming out of the compound, he spotted a taxi parked as if it was waiting for him. What luck! As he strode towards the taxi, inspector Bhesadia seated on the back seat, opened the door and said graciously, “Come in, dikra.”
He was stunned.
Chapter 12
Seeing Iqbal confused outside the taxi, inspector Bhesadia got suspicious: The disciple might give a slip to the guru and vanish!
Their relationship was like that of a teacher and a disciple. Whatever progress Iqbal had made was because of Bhesadia. He had left behind small-time crooks like Moghul and Ali to join the international gang of Singh.
Bhesadia stretched out his hand from the taxi, caught hold of his wrist and pulled him inside. The taxi started and sped away.
Both were seated side by side on the back seat, both were silent. It was not safe to say anything in the presence of the taxi driver. Both were immersed in their own thoughts. Who informed Bhesadia? Iqbal was thinking. How did he know that Iqbal would emerge from Singh's flat with two jackets at that particular time? Not only this, he knew the exact place and so had been waiting patiently in the taxi for Iqbal to come.
The fog of confusion dispersed after a while. When he had tried to enter the building carrying the bouquet of flowers, the smarty cop with the blue sunglasses had told him that he had seen him somewhere. That man was Bhesadia's deputy. That means, this too was Bhesadia's operation!
His guess was correct.
Inspector Bhesadia had been alerted by his informer Bali: Twenty five jackets had arrived in Sagar Darshan building at Warden Road. He did not know which gang owned the apartment. (It would not have mattered even if he had known that the apartment belonged to Singh. Once an FIR is lodged at the police station, friendship becomes the first victim.)
Before Bhesadia could
act, most of the jackets had been delivered, only two had remained inside. This was when Bhesadia's men surrounded the building.
Iqbal also got answers to his other questions. Before the main lock was broken into, Bhesadia must have been given the description of the young man with the bouquet. He must have surmised that this could be no one but Iqbal. He must have rushed in a taxi and kept a close watch on the building. It is possible that he might have seen Iqbal climbing down the drain pipe and understood the entire game plan.
As the taxi crossed Kemp's Corner and turned towards Babulnath, the other puzzle also was solved. He could not recall the name of the girl he had seen in the balcony of the opposite building. Longing to connect, his lips quivered, and the name burst forth.
“What did you say?”
Hearing Bhesadia's words, he turned his head and said, “I didn’t say anything.”
“Who’s Kusum?”
Iqbal got alarmed. That was the name of the girl. It had slipped out of his mouth unwittingly. “She is a student of my college,” he told the truth.
