by Vaseem Khan
Chopra stepped towards the nearest display case. Inside were the golden bangles Bijli had worn in Plaything of Emperors, in which she had played a doomed courtesan destined to commit suicide by ingesting a vial of cobra venom; here was the revolver she had used to commit suicide in Jilted Woman, in which she had portrayed a doomed lover in yet another of Bollywood’s eternal love triangles; here the jewelled dagger with which she had slashed her throat after murdering her cheating husband in Modern Love Story… Now that Chopra reflected upon it, Bijli had assayed more than her share of fatally troubled characters during her tempestuous career. He wondered if this had leaked into her volatile personality, whether it was true what they said about life imitating art.
Lal led Chopra out onto a vast balcony overlooking the Back Bay.
A stiff breeze blew across the balcony, rustling the fronds of the potted palm beside him.
Standing by the railing, clad in a richly filigreed black sari, hair pulled into a severe topknot, was Bijli Verma.
Chopra approached nervously behind Lal, who coughed to announce his arrival.
Bijli turned.
Chopra’s stomach performed a cartwheel.
She was as beautiful as he remembered, a towering light undimmed by age.
Of course, the rational part of his mind knew that his vision was coloured by his own memories. The crow’s feet around her eyes, the threads of grey running through her hair, the slight sag of her jawline all testified to the fact that ultimately no man—or woman—could prevail against the insidious corrosions of Father Time.
And yet, in the light of that liquid amber gaze, Chopra replayed moments of sheer cinematic magic; in those wide, full lips he relived the ardour of youth; in that delicate nose he recalled her ability to convey a gamut of emotion with a single twitch. For a moment he was eighteen again, a newly minted constable in the big city, watching this goddess beguile the leading heroes of her age. A haughty glance, an icy stare, a sashay of that incredible figure across a carpeted hotel floor… What man could resist?
“Inspector Chopra, I presume?” said Bijli.
Chopra shook himself back to the present. “Yes, madam.”
“I see you have already met our family lawyer, Lal. I trust he explained the need for discretion?”
“To be frank, Mr. Lal has explained very little.”
Bijli tapped a manicured fingernail against her thigh. “In that case, let me enlighten you. Last night my son did not come home. You know who my son is, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. In fact, I saw him last night.” Chopra hesitated as Bijli stared at him. “What I mean is that I attended the concert in Andheri,” he stumbled out.
“Then you have seen him more recently than I. Vicky was due to return home last night. He did not. Usually this would not concern me. He is a wilful young man. He is often out till late. But I have a rule: when a big shoot is due the following day he must spend the night here.”
“Surely, it is too early for alarm?”
“He has not telephoned me or any of his circle of friends since yesterday evening. No one has seen or heard from him. This morning he was due for a critical shoot at Film City. He would not miss it.”
Chopra chose his next words carefully. “Forgive me for saying this, but how can you be sure he is not simply sleeping off a wild night somewhere?”
“I am well aware that my son has gone out of his way to earn a certain reputation,” snapped Bijli. “But he is no fool. He would not jeopardise his career by missing this shoot.”
“What’s so important about it?”
Lal spoke up. “It’s no secret that Vicky’s current movie, The Mote in the Third Eye of Shiva, is the most expensive production ever undertaken in our industry. Many people have invested a great deal of money. Yet the film is well behind schedule and over budget. Today was to mark the beginning of a critical sequence that has taken months to set up. If he does not appear, the producers will be extremely unhappy. They can push back the shoot at most a few days. After that, the costs will escalate to a point where the whole venture becomes untenable.”
“I understand,” said Chopra.
“I don’t think you do,” snapped Bijli, her eyes suddenly blazing. “When my son did not appear last night I called everyone. Once I realised I could not find him, I was forced to put out the announcement of his illness. It was the only way I could placate the movie’s financial backers. Not that it did much good. I am being hounded by calls. They are after his blood. They demand to know how serious this illness is, whether he will make the shoot. They demand to see him, which, of course, I cannot allow. They have threatened to blacklist him. Do you understand what this means? If my son is blacklisted none of the major studios will touch him. Everyone thinks star power is paramount in Bollywood, but the truth is that the studios can make and break whoever they wish. They control the big-budget productions, the regional distributors, the foreign rights, the marketing. That is what makes a star these days.”
Chopra saw the shape of things. He was being asked to take on a missing-person case.
“If you truly believe your son has come to harm you should enlist the help of the police,” he advised.
“Don’t be a fool, Chopra,” said Bijli irritably. “I have just explained to you why no one must know of this. I have called upon you for two reasons. One, you are a private detective, by all accounts a good one. Secondly, you are a man whose discretion can be counted upon.”
Chopra absorbed these words. “Who told you about my involvement in the Koh-i-noor case?” he said eventually.
Bijli glanced at Lal, then said, “The British High Commissioner to India. He is a close personal friend. You may set your own fee, of course.”
The temptation to take the case was strong. What Chopra had to decide was whether he would be taking the case based on its merits or because of the undeniable glamour cast by Bijli Verma.
He sighed. When all was said and done, he was being asked to help a mother find her son. That was the essence of it, and for this reason he could not turn the former starlet down.
“I will do what I can,” he said. “But first I require some information.”
“Lal will give you everything you need,” said Bijli. “I must go and speak to the director of the Indian Global Bank. They have loaned a great deal of money to the production. I have some difficult questions to answer. Please excuse me.”
He watched her leave, a vision of immaculate fury in a sari.
RANGWALLA RECEIVES A SUMMONS
In the quarter of a century that he had spent as a policeman former sub-inspector Abbas Rangwalla had learned a great many things. For instance: when approaching an armed suspect it was best to rely on the old adage of shoot first and ask questions later (or even better, shoot first, then shoot again just in case, then ask questions if anyone was still left alive to answer them); to leave the unfathomable complexities of paperwork to those best placed to tackle such a responsibility, namely those who hadn’t scraped their way through their matriculation exams; and, perhaps most importantly, not to approach a senior officer with a request for overtime when he was having his lunch.
But the one thing he had never learned was how to deal with an aggressive and authoritative woman.
As he sat in Chopra’s office, listening to the strident harangue emanating from the phone, he felt his heart shrivel inside him.
Mrs. Roy was angry.
Just a short while earlier, Mrs. Roy had hired the Baby Ganesh Agency to confirm her long-standing suspicion that her husband, the president of the local Rotary Club, had reverted to his old drinking habits.
Rangwalla had been given the case.
He had diligently followed the old sot around and duly confirmed Mrs. Roy’s fears. Unfortunately, he had also discovered that Mr. Roy was keeping a fancy woman in a nearby apartment in Marol. Each Wednesday afternoon, when his wife believed him to be studiously planning Rotary business with the club secretary, the old letch was instead can
oodling with a woman twenty-five years his junior, and at least three ranks beneath his social standing.
It was this latter fact that had so incensed Mrs. Roy.
Rangwalla was feeling deeply put upon; after all, he was only the messenger.
Suddenly, he heard raised voices from the restaurant floor. Sighing, he said, “I must go, Mrs. Roy.” He put down the phone, cutting off Mrs. Roy’s astonished protest.
In the restaurant he discovered Anarkali, the hulking eunuch he and Chopra had employed for many years as a part-time informant. Anarkali was standing in the entrance, her muscular arms folded, irritation and embarrassment enveloping her dark features. She was being roundly berated by a trio of constables Rangwalla did not recognise—they were new faces at the restaurant.
He looked around for Chopra’s mother-in-law, Poornima Devi, who Chopra, against his own better judgement, had employed as the front-of-house manager. To universal astonishment the cantankerous old woman had proven singularly effective in the role. But today Poornima was not at her usual station—behind the marble counter with its electronic cash register, which she manned as though it were a gun turret.
Rangwalla moved towards the fracas. “What’s the problem here?”
One of the constables turned, hitched up his khaki pants with his thumbs, and said, “This eunuch here just came marching in. Can’t he see decent people are eating?”
Rangwalla had lived long enough in Mumbai to understand that prejudice was part of the complex equation of life in the subcontinent’s most crowded city. Caste prejudice, religious prejudice, social prejudice, prejudice in all its myriad forms. In this great sea of antipathy, the city’s eunuch population occupied a unique niche, simultaneously loathed and feared. Loathed for their manifest difference; feared for the generations-old belief that a eunuch’s curse was a potent weapon. But he knew too that many policemen had long ago shed their ancestral terror, and treated them brutally.
Rangwalla also knew that Chopra had little time for such men.
“This is Anarkali,” he said. “She is welcome here.”
The man goggled at Rangwalla. His thumbs slipped from his belt and his trousers fell back below his ballooning gut.
Rangwalla turned to Anarkali. “If you are looking for Chopra, he is tied up.”
“Then you must come with me,” said Anarkali. “This matter cannot wait.”
“Come where?”
“To see the Queen of Mysore.”
THE PEOPLE’S JUDGE
The offices of the Dynamite Global International Acting and Talent Agency were located on the fifteenth floor of the iconic Air India building in Nariman Point in south Mumbai. For decades, the grand tower had served as headquarters to the national airline. But in recent years, many major corporations had moved to swanky new offices in the suburbs, and the elite Bandra Kurla Complex. Acceding to the inevitable, Air India too had abandoned their once-feted HQ and upped sticks to New Delhi.
Now, the twenty-three-storey building, overlooking the bustling Marine Drive boulevard, was leased out to an assortment of companies, government organisations, and small independents.
Babu Wadekar, Vicky Verma’s agent, was a round, loud man in a shimmering purple satin shirt and the worst toupee Chopra had come across in years. The offensive hairpiece, acting in concert with a moustache that itself appeared glued on, gave Wadekar the look of a hired extra in a low-budget comedy.
Wadekar’s office was consumed by a runway-sized marble-topped desk, and a number of life-sized cut-outs of actors he claimed to manage. Pride of place was reserved for Vicky Verma, who stood at Wadekar’s shoulder with a smouldering look in his eye, wearing his trademark red bandana and toting an enormous rocket launcher.
“So Vicky’s missing, what’s new?” said Wadekar grimly. “That kid has been a pain in my backside since the day I took him on.”
“Are you saying this isn’t the first time he has gone missing?”
“The boy is mentally unstable,” growled Wadekar. “He fights with his directors; he refuses to rehearse; he turns up drunk, then leaves halfway through a shoot.” The agent threw up his hands. “Actors these days are no better than camels! Worse. At least, if you lead a camel to water, it will drink.”
“Why do you represent him if he is so much trouble?”
“His mother asked me to. I have known Bijli for years. In fact, I represented her towards the latter part of her career. Besides, the boy has all the attributes one needs to be successful nowadays. He looks good in a vest, he can dance like a drunk being electrocuted, and he has a famous parent to promote him.”
Chopra thought that Wadekar was being somewhat unfair. Though Bollywood continued to be ruled by the ancient codes of nepotism, it was still an exacting business. New faces—both the sons and daughters of yesteryear’s stars and those who had come up on their own merit—were increasingly asked to stay afloat on the strength of their talent. Chopra was no expert but it seemed to him that the winds of change were finally being felt in the world’s most prolific movie industry.
“Has he contacted you since yesterday evening?”
“Hah!” said Wadekar, slapping his desk. “He only contacts me when he gets himself into trouble.”
“His mother believes she would have heard from him by now if all was well.”
Wadekar struggled to frame his next words. “Look, Chopra, I’m going to save you some heartache by telling you something. Just don’t repeat it in front of Bijli. That woman is part of the problem. She has been controlling her son’s life since the day he was born. Is it any wonder he’s turned out the way he has? The boy is a spoilt brat, a thoroughly nasty piece of work. That’s the best I can say of him, and I actually like the kid!”
Chopra considered this revelation.
Wadekar seemed to be implying that Verma was simply acting the delinquent, that there was no real cause for worry.
“He’ll show up,” added the agent confidently. “Because he knows that if he doesn’t his career will be deader than my hair.”
A tentative knock sounded.
Chopra turned to see a slender young woman enter the office. She wore blue jeans below a drab olive kurta, and a dupatta wound around her neck. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her eyes wobbled behind bottleneck spectacles. Her face was unadorned by make-up but Chopra could see that she was quite pretty. She clutched a worn red handbag and bit her lip nervously.
“Ah, Greta. Good of you to come,” said Wadekar. “Chopra here is looking for our mutual friend. The idiot.”
“Please don’t call him that, sir,” said the girl.
“What do you think I should call him?” snapped Wadekar, his dynamic hairpiece jiggling atop his head. “Gandhiji? Shall I touch his feet and ask for his blessings? Do you know that fool is missing? Again!”
Chopra observed the girl as her hands agitatedly worked the straps of her handbag.
He knew that her name was Greta Rodrigues and that she was Vicky Verma’s personal assistant. She was apparently the last person to have seen him before his disappearance. He had asked the Verma family lawyer, Lal, to ensure that the girl was present at Wadekar’s office so that he might interview her.
“Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“Why can’t you talk here?” asked Wadekar suspiciously.
“In private, I mean.”
Grumbling, the agent wandered off to make a call.
Alone now, Chopra asked Greta Rodrigues exactly what had transpired the previous evening. He could see that she was upset by the idea that something might have happened to Vicky.
“We were at the concert,” said Greta. “Everything seemed to be going well. Vicky was his usual self. Full of energy. He looked very dashing. We had got to the end and it was time for the final set piece. The choreographer, Mr. Gowrikar—have you met him? He is a very nice man—had planned that Vicky would disappear in a cloud of smoke, then reappear at three places around the stadium, before vanishing again and appea
ring back on the main stage. It was supposed to represent the fact that Vicky is performing a quadruple role in The Mote in the Third Eye of Shiva. It was part of the film’s publicity campaign.”
“How was it supposed to work?” asked Chopra.
“Oh, well, Vicky couldn’t possibly get around the stadium so quickly. It was all an illusion, you see. There was a trapdoor on the stage, and when the smoke came out, Vicky went through the trapdoor and into a dressing room below. In the meantime we had three doubles ready, to appear around the stadium. If you ask me, they didn’t look very much like Vicky, but then he’s so handsome, isn’t he?” she added wistfully.
Chopra nodded. He had already concluded such a ruse had lain behind the set piece. “And then?”
“I was waiting for him in the room below the stage. Vicky normally doesn’t like anyone around for costume changes, but he keeps me there in case of an emergency.”
“How long have you been his personal assistant?”
“Ever since the previous assistant left three months ago.”
“Why did she leave?”
The girl chewed her lip and blushed. “I believe they had a difference of opinion.”
“What opinion did they differ over?”
“Well, I believe Vicky, ah, asked the lady in question to, ah, go on a date with him.”
Chopra could tell where this was heading. He spared Greta any further discomfort by saying, “I understand. Tell me, has he acted in a similar way towards you?”
Greta’s blush deepened. “No. Never. He has been a perfect gentleman.”
Chopra observed the girl’s expression, the intense flush of embarrassment.
“Of course, I am not very pretty. Not like his previous assistant.”
He saw things clearly now. The girl obviously had an unhealthy crush on Verma, blinding her to his faults. The picture that was slowly building up of the vanished actor was not a pleasant one. A spoilt brat with the manners and appetites of a goat. An arrogant man-child used to getting his own way.
