by Vaseem Khan
Clearly, the man in the red hat was displeased. But what about?
The man straightened, then loudly counted out one, two, three… and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
With a snarling laugh, he pushed the terrified goon onto his back. ‘The next time it won’t be empty,’ he shouted. ‘You idiots better shape up or I’ll bury you right here in this warehouse.’
The man in the red hat straddled his bike, then lit another cigarette.
Chopra swept his things into his rucksack, then raced downstairs to his own bike. He leaped onto the Enfield, and stepped on the clutch. It refused to start. ‘Come on, Basanti!’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t let me down now!’
The clutch caught and the engine roared to life.
Chopra picked up his target’s trail at the next traffic junction. He followed the Hero Honda along the Western Express Highway, heading north, until they got off at the next underpass and drove into Andheri West. He continued to follow him as they passed through Jogeshwari and into Lokhandwala.
In Lokhandwala, the man in the red hat pulled his bike to the side of the road. He got off the bike and walked into a building with darkened windows and a red neon sign that said ‘Queen of the Night’. A ladies bar.
Chopra dismounted and followed his quarry inside.
Immediately, he was confronted by a thick smog of cigarette fumes. Men were crowded around tables, drinking and smoking in the dim red lighting. Scantily clad women wandered around the room, serving drinks and stopping to whisper into the ears of the patrons. Every few minutes an agreement was reached and a man would rise from his table and follow the woman to the rear of the room where a staircase led upwards.
Chopra’s eyes pierced the smoky miasma, searching for the man in the red hat. There! He was sitting with his back to Chopra, laughing heartily with two friends. As he watched, a woman in a short skirt, high heels and halter-neck top shimmied up to their table with a tray of drinks. The man in the red hat immediately pulled her onto his lap and said something at which the others burst out laughing.
‘Sahib, can I take you to a table?’
Chopra turned around. A small man in a purple uniform was looking at him expectantly. He hesitated. He did not know the etiquette of this sort of place. Ladies bars were a Mumbai phenomenon that had long disconcerted him. Part-bar, part-brothel, part-gentlemen’s club, they had mushroomed around the city during the past decade. Some were seedy dives while others were so upmarket as to be almost indistinguishable from the trendy international bars one found in south Mumbai. He knew that some of his police colleagues frequented such places, even boasted openly about how much fun they had, going into some detail about their nightly conquests. But Chopra had never been that type of officer, and had made it clear, when he had taken over the Sahar station, that his attitude in such matters was uncompromising. If any of his own officers indulged themselves in this way, then they had been smart enough to keep it from his ears.
‘Yes,’ he muttered, ‘a table.’
He was given a small table on the far side of the room from the man in the red hat.
‘Sahib, what will you have?’
‘What?’ Chopra realised the waiter fellow was still hovering around him.
‘What will you have, sahib?’
Chopra looked at him uncomprehendingly.
‘To drink,’ said the man, encouragingly.
‘A Coke,’ he said, automatically.
‘Coke?’ repeated the man. He seemed nonplussed. Chopra realised his mistake. The clientele who frequented this sort of place did not order a Coke.
‘Yes,’ he said gruffly. ‘Coke with a whisky. What’s the matter, can’t you hear properly?’
The man’s face broke into a smile of relief. This was more like it.
He returned quickly with the order. As a rule, Chopra did not drink. He had seen what happened to officers who did. It would begin as a small peg, just to be sociable. Then a couple of tots to help clarify things on a particularly tricky investigation. Soon it would be three or four glasses to relieve the tensions of the day. Before you knew it a perfectly fine officer had ruined his career, earmarked by his colleagues as ‘that drunk’.
No, it was a slippery slope, and he had never set foot on it.
He poured the Coke into the tumbler of whisky and pretended to sip at it while he watched the man in the red hat, who, by this time, had been pawing and petting the girl in his lap for a good ten minutes. For the first time he could get a good look at the man’s skull. He knew what he was searching for, but his eyes, which were still 20-20 over distance, couldn’t find the scratch marks that he had almost convinced himself must be there. Had he made a mistake? Was he chasing the wrong lead? What if this man had nothing to do with Santosh Achrekar at all? Surely that was Chopra’s priority, not his sudden conviction that Kala Nayak had returned from the dead?
Suddenly, the girl stood. She lifted the man’s red beret from the table, placed it on her own head, and, to the raucous laughter of his friends, sashayed towards the staircase. The man slapped hands with one of his friends and followed her. Chopra felt his stomach tighten. His every fibre urged him not to lose sight of his quarry, but he couldn’t very well follow him up into one of the private rooms. Dammit! There was nothing to do but wait.
He realised that someone was hovering at his elbow. ‘I don’t need another whisk—’ he began, and then saw that he was talking into the buxom chest of a woman. The woman appeared to be Asian, maybe one of those girls from Assam or Nagaland, who came to Mumbai to seek their fortune and so often ended up in places like this.
She smiled at him through a mask of make-up. She was attractive, Chopra couldn’t help but acknowledge, with shapely legs and an incredible bust, barely contained inside her halter-neck top. Her silky black hair was piled into a pineapple coif above her head.
‘Hello, sir,’ she said, in a husky voice, which made Chopra wince. ‘I haven’t seen you here before.’
‘No,’ he mumbled, ‘it’s my first time.’
‘Your first time?’ smiled the woman. ‘You look very experienced, sir. I can’t believe that for handsome man like you, this can be first time.’ She giggled lewdly.
He felt himself blush. ‘I didn’t mean that it was my first time with a–I mean… what I mean is it is my first time in this particular establishment.’
She continued to smile at him, moving closer so that her bosom was only inches from his face. Chopra realised that he had broken into a sweat. She looked down at him with her blue-lined eyes and whispered, huskily, ‘Would you like to come upstairs with me?’
‘Not now,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe later.’
‘Oh,’ said the woman, looking crestfallen, ‘so you do not think I am beautiful? You think I am ugly?’
‘Not at all,’ said Chopra desperately. ‘You are, ah, very attractive.’
The girl brightened. He knew that it was an act; he knew that he was being manipulated, and yet he felt like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an onrushing express train.
‘Then what is the problem?’
‘No problem,’ he muttered. ‘I’m just here to drink, that’s all.’
‘Just here to drink?’ The woman had raised her voice. ‘What do you mean?’
A very large man in a black safari suit materialised behind her. ‘What’s the problem here?’ he asked gruffly.
‘Mister says he is only here to drink. He does not like me.’
The large man looked down at Chopra. He had dark skin and a very thick moustache. ‘What’s your game, Mister?’ he growled. ‘No one insults my girls.’
‘I didn’t insult anyone,’ said Chopra through gritted teeth.
‘You turned her down, yes?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘He says he is only here to drink.’
‘Only here to drink?’ The moustache bounced up and down above the man’s mouth in utter incredulity. He glared at Chopra. ‘What the hell do you think this is? A fi
ve-star hotel?’
Chopra could see that the situation was spinning out of control. Men at the surrounding tables had turned to listen. Any more of this and his cover would be blown.
‘If you don’t want her, pick another girl. We have a good selection, something for all tastes.’
Chopra now had two choices. He could leave and wait outside for the man in the red hat to emerge. But if he did that he would not be able to see what happened inside the bar. What if Kala Nayak was in here somewhere, maybe even in one of the private rooms above, and the man in the red hat had arranged to meet him? No, he had to stay inside.
‘Look,’ he said desperately, ‘she is fine.’
‘Good,’ said the man, and wandered off.
The woman grinned at him. She bent down and whispered, ‘Come, let’s go upstairs.’
Chopra realised that he had no choice.
He followed the woman as she made her way through the maze of tables and up the stairs. His face was flushed with embarrassment. He was sure that every eye in the place was turned towards them, that every man was staring at him. But when he sneaked a quick look he saw that no one was watching them. No one cared. This was all part of the business of this place. He was just another customer, on his way to get his slice of heaven.
The woman led him into a dimly lit room with whitewashed walls and a single bed. She turned and said, all business now, ‘The rate is five hundred rupees.’
Chopra began to protest, but then simply took out his wallet and counted out five one-hundred-rupee notes. The woman took them and put them into a drawer beside the bed, which she locked with a key hanging from a chain around her neck. She had taken something from the drawer and handed it to him. It was a contraceptive. ‘Put that on,’ she ordered. Without further ado, she removed her halter-neck top and shimmied out of her skirt and shoes, then lay down on the bed.
Chopra stared at her naked body. He was struck dumb, by her beauty, and by his own feelings. He was a good man; he knew that. He should not be standing here, looking at this young woman, who was waiting for him to–to… waiting as she did for God only knew how many customers each night. He knew the wave of lust coursing through him was wrong. He looked away from the woman. ‘Listen to me,’ he said, ‘I need your help.’
ON THE BOAT
When he came back downstairs, some fifteen minutes later, he saw that the man in the red hat had also returned. Chopra went to his own table, where his Coke and whisky still waited.
‘Were you satisfied?’
He turned and saw the big man in the black safari suit looking down at him.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very satisfied.’ The man nodded and left.
Chopra continued to watch the man in the red hat. A few minutes later, the Asian girl came downstairs. She made her way to Chopra’s table and pretended to flirt with him again, sitting down on his lap and putting her arms around his neck as she whispered into his ear. ‘I spoke to my friend. She says the man did not meet anyone in her room. As far as she knows he does not meet anyone here except the friends he is sitting with. Do you want to know what he did with my friend?’
‘No,’ said Chopra. ‘I can guess.’
‘Chopra! My God, it is you!’
Chopra turned his head to find a man in a police inspector’s uniform bearing down on him on somewhat unsteady legs. ‘Wah! Wah! I never thought I would see the sun rise in the west!’ The man brandished a bottle of Kingfisher beer. He was tall and thin, with a brisk moustache and heavily oiled hair slicked back over a perfectly round skull.
Chopra was mortified. He knew the man. Inspector Amandeep Singh from the Chakala station. Singh was a passing acquaintance, rather than a friend. Over the years he had heard rumours that Singh played fast and loose with the rules, and led a cavalier lifestyle both in and out of his office. He cursed his luck that their paths had crossed tonight.
‘I admit, Chopra, you had us all fooled, yaar! We used to joke behind your back that Chopra’s so straight he’d arrest his own mother for spitting betel-nut in the street. Hwaw! Hwaw! Hwaw!’
Chopra winced. He remembered now the last time he’d heard Singh’s laugh, at a meeting of the local station heads a year ago. It sounded to his ears like a donkey being castrated.
‘By the way, I heard you retired.’ Singh raised his bottle in a toast. ‘Here’s to living the good life! Hwaw! Hwaw! Hwaw!’
Chopra felt himself blushing all over. Damn this clown! Surely his cover was blown now! His eyes flicked over to the man in the red hat, but he was on his mobile phone, his back turned to Singh’s circus act.
‘Look, Singh, let’s keep this to ourselves, yes?’
Singh tapped the side of his nose. His eyes revolved in their sockets. ‘Ah, yes! The wife! What was her name? Chippy?’ He winked lewdly at the girl on Chopra’s lap. ‘Much better here, I say. Different wife every night and no nagging afterwards! Hwaw! Hwaw! Hwaw!’
As Singh staggered away, Chopra felt a terrible sense of impending doom. He knew that by the next day, his reputation would be dust. Everyone would be talking about Chopra, the secret ladies bar aficionado.
He imagined the boys at the Sahar station shaking their heads in disbelief, refusing to accept the story at first, then becoming angry when they recalled how he had always pretended to be such a stickler. ‘You never know what lies beneath,’ they’d say, and their faith in human nature would ebb just a little bit lower.
The man in the red hat left the bar three hours later. By that time it was deep into the night. He walked, somewhat unsteadily, to his bike. Chopra followed him out. He was not feeling terribly steady himself. It had been impossible to maintain his seat in the bar for three hours without drinking. His head was beginning to throb, and he could feel a burning sensation in his throat. It took him three attempts to gain his footing on the Enfield’s clutch.
He followed the man in the red beret through Lokhandwala and into Versova. The roads were empty now, and the rushing wind helped clear Chopra’s head a little. He thought of the last thing the young woman in the Queen of the Night had told him. ‘You asked me to find out this man’s name. His name is Shetty.’
Shetty. On the day that he had died Santosh had written in his diary: ‘Meet S. at Moti’s, 9 p.m.’ Was Shetty ‘S.’? Chopra could not be sure, but he had to believe that he was on the right track. Had Santosh kept his meeting with this Shetty at Motilal’s that evening? If so, a few hours after that meeting he had been killed.
They followed Yari Road as it curved around to its terminus in the Koli fishing village behind Versova Beach. Chopra found it difficult to track the man in the red beret–Shetty–through the narrow winding alleyways of the village, but every time he thought he had lost him, he would catch a glimpse of red.
The village was quiet, bedded down for the night; a few lungi-clad fishermen smoked beedis on their verandas and watched them pass with slitted eyes, but otherwise there was little activity.
There were many such villages dotted around the coast of Mumbai. Chopra knew that they were insular communities descended from the city’s original fisherfolk, when Mumbai had been little more than a series of marshy islands. Most were intensely distrustful of the police, and for good reason. Fishing was a hard life and many communities supplemented their income by aiding and abetting organised smuggling operations.
Finally they emerged onto Versova Beach.
Chopra had been here once before, many years ago, in the company of an enthusiastic friend who had got him out here at an ungodly hour so that they could buy fish directly from the boats as they came in. Pomfret and Bombay duck; tiger prawns and baby shark; squid and ladyfish; mackerel and surmai; hilsa and rohu. Now, the fishing boats lay beached, colourful hulls exposed to the night. Above the beach a crescent moon shone down, glazing the water with a silvery sheen.
On the water, a large trawler bobbed by the wooden jetty which stuck out from a concrete apron overlooking the beach. The trawler was tethered to a mooring post at the end of the
jetty.
Shetty parked his bike and walked over the gangplank and onto the trawler. He disappeared inside.
Chopra parked his own bike on the concrete apron behind a row of oil drums lined up next to an old abandoned shack. The air stank of drying fish.
He took out his binoculars. Peering out from above the oil drums, he settled down to watch the boat.
After an hour, during which nothing happened, he heard the rumble of a powerful engine behind him. He ducked down as bright lights swept the beach. A Mercedes slid to a halt on the far edge of the concrete apron. Two men got out, one of them in a white suit and holding a cane. Chopra watched through the binoculars as the men walked along the jetty and went onto the trawler. Just before he ducked into the boat the man with the cane turned around; his eyes swept the beach. For a brief second moonlight caught his face. Chopra felt his breath catch in his throat. Nayak.
He waited for thirty minutes. After that, he could wait no longer. He had to know.
Chopra took out his revolver and checked the chamber one more time. He walked along the concrete apron and onto the wooden jetty. Just before he stepped onto the trawler he was overcome by a sudden wave of self-doubt. What was he doing?!
All his life, he had been a by-the-book officer. What he was now proposing to do was reckless; foolhardy in the extreme. As a policeman, it showed a blatant disregard for procedure. But that was the point–he was no longer a policeman. Chopra knew that if he called for backup, as a former officer he would probably be sent a team from the local police station.
