Mumbai Noir

by Altaf Tyrewala

  Goa was a great place to grow up, but I was destined to move to Mumbai. A builder tricked my ailing father into selling our ancestral Cortalim home for a song. It rankles me even today, after so many years.

  I did a lot of drudgery jobs in Mumbai—waiting tables, selling water filters, working for a courier company—before I answered a “trainee operatives” ad for a place called Aces Private Detective Agency. Their motto was: Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Bizarre. The things I did as a trainee I would like to forget. What I did when I was employed as a regular operative I would like to forget even more—waiting tables is much more honorable and you live longer. That is, if you want to live in this soulless metro-retro city which belongs only to the rich and powerful who flaunt their jaded lifestyles by living in baroque maximum-security homes with “intelligent” toilets and travel by private jets to meet their boutique mistresses in the capital. Of course, to carefully coincide with well-timed, ego-massaging visits to some sympathetic ministers and bureaucrats to influence policy and decisions. Crime now sits in high places—insular and mocking. I can’t remember who said that. Must be the vodka.

  I resigned from the detective agency for what is euphemistically known as “personal reasons.” The truth is, we had a terrific row over the case of a big-ticket industrialist who wanted the criminal charges against his profligate son dropped or diluted. He—the son—had mowed down six people in a drunken stupor while driving his flashy SUV after a late-night party. The agency was hired by the parents of one of the hapless victims who were killed. All the evidence I had painstakingly gathered was dismissed by the boss of the agency and the cops as “fanciful conjectures of a drinking detective.” I felt lousy.

  The decibel level at Sameer’s place was getting a bit too loud for my liking so I decided to call it a day. I walked up to the bar where Sameer was in an animated discussion with a pock-marked guy who had the telltale look of a contract killer.

  “Thanks, Sameer. Rasputin was smooth.”

  “Drop in again. Try the Havana rum next time.”

  “I will. Who’s your beautiful friend?”

  “Does a few odd jobs for me.”

  “Like what?”

  “Garbage disposal.”

  “Good night. When do you close?”

  “We never close—we’re in the service business.” He grinned. “Good night.”

  I took a sagging and smelly black-and-yellow cab to my dingy pad in a rundown building on a narrow and filthy bylane of Dhobi Talao to get some much-needed sleep.

  It was a pleasantly sunny December morning when I got off— or more accurately, was shoved out—of the harbor-line local train at Bandra station. I took a rickshaw to Pali Hill. The garrulous driver mistook me for a tourist and kept up an unsolicited commentary on the famous and infamous residents of the Hill. He pointed to a big bungalow and said: “That’s where I dropped him last night. His car had run out of gas on Carter Road. He was tight and gave me one hundred rupees as a tip.”

  “Who?”

  He looked at me in amazement. “You mean you don’t know?”

  “No,” I said.

  He did an imitation of an actor to jog my memory.

  “I give up.”

  He did another imitation, this time more elaborate.

  “Pass,” I said. “And I’ll get out here.” I gave him a fiverupee tip; he gave me a pitying look. “I am not in the movies,” I explained.

  I walked for some time—uphill, taking in the sights and smells—till I came to the building I was looking for. My destination was the Pali Hill Association for the Ethical Treatment of Residents.

  If you lived here you had arrived, or at least you got free invites to fashionable book launches and fashion shows where they serve cheese and wine—that is, if you could sit through the dreary readings by earnest authors of trivia or the silly posturing of starlets in ridiculous outfits conceived by designers with a very tenuous grip on reality.

  I rang the bell of the third-floor apartment with an ornate door depicting peacocks in bas-relief.

  Two dogs started a barking chorus.

  The door opened and a sixty-something white-haired man— in a designer maroon kurta and wooden beads—appeared. He had a look of mild annoyance or disapproval on his face.

  “Good morning,” I said, raising my voice above the dogs’ din. “Are you the chairman of the association?”

  “Yes, I am.” He was curt.

  “My name is Bharat Kumar. I need some information on Pali Hill residents. May I come in?”

  “What kind of information?” He was leery. “Come in,” he added reluctantly. The most difficult part of a private detective’s job is to get entry. The rest is usually a cakewalk.

  “Thank you,” I said entering the large living room, as the two Labs—black and beige—jumped all over me. They were happy to have company. I petted them to calm them and they quickly settled down, panting, near my feet. I parked myself on the overstuffed sofa—probably Italian, though I wouldn’t bet any money on it.

  “My dogs like you,” he said in a softer tone.

  “Yeah, I like dogs. They are very instinctive.”

  “Do you have dogs?”

  “No, but I know some in the neighborhood very well. I feed them.”

  “And what neighborhood would that be, Mr. Kumar?” He was trying to size me up.

  “Altamount Road,” I said glibly. It was the first thought that popped into my head.

  He looked at me skeptically but didn’t say anything out of politeness. “You wanted to know something about the residents here,” he said instead.

  “You see, Mr. Chairman, I am scouting for a quiet property here. Altamount Road is getting too crowded and crass for my liking. Too much one-upmanship.”

  “I agree,” he said.

  “I was wondering if you have a list of the residents of this enchanting place. It would be nice to know who our neighbors are going to be.” I was playing the long shot. You have to in this business.

  “What’s your budget, if I may ask? I am also a real estate agent.” That came as a surprise; it was not part of the script. But I should have known better. Every third person in this city is either a stockbroker, realtor, or insurance salesman.

  “Five,” I ventured. I was thinking in thousands but he presumed I meant crores. That suited me fine.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Another unscripted surprise.

  “Sure. What you got?”

  “Anything ever bottled or canned. You name it.”

  “I’ll settle for a Heineken.” After all, what the hell, I live in Altamount Road, the world’s tenth most expensive address, where the residents buy islands in the Caribbean as a hobby.

  “Heineken it is,” he said expansively.

  He got me the can of beer from the kitchen fridge and poured himself a large Teacher’s from the ornate bar across the sofa I was slouched in.

  “Cheers. To Pali Hill,” he intoned in a deep Bogart voice.

  “Cheers,” I said. “To Pali Hill.”

  After a full hour and a half of this nonsense of raising toasts to Pali Hill, I managed to get the list from him. It was touch and go. But I’ve been there many times. I promised to contact him—to look at the “once in a lifetime” properties he “exclusively” represented for his “reputed” clients—as soon as the missus was back from her shopping trip to Dubai. I patted the dogs—he had named them Google and Yahoo!—and got up to leave. They gave me doleful looks, almost imploring me not to go. But I had work to do. Find Jasmine—dead or alive.

  “Thanks for the beers.” I made a quick exit.

  At a cybercafé down the road I printed out the list he had given me from my flash drive. It made for fascinating reading: a Page 3 Who’s Who of Mumbai. Or was it, as a journalist once wagged at the Press Club, the Who’s Why? The list was long and methodical—name, occupation, religion, sex, age, club membership, vegetarian or nonvegetarian, details of pets, names and domicile of domestic help, owner
or tenant, duration of occupation, etc. The only information missing in the list was whether the residents—dominated by the Khans, Kapoors, Shahs, and Patels—preferred the missionary position or the Japanese one.

  For the next two hours, over coffee and sandwiches, I scrutinised the “occupation” column of the Excel sheet—the listing of film financiers was far too long for my liking. Salim Chingari could be under the benevolent protection of any one of them. I needed a short list of three for a fighting chance of finding Jasmine.

  I knew just the right man who could help me do that. I was going to use my social network, again, which I have assiduously cultivated over the last thirty years. A private detective is only as good as his contacts.

  “This is a surprise, Shorty! Where the fuck have you been recently?”

  “All over town.”

  “Looking for something?”

  “Yeah. Love and sympathy.”

  “Forget it. Even the Salvation Army is out of stock.”

  “Got to be somewhere. Dalal Street?”

  “Something on your mind?”

  “Need to find a film financier.”

  “Don’t choke me, Shorty. Are you thinking of making a movie about your life, Jab I Fart?”

  He laughed outrageously at his own witticism. I let him have a little fun at my expense—I’m not touchy. Besides, Rafique Irani knows everyone and his uncle in the city. I was at his spacious sea-facing office in Nariman Point. The corpulent and jovial Irani is India’s Recycling King and his life’s ambition is to be on the Forbes list of Asia’s richest entrepreneurs. I am sure he will get there. Besides collecting truckloads of old newspapers, plastics, and bottles every day and sending them to China by the shipload, he’s also a personal collector of antiques—especially Titanic memorabilia. He has quite a collection which he showed me once at his Worli residence.

  One of his kinks—in a long list—is that he doesn’t like neighbors. So he bought the whole building and converted it into a private museum with the top floor as his residence. He’s one moneybag in Mumbai I have a sneaking affection for. He has a sense of humour—the Parsi kind—and doesn’t take himself too seriously. I got to know him because I had once given him a hot tip that a certain liquor baron was moving in for the kill to buy a rare pair of Roman wine goblets from a source in Istanbul. Rafique Irani beat him to it in a photo finish. I was at his house that night when he opened one of the rarest single-malt bottles on earth—to celebrate. I really couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about. It tasted like booze.

  After he had calmed down a bit, I showed him the list and gave him a camouflaged outline of the case I was on. I urged him to identify the three most likely film financiers with underworld connections. He studied it for five minutes, picked up a pen, and circled a name. “Here’s my shortlist of one.”

  I looked at the name he had circled in red—Dr. Prem Pardeshi. I wondered about the subject of his thesis.

  “You’re sure?”

  “As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow and a politician will take a bribe.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Nope. I know about him from my business sources.”

  “Thanks. Anything I can do for you?”

  “Yes, Shorty. Get me the Kohinoor diamond. My fiftieth birthday is just round the corner.” He burst into his boisterous laugh again.

  “Sure,” I said. “Give me a couple of days to talk to the queen.”

  For the next four days I was busier than a pandit during marriage season. I was on Pardeshi’s tail like a man possessed. I wanted to bring an honorable closure to this case to salvage my self-esteem—I was not ready yet for Konduskar’s description of a “washed-out” private detective.

  I used every trick in the trade to shadow him. Pardeshi was a man you could easily lose in a crowd—fiftyish, short, frail, and nondescript. I hired a retired policewoman to help with the shadow work. She is very good at tailing people in the guise of an old woman selling flowers. Part of her old police work.

  By the third day we had a good fix on Pardeshi’s routine. He would kiss his tired-looking wife goodbye at the door of his apartment at Buena Vista in Pali Hill and head straight for a sleazy massage parlor in Santa Cruz called Tasty Bites. Two hours later he would be on his way to a bar in Andheri named Natasha’s Nest. I followed him inside on the third day. I was in disguise—wearing thick specs—and sat at one of the distant barstools sipping a Bombay beer, the least pricey one in the joint. He had a forlorn expression on his face—typical of afternoon drinkers. He ordered another drink and something to eat which looked like omelet and bread. I ordered a grilled cheese-and-tomato sandwich to while away the time.

  His next stop was at a building in Lokhandwala complex— one of the biggest concrete jungles after Gurgaon. He was there for barely forty-five minutes—presumably in his office. Maybe the film finance business was at a low ebb; how much of the same old shit can the public really take? Then he got into his heavily tinted black Accord and was most likely headed home—for a well-deserved siesta. I followed him in my hired-for-the-day rickshaw to the base of the Hill, like I had done the previous two days. I have used Mustafa’s services on tailing assignments before—he doesn’t talk much, is the soul of discretion, and is an expert driver in Mumbai’s saturated traffic. And, as a bonus, his rickshaw is spotlessly clean. I like that.

  On the fourth day I got the break I was looking for. Pardeshi skipped his massage—or whatever—and was heading toward Juhu beach. He seemed to be in a major hurry judging from the persistent honking. I had a strong hunch he would connect with Chingari—on orders from his bosses in Dubai, Karachi, Colombo, or god knows where.

  My hunch was right. He drove into a gate of a two-story bungalow which had all the signs of a safe house—still, quiet, eerie. We waited across the road and Mustafa pretended to change a tire so that we wouldn’t attract too much attention. I gave him precise instructions.

  I was on edge but ready with my act.

  In about fifteen minutes the black car came out of the gate. I couldn’t see too well because of the heavy tint but I was reasonably sure there was no one else in the car except Pardeshi and his young driver.

  I made my move. I was going to make a very high-risk pizza delivery.

  I entered the gate, walked up the driveway, and rang the bell next to the heavy door. Nothing happened so I rang again. Now I could hear some activity inside.

  “Who’s that?” a gruff voice said in Hindi.

  “Domino’s Pizza, sir.”

  “I haven’t ordered any pizza-wizzah. Get lost,” the voice barked.

  “This is a free promotion offer, sir, of our new kheema and karela pizza.” I recited this in an American BPO accent.

  The door opened. No one can resist a free pizza!

  It was Salim Chingari all right—all dressed up to make a quick exit from the safe house. He didn’t get very far; I had him right where I wanted him. He was looking at the barrel of my licensed gun in extreme close-up.

  “Sorry about the pizza, sir. The promotion just expired.”

  Though grouchy, Konduskar kept his promise. He booked Chingari on multiple charges—extortion, assault and battery, unlawful confinement, among others. The next day Chingari spilled the beans and begged for a fix of heroin. He was not so tough after all. What worried me was that he was an escape artist—from jails. But then, I am not his keeper, only his finder.

  The Nagpada cops and I traced Jasmine that night—not in very good shape but alive. She had been kept as a “prisoner of obsessive love” by Chingari—the hophead fixer of Nagpada. She was in a nursing home in Lower Parel—why there’s no Upper Parel, I have no idea—shot full of sedatives to ease the pain inflicted by a horsewhip. When Jasmine was well enough I took her “home”—to Hawa Bai’s high-class whorehouse where she belonged. She didn’t have anywhere else to go. The story of so many young and hapless girls, from all parts of the country, who are tricked into this business by ruthless agents working
for entrenched establishments like Hawa Bai’s.

  It was a touching reunion—even for a hardened private detective pushing fifty.

  “Come and spend a night with one of my girls when you’re feeling blue, handsome,” Hawa Bai said in her imperious tone, handing me the rest of the money.

  “Maybe.” I took the cash and left.

  The next morning I called up Rafique Irani at his office.

  “Mr. Irani, the queen has graciously consented. She wants to present the rock to you in person. When would be convenient?”

  “Tell her majesty I’ll be there before she can say East India Company.” I could hear the guffaw.

  “The case is closed. I found the girl.”

  “Good for you, Shorty. Was it worth it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come over for a drink tonight. I want to hear the details. This raddi business is getting me down.”

  “Sure,” I said. “And I’ll pick up some biryani from Altaf’s on my way.”

  He’s a big pushover for gourmet biryani. In his private museum there’s a set of vintage copper and brass biryani cooking handis from the Mughal era.

  Rafique Irani had company when I walked into his penthouse. His lady love, I presumed, from their body language.

  “I am Behroze Ichaporia,” she introduced herself. “And you’re Shorty Gomes, of course. I have heard so much about you and your exploits from Raf.”

  “Don’t believe a word of it, Miss Ichaporia. It’s pretty dull stuff: all in a day’s work. Our friend here exaggerates and embellishes things to make my work sound interesting, like advertising.”