by Gabriel Khan
‘All right, Ranveer, what do you have?’
‘Like I said, sir, I’m not sure. There was a raid at some shop in a place called—’ he squinted at a piece of paper.
I steepled my hands in front of my face and looked at him over the fingertips. ‘Bada Bazar,’ I said.
He looked up quickly. ‘How did you know?’
‘I got a call from an old friend. I know. Same as before. Four men, CBI raid, police—’
Rahul interrupted. ‘Not CBI, income tax.’
I sat up. ‘Are you sure?’
He nodded.
Now this was puzzling. Banerjee had said CBI. These guys always posed as the CBI. Then why the income-tax department, now? Of course, the IT fellows were robbers too, but they hid behind desks and policies and the law. This meant that there could be another group of men with the same modus operandi. A statistical impossibility, my brain told me. Which could only mean that the IT raid was for real. And if it was, maybe…
I looked at Ranveer. ‘Do you have the details?’
He nodded.
‘All right. The IT raid was in Bada Bazar?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then maybe they know about some other raid in the same vicinity.’
A look of doubt crept onto Rahul’s face. ‘Are you sure, sir? It seems a stretch…’
I nodded, not looking at him. ‘I know it’s a long shot. But we have to try something. The news of the robbery will be out in every newspaper tomorrow. It’ll scare the gang. Meanwhile, the more information we can get on them, the better. We’ll have more ammo, and they’ll be scared. Better chances of catching them.’
Rahul looked doubtful, but didn’t protest.
Ranveer was still standing, looking from Rahul to me. ‘Get onto the IT guys who held the raid,’ I told him. ‘I want all details on their raid, and if they saw or noticed anyone else. They may not remember anything, but every little bit counts.’
Long shots only work in movies, when the hero has just a few seconds left to escape a horrific death, or when the detective needs inspiration and his obliging imagination hands him one. It doesn’t happen in real life – a motto I’ve always lived by.
Well, there are always exceptions.
Within half an hour, the IT guys had told us about the other party who’d stumbled into their raid, said they’d got the wrong address and hurried away. They told us that the men were followed by the Calcutta Police. They then gave us the most stupendous lead we’d got in the case yet – descriptions of the gang members. Well, most of them, at any rate.
‘Yeah, I know the leader is a fat bastard with a moustache. He’s an ex-cop. What else?’ I asked the man who had led the IT team, a man called Ghoshal.
‘You’re… er… mistaken, Mr Khan,’ Ghoshal said. ‘The fat one was a lackey. The leader was much younger.’
This was new. And significant. ‘Younger?’ I said, trying to keep the excitement from my voice.
‘Yes, around twenty-five or twenty-six,’ he said. ‘Yelled at the… em… fat bastard for bringing him to the wrong address.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Medium build, close-cropped hair, clean shaven, spectacles, thinnish, I’d call him. He was wearing a blue checked shirt with black trousers.’
Impressive, I thought. Only, he’d described about 40 per cent of the Indian population. Anyway, now we knew one crucial thing. Mr X was a young man. And where there are young leaders, there are bound to be unhappy middle-aged men pissed off at being lorded over. That gave us an advantage, a hook to pull in Sharma and use him against the gang. Plus, of course, a young leader would surround himself with young folk. Which meant that there was a high probability the other two in the gang were also around the same age.
I left the ‘thank you for your information, it was most helpful’ job to Rahul. I had to think. I needed a plan.
The next week was spent in hectic, indeed frenzied research. This time, all three of us — Rahul, Ranveer and myself — were working, instead of the two of them doing the grinding stuff and me doing the thinking. We were looking for a link.
We dug into Sharma’s file again and this time, we went through all his known acquaintances with increased attention. Everything after Sharma’s suspension for trying to take a bribe was hauled up. Somewhere along the way, we would find Mr X. It was straightforward, logical common sense. If you look hard enough, you’ll find what you’re looking for.
Unfortunately, nobody seemed to have informed logic or common sense, because nearly a week went by without any of us being the wiser. We dug deeper, went further into the past, but all it showed us was the opposite of what we were looking for. The man Sharma, even during his tenure with the police force, had mixed with his peers, not with those above him, nor with those below. And almost all of his peers were of his age, or thereabouts. Nobody even came close to the description we had got from the IT man.
Maybe the son of a friend, or a nephew. But no, again we drew a blank. Sharma didn’t have any nephews, and the only young acquaintance he had was the son of one of his former colleagues in the force. We had just begun to feel lucky when we discovered that the kid had been killed in a motorcycle accident.
Nothing, nothing suggested that Sharma had even met a youth, let alone allowed him to join his gang. The gentle grilling of his family during the wedding had revealed nothing. Of course, there were hundreds of dove-eyed idiots mooning about like they always do at weddings, but it was not just difficult to identify a genius criminal mastermind among them, it was impossible.
After a week, I left the work to the indomitable Rahul and Ranveer, and finally went home.
Shazia had just returned from Bombay, where she had gone to visit her aunt. She was always insisting that we move to Bombay, and that I should apply for a transfer, and now as usual she was filled with the charm of that city and its fast life and opportunities. ‘I’m telling you, darling,’ she would say, ‘you should tell them to send you to Bombay. Then you’ll see what life is like. Oh, the people there are so friendly, and they’re all so energetic…’ She would go on for a while, quite forgetting that she loved Delhi, loved its old-world charm, the wide roads, its many romantic, historic settings.
This time, too, was no different. She had returned full of stories, and I ate my dinner listening to her talk of how beautiful the sunset was on Marine Drive.
Maybe it was the lingering excitement of Bombay, or perhaps she had been missing me, but that night, she came to me hot and willing, seducing me like she used to just after our marriage. Not many people went against their families to marry, but we had, and had never regretted it for a moment. But however deep our love remained, the fires of passion needed constant rekindling, and tonight I saw her fully kindled.
I didn’t wait for us to get to bed. I didn’t wait for us to undress. Snatching her up in my arms, I bore her to the divan, her hands clawing at my shirt’s buttons. My hand wormed her way into her blouse and settled around her soft breasts; then I ripped her blouse open, finally revealing her ample bosom, the pain from the broken wrist worth every second of the blissful sight, the feel of her naked body against mine.
We were both breathing heavily as I massaged her breast with one hand, the other sliding down slowly towards her navel. There it found unfamiliarity, and stopped. ‘What’s this?’ I asked.
‘It’s a silver waist chain,’ she gasped. ‘I got it from Zaveri Bazar, Bombay.’
‘Let’s get it off, my love,’ I said, fumbling with the damn thing. Nothing like a useless piece of jewellery blocking the journey of your lust, dampening your libido.
‘You know, we should really move to Bombay,’ she said, moaning as my fingers caressed her naked skin. Skin that hardly saw the light of day. ‘You can go there for the CBI. They’re hiring…’ Her voice trailed off as I kneaded her skin, my fingers almost at—
‘The CBI hiring?’ I said, temporarily baffled.
She had thrown her head back in pleasure. ‘My brother
told me. They’re hiring men for the CBI in Bombay. Maybe you should apply again, and ask for a posting in Bombay.’
Something was wrong. It nagged at the back of my mind like an unscratchable itch. I shrugged it away. Shazia’s hands were moving towards my trousers and undoing my belt. It was flung aside, and her hand slowly moved further…
I froze. She felt my body stiffen, and stopped herself. ‘What is it?’
‘The CBI. Hiring in Bombay. Where did your brother hear that?’
My heart was beating faster as she answered, and it wasn’t because of the blood rushing the way it had been heading these last few minutes. ‘It was in some newspaper.’ She frowned. ‘Why?’
Damn. Sometimes, I hated having the brain of a cop. ‘Darling,’ I said, getting up, ‘the CBI doesn’t hire. They recruit. Through exams, training, and more exams. The best get through.’
My wife looked bewildered, and infuriated. ‘And that’s why you’re getting up? Leaving me here like this?’
Uh oh. Here we go, again. ‘I’m so sorry, my love. But I promise you, if all goes well, if I catch these bastards I’m after, we’ll go to Bombay.’
She gave me a look of disbelief, sat up slowly and started buttoning up her blouse. ‘You’d better go. I know that look. You won’t stop until you get them.’
They say few men can achieve anything without the support of a woman. Looking at Shazia, I couldn’t agree more.
My mind was still half full of her as I reached the office, a fact made apparent by Ranveer, who pointed out that my fly was open. But as I revealed my hunch, the case slowly filled to take up every available space in my head.
‘Rahul, get onto the grapevine on the double. First find out if the CBI does put out such advertisements in newspapers, which I’m sure they don’t!’ The idea was laughable. By the time I’d got my cup of coffee and returned to my desk, he was back, smiling.
‘They’re all laughing, sir,’ he replied to my quizzical look. ‘The CBI doesn’t work like that, they said.’
I sat down at my desk and said, ‘Anything else?’
Clearly, from Ranveer’s face as he stared out of the window, avoiding both Rahul’s eyes and mine, there had been a lot more. Being the faithful men they were, both Rahul and Ranveer shook their heads. ‘No, nothing much, sir,’ Rahul said, his face wooden.
‘Hmm. Well, anyway, that was just to confirm. So A, the CBI didn’t put out that ad. B, that means that someone else did. C, that means that someone did something illegal. D, we find out who it is.’
I was going to go through a few more alphabets, but Ranveer interrupted. ‘Sir, while Rahul was checking up on… ahem… anyway, I called a friend of mine in Bombay, told him to check the ad.’
He looked down at his notepad, which went everywhere with him. ‘This is what it says,’ he said, and handed me the pad.
‘Wanted 50 dynamic graduates for intelligence officers post and security officers post. Males and Females. Come personally for interview with bio-data, certificates, passport size photo at Holiday Inn Hotel enquiry counter between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Thursday.’
‘When was this?’ I asked.
‘Sunday. Yesterday, sir,’ Ranveer said, apparently needing to explain further. ‘Of course, now it’s Tuesday, but—’
Rahul shushed him into silence with a look. I continued staring at the ad.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. It just couldn’t. It was too pat, too well-timed. But they were talking about the CBI, which was at the centre of Mr X’s MO. So what the hell did it all mean?
I turned to Rahul. ‘The two of you, take two men and fly out to Bombay. Immediately. The ad says Thursday, that’s day after tomorrow. So you have one day. Get on the first flight to Bombay and use your instincts. You know how I’m thinking, you’ve been with this case from the start. Try to think like the leader.’
Ranveer interrupted. ‘Yes, sir, but what do you want us to do?’
‘I want you to stake out as many places as you can think of where the gang might hit. Take some men from here, but when you get there, get some local cops behind you. Get them to tell you the sensitive spots, the smaller traders who look small but deal big. That’s the gang’s MO. That’s where they’ll hit.’
Rahul nodded, his face rapt with attention. Ranveer, on the other hand, looked dumbfounded. ‘Sir, Bombay is huge! How can just a few of us—’
I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘Son, I told you you’d get your opportunity to prove yourself. Well, here’s your first. Use your brains, put yourself in their place, and take a few guesses. You’ve studied their hits, figure it out.’
‘But won’t you come?’
‘I’ll come. But first, I have to read up on all of this. You guys get there and start work. I’ll join you in the afternoon.’
Rahul got up. ‘When do we leave, sir?’
I had just picked up the phone and was dialling as I answered. ‘Well, I’m calling the chief now for permission, so in another half hour.’
Everything about the operation was one big guess. An educated guess, of course, born of years of instinctual thinking, now honed to near perfection. When I arrived in Bombay the next evening and went to the rendezvous site, I expected some results.
Apparently, I’d underestimated the situation.
I’d just settled into the makeshift HQ in Worli police camp when Ranveer and Rahul walked in. Both of them looked as if they’d had a long, hard, tiring, but in the end fruitful day.
Rahul spoke. ‘I think we’ve got him, sir.’
I didn’t say anything. No point jumping to conclusions without getting the full picture.
‘We cased almost all of the city, from yesterday morning. We contacted the CBI’s city unit, and they in turn mobilized the local police.’
‘Ah. Solanki, isn’t it?’
‘No, sir. Solanki’s retired.’
About time. ‘I see. So who’s in charge now?’
‘Solanki.’
There was a pause.
‘Not my fault if they have the same name,’ Rahul grumbled under his breath.
Ranveer coughed an interruption. ‘Hmm, by the way, sir, I thought there was a lot of jurisdiction nonsense in such cases, bad blood and all?’
I nodded. ‘There is. If people from another state come to your place and try to lord it over you and call you incompetent, I doubt you’d want to invite them in for a nice cold one.’
‘Then how…?’
‘I have friends, Ranveer. I scratch their back, they scratch mine. I told them my men needed some assistance and a hurdle-free path.’
Rahul nodded. ‘I thought as much. Well, whoever your friends are, sir, please tell them we appreciate their help. It would’ve been a lot more difficult without them.’
I nodded, then gestured impatiently. ‘All right, what do you have?’
Rahul took an envelope out of his bag and deposited it on the table in front of me. ‘Photographs, sir. At a jeweller’s shop in a place called Zaveri Bazar. The jewellers in that area are some of the biggest in the city. I was there this afternoon. Last evening, I called that income-tax guy again in Calcutta, and got him to fax me a rough sketch of the man he saw.’
He handed me the sketch. Then he pulled out some photographs from the envelope. ‘Check it out, sir.’
I held up the sketch and the photo and compared them. It might just be the one. In fact, it had to be the one. Either the sketch artist was good, or the IT fellow had insisted on the details, but whatever it was, the bloke in the photograph was even wearing the same shirt as in the sketch. And he fit. He certainly fit the description.
Finally. A part of my brain switched off its lights and went to bed. It was the part that kept supplying the rest with imaginary figures. Now there was no more need for it. I have a face for you, Mr X. All I need now is a name.
I knew it was highly improbable, but I tried anyway. ‘Do we have a name?’ I said, not taking my eyes off the photo.
Out of the corner of my eye, I sa
w Ranveer shake his head. ‘No, sir. I checked all records, went through everything we have. I can confirm that we’ve never met this guy before.’
Oh well, guess you’ll have to be Mr X a little longer, chum. I’m here now, and I’m on your tail.
There was that nagging feeling again, and I realized soon what it was. But it was Rahul who gave voice to it.
‘Sir,’ he said, scratching his head apologetically. ‘If this fellow is as brainy as he seems, why would he make such an obvious mistake?’
I’d been hoping nobody would ask that. But then these were my men. Naturally they’ll think of everything between them.
I shook my head. ‘The human mind is a strange thing, Rahul. Give it some panic and a lot of food for thought, and sooner or later, it’s bound to make a mistake.’
Both Rahul and Ranveer nodded. The words certainly seemed plausible enough.
Unknown (hopefully) to the two, I too had my reservations. This guy was such a genius that he’d been with Sharma god knows how long and had the much older ex-cop eating out of his hand. At just twenty-six or twenty- seven years of age, he had outwitted a senior, veteran cop. So why would someone like that make the elementary mistake of going to a high-stakes area wearing what he’d been last identified in? It almost seemed as if he was letting himself be recognized!
I shrugged the thought away the moment it came to me. No way. I was not going to go down that road, the steady downhill climb of paranoia. If you started believing one thing, you’d start believing in half a dozen other things that didn’t deserve consideration. Best to wait for cold hard facts.
Maybe the brilliance had paled just the slightest bit, and a crack had shown through. That was all I needed.
I nodded to the photo in my hand. You’ve made a mistake, pal. Now it’s your move again. We’ll see who has the last laugh.
15
Planning the Con
It’s always unsettling to sit in front of a calm, composed and totally self-assured man. At least, it is for most people.
The man sitting in the chair was feeling unsettled. Of course, the supremely uncomfortable high chair didn’t help at all.
