Fear Is the Key

by Juggi Bhasin

  The maddened husband threw an iron artefact at Fredo, which hit him with some force. Fredo screamed, and the main hall and passageway erupted with screams and the vilest of abuses. The husband gave chase to the two perverts who disappeared into the master bedroom with Fredo in the lead, his member still hanging out. The enraged husband picked up a cricket bat from the passageway and rushed into the bedroom. He walloped the help and Fredo mercilessly. All three crashed on the bed in a heap and Fredo, who was at the bottom, urinated in sheer panic. The Nepali help, being of small build, squeezed out of the tangle and bit the sahib ferociously on his buttocks.

  By this time, the horrified memsahib had come out of the bathroom draped in a towel. She screamed her head off at the goings-on in the bedroom. A pizza delivery boy, beaten black and blue, was sobbing. His zip was open and his bruised member hung out. Her husband lay immobilized and groaning on their bed. His pants were torn from the back and there were bite marks on his bum. He was in pain and moaning, ‘The little bastard! He bit me! He has given me rabies . . .’

  That moment of confusion allowed Fredo and the Nepali help to escape the flat and the wrath of the owners. But it was all over for Fredo, at least in the short run. The husband called up Fredo’s pizza delivery chain, which immediately fired him when told about the seriousness of the crime. The husband, however, did not lodge a complaint with the police because he had no desire to narrate the graphic details to the cops. Some things were best brushed under the carpet, he reasoned with his wife. Fredo came very close to being locked up in a prison. He walked free, but only just.

  Word spread quickly and nobody wanted to hire a pervert. Within a week, Fredo went from being a voyeur on wheels, trigger-happy with the camera and his sexual kinks, to a man who wondered where his next meal would come from. The prospect of going back to his village in Himachal loomed before him. He resolved that he would jump before the metro rather than take that option. One last bet would be to go back to the man who supplemented his income in times of need. So, late one evening, he climbed the steps to the shop in Nehru Place, praying for a miracle.

  A younger-looking bearded man sat on the chair where Prasad would forever be seated come rain or shine. Fredo could not mask his surprise at seeing Rahul.

  ‘You are?’ Fredo asked Rahul.

  Rahul ignored him and went on working at the desktop before him.

  ‘Hello, I am looking for Prasad,’ said Fredo, unable to hide the desperation in his voice.

  Rahul looked up and answered matter-of-factly, ‘I am the man who’s replaced Prasad. He sold off his business to me. You are?’

  With desperate eyes, Fredo looked around the room as if Prasad was playing a trick on him and would materialize from thin air. Again, he looked at the young man and was about to answer but checked himself.

  Rahul stared back and said after a pause, ‘I am not the police, if that’s what you are thinking. You must be a supplier. I can make one out. Harami has been a loss-making venture for quite some time. I bought it from him because I can turn it around.’

  Fredo licked his dry lips and engaged with the bearded man. ‘Glad that Prasad is not a part of this. He could be . . . eh . . . brutal. I have some stuff to show you. I . . . er . . . need some money desperately. My name is Fredo. Your name?’

  Rahul felt no need to answer that question. He let Fredo simmer in his juices for some time. He took his time to finish his work on the desktop and then pushed the keyboard drawer away after logging off.

  ‘Okay. I have heard about you. You were caught shagging at work. That’s very unprofessional.’

  A cry that sounded like a moan escaped Fredo’s lips. He was ready to cry.

  ‘I accept my mistake, Sir. It has ruined me. I should have been more careful and organized. But let me tell you, Sir, I am a good worker. I can go on a stake-out for any length of time to get my shots . . .’

  Rahul held up his hand.

  ‘I don’t have time for this. I operate in a different way. You are not the only pervert in the city. Every second person is one. Ultimately, in this world we cohabit, only the quality of work matters. People have short memories. They will eventually forget there was a character called Fredo. But if your work is good, you will survive. Show me your stuff.’

  Fredo quickly wiped his tears and handed over his phone to Rahul, who carefully looked at the shots that had sealed Fredo’s career. He handed the phone back to him.

  ‘Do you have anything else with you?’

  ‘Not at the moment. But I might have some stashed at home.’

  Fredo licked his lips again and looked at Rahul, hope stirring in him.

  Rahul answered, ‘So, here’s the thing, Mr Fredo. I can see that you have some talent. Your shot composition is good. But your subject matter is all wrong. Nobody is interested in seeing the skin of frumpy women in their thirties or forties. If somebody is interested, then it has to be a very small, specific, kinky group. We don’t cater to them. We believe in mass eyeballing. The hot trend at the moment is office girls in their twenties, secretaries and managers, especially managers. People are desperate to see visuals of real, young women managers holding senior positions at office; the kind of manager who lords over junior male colleagues. That fantasy is the rage at the moment. Get me that stuff, and I will pay you well.’

  Fredo now looked really desperate.

  ‘I don’t have any of that. It’s not easy to break into offices.’

  Rahul pretended to be bored. ‘Then you are wasting my time, Fredo. There might be buyers for your kind of stuff in B-towns, but in Delhi, not a chance.’

  ‘Please give me a chance.’

  ‘I am willing to do that. You’ve been in this for a long time. I am sure you have a private stash. Get me an office girl from it.’

  Fredo licked his dry lips again. ‘I will go back and look again. If I find something, will you pay me well?’

  Rahul held back from commenting, knowing he had the pervert in the bag. If he showed excessive enthusiasm, Fredo would smell a rat. He answered as if he was tired of the entire conversation.

  ‘Sure. I have already told you that. Close the door when you leave.’

  Fredo got up, unsure of whether he had gained anything from the meeting. He walked away, and at the door, Rahul called after him.

  ‘One last time so it is clear to you, Fredo. The type of girl I am looking for—office girl, senior manager, and she must have a great figure. You get me that type, and I will give you ten thousand bucks.’

  Fredo licked his lips again and went out of the office, hungry.

  CHAPTER 22

  Dubey adjusted his rear-view cab mirror so he could look into the eyes of the bearded young man who sat at the back. He could not help but wonder, head-to-head, who between the two of them appeared more frightening? He looked like a pathetic survivor of an ugly scrap from the mean street. The young man staring back at him with sunken eyes also looked as if he had been through a struggle, the kind that is never reported or visible. The young man looked dangerously injured without appearing to be so. Dubey found it difficult to look at him for long. So, he asked him.

  ‘So, where to, mister?’

  Rahul did not take his eyes off him.

  ‘Anywhere you wish. Drive me around the city.’

  ‘Sure. Till when?’

  ‘Till the sun sets.’

  Dubey had heard of such nutjobs before, but he was meeting one for the first time. He did not want it to be a wasted trip, so he laid out the terms once again.

  ‘Here’s the deal. I am not a registered taxi operator. I run a private taxi. The sun sets around six in the evening. I will charge eight thousand bucks for driving you around. Cash only. Agreed?’

  The intense man nodded. Dubey titled the rear-view mirror again so that he would not have to look into those eyes. He drove to Humayun’s tomb and parked some distance away. The young man kept sitting and made no move to go out and visit the tomb. After sitting immobile for an hour, Rahul spoke
to Dubey.

  ‘Drive me to places you would often visit when you were a Zuber driver.’

  Dubey’s guard went up immediately.

  ‘How did you know that I drove for Zuber?’

  ‘The Z is cancelled out on your taxi. When you self-advertise, people will read.’

  Wordlessly, Dubey started the engine and drove out of the narrow lane along the perimeter of the tomb. Something about this passenger disturbed him, but he needed the money. Near the Ring Road, he parked close to a petrol pump situated diagonally opposite a traffic light. He caught Rahul’s eye in the rear-view mirror.

  Rahul asked him, ‘What is of interest here?’

  ‘Wait and watch,’ answered Dubey. ‘You wanted to see sights? Well, this is one of them. Be patient. The action will start soon.’

  Rahul noticed the peculiar functioning of the traffic light. It stood at the junction of an arterial road and saw traffic from two other roads. All three roads converged on to a massive flyover. The traffic light operated with a mind of its own. It would turn red and stop traffic after fifteen seconds at times. At other times, it would hold up traffic for as long as one-and-a-half minutes. As a result of this erratic functioning, traffic began to pile up in the no-man’s zone under the flyover.

  Soon, the area was a mess of blaring horns with cars and tempos parked any which way. Traffic on the three arterial roads also began to pile up, eventually leading to a massive congestion. The lone traffic policeman tried to bring order to the chaos, but soon gave up and walked away. One man in a car, who was done with the honking, angrily got out and hurled abuses at the driver of the car in front of him.

  ‘Fucking bahenchod, you have caused all this . . .’

  The second driver came out and replied with his fists. Soon, the two men were pulling at each other’s hair with punches flying around. A crowd collected, and the abuses and honking only trebled under the flyover.

  ‘Very nice,’ commented Rahul.

  Dubey did not take his eyes off the melee. He answered flatly, as if talking to himself. ‘These men under the flyover . . . Don’t you recognize them? They are you and me. They leave their homes after a fight with their wives. Some leave in the morning fearing that they won’t have a job when they return. The older ones are frothing at their mouths over their kids not turning out the way they had planned. They’ve spent a good part of their lives ferrying them to school, helping them with homework, planning their vacations, and now that they have grown up, they have no time for their parents.’

  He continued. ‘But that is nothing compared to the anger in the eyes of the women watching the ruckus. They remain seated in the cars. They are angry because they can’t remember the last time their husbands or boyfriends touched them with love or affection, bought them a gift or satisfied them in bed. In Delhi, we don’t discover rage on the roads; we carry it as a talisman. It is a kind of locket we are born and saddled with, always forced to wear and display it.’

  Rahul looked at the man lost in his own world. ‘A philosopher cabbie?’

  Without blinking, Dubey answered, ‘Takes one bahenchod to spot another.’

  After a while, they drove off from the mess and entered a tree-lined south Delhi colony. Dubey parked under a tree and said, ‘Rest and recreation time. There is a doner kebab joint across the street. I can get us some. Veg or non-veg?’

  ‘I will pass,’ replied Rahul.

  Dubey shrugged and went to get his afternoon snack. He came back and offered Rahul coffee in a styrofoam cup.

  ‘Okay,’ said Rahul, accepting the coffee. They munched and drank the victuals in silence. Dubey leaned back in his seat. He saw a BMW draw up near a building in their line of sight. A woman met the man driving it at the bottom of the stairs. Dubey alerted Rahul.

  ‘See that man who got out of the BMW and is walking upstairs with that woman?’

  ‘Yeah, what about them?’

  Dubey pointed to the second floor. ‘They have gone in there. The man will hump the woman. She’s married, you know. As soon as her husband leaves for work, this man arrives.’

  ‘How do you know all that?’

  Dubey answered with a straight face. ‘I know more about these two than they know about themselves. At one time, I used to drive the woman up and down almost daily I know what she talks about on her cellphone, what she likes and dislikes. I know the restaurants she prefers. I even have a pretty good idea of her bra size. Heck, I could even predict what goes into her waste at night.’

  Rahul stared at the cabbie. ‘You are pretty smart, aren’t you?’

  ‘If you say so. My wife disagrees though.’

  ‘How do you know so much about this woman?’

  Dubey wiped his greasy fingers on a paper napkin and shoved the leftover kebabs into a greasy paper bag.

  ‘Mister, every driver worth his salt knows what is going on in the life of their sahib and memsahib. You don’t need to be a detective for that. All you need to do is to keep your ears open and listen to them yapping in the back seat. They talk as if no one is listening, but someone is always listening.’

  ‘I get that. But how do you end up driving the same woman day after day?’

  ‘It’s simple really. You mark your routes. You make yourself available around the time the woman will make her call. Over a period of time, the passenger, to avoid uncertainty and hassle, prefers a familiar face. The two sides essentially work out an arrangement.’

  Rahul said with a grim face, ‘And the courteous, silent type is preferred by the woman. And it is usually this type that is carefully observing her bra size.’

  Dubey laughed malevolently. ‘So, here’s the thing about trust, mister. The BMW man leaves a wife at home and goes off to work. He screws this woman whose husband has no idea what his wife is up to. The cuckolded husband eyes his secretary’s tits at office, waiting for an opportunity to hump her. What do I do? I gain the trust of this woman currently being screwed, and I eye her rack when she gets into my cab. It’s a merry-go-round. Trust in today’s day and age is a fancy dessert served only on special occasions.’

  ‘Does it stop at only eyeing the boobs and bum?’ asked Rahul darkly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean. Once you cross the line then anything goes . . .’ Dubey turned up the rear-view mirror to avoid looking at Rahul. He evaded the question. ‘I think we have spent enough time at this place.’

  They drove out and Dubey stuck to more touristy places to show Rahul the city. As the light disappeared from the sky, Dubey headed for the last stop. He stopped near a building and asked Rahul to look up at a flat in a run-down building.

  ‘What do you see, mister?’ he asked.

  Rahul looked out of the window. ‘I see curtains drawn and some kind of bluish light behind it.’

  ‘You got that right, mister. That’s my wife behind the drapes pleasuring herself in front of her favourite porn site. That’s trust for you. This is the last stop. You pay me now.’

  Dubey readjusted the rear-view mirror and both men looked at each other. Rahul paid and Dubey, without taking his eyes off him, said, ‘You are not what you pretend to be. You are looking for something, Sahib. Don’t insult my intelligence. Tell me what it is that you’re looking for.’

  Rahul looked down thoughtfully. He sighed. ‘Okay, I will admit that I checked you out. I took the day trip to get a sense of what you were like. You are also not who you pretend to be.’

  Dubey turned to look at Rahul. ‘I hold a master’s degree in physics from Delhi University. Don’t ask me how I ended up driving a cab. I am nearing forty, and I don’t have a penny on me. My wife shags herself, and I am turning the event into something like a private, ticketed show for the likes of you. This is only a small part of my everyday pain. If you have anything to offer that is of use to me, then tell me your side of the story. Otherwise, get the fuck out of my cab.’

  Rahul had been quick to learn on the job that speaking a part of the truth was the
best form of deception. He replied calmly. ‘I know you are a scam artist, Dubey. You have tried many scams but none worked. That does not mean you have no talent. On the contrary, all you need is funding and guidance. Call me a kind of venture capitalist for talented scamsters. I have a scam in mind, and I will fund you to carry it out so that both of us can benefit. You want to sit down for a meeting?’

  ‘Sure,’ answered Dubey without batting an eyelid. ‘Next Friday, at my place, in my wife’s presence. She is an equal partner in all my endeavours. Dinner will be on us.’

  Rahul nodded and got out of the taxi.

  Dubey stopped him with a question. ‘Tell me one thing though. Why me? There must be hundreds of scamsters in the city?’

  Rahul did not hesitate to reply. ‘Any man who can rationalize with strangers his wife’s shagging habit has got to have some nerve.’

  CHAPTER 23

  Tanya Sehgal closed the slats covering the window in her consulting chamber, which presented a view of upscale Gurugram. She preferred the room sunk in sober, timber coolness during a session. With the slats open, the glass window offered a vulgar distraction with the restaurants below serenading a forest of concrete towers. She had managed one-and-a-half sessions with Rahul so far, the first being rather farcical with the intent being to get him interested in the counselling process rather than providing relief. She was a little ashamed of her sultry temptress act. But she had been warned that ever since his girlfriend’s disappearance, he had been having perpetual mood swings. She had to catch his attention and draw him in. The second session had also been a washout because, in his own words, ‘he was preoccupied with chasing some people connected to Simone’s disappearance’. Tanya was determined to make the third session count. He had just texted her about his arrival.