by Tarquin Hall
The detective reached inside his jacket and took out the piece of paper with the code written on it. Full Moon snatched it away.
'Know what they used to do to thieves in my village when I was a kid?' he asked. 'Cover them in ghee and hang them upside down over an anthill. By the end they'd be begging for death.'
Then, without warning, Full Moon took a step forward and slapped Puri hard around the face, sending the paan flying out of his mouth. The detective felt stunned. For a moment he thought he might cry. But he managed to steel himself.
'How did you know?' he asked, nursing his cheek.
'I got a call from an old friend this morning. Said there was a certain low-life jasoos by the name of Vish Puri sniffing around, that he might come knocking. Didn't take much to figure out which buffoon he was talking about.'
Full Moon was sitting on the edge of his desk, looking pleased with himself. 'What puzzles me is what Rinku bhai is doing helping you,' he continued. 'We've had plenty of dealings together, he and I. Why this sudden betrayal?'
'We're childhood friends,' answered Puri. 'When I demanded his help, he couldn't refuse me.'
'Very touching. Childhood friends. Makes it all the more appropriate. You two grew up together. Now you'll die together.' He let his words hang in the air for a moment before adding, 'Maybe they'll have a joint cremation, save on the wood.'
Full Moon's number two entered the room. Facecream and Rinku were locked in the swimming pool pump house, he reported. He had also added up the total for the day's winnings: half a crore, around $110,000.
'Keep our remaining guests occupied,' said the bookie. 'I'll bring him out the back in a few minutes. We'll take the three of them to Provence Estate. They're pouring concrete today.'
The number two left the room and Full Moon made a phone call. His only words were, 'Amount is twenty-four lakhs.' And then he hung up and popped the paan into his mouth.
'That is Aga's cut, is it?' asked Puri.
'Shut up, yaar. I'll be asking the questions,' said Full Moon. 'Now tell me who you're working for.'
The detective didn't answer.
'Tell me, otherwise my associates will make a proper mess of your friend Miss Nina. All she'll be good for is begging at traffic lights.'
Puri held out a bit longer before appearing to give in. 'I was hired by Kamran Khan - to find out who killed his father,' he said.
Full Moon looked at him askance. 'Kamran Khan?' he repeated, sounding unconvinced. 'How did he hire you?'
'Through an intermediary - an Angrez.'
'Who?'
'He's with Scotland Yard. They know all about you.'
'What do they know?'
'That you and Faheem Khan had dealings - doing match fixing and all. Most probably you were falling out over winnings. That's why you killed him.'
'Brilliant work, Mister Sherlock, except I didn't do it. Faheem and I were partners. We were making a lot of money together.'
Puri regarded the bookie with puzzlement. 'But if you weren't the one . . .' he mused, his brow corrugated. A revelation suddenly came to him. 'Of course - it was Aga! He found out you and Khan were match fixing without his say-so.' There was an edge of triumph to Puri's voice as he added, 'No wonder you've got so much of security here today. He's put out a contract on you, isn't it?'
Full Moon cocked his pistol. 'Stand up,' he said. 'We're going to a building site. You, Rinku and Miss Nina are going to help strengthen the foundations.'
By now, the hall was empty, although the music was still playing. The lyrics to the latest Bollywood number blared out: 'I know you want it but you're never gonna get it . . . I'm too sexy for you.' As they passed the bar, Full Moon told Puri to stop and helped himself to a bottle of water.
'Keep moving,' he said, glugging down the contents. His voice sounded croaky. 'Through that door over there.'
Puri heard him clear his throat. He did it a couple more times before breaking into a cough. The water bottle fell to the floor.
'Stop!' he ordered.
The detective turned around slowly, hands in the air. Full Moon was massaging his throat. An expression of almost ludicrous panic twisted his features.
'You've been poisoned,' said Puri. 'Aconite, most probably in the paan. Let me help you.'
Full Moon raised his pistol and with the words 'Bastard, I'll kill you!' pulled the trigger.
The bullet missed, hitting a stuffed bear standing in the corner, which keeled over. The detective moved to his right as fast as his body would allow, taking cover behind a column. Another bullet whistled past, then another.
Click, click, click. The pistol had either jammed or he was out of bullets. Puri risked a peek around the column. He saw Full Moon stumble towards the bar and grab another bottle of water. He poured the contents down his throat. Tottering backwards, he knocked over a candelabrum. A candle touched on a curtain and set it alight. The pistol clattered to the floor as Full Moon wrapped his arms around one of the columns, trying to keep upright. After a few seconds he slid down, his shoes squeaking on the polished marble.
Puri reached the dying man's side and managed to turn him over. Frothy red saliva oozed from the corner of his mouth.
'The code you and Faheem Khan were using. What's the cipher?' asked the detective. Behind him the curtains were alight, the flames licking at the wooden balcony above.
Full Moon gestured for him to come closer. Puri did so. And with his last breath, the bookie tried to spit in his face.
'Once a charmer, always charming,' said Puri as he took the dead bookie's pockets and took his mobile phone.The he hurried back to the study to retrieve the piece of paper with the code on it.
He emerged, successful, to find the fire burning out of control. The alarm had gone off. Gamblers and prostitutes were running half dressed from the building. There was no time to search for his ten lakh deposit.
Puri made his way out through the back of the building in search of the others. He ran into them halfway across the garden. Facecream had their former captor in a half nelson.
'Full Moon's dead, poisoned by the paan wallah,' Puri told them.
'What about the money? There's got to be fifty, sixty lakhs in there,' said Rinku.
An explosion came from inside the mansion. Glass and flames burst from the ground-floor windows. Rinku stared, incredulous.
'It's only money, yaar,' said Puri.
'Only money! Chubby, you need your head examined!'
'No examination is necessary I can assure you. Now come. Let us get after that hit man. No delay.'
FOURTEEN
INSPECTOR SURINDER THAKUR of the Laxmi Bai Nagar police station called while Puri and his team were in the middle of a high-speed chase after the paan wallah hit man.
The detective answered his phone, thinking it might be someone important.
'Vish Puri, sir. Hello? Your portable's been in power off mode these past hours.'
The detective had to raise his voice over the cacophony of car horns and screeching tyres: 'What all I can do for you, Inspector?'
The paan wallah hit man, who was obviously familiar with the roads (and pavements) of this part of Delhi, had a distinct advantage: he was on a motorbike, a Royal Enfield Bullet. But in Handbrake he had a formidable opponent. Puri's driver had been trained in the reckless art of Indian driving by the best of the best: Randy Singh of International B-Hinde Taxi and Limousine Services, who, as legend had it, once played chicken with a Bentley and won.
Puri usually kept his driver on a tight rein - 'Do lane driving!' he would admonish him from the back seat. The moment Handbrake was let loose, however, he could be relied upon to willingly and adeptly slalom through traffic at high speed, pull into oncoming lanes regardless of what was approaching in the opposite direction and, when necessary, tackle roundabouts anticlockwise.
While in pursuit of the paan wallah hit man, he showed no qualms about pulling through a petrol station forecourt, sending the pump attendants scattering. Nor did he hesitat
e when they reached Saket and he had to reverse down the Sri Aurobindo Marg ramp against the flow of the rush hour.
'You heard the news?' asked Inspector Thakur. Puri noted a distinct lack of confidence in his voice; evidently the moustache investigation was not going his way.
'What all happened?' asked the detective as he watched the paan wallah hit man speed up a mound of sand, jump over a drinking water wallah's cart and land squarely on the other side.
'Cow!' shouted Rinku as a large bullock stepped into the middle of the road.
Handbrake swerved, narrowly missing the animal, but knocked off one of the Merc's side mirrors.
'Doesn't matter!' the detective bawled. 'Go fast!'
'Better I call you later, sir?' asked Inspector Thakur.
'No, no, tell me,' replied the detective before shouting, 'There, there! Take next turn!'
Handbrake took a sharp left and Puri, Rinku and Facecream were thrown to one side of the car. A moment later, the vehicle hit a speed bump and they were all tossed upwards. This caused the detective to let out a baritone belch.
'You were saying, Inspector? Some development in the case?'
'Gopal Ragi was abducted today in broad daylight. From outside his home directly. And, sir, his moustache was taken - shaved clean off,' reported Inspector Thakur.
Puri digested this information as he watched the paan wallah hit man pass through a pedestrian gate and enter the Safdarjung Development Area.
Handbrake promptly threw the car into reverse. An SUV coming in the other direction gouged the Merc's right side.
'His fault, sir!' cried the driver.
'There's an access road up ahead,' Rinku contributed.
It crossed the detective's mind that the Gopal Ragi abduction might be a revenge shearing and that his client might have been behind it. This concern was quickly alleviated.
'A man was spotted at the scene who matches the description of the intruder at Shri Bhalla's residence on Saturday last,' explained Thakur.
'Ragi's moustache - it was clean shaven, is it?' asked Puri, having to repeat the question three times before he could make himself understood.
'Not a single hair left behind,' came back the answer.
The assassin was speeding down the backstreets of the colony, apparently lost. Finally, he turned into a dead end.
'We've got him,' declared Puri.
'Got who?' asked Thakur, confused.
'Apologies, Inspector! One minute hold.'
The car was doing a good 60 miles an hour now, flying past villas and parked cars. It would be only a minute or two before they caught up with their quarry. But then they ran into a perfect storm of servants and wallahs - a dog walker with five pugs, each on its own leash and straining in different directions; a kabari wallah peddling a rickety wooden cart piled high with old newspapers; and a baraat band on its way to a wedding.
Handbrake successfully negotiated this human and canine obstacle course with a minimum loss of speed. But a toy seller riding a bicycle while simultaneously blowing a kazoo and balancing a fifteen-foot-long bamboo pole festooned with inflatable ducks on his handlebars was one obstacle too many.
Puri's driver had to bank hard to avoid hitting him and found himself on a collision course with some schoolchildren. Slamming on the brakes and swerving to the right, he ploughed into a parked, and thankfully unoccupied, Tata Nano, the cheapest car in the world, and as the impact conclusively proved, little more than a tin can on wheels.
'His fault, sir!' said the driver, his words muffled by the airbag now pinning him back against his seat.
Rinku started laughing - 'What a ride, yaar!' - as Puri exited the car.
The paan wallah was coming back down the road. He smiled at the detective as he raced past and gave him a military salute.
'Hello, hello? Sir, you're still on line?'
Puri lifted his handset to his ear as he watched the motorbike race out of sight.
'Yes, Inspector.'
'What was that noise? Sounded like an accident.'
'A minor one, only,' he said as he surveyed the damage.
The front of the Mercedes Benz was crumpled, there was a long tear down its right side and the side mirror was gone - tens of thousands of rupees' worth of damage, and none of it likely to be covered by the insurance. Puri just hoped that Scott had meant it when he'd talked about having deep pockets.
'Naturally you've located the owner of the next-longest moustache?' asked Puri.
'He's ninety-two years. Lives far off in some cave on the Nepal border,' said Thakur with despair.
After Puri had swapped insurance details with the owner of the wrecked Nano, reported the accident to the police and waited for the crowd of onlookers to disperse, he opened the boot of the Mercedes.
Inside lay Full Moon's number two. He'd been sick all over himself.
'Your boss made a hawala transfer. To who exactly?' demanded Puri.
A hawala transfer could be made between money brokers without the cash actually moving. This unofficial network handled the transfer of billions of dollars across South Asia and beyond every year.
'Saar-ji, please!' he begged. 'Let me out of here. I can't breathe.'
'First tell me the hawala broker's name.'
'Bhai never told me. My duties are organising the parties, getting girls, Buss!'
Puri slammed down the boot, listened to his captive's entreaties for a minute or two and then popped the latch again.
'I . . . I can't. They'll kill me.'
'And if you don't, we'll kill you. My friend here owns a wheat thresher. He'll lower you into it feet first. Rest assured it would be most painful.'
'You don't understand, I . . .'
Puri started to close the boot again.
'Mihir Desai!' blurted the lackey.
'His location?'
'That I don't know, sir. I swear it! Bhai never told me. Believe me!'
But Flush had the answer. More or less.
'Full Moon's call was to a post-paid number,' he said when he caught up with the group in his Bajaj van. 'I called my batchmate at LBS and he was able to do a multi-lateration of the radio signals using the GPS system and--'
Puri cut him short. 'Tell me.'
'It was received in Surat, Boss.'
Puri turned to Tubelight. 'You've got any reliable person there?'
'That boy Sonal. From the Bollywood Bimbo case? One you called Chanel Number Five.'
'Get him to the location no delay. I want discreet surveillance. Meanwhile, you two' - he meant Tubelight and Flush - 'go directly to the airport. Be on the next plane.'
'You're not coming with us, Boss?'
'Gujarat is one place I am always happy to avoid.'
Full Moon's lackey was banging against the inside of the boot again, demanding to be let out.
'What about our guest, Boss?' asked Tubelight.
'I'll sit on him,' said Puri.
The detective had not made any progress with the moustache case, the trace of the goose and two snakes licence plate having come to nothing, and he had far better things to do than follow up on Inspector Thakur's phone call. Nevertheless he called Raju Pillai, Director General and Honorary Secretary of MOP, and asked him to arrange an interview with Gopal Ragi right away.
'Difficult,' said Pillai. 'These media persons are having a feeding frenzy. Dozens are camped outside his house. The story is running on every channel. "Moustache Massacre" they're calling it. They're treating the whole thing as a joke. I went on Action News! to put the record straight. This is a serious matter. Our members are getting attacked willy nilly.'
The detective arranged to enter Ragi's home through a back entrance and reached the place an hour later. He found the victim in his living room, distraught but calm, and in no doubt as to who had been behind his abduction and assault.
'Bhalla did this,' he said. 'He believed I had his moustache shaved off so he wanted revenge. He hired that goon.'
Puri was in no mood for conspi
racy theories. 'Listen!' he said, his anger flaring. 'The description of your abductors match. Therefore it is safe to reason a third party is involved.'
'He made it look that way, to throw you off the trail.'
The detective sank his face into his hands. 'Just tell me what all happened,' he murmured through his fingers.
Ragi had left the house for the office at his usual hour, he explained. As he got into his car, someone came up behind him and grabbed him. A struggle ensued.
