Living Hell

by Vivaan Shah

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Nadeem squawked. Inspector Gaekwad’s eyes sparkled.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Nadeem broke in, much to Inspector Gaekwad’s dismay. So immersed was he in Dr Vengsarkar’s statement that he scarcely paid any heed to what Nadeem had to say.

  ‘I know who killed Makhija!’ he informed Inspector Gaekwad, in all earnestness. ‘Listen, there is an advocate. Name of Hoseipha Khatri. HK, they call him. He’s been handling all legal matters for Irshaad Batla. The ones that he doesn’t want his family to know about. Hoseipha,’ Nadeem cringed. ‘Joseph. He’s the one,’ he said turning towards Dr Vengsarkar.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Dr Vengsarkar squinted. ‘I know who you are talking about and he is a decent man. Law-abiding and an upholder of the law himself.’

  ‘I was just with him. He confessed to everything. Said he locked up Makhija in the bathroom with the lights out and no water. He buried him alive in an 8x12 coffin.’

  ‘They’re going to institutionalize you if you carry on with that story. You don’t really expect me to believe all this. What was the motive?’

  ‘Protecting his client.’

  ‘Where is he?’ asked Inspector Gaekwad.

  ‘You don’t want to know. He’s not alive, I can assure you.’

  ‘You mean you killed him?’

  ‘He tried to kill me. Call Cheeku. He was with him when he killed Makhija. He’ll testify.’

  ‘Who’s Cheeku?’ Inspector Gaekwad frowned.

  ‘Irshaad’s CA,’ Nadeem told him.

  ‘Do you have Cheeku’s number?’

  ‘Not on Warren’s phone. I had it on mine.’

  ‘Who can you call to get Cheeku’s number?’

  ‘Rohini! Do you have Cheeku’s number?’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Cheeku, Irshaad’s CA.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. But it’ll be on Chintan’s phone. He had been in touch with him.’

  ‘Rohini!’ Nadeem yelled. ‘Call Irshaad from your phone. Tell him you need Cheeku’s number urgently so you can wire the money to him tomorrow.’

  ‘Nadeem . . .’ she mumbled. ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘It’s our only choice.’

  She clenched her jaw firmly, tightening her upper lip in resolution. ‘No.’

  ‘Look, Rohini, if you don’t help me out here, your life could be in danger, and so could mine. With Irshaad Batla free and roaming the streets, no one’s safe.’

  Her lips parted slowly, letting out a faint murmur. ‘All right,’ she said, barely loud enough for herself to hear. She glared at Nadeem, fidgeting with her phone and dodging a couple of notifications from QUANTRA before finally deciding to dial Irshaad’s number. It rang.

  ‘Hello,’ she spoke softly.

  The voice from the other end of the line was clearly audible, as her phone volume had been set to its maximum.

  ‘Hello!’ Irshaad beamed, in a hollow crackle of a voice.

  ‘Irshaad.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I need an urgent favour from you, right now.’

  ‘Say it. Anything for you.’

  ‘I need Cheeku’s number.’

  ‘Cheeku’s right here if you wanna talk to him. Here, let me give him the phone.’

  Rohini looked up at them, bewildered.

  ‘Cheeku!’ Irshaad hollered over the phone. ‘Here, talk to Rinki!’ He pretended to hand over the phone to someone else, putting on a fake voice which was easily recognizable. He tried to speak in Cheeku’s high-pitched nasal tone.

  ‘Haalllooo!’ he squeaked, pretending to be Cheeku. ‘Haaai, Rinki! Haaaw aaar yooo?’

  ‘Irshaad!’ she trembled, clenching her teeth. ‘Stop fooling around.’

  ‘I laaaw yooo, Rinki! Will yooo merry me?’

  ‘Irshaad,’ she growled, her temperature rising steadily. ‘I have your money. I’m going to wire it to your account tomorrow. Give me your CA’s number.’

  ‘Take it down. It’s zero, zero, double zero, double one, double zero. Sorry, triple zero. That’s 000011000. Did you get it? You want me to repeat it for you?’

  Suddenly, the voice coming from the mobile phone began to encroach into the living room from the surrounding walls. It got louder and louder as he repeated the number for the second time, until the voice from the phone and the voice from the lift were inseparable.

  Inspector Gaekwad immediately reached for his holster. ‘Everybody get back!’ he firmly commanded, silently scanning the area outside the doorway from a distance. He shoved everyone from the living room into the bedroom and cranked out a 9-mm revolver from his belt. Mangesh flashed out his automatic and took his sahib’s back. Inspector Gaekwad began to slowly close in towards the door with his revolver raised in the air, pointed at the ceiling. The ballistics experts were still on the fourth floor and their distant voices were vaguely perceptible, as was the voice nearing in towards the front of the doorway. Irshaad Batla came trotting along, his phone glued to his right ear, not in the least bit interested in where he was and what he was doing there. He was followed by two of his boys, who stood silently outside, refraining from entering out of polite courtesy.

  ‘That’s 000011000. Can you hear me, Rinki?’ he kept hollering into the phone, scarcely even registering the presence of the two cops lined up to face him. He walked into the living room as if it was his house and was about to slip off his chappals and take a seat. ‘Anyway,’ he carried on, ‘I’ll talk to you later. I’ve just come to one place for some business. I’ll call you once I reach home. You had dinner? Take care, ha . . . muaahhh . . . talk to you later. Bye! Love you!’

  He turned to face the television as he stuffed his phone into his pocket, trying to fish another large object out of it. He struggled hard; his hand was getting stuck inside. On noticing the remote control lying over the television, he swiped hold of it and turned it on. The TV was tuned to Star Movies and an old World War II picture was roaring away. Bombs exploding, tanks hovering through the landscape, machine guns firing, the gyrating sounds of combat providing ambience to the dimly lit living room. Only a single lamp that stood on the wooden side table, on the left side of the couch, was on. The tube lights were not working properly and would flicker like disco lights when switched on. Irshaad cherishingly admired the warfare blasting through the screen. His pocket finally managed to spit out whatever he had been struggling with.

  First came the handle, then the cartridge and then the mouth. He laid them all out on top of the TV and began to assemble a .22 Magnum, first, by sliding in the cartridge and then, by slipping the bullets into the magazine. He clicked it shut, unlatched the safety, pumped the cartridge and adjusted a silencer on the mouth of the barrel. Once he held it firmly in his clutched palm, he raised it into the air, swinging it around on his index finger. He had his back turned towards Inspector Gaekwad and Mangesh, who had by now pointed their firearms straight in his direction. He had two guns on his back and another set of ballistics experts shortly descending the staircase. Their voices could be heard as they came down the stairs, pausing at the doorway to greet the two flunkies who stood there. They entered, bemused, lost in casual banter, oblivious to the weapons on display in the living room. Inspector Gaekwad silently twitched at them, flicking his head aside, telling them to push out. Just as they were about to approach him with their findings, Irshaad blew a hole right through the TV screen. It exploded, letting out a profusion of sparks and fireworks.

  ‘Get down!’ Inspector Gaekwad yelled at the assembled personnel. A succession of shrieks and screams rang out across the living room with everyone reaching for the floor and ducking for their lives as Irshaad fired a second time, this time putting out the lights.

  ‘Put the gun down, Irshaad!’ Inspector Gaekwad screamed.

  The two men outside had by now exhausted their courtesy and gained entrance. They had their firearms ready to use in service of their boss. Over the three ballistics experts who were laying flat on the floor, two sets
of guns were pointed firmly at each other, while the fifth gun still lingered on the exploded television set.

  ‘It’s two against two. There’s no need for crossfire.’

  ‘Where’s Chipkali?’ Irshaad spoke, his back turned to the policemen.

  ‘He’s inside the bedroom,’ Inspector Gaekwad told him.

  ‘Bring him out here,’ he ordered. ‘I’m taking him with me as hostage.’

  ‘Look, Irshaad . . .’

  ‘You don’t want anyone getting hurt. I suggest you bring Chipkali out.’

  ‘Irshaad, if you tell your men to stop pointing their guns, I’ll let you walk. Please, Irshaad.’

  ‘Nadeem!’ Irshaad yelled.

  The bedroom door slipped open just wide enough to let a single person out. Nadeem walked out with his hands above his head. The muck he was covered in had by now dried up and occupied his entire face, as if he’d had it painted for some tribal ritual. He was practically covered in black.

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ Irshaad asked.

  ‘I was with your lawyer.’

  Irshaad’s glowering eyes floundered like a deer caught in the headlights. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Twenty feet under. In the Goregaon swamp. Scattered among the waste yard.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘Most likely! He claimed to have killed Makhija. He told me.’

  ‘He tells people a lot of things, only half of which are true. He likes to talk big, ever since he’s been off the stuff.’

  ‘What stuff?’ Inspector Gaekwad nosed in.

  Irshaad laughed, putting his gun away as he gazed about the apartment, inspecting every article with the keenest precision. One of the ballistics experts slowly rose from the floor, the rest of them stayed put.

  ‘I guess you could say,’ he began, ‘that it took me less than a year to reduce him from a rehabilitated, reformed citizen, who had all his problems pinstriped away, to a pill-popping junkie with tombstones in his eyes.’

  ‘He’d been trying to make life easier for you,’ said Nadeem. ‘It was all about his commitment to his client.’

  ‘I always felt the fellow used to go out of his way to help me,’ Irshaad stumbled across the room to the kitchen where he could hear faint whispers pouring out from under the closed bedroom door. He planted both his palms on the kitchen platform, searching in vain for anything even remotely appetizing.

  ‘Nadeem, you got any chocolate powder?’

  ‘There’s some Bournvita lying around somewhere, I’m not quite sure. I’ll have to look for it.’

  ‘You got a mixie?’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t know if it works.’

  Nadeem pulled open a drawer from under the stove. An old mechanical grinder came out of it with its cap off. It was brown around the edges and probably hadn’t been washed or even used in a while. The bottom unit it had to be attached to was plugged in next to the toaster, just a little ahead of the stove.

  ‘Why d’you think he did it?’ Nadeem asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I could never figure him out.’

  Irshaad attached the mixer to its base and plugged it in. He cranked open the cabinets above the platform, fishing out a packet of milk powder.

  ‘You got any milk?’

  ‘I’m out!’

  ‘Give me a bottle of cold water.’

  Nadeem leaned towards the fridge.

  ‘I guess he felt the strain of being my lawyer,’ Irshaad continued. ‘He used to visit Dr Vengsarkar and had, at one point, even been a patient at Nandlal Pramod Functionality Centre, where I was admitted. But apparently he escaped, changed his name and studied for his LLB, starting afresh. Kind of like you, I guess,’ he smirked, pointing at Nadeem like a complaining classmate.

  Nadeem fished out a half-empty bottle of cold water, as well as a quarter slab of ice cream from the freezer.

  ‘We all want another shot, don’t we?’ Irshaad went on. ‘Some with the law, some with life, some even with themselves. There wasn’t a thing in the world he wouldn’t do for me, HK. But what he did for himself, I never knew. How he lived, where he lived, with whom, for what. No one even knows his real name, if he’s actually Muslim or not, where he comes from. I never even bothered to ask him. You see, like good old Dr Vengsarkar, I too consider myself to be a student of human nature. I like to know what it is that makes a fellow tick. It’s good for business.’

  ‘Who is this guy?’ asked Insepctor Gaekwad, slowly lowering his gun.

  ‘That’s a good question,’ Irshaad replied. ‘I met him through an online app I had been told about by the psychiatric authorities.’

  ‘What app?’

  Nadeem’s eyes glistened, his mouth split open, but before the words could come pouring out, Irshaad beat him to the punch.

  ‘I’ve got the trial edition,’ said Irshaad. ‘I can get it for you too. Show me your phone.’

  Inspector Gaekwad hesitantly handed him his brand new iPhone, keeping an eye on the screen to make sure he wouldn’t sabotage it. Irshaad went to his app store where an incomplete command, C . . . O . . . N, still lingered on the keypad. He had been trying to download a game, Contra. Irshaad cleared that and typed in Q . . . U . . . A . . . N . . . T . . . R . . . A, reconfirming what his religious disposition was. He assured him it was Hindu.

  ‘What’s your Apple ID and password?’ he asked.

  Inspector Gaekwad typed it out for him.

  ‘Voila!’ Irshaad proclaimed, handing the phone back to him.

  After having cracked his phone, he had successfully managed to download the application, and it was now stored on his desktop, right next to all the familiar logos. Inspector Gaekwad gaped at his screen in wonder. He entered his name, weight, age, height, sex, ethnicity and all the other regulars. In five minutes, after it completed a safety scan, he had an entire rundown of all his stats and info.

  ‘It’s kind of like Truecaller,’ Irshaad stated. ‘Apparently everyone’s info is stored on the database. You see, the software searches cyberspace for all information about you and tallies together an array compiling your Google searches, mobile number, home and work address, pin code, email address and bank account number. It knows if you’ve been paying your taxes, how much you’ve been spending, how you’ve been conducting your social life, how many calls you’ve been returning in proportion to the calls you’ve been ignoring, how much data you use, how much talk time is wasted. This includes separate priorities for family members, friends, colleagues, batchmates, in order of importance. It also monitors the nature and content of your conversations and correspondence.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ Inspector Gaekwad asked.

  ‘Easy,’ he said, pointing towards his phone. ‘Here you go. You see, this baby right here can perform just about any miracle that man or beast has been dying to be capable of since the beginning of time. It can defeat death, conquer the weather and even make a blind man see the light. The mobile phone has become the source of all life, an oracle, the cradle of experience. And it is through your characteristics, as manifested on that particular instrument, that your personal calibre can be judged. That, and your financial characteristics.’

  ‘You’ve got to be out of your bloody mind.’

  ‘You wanna know about this guy?’ Irshaad asked, taking the phone away from Inspector Gaekwad’s hands. ‘Simple,’ he said, as Nadeem and Inspector Gaekwad huddled around in rapt attention. He ran a check on Hoseipha Khatri. A single option popped up, not too many people had that name.

  ‘Here’s his profile,’ said Irshaad. It said in big bold letters, PROFESSION: LAWYER. There were a couple of photos of him with scenic backdrops, the odd group photograph from the workplace, a picture of him with dark glasses staring into the lens, the corny quotable quotes and religious platitudes like, ‘Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.’ It was the profile of a modest-looking man, not too different from the harmless company seekers one would scroll through on most platforms. He had a 95 per cent cleara
nce rating on the moral latitude scale. It concluded that he was an ‘upright, honest, hard-working citizen and pillar of the community’.

  ‘Pillar of the community, my ass!’ Nadeem grunted. ‘He tried to kill me. He was going to run us into an oncoming vehicle and total his car to file for insurance, I suppose. It was already heavily damaged. I had your files in my lap.’

  ‘You did?’ Irshaad’s eyebrow rose involuntarily.

  ‘Your files were with him.’

  ‘He can keep them! It’s his files I’d like to see. Wouldn’t you, Inspector Gaekwad?’

  Inspector Gaekwad stuffed his phone into his back pocket and glanced at Mangesh from the corner of his eye. He breathed deeply and spoke under his breath, ‘Just move out of here and you’ll never have to deal with me again.’

  ‘Is that a deal?’ Irshaad grinned.

  ‘It’s a deal,’ Inspector Gaekwad groaned, shoving his revolver back into its holster.

  ‘You’ll be off our backs?’

  ‘I said it’s a deal. What do you want? A written guarantee? I’m letting you go. Now go on, get out of here.’

  ‘I don’t think I will, inspector!’ he grinned, gesturing towards the door. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t feel much like leaving now. I think I’ll just stay.’

  He caught Nadeem’s attention swishing over to the closed door and glared at him in anticipation.

  ‘Who you got in there, Nadeem?’

  Nadeem didn’t answer. He looked down at the floor instead, taking a gulp. The ballistics expert who had risen came cautiously tiptoeing over to the kitchen, trying to catch the inspector’s attention.