The Benefit Season Page 21

  Word was that the betting mafia had done this to Vishal. So it seemed pretty likely that the missing of his wife was in a way linked to the beating he’d received. Beating for what? For the money he owed? For money he’d lost? For tips not given on pitches or batting orders or game strategy in the changing rooms? For not playing the players his company managed…for not throwing matches…or for wrong insider information? Or had she run away with his money? Or had she run away from his beatings- increasingly that explanation- especially since it had been already offered by a creep, was no longer acceptable as the woman was quite capable of taking care of herself or violent husbands or muggers in the street.

  To run away with a man, for simple physical attraction, or for love wasn’t a logical thing these days- maybe it was to the lambs and the babes- but not to Krishnamala, who’d seen the worst of self-serving, gutter-crawling vermin out there. Love didn’t exist for the stonyhearted and the materialistic- it was for the hopelessly romantic, the dreamers, and for those that had been loved themselves- selfishly, unapologetically and unconditionally. There was more to it, Krishnamala, she told herself, than met the eye, the currents under the still waters ran strong and deep. Could Monal love? Could she renounce marriage, status, society and career for another man?

  ‘Yes! She finally went after him’, Jagdev Kadian, aka Agent 9, her husband and lover, dashed into her office, a little out of breath, and tossed a few sheets of paper on her desk. He cooed at the sleeping baby and then came back to her, his eyes filmed over with pride. He was prone to excitement and simple first impressions. She ignored him and flipped through the photos and data that’d come in by fax.

  ‘See- the airport photos! She travelled the same night to Delhi. She stayed at the Taj- see the hotel pictures. I guessed she would stay at somewhere exotic and luxurious. And a couple of nights later- she’s at the toll bridge- you can make out the license plates. I’ve already flashed them don’t you worry’, he said hastily as she was about to say something. ‘And then the toll at Shahjahanpur- and this time guess who’s driving the same car? Our missing boy Arjun! See- we cracked it! Battered wife in love leaves home to elope with her man- convinces him to jettison his engagement, and they run away to a nice honeymoon’. He paused for her praise, but none came.

  ‘But what happens next? Where are they now?’ she said, always the doubting one, not yet ready to acknowledge the other’s feat or conjecturing.

  ‘You didn’t expect me to know that one did you…?’ he asked, dancing around her till it made her feel light in the head.

  ‘Stay still and tell me’.

  ‘They are at the Neemrana- where else would a honeymooning couple be? I have the records from the hotel. And some snaps clicked by an obliging staff’.

  ‘Hmm, they’re living it up aren’t they- thinking they are invisible. Well, let’s pay them a visit. They have to answer why they are leading the cops on a merry-go-round when we have better things to do’.

  ‘Done already’, he said, dramatically waving the tickets in her face.

  ‘Who else knows that we are going there’, she asked, concern showing up on her face.

  ‘Nobody, except your PA, Afzal. He did the bookings’.

  ‘Well, it can’t be helped now- I wish you’d made online bookings. I don’t trust anyone until the job is done. Especially Afzal- he’s got shifty eyes and he’s always on the phone. I want to change him. At least keep the plan to yourself from now on’.

  ‘Alright’, he said, a little unhappily, the spring in his step gone.

  ‘But you’ve done well, I’m proud of you’, she said, grabbing his collar and pulling him in an embrace, on seeing his hurt.

  ‘Really’, the man asked, lighting up instantly.

  ‘Couldn’t have asked for more’, she said, patting him the way she’d seen him burp the baby.

  He burped; ‘sorry’; he giggled; ‘let me go get the baby’s things’. He said, making to rush out of the office.

  ‘Err…just wait one’, she said, stopping him.

  ‘What happened? Anything I’m forgetting?’

  ‘I…I was just thinking…’

  ‘What’, he asked, showing his hands in query.

  ‘Maybe you could stay here with the baby’, she said slowly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It would be better…and safer- for the baby’.

  ‘And you? What about you? Who’s going to take care of you, pray, tell me?’

  ‘I can take care- don’t worry. I’ll feel better knowing that you and the baby are safe’.

  ‘ I’m not letting you go out there alone baby, risking your life with the baddies. Papa is here- he’ll take care of you, as well as the baby. Just leave it to me’, he said, putting a finger on her parted lips, ‘hush…’ he said, ’hush’.

  She smiled up at him, giving in, her eyes misty. ‘Thank you’, she said. ‘Let’s move it then partner, and baby!’

  ϖ

  Man, woman and child flew to Delhi and then drove to Neemrana. At the Circuit House they debated the best way to get into the hotel without alerting or alarming the lovebirds- they were afraid they might send them running again. With murders, abductions, rapes, corporate crimes, defense kickbacks, pyramid schemes, cricket match fixings, dirty politicians’ dirtier in-laws acquiring public land at dirt-cheap rates, coal scams, telecom scams and what-not, the list of crimes to be investigated and people to be booked was way too long for Krishnamala to waste any more time on two high-society, happy pair of feet running away from no one in particular. It was high time they wrapped up the case, now that they were so close to their quarry, and returned home to deal with serious crime and catch the big fish that were emptying the coffers of the taxpayer’s moneys.

  ‘They are staying on the top level with sun decks. We could free-fall from a helicopter’, Agent 9, who’d taught Para jumping at Mussourie during the Academy days helpfully suggested, while nursing the baby with a Chinese pacifier.

  The thought of her crotch fruit strapped to the midget falling through the skies at 120 miles per hour sent a shudder through her body- it would surely spill the milk!

  ‘Why not just walk up to their door? It’s not the movies- we are not James Bond. We don’t have to do it his way. ‘

  The little person examined his nails and scratched where his beard may have been. Then he clasped the softly snoring baby to his breast and broodingly looked for lice in its hair.

  ‘People in the hotel will get frightened by the sudden appearance of two very intimidating cops’, he said, including all of them in a wide sweep of the arm. ’ Let’s first make sure it’s Monal and Arjun really, and then we jump them in their rooms in the dark.’

  ‘What’s the plan’, she asked, giving in to her husband’s fancy for drama.

  ‘There’s a folk dance every evening out at the terrace’, he said shyly, curling the baby’s light hair around his little finger.

  ‘So’, she asked, turning to him, horrified, ‘what are you suggesting?’

  ‘We could dress up like the dancers and mix with the troupe. We could identify them among the hotel guests… I’ve already arranged it’.

  ‘Arranged what’, she asked, folding her legs under her on the threadbare government sofa.

  ‘I could play the Ek Tara [stringed musical instrument]. You could dance’.

  ‘Like hell I could’, she said, ‘sheer nonsense’!

  The room became still as an anechoic chamber. All you could hear was the sound of the baby breathing. The small man, his male pride hurt, took the baby’s tiny hands in his own and began to rub them softly, marveling at their pinkness and kissing them at intervals. He rocked the baby gently in his lap; soothing it soothed him as well. Krishnamala waited for an angry retort but the trouble with her man was that there was nothing on such occasions but silence. She could deal with aggression but his strange quietness unnerved her. She began to regret her harsh words.

  ‘I’m sorry’, she said. ‘Do I get to dress up’, she
asked, trying to sound enthusiastic, just to cheer him up.

  He stopped rocking. Then he unfurled the baby’s lock of hair from his little finger. Then he took a deep breath and pretended he hadn’t heard her and moodily stared out the window at the dusty Shivalik hills in the far distance.

  ‘Please tell me the plan darling, please’, she pleaded, with made-up school-girlish excitement. At least this was better than his crazed idea of jumping from aircraft- knowing him she knew it would have been futile trying to convince him to stay behind in the aircraft, or if was coming along, to leave the baby behind. She’d been a dancer at school and college and could easily handle balancing a couple of brass pots on her head if it meant keeping her husband from sky diving with her tiny tot.

  He couldn’t resist holding back any more- he’d fallen for her fake cheer. ‘Alright, here’s the plan’. He carefully replaced the baby in the bed, placed two large pillows on both its sides, went down on his knees beside her, clasped her hands and conspiratorially whispered the plan, though there was nobody listening.

  ϖ

  The evening was chilly, lusty and colorful around the stone cold fort: female beetles resting on bushes flashed light signals to their mates, true bugs fed on blood meals to form eggs to give life, and moths after mating rushed into mashals blazing on the walls of the open-air amphitheater. The dollar-paying budget Spaniards, in anticipation of a grand spectacle, sat ready with baited breaths, loaded cameras and glasses filled with cheap, complimentary Sula wine. The mostly middle aged Indians drank imported, pricey single malt whiskies and ran lascivious hands down the well toned legs of their glamorous mistresses, and looked bored.

  The female Chari dancers were dressed to the hilt in flowing colorful ghagra cholis embroidered with bead and sequin work, big nose rings and gajra armlets. 13 Manjeeras [cymbals] were tied at particular places on their dresses. They had to strike together at a specific point and angle to make a sound; hence the dance was basically about balancing the pots and striking together the Manjeeras. Ergo, it was also called the tera taali or the 13-beat dance. On cue, the women swayed in, expertly balancing several charis [pots] on their heads. They glided about some, and then switched to twisting and writhing on the floor with swords clenched between their teeth. The men, equally loudly attired, wearing soorma [eye liner] made from snake venom, made raucous music with Sarangi, Morchang and Dhol, and sang rowdily- celebrating the long, supposedly romantic walks brave Rajasthani females took in the desert, balancing many heavy pots filled with water on their heads and supposedly enjoying themselves immensely in the process. No one cared if they were out of tune or out of step. No one noticed. It was so bawdy, so gaudy, and so quaint that all was forgiven and forgotten. Krishnamala slid close to the guests, keeping a sharp eye out for her quarry while jerking rhythmically on the floor. Agent 9, with the baby in a crib beside him, strummed expertly on the Ek Tara to the beat, and scanned the guests.

  It took but a few minutes for the cops to identify their couple lounging in a corner, nursing their water bottles, looking away into the twinkling night sky, oblivious to the others and the song and dance. As soon as the first item got over, and the dancers had hurried into the changing rooms to make way for the fire spitting artistes, the two cops and the baby disappeared into the myriad passages of the hotel where a waiting staff escorted them to Monal’s suite and let them quietly in with the manager’s key.

  The agents waited in the dark for the couple to finish their dinner and walk right into their trap. The baby, that had been quiet right through the cacophony, now suddenly woke up when all was still and quiet. The shushing of the parents failed to curb the attention-seeking behavior of the child.

  ‘Go out into the terrace and feed him’, she said.

  ‘It’ll be cold’, he protested.

  ‘Take a blanket. Or our coming this far and twerking in the fancy dress would have been for naught’.

  ‘Okay’, he said, not liking it. ‘Can’t you put it to your breast in here?’

  ‘And have them walk in on me? Would you like that?’

  ‘Okay’. He gave in. Wrapping the child and himself in the quilt, he slid open the door and walked into the starlit sundeck. Under all that dress, and duress, he still wore his belt with the insulated, hot child feed. He looked for a shade where the dew wouldn’t fall and fixed the feed and bent over the child that at long last began to cease the noise making and suck on the bottle.

  Krishnamala remained seated inside and waited.

  The wait wasn’t very long. Luckily Arjun and Monal didn’t take drinks that night. They finished their meal soon after the folk dance and walked back into their room. They hung the overcoats and woolen scarves on the metal coat stand and flicked the light in the bedroom open. Monal came first into the room. She gave a loud start on seeing a tall, sturdy folk artist sitting cross-legged on the royal hand carved teak sofa. She seemed very much at home.

  ‘What happened’, Arjun asked and slid past Monal into the room. He too was startled to see the female sitting comfortably in their bedroom. ‘What are you doing here ma’am? Who are you?’ he addressed her, politely, out of sheer habit.

  ‘Why don’t you make yourselves comfortable’, the woman said, waving expansively around the large hall, as if it belonged to her.

  ‘Sure thanks, but who you are?’ Arjun repeated; his hands crossed across his chest. ‘How did you get in please?’

  ‘The same way as you did- through that door with the key’, she replied, trying to stifle a yawn.

  Arjun looked at Monal and raised his brows- he didn’t know what to do about this unannounced visitor.

  ‘I’m calling the security’, Monal said and walked to the phone by the bedside.

  ‘I am the security’, Krishnamala said, finally digging the police badge deep out of her jangling dress; ‘Special Agent Krishnamala Kadian, Crime Branch Mumbai. Now will you please sit down’.

  Monal became ashen on seeing the badge. She sank to the bed. She’d never quite expected the police to take her missing seriously or to catch up with her so soon, if at all. Like all the other cases, she’d never even expected her file to be opened in the dusty archives of the police department, leave alone to be found in person at all! Didn’t they have anything better to do, these cursed cops? Damn, damn!

  Arjun became tense too initially, but then resigned to his fate. He was almost glad to have the police here. He’d never figured out why he’d been kidnapped, or why someone would go to such great lengths to bury him alive. He’d seen Vishal with the Moroccan girl in the yacht- one moment he didn’t seem to care where or with whom his wife had been, and the next, he was jealous like Othello. What was the great cosmic plot, in which he was so helplessly churning, that he was unable to fathom? What, his fault was? The secret of the accidental shooting hung around his neck like an albatross and he was keen to go into confessional pronto. He was tired of running and hiding and pretending to be a criminal, which he was not. He’d indeed shot a man- but he’d been trying to kill them both. Circumstances had swung out of reason and control and he had been a hapless bystander, that’s all.

  ‘Arrest me, for I have killed’, he said, offering his wrists, feeling suddenly unbearably light.

  Krishnamala didn’t move, instead she softened towards this immensely good-looking, seemingly decent young man. Monal on the other hand seemed too sharp for her own good. Good looking in a stern, stuffy, military sort of a way, she was the kind that would have no interest in a simple, middle class soul, beyond using him in some way or the other. Clearly, it wasn’t for the sex either- however hot Arjun might be- since she could have had it anywhere and moved on without clinging to the other party or wearing him around like a manacle and letting him slow her down in her reckless pace in life.

  ‘Who have you killed, brother?’ Krishnamala said.

  ‘Nobody, he’s killed nobody’, Monal said hastily. ‘He’s been hallucinating- they drugged him- his kidnappers’.

  ‘Oh really. S
o you two didn’t elope, as everyone- including your husband- seemed to suggest. So you two are not really in love, is it?’

  ‘No, we’re in love’, Monal spoke again, before Arjun could say anything. ‘I came out here to rescue him when I found out he’d been kidnapped’.

  ‘Why would anyone kidnap the boy?’

  ‘Some goons from back home, I would guess. I wouldn’t know them’, Monal shrugged while Arjun looked on blankly. ‘In our business where we deal with superstars one never knows what axe is being ground’.

  Suddenly the room shuddered with a loud thumping at the door.

  ‘Are you expecting anyone’, Krishnamala asked.

  Monal shook her head. ‘Room service’, a loud voice outside the door spoke. Arjun made to move toward the door.

  ‘Don’t move- stay here’, Krishnamala ordered. She dipped into her dress, the Manjeeras clanged as she took out her service revolver .32”. She cautiously moved to the door and flung it open, standing behind it. Two thickset men, dressed sharply in black, barged in. They were Rahim and Shamim, Chotta Shameel’s henchmen. They didn’t notice Krishnamala hiding behind the door and went straight into the inner room where Monal and Arjun were sitting.

  Monal recognized them instantly and rose to her feet. Arjun merely looked on.

  ‘Hello bhabi! How’s the honeymoon going?’ Shamim said, twirling his moustache and licking his lips lewdly. Rahim stood with his back to the door leading out to the sundeck, a gun dangling loosely from his beefy hands.