Aravind Adiga - Last Man in Tower

$100,000 × 2

and

$200,000 × 1

*

The Daisy Duck clock outside chimed nine o’clock. In the inner room of the Renaissance Real-Estate Agency, Kudwa was singing ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, while the Secretary was slapping his thighs in time.

‘Ajwani is not coming.’ Mrs Puri stood up from the cot and straightened her sari. ‘Something has happened to him.’

‘So?’ Kudwa stopped singing. ‘It’s over, isn’t it?’

Without looking at each other, Mrs Puri and her husband held hands.

‘We can’t waste this chance, Ibby. It’s for Ramu.’

‘I can’t let you two do it on your own.’ The Secretary got up. ‘I’ll make sure no one’s watching. That’s my responsibility. And you, Ibrahim. Will you go to the police?’

Ibrahim Kudwa blinked, as if he couldn’t understand the Secretary’s words. ‘You are my neighbours of nine years,’ he said.

The Secretary embraced him. ‘You were always one of us, Ibrahim. From the first day. Now go home and sleep.’

Kudwa shook his head.

‘Nine years together. If you’re going to jail, I’m going to jail too.’

It was decided that the Puris would leave first. The back door that led from the inner room to a side alley closed behind them.

Kothari’s mobile phone rang a few minutes later.

‘Masterji is on the terrace. Ram Khare is not in his booth. Come.’

They went out through the back door. They crossed the market. On the way to the Society, Kudwa said: ‘Maybe we should ask him. If he’ll sign.’

Both stopped. To their left, a paper kite had floated down and collapsed on the road.

The Secretary moved, but not Ibrahim Kudwa; the Hindu holy man was sleeping by the whitewashed banyan outside his cyber-café. A cyclostyled advertisement had been pasted over his head:

STRONGLY SCENTED PHENYL. DISINFECTS. FRESHENS YOUR HOUSE. BUY DIRECT. 170 RS FOR FIVE LITRES.

If only , Kudwa thought, I could inhale the cleansing scent of disinfectant right now . He looked up and saw the dark star from last Christmas over his café.

‘Do you think… they expect me to come all the way to the Society?’

‘What are you talking about, Ibrahim?’

‘I mean, do Mrs Puri and Mr Puri expect me to come all the way? Or would they know I was being supportive if I came this far and went back?’

‘Ibrahim, I expect you to come with me all the way. We have to make sure Mr and Mrs Puri are safe. We’re not doing anything.’

The door of the cyber-café trembled. Kudwa realized that it had not been doubled-bolted from the inside. How many times had he told Arjun, someone could pick the lock from the outside and steal the computers unless he…

‘ Ibrahim . I need you.’

‘Coming.’

With Vishram Society in sight, the two men were spotted.

‘It’s Trivedi. He’s coming this way. We should go back.’

‘He won’t say a thing tomorrow. I know this man.’

Trivedi, bare-chested except for his shawl, smiled at the men, and passed them.

When they got to the gate, the Secretary looked up and said: ‘He’s not on the terrace.’

They unlatched the gate and tiptoed through the compound, the Secretary darting into his office for a few seconds, leaving Ibrahim Kudwa rubbing his hands by the noticeboard.

‘What do you want that for?’ he asked, when Kothari emerged with a roll of Scotch tape.

‘Go into the office,’ the Secretary whispered, ‘and bring the hammer with you. It’s sitting next to the typewriter.’

Mrs Puri was waiting for them at the top of the stairs. Her husband stood behind her.

‘He just returned from the terrace and closed his door. You men took too long.’

‘Do we call it off?’ Kudwa asked. ‘Another day?’

‘No. Do you have the key, Kothari?’

The Scotch tape was not the only thing the Secretary had brought from the office. He inserted the spare key to 3A into the hole and struggled with it. They heard the sound of a television serial from the Pintos’ room.

‘Should we ask him, one more time, if he will sign?’

‘Shut up, Ibrahim. Just stay there and watch the door.’

The door opened. Masterji had gone to sleep in his living room, his feet on the teakwood table, the Rubik’s Cube by his chair.

Kudwa came in behind the others and closed the door. The Secretary, moving to the chair, cut a piece of Scotch tape and pressed it over Masterji’s mouth.

That awoke the sleeping man. He ripped the Scotch tape off his mouth.

‘Kothari? How did you get in?’

‘You have to agree now, Masterji. Right now.’

‘Think of Gaurav,’ Mrs Puri asked. ‘Think of Ronak. Say “Yes.” Now .’

‘Get out,’ the old man said. ‘All of you get out of my—’

The Secretary moved before he could finish the sentence: he cut another slice of Scotch tape and tried to stick it over the old man’s mouth. Masterji pushed the Secretary back. Mr Puri stood stiff near the door.

‘Kothari, don’t touch him,’ Ibrahim Kudwa warned.

Masterji, recognizing the voice of his protector, got up and began to turn in his direction.

‘Ibby,’ Mrs Kudwa said. ‘Ibby.’

At once, Ibrahim Kudwa lifted the hammer he had brought from the Secretary’s office, lunged forward, and hit Masterji on the crown of his head. Who, more from surprise than anything else, fell back into his chair with such force that it toppled over and his head landed hard on the floor. Masterji lay there like that, unable to move, though he saw things with clarity. Ibrahim Kudwa stared with an open mouth; the hammer dropped from his hand. I should reach for the hammer , Masterji thought, but the Secretary lunged and picked it up. Now he felt a weight on his chest: Kothari, pressing a knee on his torso, turned the hammer upside down and stubbed it on his forehead using both his hands. It hurt. He tried to shout, but he heard only a groan from his mouth. Now something, or someone, sat on his legs, and he lost control of them; he was aware that Kothari was pounding his forehead with the hammer again and again. The blows were landing somewhere far away, like stones falling on the surface of a lake he was deep inside. He thought of a line from the Mahabharata: ‘… King Dhritharashtra’s heart was like a forest lake, warm on the surface but icy at the bottom.’ Kothari stopped and took a breath. Poor man’s arms must be aching by now , Masterji thought. He was sure he had never seen anyone move as fast as Kothari was moving with the hammer, except for the boy at the McDonald’s on Linking Road when he lifted French fries from the hot oil, slammed them into the metal trough, and put the empty container back in the oil. Then the hammer hit his forehead again. ‘Kothari. Wait.’ Now Sanjiv Puri came from the bedroom with a large dark thing, which he lowered on to Masterji’s face. When the dark thing touched his nose, Masterji understood. Yes. The pillow from his bed. It pressed down on his nose and crushed his moustache: he understood that Sanjiv Puri was sitting on it. His legs thrashed: not to free themselves, but to take him down to the bottom of the lake faster. He was in very cool and black water now.

‘He’s unconscious. Sanjiv, enough. Get up.’

Sanjiv Puri looked at his wife, who was sitting on Masterji’s legs, and then at Ibrahim Kudwa, who was watching things with an open mouth.

‘Quickly. You take the feet, Kothari will take the head,’ Mrs Puri told her husband. ‘Ibby, pick up that hammer. Don’t leave it here.’

Kudwa, rubbing his forearms, stood still. ‘Oy, oy, oy,’ he said.

‘Wait,’ Sanjiv Puri said. ‘First put some more tape on his mouth. In case he wakes up.’