Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'I think,' Majid said, leaning forward to clink glasses, 'Inspector Sartaj, that if your Ma tells you to, you have to put those blackmailers out of business.'

Sartaj had to agree. 'I'll call the Pandey woman,' he said. 'After dinner.'

At dinner Sartaj watched Majid and Rehana banter with each other. They argued about each other's parents, which set was more eccentric. Their own children giggled. Majid told stories about Rehana's mother that Sartaj had heard before, but he laughed again. Rehana was affectionate with her own children, with Farah and Imtiaz, and Sartaj thought that neither of these children would ever make good police. He had no doubt that Rehana was an efficient mother, and kind, but she didn't occupy her children's lives in the old-fashioned way that Majid had been talking about. She was their friend. And anyway, the kids were both too ambitious to consider a career in the force, which produced decrepit types like their father's sardar friend.

Sartaj drove home, burping loudly all the way. He went very slowly, quite aware that he was drunk. A perfectly round moon dodged behind buildings and darted out between billboards for next week's Shah Rukh Khan release, a grand love story. Sartaj tilted gently past a traffic circle, and thought that the posters had become a lot glossier than the hand-painted ones he remembered from his childhood, which had made Dharmendra look like an alien with an inflated head. Love was altogether shinier now, or at least it had that appearance. Kamala Pandey was discovering how grimy it could be, how bare and bleak hotel rooms looked through a camera lens. Stopped at a traffic light, under another Shah Rukh poster, Sartaj considered the possibility of profits from her: did he want to take Kamala Pandey? Would he? Sartaj thought not. She was irritating, self-centred, spoilt. And anyway chodoing her would be dramatic, it would require an effort of will and force that would be exhausting, that would be anything other than pleasurable. No, if he helped her, it would be for the money, and only that.

Sartaj got home, took off his shoes and socks and dialled Kamala Pandey's number. She picked up on the first ring, and Sartaj could hear the panic in her 'Hello?'

'This is Inspector Sartaj Singh,' he said. He heard the breath that went from her then, as if someone had hit her hard under the breastbone.

'Yes,' she said. 'Yes.' Under her voice, there was conversation, music. A man was talking, close to her. They were in a restaurant, the successful young couple.

'I want to see you again. At the same place, at four o'clock.' She said nothing. 'Can you hear me?'

'Yes.'

'Don't worry. I am going to help you.'

'Okay. Thank you.' She was working hard to sound casual, as if she was speaking to a girlfriend about hair appointments.

'Did they call you again? Just say yes or no.'

'Yes.'

'We'll talk about it tomorrow. Relax. Bring that list of their numbers. Four o'clock, same place.'

'Okay, yes.'

Sartaj hung up. He put his feet up on the coffee table, loosened his belt. When he got paid on this job, maybe he would take Ma to Amritsar. He would take her to Harmandir Sahib, and watch her pray. It was comforting to feel the intensity of her devotion, it moved through him like a kind of familiar warmth. He wasn't sure if this was because he had grown up with the murmur of her prayers always sounding somewhere near, or whether within himself there was some forgotten, subterranean strand of belief that resonated into partial life when she hummed and sang. Anyway he would take her to Amritsar, and ignore her reckless remarks about this journey being her last one. If Ma wanted him to help the odious Kamala Pandey, let her profit from the job too. It was only fair, only fit.

* * *

Kamala Pandey wore a black outfit the next day at Sindoor. She was seated at the table near the kitchen when Sartaj came into the restaurant a few minutes after four. She had a bottle of mineral water in front of her, and an impossibly tiny mobile phone. Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, and Sartaj knew that the black blouse was definitely casual, but she still looked sleek enough to be on television, on some music channel.

'Hello,' she said. 'Thank you.' She had a way of tilting her head down when she smiled, so that she was looking up at you with very large eyes.

'Did you bring the money?' Sartaj said. He wanted short conversations with her, limited to professional requirements and concerns. She scrabbled in her bag, which was not the silver one she had carried earlier. This one was a black triangle, made out of some iridescent material. 'And the numbers?'

'The money is more today than yesterday,' she said.

There was thirty thousand in the envelope. Sartaj nodded. 'They called yesterday afternoon?'

'Yes. At one twenty-five. I told them what you said to say, that I need time to collect the money. They are not nice people.'

'They abused you?'

'They were saying very-very bad things.'

Her handwriting was full of curves and dashes and flourishes, but she had been meticulous about noting the dates and times of the calls in orderly columns with headings. 'When did you make the first payment?' Sartaj asked, and made a notation on the page. 'And when they called, did you hear anything interesting? Anything?'

'No. I tried. A car or a scooter passing by, now and then. But nothing else.'

'Keep trying. They will be very abusive, they will threaten you. Just delay. I need some time to look into this. I will call you soon.' Sartaj gathered up the envelope and pushed his chair back.

'Wait!' She held out an imperious hand, and then lowered it under Sartaj's glare. 'Please. You said you wanted to meet Umesh. He is coming.'

'Here?'

'Yes. He was supposed to be here at four. Sorry.' She was being deferential now, subdued.

'Okay,' Sartaj said. He looked at his watch, and then they sat. Sartaj had nothing to say to her. She played with her phone, pressed the keys, read a text message. Then she put it down, and looked through her bag. She peeped up at Sartaj, who kept himself very neutral, and then went back to her investigations. She was getting nervous and fidgety. This was not a woman who was used to men being silent around her. Sartaj was starting to enjoy himself. It was cruel, but he kept himself absolutely quiet, and the minutes passed.

When Kamala Pandey started to look slump-shouldered and forlorn, he took pity on her. It was too much to watch her droop. 'Is Umesh always late?'

That revived her like a bite of a tart lemon. 'He's on time for his flights, but for everything else he's late. He takes more time to get ready than me. You should see his bathroom, it looks like a chemist's shop. He has more shampoos and conditioners and scents than me and your wife and five other women put together.'

Sartaj let it pass, the little lure about his wife. He said, 'And he always calls and says he's on the way, he's in the car, he's rushing, he'll be here in fifteen minutes?'

'Yes, yes. And then two hours later he shows up, with some story. He used to drive me crazy.'

She was unable to help being just a little wistful. Sartaj was sympathetic: drama and craziness were painful, but you could miss that madness as you missed food or water. Until you settled into the dead calm of no hope, no disappointments. But Kamala Pandey still enjoyed talking about the sins of her ex, it revived her. 'Maybe he had other stops on the way?' Sartaj said.

She laughed out loud. 'Umesh always has two or three fools on his strings. He doesn't even hide it too much. He just makes you feel that he hasn't found the right one yet, that maybe you are the one where all the searching ends. He's honest enough that you believe him.'

'You saw the truth after all.'

'After a long time.'