Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Okay,' Sartaj said. 'So what was the nature of your relationship with Gaitonde?'

She clearly thought this was a silly question, but she had understood she was supposed to provide even the obvious answers. 'He supported me. I was alone in Bombay.'

'Jojo had a cut?'

'They had their arrangement. Whatever he gave me was between him and me.'

'How did you meet him? Where? How often?'

Zoya had a precise memory, and now she gave them a good report: she had in the beginning seen him maybe once a month, always in Singapore. She had always stayed in the same hotel. A phone call late at night was her signal to take a freight elevator to the hotel garage, where a limousine would be waiting. She spent time with Gaitonde in a flat that belonged to one of his associates, Arvind. There was only Arvind's wife Suhasini in this flat, nobody else, not even servants. She had never met Gaitonde in Bombay, or anywhere else in India. The flat was huge, and Gaitonde and she stayed in the upper half, in the penthouse. Of Gaitonde's associates, she knew only Jojo and Arvind. After she had become Miss India, she had been quite busy and the frequency of their meetings had declined. When she had worked on her first film they had spoken frequently on the phone, after the film even that contact had declined, but yes, she had seen him a few times after that. They had never broken off their relationship, there had been no quarrels or disagreements, but there had been something of a slow unwinding. Gaitonde had seemed preoccupied towards the end, and then had disappeared altogether. Until he showed up dead in Bombay, with a dead Jojo. And that was all.

Sartaj took her back through the people she had met through Gaitonde, and she was sure – there was Jojo, Arvind, Suhasini. She had never even seen the driver of the limousine. Gaitonde had seen to it that the logistics ran efficiently, smoothly, exactly the same every time. 'We had to keep it private,' Zoya said. 'And he was very good at security.'

'Who did he talk about? He must have mentioned some names, some people.'

'He didn't talk to me.'

'How can that be? You spent all this time together. You were his secret girlfriend. He liked you. What did he say to you?'

'I told you, not much. I didn't talk, mostly. At first I didn't say much because I was afraid of him. Then I realized that he liked me silent, that was what he preferred. So I kept quiet.'

'So you must have listened a lot. What did he talk about?'

'To me? Not much. Make-up, my career. Films and the film business. What I should do next.' She was looking down at her hands now, and under the overhead light her face was a mask of gold. 'He thought he knew everything. I said yes a lot and nodded my head.'

'What was he like, this Gaitonde?'

'What do you expect? He was Ganesh Gaitonde. He was just like himself.'

'Madam, but you knew him. Really. You must know things about him that the rest of us don't. Some details.'

'He played the part of Ganesh Gaitonde even when he was alone with himself. I think he was the same when he was alone with me as he was when he was in his durbar with his boys. That voice, and sitting like this.' She slouched back in the chair, her shoulders came up, an aggressively cupped hand gestured towards Sartaj, as if wanting to squeeze his testicles. 'Ay, Sardar-ji. What, you think you can come on to my ship and push me around, shanne? Do you know who I am? I am Ganesh Gaitonde .'

At the orotund rolling of the name Sartaj and Kamble both burst out into laughter. She had that voice exactly right, the one that Sartaj had heard that long-ago afternoon, full of booming self-importance, even over a clangy speaker. 'Madam,' Sartaj said, 'you are too good.'

Zoya accepted the tribute as her proper due, with a slight inclination of the head. She was still Gaitonde, though. She picked up an imaginary phone, dialled with her little finger. 'Arre, Bunty! Maderchod! You sit in Bombay eating all the malai and getting fat, and take months to do work that should be done in one week. What happened with that khoka we were expecting from Kilachand this week?'

Sartaj gave her another appreciative laugh. 'Madam,' he said, 'so he talked to one Bunty in Bombay?'

'Frequently.'

'Do you remember any details?'

'Details of?'

'What they talked about.'

'No, I tried not to listen. It was all about khokas and petis and meet that one there and call that one. Mostly they did their business in Arvind's flat, downstairs. But at night, when I was supposed to be sleeping, sometimes Gaitonde would sit in the balcony and talk on the phone. I heard bits and pieces, but mostly it was boring. I can't remember details. I used to pretend I was sleeping a lot, just lie there and close my eyes and think about my career. He used to talk on his phone then.'

Gaitonde must have been planning murder, mayhem and extortion, but to a beautiful young woman dreaming of stardom, perhaps that was boring. Sartaj smiled encouragingly. 'So there was Bunty he talked to. Who else? Please think, anything can help us. Even any names.'

Zoya sat up, out of her Gaitonde sprawl. She put a hand on her chin and projected concentration. 'I can't really remember. There were always three or four phones. There was one phone for Bunty. Yes, yes, I remember. There was a Kumar on another separate one, a Kumar Saab or Mr Kumar.'

'Very good, madam,' Sartaj said. Kamble was writing on a small pad. 'That is very good. Mr Kumar.'

'I think there were other people in Bombay, in Nashik. Of course he talked to Jojo often. Sometimes he had me say hello to her. Then there was somebody in London, some Trivedi-ji or something like that. There were a few others. I can't remember. Then there was one phone only for his guru.'

'Gaitonde had a guru?'

'Yes, he talked to him almost as much as Jojo, I thought.'

'Who was this guru?'

'I don't know. He called him "Guru-ji".'

'Where was the guru calling from?'

'I don't know. All over, I think. I remember Gaitonde telling him once to go to Disneyland.'

'Disneyland?'

'Disneyland, Disneyworld. One of those. And another time this Guru-ji was in Germany.'

'What did they talk about?'

'Spiritual things. About the past and the future. God, I think. Gaitonde consulted the guru on shaguns and mahurats and when to start projects and everything like that.'

So Gaitonde had a guru. He had been famous for his piety, his four-hour pujas, his donations to religious festivals and pilgrimage centres, so it made sense that he had a guru. Of course he had a guru.

Sartaj took Zoya to the beginning, to her first meeting with Jojo, and then through Gaitonde and then again the days with him, and the nights when she pretended sleep and he phoned. The details were consistent, and the same names emerged: Arvind, Suhasini, Bunty. It really did seem that Zoya Mirza had built a connection to Ganesh Gaitonde solely through these meetings in an apartment in Singapore, and through phone calls. He had financed her rise as a model, and then her first film. How exactly Zoya had profited from her trips abroad emerged only very slowly, as Sartaj probed past her reluctance. She was reticent about her colleagues in the movie industry, but Sartaj could be relentless even as he was being polite. She was a worthy opponent, and he had a weak hand, and it was her house, so they went back and forth. But he finally had what he thought might be some approximation of the whole story. They looked at each other, Zoya and he, quite exhausted.

'Nothing more, madam?' he said. 'Anything at all about Gaitonde?'

'What else is there to say?'

'Nothing else about the great Ganesh Gaitonde? What he was like?'

'Great?' She shrugged. 'He was a short man trying to act like some big hero,' she said.

So are we all, Sartaj thought, and may Vaheguru deliver us from the judgements of our girlfriends. 'Okay,' he said. 'Thank you, madam.'