Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Here,' Rohit said.

Sartaj watched him get the man and his broken leg over the gutter and down the lane a bit. Rohit was a good boy. He was responsible, and steady, and he loved his mother. He came back now to Sartaj.

'That's our neighbour Amritrao,' Rohit said. 'He was drunk one night, fell off the fast train as it came into Andheri station. He was lucky he didn't get his legs cut off. But he fell on the platform, smashed into the cement, phachack . So now he hobbles around.'

'And curses his wife.'

Rohit grinned. 'They curse at each other, actually. They're famous for their fights. And our Arpana, she has better curses than him. She told him once that you could drive a double-decker bus into his father's gaand, it was so wide from being bambooed by all the moneylenders he had borrowed from. She's just being nice to him right now because he's hurt. Just give it a couple of days, he'll get better and she'll be giving it to him.'

But right now, Arpana was being the dutiful wife, with a hand under her husband's elbow. He was tottering and swaying at the bottom of the lane, just before the slight rise that led to Katekar's house. 'He's going to fall and break his other leg,' Sartaj said. 'She should get him a wheelchair.'

Rohit was full of doubt. 'A wheelchair in these lanes, up and down? It wouldn't get through this last part. And imagine pushing it up the slope, over all these tilts and angles. A wheelchair wouldn't work.' He was looking down at the ground, measuring its slant and its condition. He really was a very serious boy.

Sartaj pumped his engine. 'A computerized wheelchair would,' he said over the bike's metallic thumping. 'I saw one once, that thing could race up this rise like a racing car. You wouldn't have believed it.'

'A computerized wheelchair?' Rohit was stunned by the possibilities. 'So it had to be motorized with a strong electric motor. Was there processing for each wheel?'

'I don't know,' Sartaj said. In this shining young face, he saw again Katekar's great faith in science, that trust in the greatness of technology, and he felt affection turn through his chest with the aching tug of a pulled muscle. 'But it worked all right. That fellow who owned it, he said he could go up and down stairs on it.'

'Was the wheelchair foreign? I've never seen anything like that here. That is so amazing.'

'Yes, it was imported. But I don't think it was built for Indian conditions, for dirt and monsoons. The poor bastard couldn't get spare parts. It was very hard to maintain.'

Rohit shook his head. 'Our country really is primitive.' And as he said it, he looked so like his father that Sartaj threw his head back and laughed.

'Study hard, guru,' Sartaj said, and patted him hard on the chest, and edged the bike up the lane, towards the main road. There were more people walking about now, on their way to the day's work, and he had to go slowly. The walls still had an early-morning glow about them, and the small houses were spilling children in uniforms into the path. Sartaj had to stop often, and his calves began to ache from pedalling at the ground to make way. What will become of those boys? What will become of Mohit? Sartaj was thinking now of Mohit's fights, his anger, his hatred. Where would he be ten years from now? What would he be?

Sartaj was finally at the intersection. He bucked the motorcycle out on to the wide asphalt, turned to the left and gratefully sped away. It was good to be out of the basti, out of the twisty mess. He went faster. But dread followed him, an image of an older Mohit lying in a dirty lane, his back bent across a gutter. Sartaj couldn't quite see his face, there was a blankness there, but he knew it was Mohit, and he was bleeding from gunshot wounds, and he was dead. Sartaj shook his head, and tried to think of the investigation at hand. No, no. Mohit would grow out of his trauma, he would forget, he would get better. He wouldn't become a tapori, a thug, a bhai. No. Kamble wouldn't have to encounter him, no, not ten years from now and not ever. Sartaj would see to that, he was certain of it.

Sartaj went south along the highway. He drove fast, weaving in and through the morning traffic. All his speed and his cutting close between buses couldn't rescue him from Mohit's revulsion, and from the certain knowledge of Mohit's future. Mohit in a checked shirt, bleeding from three close-range bullet wounds in the chest, Sartaj could see the powder burns on the cotton. It was all very real. You're being superstitious, he told himself, this is very silly. Mohit will be all right. Mohit will be all right. He drove on.

* * *

Parulkar was waiting for Sartaj in his niece's apartment in Santa Cruz. The deliveries of his money to Homi Mehta, his consultant, had slowed for a while, but now the pace was picking up again. He had no doubt spent untold sums of money as he engineered his way back to political favour, and now he was recouping. Sartaj had made a delivery less than a month ago, and now he was marvelling once again at the green marble in the lobby of the niece's apartment building. The stone seemed to increase its lustre each time Sartaj came back. Perhaps that was one of the virtues of Italian marble. The steel in the lift was still unmarked, so that Sartaj could see his face and tend to his moustache. He decided he was looking better than he had in a long time, and then wondered how this could be so, given all the recent stress. And perhaps he was imagining it anyway.

But Parulkar noticed it too. 'You are looking smart, Sartaj. Good, good.' He thumped Sartaj on the back and led him inside the apartment. The glass-topped dining table had dishes laid out on it, on lace-edged white place mats. 'Have some poha and chai. The poha is especially very good.'

'I've already eaten, sir.'

'Try some anyway, beta. Once in a while it is good to enjoy the small things in life. I'll have a cup with you.'

The poha was indeed spectacular. Sartaj ate a small helping, then heaped his plate again. Parulkar drank chai and looked on benignly. They spoke about current cases and about Parulkar's family. The renovations on Parulkar's house were at last complete, and now his daughter Mamta – whose divorce was proceeding through the family courts – and her children could live comfortably with Parulkar. Life was getting on. Parulkar seemed content, and all his old vigour had returned, redoubled. 'We will begin some new community interaction projects next month,' he said, 'after Diwali. New work for the new year.' And he listened to Sartaj's tales about the Gaitonde affair, and was confident that it would all amount to nothing. He shook his head and said, 'This is all just unnecessary fear, based on very little real evidence. That woman is connecting things from here and there, making up a case for herself to pursue. People do that when their career is just sitting. Gurus and bombs! Nonsense.'

Sartaj wasn't completely reassured, but Parulkar's confidence was comforting. After all, Parulkar was the man with the unerring instincts, whose record of arrests and successful investigations was unequalled. 'Yes, sir,' Sartaj said. 'It is all just a story based on rumours, nothing more.' He pushed back his plate. 'That was very good.'

'Come on,' Parulkar said. 'I have something for you.'

Sartaj was expecting the usual load of cash to be transported, but Parulkar led him to the bedroom and offered a grey box.

'Open, open,' he said.

Sartaj lifted the lid – bearing an embossed logo he had never seen before – and found tissue paper, very soft paper that individually wrapped the most glossy, elegant shoes he had ever encountered. They were simple, but sleek, and every stitch around the sole spoke of care and quality. The colour was perfect, brown with a hint of red, not flashy but eloquent. These were ideal shoes.