Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

Iffat-bibi was seated cross-legged on a red executive chair at the point of the triangle. She had her burqa thrown off her head, revealing a youthful thickness of hennaed hair. 'Come, come,' she said. 'Arre, Munna, get some chai for Saab.' She waved Sartaj into a chair almost as magnificent as the one she was sitting on, and closed the ledger that she had been perusing. 'Do you want the air-conditioner higher, saab? They keep it so cold in here that it freezes my bones. But you are a young fellow, you people like it like that.'

'No, no need. It's cold enough.'

The room pushed them close together, and Sartaj thought that Iffat-bibi looked exactly as he had expected. She was large and craggy, with a square-cut jaw and youthful skin. The toothless mouth was startling, under the alert eyes and sharp nose. He couldn't imagine her as a young woman. Maybe she had been the same age for the last hundred years. She certainly looked as if she could go on for at least another hundred.

'Saab, what will you eat?'

'Nothing, Bibi. Please, we need to discuss your information. There is great danger, and those are very dangerous men.'

'Danger is always there, saab. If you miss the chance to eat, danger will still come.' There was a knock at the frosted glass door, and then a boy put a steaming cup of chai in front of Sartaj. 'Get some tandoori machchi for Saab. And that special jhinga.'

Sartaj sat back in his chair and gave himself up to the rituals of hospitality. The end of the world would wait, it had been coming for months and for forever. Iffat-bibi was implacable in her courtesies. Arguing would get you nowhere, better to co-operate and enjoy. 'So, Bibi,' he said, 'what is the news?'

Iffat-bibi shifted her bulk on the chair, from one haunch to another. 'Saab, I am just an old woman, I don't get out much. I just came here today to check some accounts.' But then she told tales about minor taporis, and shooters from rival organizations, and bar girls. The food arrived, and Sartaj ate a symbolic bite of each dish. His head was throbbing. The cold air streamed across his cheeks and curled across his neck, and he was assaulted by a foreboding that settled in his thighs and made them cramp. He settled himself in the chair, and tried to relax, and made conversation.

Finally Iffat-bibi was ready to come to the point. She slurped the last of her chai from a saucer, put it down and said, 'You want these men.'

'Yes.'

'We know where they are.'

'How?'

'They have rented a house from one of our associates. Of course they didn't know that this landlord was one of our friends. They paid cash up front, quite a lot of it, for two months' rent and the deposit.'

'How long ago was this?'

'Almost two months. The lease is almost ended.'

Sartaj felt his stomach lurch. 'What kind of house? A flat? A bungalow?'

'Don't be smart with me, beta. We'll just say a house. And no, you won't find them. Only one of them ever goes in or out. The rest are there, the wheelchair man, the foreigner, but they never show themselves, not to anyone. Only the landlord saw them go in. And nobody thought about it till now, when all you policiyas started chasing all over for them.' Iffat-bibi extracted a silver box from somewhere inside her voluminous coverings, and began to arrange herself a paan. 'What have these fellows done?'

'Nothing yet.' Sartaj was very still, he had his palms resting on the table.

Iffat-bibi spread a silvery paste over the leaf, and then deftly folded it small. She popped it into her mouth. 'I know you think you can maybe find them. You think you have some information, a house, a house with a garden and stairs. But believe me you won't find it. Don't be a foolish boy, don't even try that.'

'Yes.' Sartaj took a sip of his tepid chai. The walls pressed in around him, and he blinked at Iffat-bibi, at her reddened, chewing mouth. 'Yes,' he said. 'What do you want?'

This pleased her, this mature understanding he had demonstrated of what was required. She beamed at him. 'We want Parulkar.'

'Saali, don't you dare go near him. If you touch him, I'll…'

'Sit down.' Iffat-bibi did not flinch from his anger, she sat as immovable as a mountain. 'Sit.'

Sartaj let go of his painful grip on the table, and let himself back down into his chair. 'Don't go near him.'

'Arre, baba, who said anything about touching him? We're not fools, we are not going to thoko him, nothing like that. We don't want the entire police force of Mumbai on our backs.'

That made sense, Sartaj thought. No policeman of that rank had ever been killed in the city. 'But why do you want to do anything to him?' he said. 'He is close to you, he is close to your superiors. So why?'

Iffat-bibi spat red into the rubbish bin at the side of the desk. 'Yes, we thought he was close to us also. And we have been friends with him for a long time, we supported him in his times of trouble. But now he is secure, he has new friends.'

'You mean the new government? But a man has to live. He has to work under them, so he has to accommodate them a little bit.'

'Yes, yes. Of course. We understand that. We've never begrudged anyone their work, their livelihood. Arre, Parulkar Saab has kept back money from us that was ours, full khokhas of it. We said, let it go. The relationship is more important than just money.'

'So now, what is it? What happened?'

'Over the last four months, seven of our boys have been killed. These were not some chillar, you understand. All were top shooters and controllers. All were intelligent, good at hiding, good at moving. But the police, this Flying Squad, knew exactly where to find them. So they encountered them. And the government puts it all over the papers, and say they have crushed crime. And we ask, how are the police suddenly so good at tracing our best boys?' Iffat-bibi leant forward into the lamplight. 'We did our own investigation. Now we know. Parulkar gave our boys to this government.'

'Iffat-bibi, the intelligence for the encounters could have come from a thousand places. Your boys were killed, that's bad, but it doesn't mean…'

'We have our own intelligence. We are sure. He switched sides, and he is killing our boys.'

Despite the cold, Sartaj's hands were sweating. He wiped them on his pants, and tried to keep them still. 'He will come back to you. If you want, I will talk to him myself.'

'No, he won't talk to us now, even. He doesn't take my phone calls. He won't take Bhai's phone calls. Can you imagine?'

Sartaj couldn't imagine. To refuse phone calls from Suleiman Isa himself meant that Parulkar had really made the switch, that he had taken years of his life, packed them up and walked across a very dangerous border. Sartaj didn't want to believe it, but it all made sense: Parulkar's rehabilitation with the current Rakshak government, this government's sudden success in hunting down members of the S-Company. Parulkar had done it, he had made the move. 'Let it go,' Sartaj said. 'Forgive him. Like you forgave the money.'

'It's too late. He has caused too much damage.' She pointed straight up, towards the ceiling and beyond, and shook her head. 'The order has come from upstairs. Bhai is very angry, Bhai feels insulted. Bhai said so. Parulkar has to be removed from his job, from the police. Bas.'

So that was it, Parulkar was to go. He had emerged the triumphant survivor once again, in this last battle, and he had done it by turning against old friends. Now they would finish him. 'Why are you telling me this?'

'You are very close to him.'

'Yes. So?' Sartaj knew the answer, and all this talking was just a play for time, a slight and foolish manoeuvre against the unyielding levers that were moving against him, that were squeezing him into a very small and dark place.

'You can help us.'