Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

So Aadil survived, in quiet and in hiding. He was, apart from his headaches, quite content. He was surprised that he did not feel lonely, after the camaraderie of the camps, but the books were consolation enough. He felt a tenderness towards himself, towards his prematurely aged body, and sometimes he allowed himself little luxuries: a new mattress, two sets of sheets, a bottle of shampoo. He did not worry too much about the future, although he had the sense that somewhere close by, disaster lurked under the deceptive ease that Mumbai had given him. He was sure of this, but when the catastrophe finally came, it was from a flank that he had grown complacent about. The boys, he thought, had settled down nicely. During operations, they were no longer jittery, they conducted themselves with professionalism and calm watchfulness. After their first big extravaganzas of spending on clothes and televisions and women, Shamsul, Bazil and Faraj had grown into careful businessmen, and invested their money in small businesses run by cousins and aunts, and took in high rates of return. They all gained weight, and looked generally prosperous. Aadil began to believe that he had, all by chance, collected a good and reliable squad. The boys were friends, bound to each other by shared interests and experience and danger.

Then Faraj and Bazil killed Shamsul. Aadil was in his room that afternoon, sleeping, when Bazil knocked. Aadil was shaken out of a dream of childhood by Bazil's frantic thumping, a dream in which he walked over a culvert and the roofs of low huts swam in the evening haze. Then he was awake, his hand on his chopper.

'Bhai,' Bazil said. 'Bhai?'

Aadil opened the door and found Bazil shaking against the wall, spattered with blood. Aadil pulled him in. 'What?' he said.

Bazil told him. For many weeks, months actually, he and Faraj had been suspicious of Shamsul and his dealings with the receiver who bought their goods. Shamsul always did the buying and selling by himself, and was reluctant to discuss exactly what prices had been paid for specific items, and he wouldn't discuss what the buyer said during a meeting, or even what the buyer said he might be able to move easily. It was all very strange. Bazil and Faraj had observed for months that Shamsul had more money than either of them, more – yes, it was true – than both of them put together. Faraj had joked with Shamsul, and had even asked him if he saved more than anyone, but Shamsul had always ignored the implications. He refused to defend himself, which made Faraj even more suspicious. Then last week Shamsul had bought a second kholi, a perfectly new place with four rooms and a double-sized water tanki. He hadn't told them, the bastard, about this grand new house, but Bazil had found out because his mother sometimes took in embroidery work from the builder's wife. Bazil told Faraj, and Faraj got very angry. Faraj had made a plan. They would get Shamsul drunk, and take him out near the nullah, behind the big water pipes, and confront him. They would use threats if necessary. But they would find out what was going on. Enough was enough. Bazil was to come prepared. So they invited Shamsul, very casually, to share a bottle of excellent vilayati rum. He was eager, of course. Shamsul had a liking for drink, and after some rum he always grew sentimental and sang. But this time the session was awkward from the very beginning, with Faraj fairly vibrating with tension from the moment he welcomed them into his new kholi. He had boiled eggs and salt and pepper all ready, and a plate of tangdis, and he poured them tall glasses as soon as they came in. After that everything blurred into a confusion of loud talk and lewd jokes and anger. Shamsul started to sing but then wanted more tangdis. Faraj told him, you pay for your own, you have too much money. Shamsul laughed it away, and for a while Bazil and he talked about girls. They talked about Rani Mukherjee and Zoya and Zeenat Aman, and then Shamsul mentioned Faraj's younger sister, whose name was also Zeenat and who was said – in the basti – to have a resemblance to beautiful Zeenat from the seventies. What he said was very innocent, that our Zeenat was ready for her first starring role now. But Faraj had been sitting silent in the corner, drinking glass after glass. 'You bastard,' he said, 'you have our money.' Bazil now realized that he was himself drunk, probably more drunk than Shamsul. He tried to stand up, to get in front of Faraj and remind him of the plan, of the walk out to the nullah. But it was too late. Faraj and Shamsul were shoving at each other already. Then Bazil was flabbergasted to find Shamsul shouting at him, who had done nothing and said very little. Shamsul refused to confess, and Faraj pulled out his chopper from behind the bed, and Bazil grabbed his own, and Shamsul was hitting out at them, thrashing his hands, trying to get out of the kholi. There was blood on his chest now. Then he was running down the lane, and they brought him down once, and again. He tried to get into someone's house. Maybe he thought it was his own. They hit him again and he fell. And it was done.

Aadil wiped Bazil's face clean of the tears, gave him a clean shirt and shoved him out. 'Go,' he said. 'Run.' But Bazil stood as helpless as a blind ox in the lane, and Aadil had to give him instructions: go home, get money, get out, find a lodge far away and stay there, and we will meet on Sunday at the Maharaja Hotel in Andheri East, at one o'clock. Being told what to do got Bazil into motion, and he went. Aadil cleaned out his own kholi. He took cash, two shirts, two pairs of pants and a pair of shoes. He was out in ten minutes, and he walked at an even pace, never looking back.

Aadil stayed at a lodge near Dadar station that night, and then moved again to Mahim the next day. He had no intention of going to the Maharaja Hotel on Sunday, and he knew well that he should leave Mumbai. But where else was there to go? There were other cities, other huge masses of men and women in which to lose himself, but he was here in Mumbai and it had taken him in. He did not have the vigour to stir himself again into motion, to journey again to some new place, to find new languages and new people. This was home, and he was here. This was decided. In two days he had a room near Film City, and on Sunday he did go to the Maharaja Hotel. Maybe it was a mistake, but the boys were his team. They brought in his living. Finding others would be work, and take time, and the end of the month was near. Almost time for another job. So he found a corner near the Maharaja Hotel, and he watched. Faraj and Bazil came just before one, in an auto-rickshaw. They went in, and Aadil waited. He had been trained in patience by his instructors, and then by all his ambushes. An hour passed, and then another. There was no sign of lurking policemen, but still Aadil waited.

Just after three, Faraj and Bazil walked down the steps of the hotel, looking disheartened. They walked down the road, and Aadil followed. He let them get far ahead, then crossed the road and closed in again, on the other side. No policemen, as far as he could see. But Faraj had his arm over Bazil's shoulders, and Bazil seemed to be crying. Aadil came back over to them, took Bazil by the elbow. 'Be quiet,' he said to Faraj. 'Walk.'

Aadil took them to a little patch of garden in the middle of the road, on a traffic circle. There was a single tree in the circle, and he squatted under it. The boys sat uncomfortably, cross-legged and shifting from side to side. Aadil let them sweat in the sun and told them what idiots they were. He didn't let them talk, and told them that there were no excuses for what they had done. They had jeopardized him and the entire unit and their operations. Their actions had been irresponsible, and their drinking irreligious. They had understood nothing of what he had taught them about the use of force.