The Benefit Season (30 page)

The female
Chari
dancers were
dressed to the hilt in flowing colorful
ghagra cholis
embroidered with bead
and sequin work, big nose rings and
gajra
armlets
. 13 Manjeeras
[cymbals] were tied at
particular places on their dresses. They had to strike together at
a specific point and angle to make a sound; hence the dance was
basically about balancing the pots and striking together the
Manjeeras. Ergo, it was also called the
tera taali
or the 13-beat dance. On
cue, the women swayed in, expertly balancing several
charis
[pots] on their
heads. They glided about some, and then switched to twisting and
writhing on the floor with swords clenched between their teeth. The
men, equally loudly attired, wearing
soorma
[eye liner] made from snake
venom, made raucous music with
Sarangi
,
Morchang
and
Dhol
, and sang rowdily- celebrating
the long, supposedly romantic walks brave Rajasthani females took
in the desert, balancing many heavy pots filled with water on their
heads and supposedly enjoying themselves immensely in the process.
No one cared if they were out of tune or out of step. No one
noticed. It was so bawdy, so gaudy, and so quaint that all was
forgiven and forgotten. Krishnamala slid close to the guests,
keeping a sharp eye out for her quarry while jerking rhythmically
on the floor. Agent 9, with the baby in a crib beside him, strummed
expertly on the
Ek Tara
to the beat, and scanned the guests.

It took but a few minutes for the cops to
identify their couple lounging in a corner, nursing their water
bottles, looking away into the twinkling night sky, oblivious to
the others and the song and dance. As soon as the first item got
over, and the dancers had hurried into the changing rooms to make
way for the fire spitting artistes, the two cops and the baby
disappeared into the myriad passages of the hotel where a waiting
staff escorted them to Monal’s suite and let them quietly in with
the manager’s key.

The agents waited in the dark for the couple
to finish their dinner and walk right into their trap. The baby,
that had been quiet right through the cacophony, now suddenly woke
up when all was still and quiet. The shushing of the parents failed
to curb the attention-seeking behavior of the child.

‘
Go out into the terrace
and feed him’, she said.

‘
It’ll be cold’, he
protested.

‘
Take a blanket. Or our
coming this far and twerking in the fancy dress would have been for
naught’.

‘
Okay’, he said, not
liking it. ‘Can’t you put it to your breast in here?’

‘
And have them walk in on
me? Would you like that?’

‘
Okay’. He gave in.
Wrapping the child and himself in the quilt, he slid open the door
and walked into the starlit sundeck. Under all that dress, and
duress, he still wore his belt with the insulated, hot child feed.
He looked for a shade where the dew wouldn’t fall and fixed the
feed and bent over the child that at long last began to cease the
noise making and suck on the bottle.

Krishnamala remained seated inside and
waited.

The wait wasn’t very long. Luckily Arjun and
Monal didn’t take drinks that night. They finished their meal soon
after the folk dance and walked back into their room. They hung the
overcoats and woolen scarves on the metal coat stand and flicked
the light in the bedroom open. Monal came first into the room. She
gave a loud start on seeing a tall, sturdy folk artist sitting
cross-legged on the royal hand carved teak sofa. She seemed very
much at home.

‘
What happened’, Arjun
asked and slid past Monal into the room. He too was startled to see
the female sitting comfortably in their bedroom. ‘What are you
doing here ma’am? Who are you?’ he addressed her, politely, out of
sheer habit.

‘
Why don’t you make
yourselves comfortable’, the woman said, waving expansively around
the large hall, as if it belonged to her.

‘
Sure thanks, but who you
are?’ Arjun repeated; his hands crossed across his chest. ‘How did
you get in please?’

‘
The same way as you did-
through that door with the key’, she replied, trying to stifle a
yawn.

Arjun looked at Monal and raised his brows-
he didn’t know what to do about this unannounced visitor.

‘
I’m calling the
security’, Monal said and walked to the phone by the
bedside.

‘
I am the security’,
Krishnamala said, finally digging the police badge deep out of her
jangling dress; ‘Special Agent Krishnamala Kadian, Crime Branch
Mumbai. Now will you please sit down’.

Monal became ashen on
seeing the badge. She sank to the bed. She’d never quite expected
the police to take her missing seriously or to catch up with her so
soon, if at all. Like all the other cases, she’d never even
expected her file to be opened in the dusty archives of the police
department, leave alone to be found in person at all!
Didn’t they have anything better to do, these
cursed cops? Damn, damn!

Arjun became tense too initially, but then
resigned to his fate. He was almost glad to have the police here.
He’d never figured out why he’d been kidnapped, or why someone
would go to such great lengths to bury him alive. He’d seen Vishal
with the Moroccan girl in the yacht- one moment he didn’t seem to
care where or with whom his wife had been, and the next, he was
jealous like Othello. What was the great cosmic plot, in which he
was so helplessly churning, that he was unable to fathom? What, his
fault was? The secret of the accidental shooting hung around his
neck like an albatross and he was keen to go into confessional
pronto. He was tired of running and hiding and pretending to be a
criminal, which he was not. He’d indeed shot a man- but he’d been
trying to kill them both. Circumstances had swung out of reason and
control and he had been a hapless bystander, that’s all.

‘
Arrest me, for I have
killed’, he said, offering his wrists, feeling suddenly unbearably
light.

Krishnamala didn’t move, instead she
softened towards this immensely good-looking, seemingly decent
young man. Monal on the other hand seemed too sharp for her own
good. Good looking in a stern, stuffy, military sort of a way, she
was the kind that would have no interest in a simple, middle class
soul, beyond using him in some way or the other. Clearly, it wasn’t
for the sex either- however hot Arjun might be- since she could
have had it anywhere and moved on without clinging to the other
party or wearing him around like a manacle and letting him slow her
down in her reckless pace in life.

‘
Who have you killed,
brother?’ Krishnamala said.

‘
Nobody, he’s killed
nobody’, Monal said hastily. ‘He’s been hallucinating- they drugged
him- his kidnappers’.

‘
Oh really. So you two
didn’t elope, as everyone- including your husband- seemed to
suggest. So you two are not really in love, is it?’

‘
No, we’re in love’, Monal
spoke again, before Arjun could say anything. ‘I came out here to
rescue him when I found out he’d been kidnapped’.

‘
Why would anyone kidnap
the boy?’

‘
Some goons from back
home, I would guess. I wouldn’t know them’, Monal shrugged while
Arjun looked on blankly. ‘In our business where we deal with
superstars one never knows what axe is being ground’.

Suddenly the room shuddered with a loud
thumping at the door.

‘
Are you expecting
anyone’, Krishnamala asked.

Monal shook her head. ‘Room service’, a loud
voice outside the door spoke. Arjun made to move toward the
door.

‘
Don’t move- stay here’,
Krishnamala ordered. She dipped into her dress, the Manjeeras
clanged as she took out her service revolver .32”. She cautiously
moved to the door and flung it open, standing behind it. Two
thickset men, dressed sharply in black, barged in. They were Rahim
and Shamim, Chotta Shameel’s henchmen. They didn’t notice
Krishnamala hiding behind the door and went straight into the inner
room where Monal and Arjun were sitting.

Monal recognized them instantly and rose to
her feet. Arjun merely looked on.

‘
Hello
bhabi
! How’s the honeymoon going?’
Shamim said, twirling his moustache and licking his lips lewdly.
Rahim stood with his back to the door leading out to the sundeck, a
gun dangling loosely from his beefy hands.

‘
Get lost!’ Monal
retorted, moving back.

‘
Why? Can’t we also join
in? Are we any less men?’ Shamim began to move towards her. Arjun
made to rise from the bed, but Shamim signaled him with his gun to
stay down. ‘So you are the stud she has the hots for, eh?’ he said,
addressing Arjun. Arjun kept quiet, watching with disbelief the
entry of new characters into the strangely unfolding,
incomprehensible tale before him. ‘Your husband is pining for you,
and you are here, without a care in the world, making merry and
keeping your bed cozy with strangers.’

‘
It’s none of your filthy
business. Stay out of it and get out’; Monal glowered.

‘
Otherwise?’ the man said
mockingly.

‘
Otherwise I will take
your monkey business into the lockup, where many people will be
keen to make honeymoon with you’, Krishnamala said, entering the
room now with her gun sweeping in its arc both the
goons.

Shamim and Rahim stared with disbelief at
the tall, funnily clad robust woman pointing a gun at them while
the cymbals on her dress knocked together and clanked. But her hand
was steady and her eyes steely. ‘What the fuck! Who’s she? Your
personal entertainer?’ Shamim drawled. Her husband had a belly
dancer to himself while his wife seemed a patron of folk dancers.
He didn’t understand these rich, uppity folks.

‘
Throw down your weapons’,
Krishnamala commanded, the cop tone coming out unmistakably
now.

While the goons were still making up their
minds whether to laugh or cry or obey the ridiculous woman, in
walked the other agent, cootchie cooing to the now deliriously
happy baby, oblivious to the show playing out in the room. Rahim,
who was still debating on the merits or perils of holding onto his
gun, rushed and grabbed Agent 9 around the neck and jabbed his gun
in the side of his head. Agent 9 stood transfixed to the spot, his
mouth gaping and the eyes bobbing out of their sockets. ‘No’, he
managed to croak through the chokehold, holding out the baby.

‘
No’, screamed the mother,
rushing towards her baby.

‘
No’, shouted Rahim and
Shamim, pointing their guns at her. ‘Put it down’, they said
simultaneously.

‘
I am a cop- don’t hurt
the baby!’ she said, not letting go of her weapon and still
pointing it at them.

Rahim sneered and pointed the gun at the
baby now. ‘Cop or no cop, there’ll be no baby for sure’.

‘
Okay, I’m losing it’,
Krishnamala said, slowly bending down and placing the gun on the
floor. ‘ I am from the crime branch- don’t push your luck- I’m
taking out my badge now… easy’. She rose slowly and took out her
badge and waved it. ‘Let the baby go- it’s mine- don’t make it
personal’.

Shamim snatched her badge away and peered at
it. ‘Hold on’. He stepped back and called up his boss, speaking to
him in a whisper. Then he shut off the phone and dropped it into
his pocket. He grinned at Krishnamala.’ Boss sends his regards and
compliments. He asks me to tell you that he thinks very highly of
you- he’s impressed with your work and says he would like to make
better acquaintance some day. But right now, you can have the baby,
while we bring these two lovebirds to our boss who is very keenly
awaiting them’.

‘
What do you want of
them?’ Krishnamala asked.

‘
We are not allowed to
tell you. You can ask him yourself- when he chooses to grant you an
audience’. Shamim nudged Monal and Arjun out of the room with his
gun. Once they were out of the room, Rahim pushed Agent 9 towards
Krishnamala’s gun lying on the floor. Rahim bent down and picked it
up, pocketed it and walked backwards towards the door, still
pointing his gun at them. ‘Don’t try anything silly and don’t try
to follow us. Consider it as a favor owed for not hurting your baby
here. Tada,’ he said and shut the door after him.

Krishnamala rushed towards the baby and
taking it from her husband, clutched it to her breast, showering
kisses on its head and face with relief. Then the couple slumped
down on the bed, drained with the anxiety over the danger the poor
baby had just faced. There was silence for a while.

‘
I asked you to keep the
baby out of this. We’d nearly finished this case. I had things
under absolute control. By now we would have been at the station
filing the reports, and the mystery would have been
solved.’

Agent 9 hung his head and looked at his feet
silently.

She was about to rebuke him further but said
no more as she saw he was feeling bad enough already. Then she
remembered he’d come along because he was worried for her. She
reached across the bed and hugged him and ruffled his tousled hair.
There was nothing more to be done that night except to make a call
to the Neemrana DSP to send out a lookout notice and put up
roadblocks for the fleeing thugs. They would find out by morning
surely where they had gone. And then there would be another day of
chase- this time with backup since armed gangsters had now become
involved- for what reason- she had no clue right now. But if it was
what she feared most- the involvement of the betting mafia- then
things could take uncertain and perhaps dangerous turns.