The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(6)
Taneja turned and was about to walk away, when Arnav said, “You’ll find that your contacts know me already. We’ll remove the police tape once we’re done. From the way you’ve come running, this place might have a few other things buried here besides dead bodies, Mr. Taneja.”
“You’ll regret this,” Taneja said, without turning back. He stalked off, dialing on a phone the size of a tablet.
Returning to Dr. Meshram, Arnav recounted his chat with the no-longer-affable tycoon. After Dr. Meshram promised to do what he could, Arnav instructed his constable to set up a large perimeter and arrange for help from the station to secure the site.
Arnav sent the preliminary findings to Naik, his head growing heavy with the stench. He strolled toward Aksa beach, hoping the sea air would clear his muddled thoughts.
A long beach amid a city, Aksa was clean and well maintained despite its ill repute of being haunted by demons from both worlds after nightfall. Regular police patrols urged civilians to not linger by the seaside in the late hours. For this moment right before sunset, though, Aksa put on a family-oriented, welcoming face.
Letting his shoes sink into the sand, Arnav dialed a coded contact on his phone, sending out feelers to his team of khabri, informers he trusted to bring to him the pulse of Mumbai’s so-called underworld. The dons who once financed Bollywood in order to get their black money laundered to white had mostly reinvented themselves. They ran businesses now, having turned corporate—alternately extorting or facilitating successful businessmen of Taneja’s ilk. The underworld, a parallel hell on earth brimming with crime and filth, hadn’t faded entirely away.
If the dead body Dr. Meshram had uncovered with such care had secrets to tell, one of his khabri could have heard snippets of relevant information. They were small-time criminals, ex-criminals, their relatives—the fringes of the city’s criminal activity. Some of them were teens, and answered with fake accents at his first ring, and said hayylo. Like that girl-woman entwined in his life long ago. Tara.
Arnav flinched from that strand of thought. He focused on his surroundings instead—a few children in rags chased each other, their shrieks rising in the salt-laden air. Arnav was named after the sea. Despite its waters slick with oil and refuse, and the noise of the city muffling its soothing wave and crash, the Arabian Sea was one of the few things he loved about Mumbai.
He checked his private phone. A text from Shinde.
Get here now, you wrinkled prune. Your girlfriend has cooked a feast, the kababs are ready, but we can’t eat till you’re here. The kids are starving.
He’d forgotten. Nandini was cooking for his friend and colleague Hemant Shinde and his family this evening. The stench from the body seemed to have entered his lungs. He had no appetite left.
I’ll be late, he typed in. Body offense case came up. It wasn’t a lie.
Hurry up and get your ass here, you fucker. Your girlfriend and my wife will poison us if you don’t reach home soon.
Genteel as ever, his childhood friend, with no dearth of swear words. For once, Shinde was right. He should hurry. It was already an hour after he was supposed to reach Nandini’s place.
He didn’t feel up to a happy evening of feasting and laughter. Evening joggers and young couples holding hands thronged the shore, where so many of Bollywood’s famous movies had been shot—this was a place he’d walked with Tara, holding hands, chased her when she ran.
He turned away and found himself stopping under the light of a pao bhaji stall, the soft pao and fried potatoes spicing the air. Maybe a plate of pao would set him right, ground him in the present. The families gathered at the counter spotted his uniform and made way as he approached.
He bought himself a few pao. The band of children who were playing tag earlier roamed about, selling pink cotton candy, droopy red roses, key chains. They seemed to range from six to twelve years old, but their undernourished bodies and grown-up eyes made it hard to tell. They wouldn’t come willingly if he called them, having learned early not to trust a khaki uniform. Arnav thrust some money at the befuddled stall owner and asked him to call the children and serve them their fill of pao bhaji.
“Don’t tell them it is from me. I don’t need the bother.”
His sister had done this from time to time, much to the annoyance of his parents. He accepted his own warm paper plate laden with the gleaming pao buns fried in butter, and spiced bhaji made of potatoes and vegetables, but couldn’t bring himself to eat. He returned it to the stall owner, assuring him the food was fine—he’d remembered he had an appointment.
He must head toward Nandini’s place sooner or later. The later he went, the longer Shinde’s tirades. He might as well try to enjoy a good dinner before he forgot all about decent meals for the next few days of madness leading up to the Dussehra rallies. He tapped on Nandini’s address in Bandra among the favorites in his app, and called a cab.
Before walking off, he turned to watch the children gather over their plates, laughing. His older sister used to laugh like that—all noise and no grace. His parents had named her Asha. Hope. She’d begged him to bring her pao bhaji and sevpuri the last time he’d seen her alive.
CHAPTER FIVE
MUMBAI DRISHTIKON NEWS
Business Section
Real estate tycoon Rahul Taneja tops Siparu list, gains 26.4 percent in net worth
9:30 PM IST 6 October, Mumbai.