I was at my desk trying very hard to not pass out from the sweltering Bangalore summer heat when trouble came knocking at my door. She was wearing a wide brimmed hat and a pair of big sunglasses, which obscured her face just as much as the long, black woollen poncho obscured her figure. Just looking at her made me sweat a little more.
"I need you to find a man." she said in a thick, raspy voice. She was no stranger to whiskey and cigarettes.
"The marriage bureau is in the next road, lady" I said, knowing very well what she meant. But it's not every day that a poor, private dick gets to chat up a pretty lass. I wanted to make this last as long as possible.
"Please mister, this is no time for jokes." she said, nervousness slipping past her sandpapery voice.
Maybe it was the way she said it, but I immediately cut the crap and up straight. "Does this man have a name?"
She fished out a glossy eight by ten from her purse and slid it across the table. I recognized the face immediately. Mukund Setlur.
"Mukund. He's been missing for about two weeks now."
Bullshit. I saw his post pop up on my facebook feed not two days ago. If he's missing, then it's only from her. Mukund knows his share of mentals, halfwits and crazy people. If he's hiding from her, then she must be a special kind of crazy. The pretty ones always are anyway.
I don't do crazy. They're just too much work.
"Sorry lady, there's nothing I can do here. I'm afraid I'll have to refuse..."
"Please, mister!” She brought out a cream coloured envelope from underneath her poncho and placed it on my table. “You are my last hope."
Three months’ rent was due. Half a bottle of cheap whiskey in my desk drawer, and the near empty cigarette pack in my pocket reminded me of just how badly I needed the money.
"You need to know that I don't do refunds on advances. Even if I don't find him" I said, shifting my gaze from the envelope to her face, hoping she didn’t catch the glint of desperation in my eye. "Are you still sure you want me to take the money?"
"They say you're the best."
"They might be wrong"
"Well, let’s hope that they’re not."
I hope so too, sister. For your sake.
She just stood there, impassive. Those dark glasses and the big hat making it impossible for me to read her face. Screw it. I grabbed the heavy envelope.
"You have a name?" I asked.
"Rupa." she said after a brief pause. "My contact details are at the back of the picture."
I'm sure her name was pretty, but it sure as hell wasn't Rupa. I imagined a pair of pretty brown eyes behind those dark glasses, darting around the room anxiously the moment I asked her for a name. Only to find comfort in the Rupa Frontline poster on the wall behind me. The only interior decoration my sorry excuse for an office had. I had seen many a men stumble at this, trying to cover up their blunders and failing. Rupesh Kumar. Rupa Agarwal. Rupa Kumar. I've heard them all. But this was the first time someone used the name without even trying to make it their own. She must be really stupid or she must be in some real danger, and I was just about to find out which it was.
I whipped out my phone the moment she stepped out of the office, and turned on the 3G. The phone had 5% battery left. I looked up at the dusty fan dangling from the ceiling. It was still as a rock. The power had been out since morning. Either that or I hadn’t paid the electricity bill again.
I logged into facebook on my phone and fished out Mukund Setlur's profile. He had shared a funny picture three hours ago. But it had none of his usual banter or the generous topping of hashtags accompanying it. I scrolled down. There were a few pictures he had shared, but no inputs from him.
Weird.
The earliest stuff he had actually written were older than two weeks. That should have been my first clue.
I went back to my news feed. A picture of Mukund Setlur was staring at me square in the face. Sharath Padaru had posted the picture. I shot him off a message as well.
Hey Sharath. Cool pic of Mukund. When was the photoshoot?
Just then the landlord barged into the office. A fat, balding man, with paan stains all over his vest, he looked like a villain straight out of Captain Planet. People said he was funny in a comical sort of way. I just found him to be a major pain in the ass.
"What saar. Big business?" He asked, grinning shamelessly, baring his stained teeth.
"No, nothing of that sort" I tried to dismiss that leech.
"What saar, all big big people are coming to you. I bet they pay big money also. Is that your advance saar" He grabbed the envelope from the table and took out the money inside. "What saar, they should have given the money in big notes no saar." He said, greedily fanning through the notes of different denominations.
My phone chimed once.
"Ok, no problem saar." He put it back in the envelope and pocketed it, "I will just take the rent money and return the rest saar. Ok, good bye saar. Have a nice day."
Bastard.
Screw it. I checked my phone for the notification. It said that the phone had used up all my data and the remaining money. All I had now was a glorified calculator that was low on battery.
Sharath had replied to my message. It said that the picture was taken two weeks ago, and that he had been out of town on a wedding shoot and found time only now to post those old pictures.
Two weeks. It kept popping up.
The only person who could give me a better idea of what happened to Mukund was Vasuki. The wall clock read 02:28 in the PM. Post lunch. I had plenty of time to get some information out of him.
I hopped on my bike and sped off in the direction of Vasuki's office.
Half an hour later I found myself staring at the four name plates of different sizes and colours hanging on the front of the tall office building. My pillion rider thanked me profusely for the lift and began running up the stairs, clutching a flask in one hand and half a dozen samosas packed in newspapers in the other. I called out to him and asked him if he knew Vasuki. Of course he did.
Everyone knows Vasuki.
"Just tell him a friend has come to see him" I said. He gave me a curt nod and rushed upstairs like a mangy rat that had just wiggled itself out of a mouse trap.
The sun was beating down on the parched, tarred road with a vengeance. There was not a tree in sight. I parked my bike in the partial shade underneath the building and pulled out the cigarette pack from my pocket. Two cancer sticks were all that I had until I found Mukund. Until I got my next pay check. I was still debating whether to light one up now, or save it for later, when Vasuki waked down the staircase and greeted me with a big smile. The cigarettes would live to see another hour, at least.
I asked him when he last met Mukund, tucking the cigarette pack back into my pocket. There was no point in small talk.
"I don't know. A couple of weeks ago, maybe. Why, what’s up?" He said.
"Some lady is searching for him. Tells me he is missing for the past two weeks"
"Really? What do you think happened to him?"
"I don't know."
"Sharath had posted a picture of him on FB. Maybe we should contact him" he said after pondering for a bit.
"That picture was taken two weeks ago. It's of no use."
"Damn. So, what do you want to do now?"
"What I should have done a long time ago"
"Put up a 'Mukund is Missing' post on Facebook?"
"What?"
"What."
"No, man. I'll go visit him. Get the answers straight from the horse's mouth."
"Can I come?"
"Why?"
"Because it sounds exciting"
"Trust me, it'll probably be pretty boring."
"I’ll take my chances."
Mukund was standing outside his house, talking on his phone when we arrived at his place. He spotted us first and waved to us. He wasn’t missing. Not in this dimension at least. He was done with the call by the time I parked the bike. He came down the stairs to greet us. He was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of three-forth pants- his usual style. The buttons of the tee were undone, and the collar was raised up. I always assumed that this was his way of keeping the 80’s alive.
Rock on, man. Rock on.
“Hey, what’s up buggers!” He greeted us in his usual, friendly demeanour. “What are you doing here?”
“So, you’re like a real celebrity now. You have a stalker and everything” Vasuki said, after exchanging the usual pleasantries.
“What?!” His surprise seemed genuine
“It’s not a stalker.” I said, “Just some crazy chick who thinks you are missing.”
“What?!” Same thing, again.
I brought him up to speed on where things stood. He didn’t seem to know anything about any girl. The conversation turned to movies and wandered down the lane of movies, among other things, stayed there for a quite some time. Mukund steered the conversation and us in the direction of the little Darshini behind his house.
“You have to try their mosaru vade” he said. Mosaru vade is curd vada. I hate it. “Seriously, it is the best one you would have had”
The owner greeted Mukund like an old friend. Everyone knows Mukund.
“Annayya, two of your special mosaru vade with extra boondi” he ordered for us.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’ve had an upset stomach since morning. That’s why I haven’t been to the office either.”
Mukund was right. These were really good. He was probably right about the upset stomach as well. Missing this deliciousness was a sin in itself.
After the snack, we walked towards his home at a leisurely pace, chatting. By then it was clear to me that Mukund was not missing, but the crazy lady was just that- crazy. On our way back, Mukund and I finished smoking the last of my cigarettes, and he bid us good bye.
“I am a hundred percent sure he’s not Mukund” I said with conviction, walking towards my bike.
“How do you know?” Vasuki asked.
“We just smoked Ice Bursts, and he didn’t burst the ice capsule in the filter.”
“Umm… what?”
“It’s a different kind of cigarette. It has a menthol capsule within it’s filter, you squeeze the filter to burst it, and it releases the menthol oils. It feels like you are smoking up a minti.”
“Well, maybe he just forgot”
I stopped. Turned around and looked at Vasuki straight in the eye. “Do you know who taught me how to smoke Ice Bursts?”
“Who?”
“Mukund Setlur.” I turned away. Enough dramatics for the day. Also I didn’t want him to see me yawn. “There is no way he doesn’t burst the ice. He’s not Mukund.”
“Ok, so what is your next plan?”
“I’ll go home and confront him tomorrow”
“We’re here” Vasuki yawned. So did I. “might as well confront him now.”
Fair enough.
So we went up to Mukund’s door and knocked. We yawned again. I was suddenly feeling tired. Really tired.
The door opened a bit and Mukund poked his head out. “What’s up?”
“Hey man, I know you are not the real Mukun…” he slammed the door in our faces before I could complete the sentence. That shock jolted us up, and we were alert for a few seconds before sliding back into that lethargic slump.
I knocked on the door again. No response. The tiredness grew by the second, and it was getting increasingly difficult to keep my eyes open.
“You go see if you can get in through the back door” I instructed Vasuki, “and I’ll try to keep a look out for him on this side of the house”. Letting Vasuki tag along didn’t seem like such a bad idea anymore.
Another yawn.
The next thing I remember was waking up in a darkened room with my head throbbing. Like a hangover that only comes from downing a dozen cheap vodka shots the night before. My throat was parched, and the inside of my mouth tasted funny. I tried to move, but had little luck with my hands and legs tied to a chair. The thick coir ropes had already begun cutting into my wrists, and it had started to itch.
Mukund, or whoever the hell that was, had managed to capture and incapacitate me successfully. I only fully came to my senses when the throbbing in my head subsided. The only good thing that came out of being passed out was that it didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The room looked bare. Slivers of light passing through the slits in the closed ventilation near the ceiling was the only source of light. It meant that I was in a basement of some sort.
“You up?” A feeble voice erupted from behind me.
“Yeah” it took me a while to figure out it was Vasuki.
A metal door opened with a loud bang. Behind me. I had to reposition the chair, moving it inch by inch with my ass to face the proper direction. Fake Mukund was at the top of the stairs, seemingly waiting for me to give him an audience. He slowly made his way down to where I was.
There were just five or so steps, so it wasn’t really dramatic or anything.
“I will have to kill you now” he said, pointing a semi-automatic at my forehead.
It looked like a rip off of a Glock 17. The safety was still on, I wondered how long it took for him to…
He turned the safety off.
Under five seconds. Great.
A second loud bang filled the near empty basement- much different than the one from before- like the sound of a small cannon going off. It made my ears ring and my head spin. Fake Mukund’s chest had developed a golf ball sized hole, through which blood dripped like fresh honey.
Another cannon sound. Another hole in his chest.
He was dead, but stood still for a full second, swayed a bit and fell back in a motionless, dead body like state. I looked up and saw Samarth walk through the door, wielding a Desert Eagle. It was still smoking at its barrel. I think. I couldn’t see much, he was more or less a dark silhouette.
Samarth coolly walked to the corpse and planted two more slugs into the body.
I could see no remorse in his eyes. Just a cold, dead stare.
“You ok, man?” I asked, my dry throat barely expelling enough sound to be heard.
“Yeah.” He said, still looking at the dead body.
There was a long pause before he spoke again.
“You don’t think Taxi Driver is a shit movie now, do you, punk?” It was directed at the dead body. ”bet you think it’s the greatest movie of all time now, don’t you?”
Actually, The Godfather is the greatest movie of all time. But I didn’t think that he was open for a discussion just yet.
Then there was silence for quite some time. I wanted to ask Samarth to untie me, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment he was having. Also I didn’t want to risk getting shot. Vasuki hadn’t made a sound either. It was as if we were thinking the same thing.
The three of us stood silently around the dead body. Silence and growing darkness slowly engulfing us. None of us spoke what we were all thinking- if this wasn’t Mukund, then who was it?
“Who do you think it is?” Vasuki said.
Only one way to find out. It took me a couple of seconds, but I did get hold of the end of the mask behind the dead body’s neck and ripped it off his face. Ripped it out is a light term. It took me a couple of tries to remove the tight latex mask that stuck to his face like a dead leech that still had its fangs embedded deep into the skin.
It was actually a she. Long hair, lipstick, kajal on her eyes and everything.
“Who the hell is that?” Samarth asked.
We both looked up at Vasuki expectantly. Vasuki knew everyone.
“No idea.”
I wish I could describe her, but she was just so… normal. Average would be a better word. I barely remember how she looked. No defining features. A lost face in the crowd.
I felt a stray draft on the back of my neck, which sent shivers down my spine. Then, I heard it. Like a woodpecker on weed. Tapping away a few times- slowly- before stopping.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Before it stopped completely.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
“That noise.”
All I could hear was a deafening silence.
“There’s nothing th…”
“Shhh…” I silenced him.
And there it was again. Some poor, drugged up woodpecker going at it. Or that’s what it sounded like.
Following the sound led us to the wall in the dark corner of the basement.
“There’s someone on the other side.” I looked around in the darkness, “and there doesn’t seem to be a door”
“Who needs a door?” Samarth asked, before kicking the wall down. It was made of painted cardboard. Pretty convincing set up on the whole.
The room, if you can all it that, was quite small. Just large enough to house one bed, a little table to go with it and a little laptop on the little table all enough to keep one person living comfortable for a fairly large amount of time as long as there was a steady supply of food, weed and whiskey. Mukund Setlur was that lucky bastard. The real Mukund Setlur. He was sitting on the bed, headphones on, tapping away on the laptop, completely oblivious of our presence.
I didn’t know it then, but the weirdest part of the evening was just about to begin.
Pleasantries were exchanged, after Mukund overcame his initial shock of seeing us. Shock of seeing people for the first time in two weeks, he later told us. Kidnapped. Bribed. Threatened. Forced to write his witty Facebook posts for a propaganda page. What was the page about? No one really knows. I don’t think that page exists anymore, those kind of pages hardly make it past 90 days.
That’s when she walked in. Wide brimmed hat, big glasses, thick poncho and all. Rupa. Hastily stripping off every piece of clothing she had had on her, with each step she took, like ill rehearsed dance moves. First came off the silly hat, then the thick dark glasses, then the poncho.
By the time she made it to us, ‘she’ was actually two dogs standing on their hind legs, one perched over the other.
“My darlings!” Mukund knelt down, scratching their heads, while they licked his face with affection. Their tails wagging like windmills caught in a hurricane.
“You know them?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to say, hell I wasn’t sure if anything was right anymore.
“Yeah” Mukund said, still petting the dogs, “This one’s Raveena”, he pointed to the brown dog, “and this one’s Rupa” he pointed to the other brown dog.
Who names their dogs Rupa and Raveena? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was if the dogs would pay me the rest of the money they owed me.
It was well past 8pm when everything was done and dusted. The cops had taken away the dead body of the lady. They had taken our statements, and no one from the news channels had turned up though. They were probably busy covering an unnecessary, paid puff piece.
Talking dogs, kidnap and murder in a single day- few things can get more interesting than this.
When everything had come to an end, I turned around and marched out of the basement, rich enough to buy a bottle of decent whiskey and a pack or two of smokes. Just another day, another case closed.
"I need you to find a man." she said in a thick, raspy voice. She was no stranger to whiskey and cigarettes.
"The marriage bureau is in the next road, lady" I said, knowing very well what she meant. But it's not every day that a poor, private dick gets to chat up a pretty lass. I wanted to make this last as long as possible.
"Please mister, this is no time for jokes." she said, nervousness slipping past her sandpapery voice.
Maybe it was the way she said it, but I immediately cut the crap and up straight. "Does this man have a name?"
She fished out a glossy eight by ten from her purse and slid it across the table. I recognized the face immediately. Mukund Setlur.
"Mukund. He's been missing for about two weeks now."
Bullshit. I saw his post pop up on my facebook feed not two days ago. If he's missing, then it's only from her. Mukund knows his share of mentals, halfwits and crazy people. If he's hiding from her, then she must be a special kind of crazy. The pretty ones always are anyway.
I don't do crazy. They're just too much work.
"Sorry lady, there's nothing I can do here. I'm afraid I'll have to refuse..."
"Please, mister!” She brought out a cream coloured envelope from underneath her poncho and placed it on my table. “You are my last hope."
Three months’ rent was due. Half a bottle of cheap whiskey in my desk drawer, and the near empty cigarette pack in my pocket reminded me of just how badly I needed the money.
"You need to know that I don't do refunds on advances. Even if I don't find him" I said, shifting my gaze from the envelope to her face, hoping she didn’t catch the glint of desperation in my eye. "Are you still sure you want me to take the money?"
"They say you're the best."
"They might be wrong"
"Well, let’s hope that they’re not."
I hope so too, sister. For your sake.
She just stood there, impassive. Those dark glasses and the big hat making it impossible for me to read her face. Screw it. I grabbed the heavy envelope.
"You have a name?" I asked.
"Rupa." she said after a brief pause. "My contact details are at the back of the picture."
I'm sure her name was pretty, but it sure as hell wasn't Rupa. I imagined a pair of pretty brown eyes behind those dark glasses, darting around the room anxiously the moment I asked her for a name. Only to find comfort in the Rupa Frontline poster on the wall behind me. The only interior decoration my sorry excuse for an office had. I had seen many a men stumble at this, trying to cover up their blunders and failing. Rupesh Kumar. Rupa Agarwal. Rupa Kumar. I've heard them all. But this was the first time someone used the name without even trying to make it their own. She must be really stupid or she must be in some real danger, and I was just about to find out which it was.
*****
I whipped out my phone the moment she stepped out of the office, and turned on the 3G. The phone had 5% battery left. I looked up at the dusty fan dangling from the ceiling. It was still as a rock. The power had been out since morning. Either that or I hadn’t paid the electricity bill again.
I logged into facebook on my phone and fished out Mukund Setlur's profile. He had shared a funny picture three hours ago. But it had none of his usual banter or the generous topping of hashtags accompanying it. I scrolled down. There were a few pictures he had shared, but no inputs from him.
Weird.
The earliest stuff he had actually written were older than two weeks. That should have been my first clue.
I went back to my news feed. A picture of Mukund Setlur was staring at me square in the face. Sharath Padaru had posted the picture. I shot him off a message as well.
Hey Sharath. Cool pic of Mukund. When was the photoshoot?
Just then the landlord barged into the office. A fat, balding man, with paan stains all over his vest, he looked like a villain straight out of Captain Planet. People said he was funny in a comical sort of way. I just found him to be a major pain in the ass.
"What saar. Big business?" He asked, grinning shamelessly, baring his stained teeth.
"No, nothing of that sort" I tried to dismiss that leech.
"What saar, all big big people are coming to you. I bet they pay big money also. Is that your advance saar" He grabbed the envelope from the table and took out the money inside. "What saar, they should have given the money in big notes no saar." He said, greedily fanning through the notes of different denominations.
My phone chimed once.
"Ok, no problem saar." He put it back in the envelope and pocketed it, "I will just take the rent money and return the rest saar. Ok, good bye saar. Have a nice day."
Bastard.
Screw it. I checked my phone for the notification. It said that the phone had used up all my data and the remaining money. All I had now was a glorified calculator that was low on battery.
Sharath had replied to my message. It said that the picture was taken two weeks ago, and that he had been out of town on a wedding shoot and found time only now to post those old pictures.
Two weeks. It kept popping up.
The only person who could give me a better idea of what happened to Mukund was Vasuki. The wall clock read 02:28 in the PM. Post lunch. I had plenty of time to get some information out of him.
I hopped on my bike and sped off in the direction of Vasuki's office.
*****
Half an hour later I found myself staring at the four name plates of different sizes and colours hanging on the front of the tall office building. My pillion rider thanked me profusely for the lift and began running up the stairs, clutching a flask in one hand and half a dozen samosas packed in newspapers in the other. I called out to him and asked him if he knew Vasuki. Of course he did.
Everyone knows Vasuki.
"Just tell him a friend has come to see him" I said. He gave me a curt nod and rushed upstairs like a mangy rat that had just wiggled itself out of a mouse trap.
The sun was beating down on the parched, tarred road with a vengeance. There was not a tree in sight. I parked my bike in the partial shade underneath the building and pulled out the cigarette pack from my pocket. Two cancer sticks were all that I had until I found Mukund. Until I got my next pay check. I was still debating whether to light one up now, or save it for later, when Vasuki waked down the staircase and greeted me with a big smile. The cigarettes would live to see another hour, at least.
I asked him when he last met Mukund, tucking the cigarette pack back into my pocket. There was no point in small talk.
"I don't know. A couple of weeks ago, maybe. Why, what’s up?" He said.
"Some lady is searching for him. Tells me he is missing for the past two weeks"
"Really? What do you think happened to him?"
"I don't know."
"Sharath had posted a picture of him on FB. Maybe we should contact him" he said after pondering for a bit.
"That picture was taken two weeks ago. It's of no use."
"Damn. So, what do you want to do now?"
"What I should have done a long time ago"
"Put up a 'Mukund is Missing' post on Facebook?"
"What?"
"What."
"No, man. I'll go visit him. Get the answers straight from the horse's mouth."
"Can I come?"
"Why?"
"Because it sounds exciting"
"Trust me, it'll probably be pretty boring."
"I’ll take my chances."
*****
Mukund was standing outside his house, talking on his phone when we arrived at his place. He spotted us first and waved to us. He wasn’t missing. Not in this dimension at least. He was done with the call by the time I parked the bike. He came down the stairs to greet us. He was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of three-forth pants- his usual style. The buttons of the tee were undone, and the collar was raised up. I always assumed that this was his way of keeping the 80’s alive.
Rock on, man. Rock on.
“Hey, what’s up buggers!” He greeted us in his usual, friendly demeanour. “What are you doing here?”
“So, you’re like a real celebrity now. You have a stalker and everything” Vasuki said, after exchanging the usual pleasantries.
“What?!” His surprise seemed genuine
“It’s not a stalker.” I said, “Just some crazy chick who thinks you are missing.”
“What?!” Same thing, again.
I brought him up to speed on where things stood. He didn’t seem to know anything about any girl. The conversation turned to movies and wandered down the lane of movies, among other things, stayed there for a quite some time. Mukund steered the conversation and us in the direction of the little Darshini behind his house.
“You have to try their mosaru vade” he said. Mosaru vade is curd vada. I hate it. “Seriously, it is the best one you would have had”
The owner greeted Mukund like an old friend. Everyone knows Mukund.
“Annayya, two of your special mosaru vade with extra boondi” he ordered for us.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’ve had an upset stomach since morning. That’s why I haven’t been to the office either.”
Mukund was right. These were really good. He was probably right about the upset stomach as well. Missing this deliciousness was a sin in itself.
After the snack, we walked towards his home at a leisurely pace, chatting. By then it was clear to me that Mukund was not missing, but the crazy lady was just that- crazy. On our way back, Mukund and I finished smoking the last of my cigarettes, and he bid us good bye.
****
“I am a hundred percent sure he’s not Mukund” I said with conviction, walking towards my bike.
“How do you know?” Vasuki asked.
“We just smoked Ice Bursts, and he didn’t burst the ice capsule in the filter.”
“Umm… what?”
“It’s a different kind of cigarette. It has a menthol capsule within it’s filter, you squeeze the filter to burst it, and it releases the menthol oils. It feels like you are smoking up a minti.”
“Well, maybe he just forgot”
I stopped. Turned around and looked at Vasuki straight in the eye. “Do you know who taught me how to smoke Ice Bursts?”
“Who?”
“Mukund Setlur.” I turned away. Enough dramatics for the day. Also I didn’t want him to see me yawn. “There is no way he doesn’t burst the ice. He’s not Mukund.”
“Ok, so what is your next plan?”
“I’ll go home and confront him tomorrow”
“We’re here” Vasuki yawned. So did I. “might as well confront him now.”
Fair enough.
So we went up to Mukund’s door and knocked. We yawned again. I was suddenly feeling tired. Really tired.
The door opened a bit and Mukund poked his head out. “What’s up?”
“Hey man, I know you are not the real Mukun…” he slammed the door in our faces before I could complete the sentence. That shock jolted us up, and we were alert for a few seconds before sliding back into that lethargic slump.
I knocked on the door again. No response. The tiredness grew by the second, and it was getting increasingly difficult to keep my eyes open.
“You go see if you can get in through the back door” I instructed Vasuki, “and I’ll try to keep a look out for him on this side of the house”. Letting Vasuki tag along didn’t seem like such a bad idea anymore.
Another yawn.
****
The next thing I remember was waking up in a darkened room with my head throbbing. Like a hangover that only comes from downing a dozen cheap vodka shots the night before. My throat was parched, and the inside of my mouth tasted funny. I tried to move, but had little luck with my hands and legs tied to a chair. The thick coir ropes had already begun cutting into my wrists, and it had started to itch.
Mukund, or whoever the hell that was, had managed to capture and incapacitate me successfully. I only fully came to my senses when the throbbing in my head subsided. The only good thing that came out of being passed out was that it didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. The room looked bare. Slivers of light passing through the slits in the closed ventilation near the ceiling was the only source of light. It meant that I was in a basement of some sort.
“You up?” A feeble voice erupted from behind me.
“Yeah” it took me a while to figure out it was Vasuki.
A metal door opened with a loud bang. Behind me. I had to reposition the chair, moving it inch by inch with my ass to face the proper direction. Fake Mukund was at the top of the stairs, seemingly waiting for me to give him an audience. He slowly made his way down to where I was.
There were just five or so steps, so it wasn’t really dramatic or anything.
“I will have to kill you now” he said, pointing a semi-automatic at my forehead.
It looked like a rip off of a Glock 17. The safety was still on, I wondered how long it took for him to…
He turned the safety off.
Under five seconds. Great.
A second loud bang filled the near empty basement- much different than the one from before- like the sound of a small cannon going off. It made my ears ring and my head spin. Fake Mukund’s chest had developed a golf ball sized hole, through which blood dripped like fresh honey.
Another cannon sound. Another hole in his chest.
He was dead, but stood still for a full second, swayed a bit and fell back in a motionless, dead body like state. I looked up and saw Samarth walk through the door, wielding a Desert Eagle. It was still smoking at its barrel. I think. I couldn’t see much, he was more or less a dark silhouette.
Samarth coolly walked to the corpse and planted two more slugs into the body.
I could see no remorse in his eyes. Just a cold, dead stare.
“You ok, man?” I asked, my dry throat barely expelling enough sound to be heard.
“Yeah.” He said, still looking at the dead body.
There was a long pause before he spoke again.
“You don’t think Taxi Driver is a shit movie now, do you, punk?” It was directed at the dead body. ”bet you think it’s the greatest movie of all time now, don’t you?”
Actually, The Godfather is the greatest movie of all time. But I didn’t think that he was open for a discussion just yet.
Then there was silence for quite some time. I wanted to ask Samarth to untie me, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment he was having. Also I didn’t want to risk getting shot. Vasuki hadn’t made a sound either. It was as if we were thinking the same thing.
****
The three of us stood silently around the dead body. Silence and growing darkness slowly engulfing us. None of us spoke what we were all thinking- if this wasn’t Mukund, then who was it?
“Who do you think it is?” Vasuki said.
Only one way to find out. It took me a couple of seconds, but I did get hold of the end of the mask behind the dead body’s neck and ripped it off his face. Ripped it out is a light term. It took me a couple of tries to remove the tight latex mask that stuck to his face like a dead leech that still had its fangs embedded deep into the skin.
It was actually a she. Long hair, lipstick, kajal on her eyes and everything.
“Who the hell is that?” Samarth asked.
We both looked up at Vasuki expectantly. Vasuki knew everyone.
“No idea.”
I wish I could describe her, but she was just so… normal. Average would be a better word. I barely remember how she looked. No defining features. A lost face in the crowd.
I felt a stray draft on the back of my neck, which sent shivers down my spine. Then, I heard it. Like a woodpecker on weed. Tapping away a few times- slowly- before stopping.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Before it stopped completely.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
“That noise.”
All I could hear was a deafening silence.
“There’s nothing th…”
“Shhh…” I silenced him.
And there it was again. Some poor, drugged up woodpecker going at it. Or that’s what it sounded like.
Following the sound led us to the wall in the dark corner of the basement.
“There’s someone on the other side.” I looked around in the darkness, “and there doesn’t seem to be a door”
“Who needs a door?” Samarth asked, before kicking the wall down. It was made of painted cardboard. Pretty convincing set up on the whole.
The room, if you can all it that, was quite small. Just large enough to house one bed, a little table to go with it and a little laptop on the little table all enough to keep one person living comfortable for a fairly large amount of time as long as there was a steady supply of food, weed and whiskey. Mukund Setlur was that lucky bastard. The real Mukund Setlur. He was sitting on the bed, headphones on, tapping away on the laptop, completely oblivious of our presence.
I didn’t know it then, but the weirdest part of the evening was just about to begin.
Pleasantries were exchanged, after Mukund overcame his initial shock of seeing us. Shock of seeing people for the first time in two weeks, he later told us. Kidnapped. Bribed. Threatened. Forced to write his witty Facebook posts for a propaganda page. What was the page about? No one really knows. I don’t think that page exists anymore, those kind of pages hardly make it past 90 days.
That’s when she walked in. Wide brimmed hat, big glasses, thick poncho and all. Rupa. Hastily stripping off every piece of clothing she had had on her, with each step she took, like ill rehearsed dance moves. First came off the silly hat, then the thick dark glasses, then the poncho.
By the time she made it to us, ‘she’ was actually two dogs standing on their hind legs, one perched over the other.
“My darlings!” Mukund knelt down, scratching their heads, while they licked his face with affection. Their tails wagging like windmills caught in a hurricane.
“You know them?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to say, hell I wasn’t sure if anything was right anymore.
“Yeah” Mukund said, still petting the dogs, “This one’s Raveena”, he pointed to the brown dog, “and this one’s Rupa” he pointed to the other brown dog.
Who names their dogs Rupa and Raveena? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was if the dogs would pay me the rest of the money they owed me.
****
It was well past 8pm when everything was done and dusted. The cops had taken away the dead body of the lady. They had taken our statements, and no one from the news channels had turned up though. They were probably busy covering an unnecessary, paid puff piece.
Talking dogs, kidnap and murder in a single day- few things can get more interesting than this.
When everything had come to an end, I turned around and marched out of the basement, rich enough to buy a bottle of decent whiskey and a pack or two of smokes. Just another day, another case closed.
Comments
Post a Comment