with one leg on the ground and the other on a cross-bar of the stool he was tilted wrong and unbalanced. I watched him and I watched Badriya. It was absurd to be near death in a sudden moment in a grimy corridor with nostrils full, unreasonable to be almost moneyed and not yet, ludicrous to be GaneshGaitonde, poor in the city and standing to the side always, there was no sense in any of it and so there was an exulting eagerness in me, a glad and crazy courage. Here. Now. Here I am. What of it?
Badriya raised his left hand slowly. âAll right,â he said. âIâll go and see if heâs free now.â
I shrugged. âOkay,â I said, liking the English word, one of the very few I knew then. âOkay. Iâll wait.â I grinned at the muchchad for the next few minutes, frightening the old man more and more, setting his hands trembling on the shotgun. By the time Badriya appeared again, I was sure I could stare the ancient soldier and his martial whiskers straight into a heart attack. But there was business to be done.
âCome,â Badriya said, and I pulled off my shoes and followed. The annexe led into a warren of hallways lined with identical black doors. âRaise your arms,â Badriya said. I nodded, and raised the front of my shirt, and sucked in my stomach as Badriya gently took up my revolver. Badriya gave it a professional flip back-and-forth of the wrist, looking along its barrel. He raised it to his nose, intent. He was barrel-chested, heavy-necked. âBeen fired not too long ago,â he said.
âYes,â I said.
Badriya reversed the revolver in his hand, and although I couldnât tell quite how it was done, it was a very stylish move. âTurn around,â Badriya said. He patted me down quickly, with a series of fluttering taps under my arms and up my thighs, and no more than a very slight pause on the bars in the pockets. It was professionally done, no animosity, and I thought better of Paritosh Shah for having Badriya on his team. âLast door on the left,â Badriya said with the last pat.
Paritosh Shah was lying on his side on a white gadda, propped up on a round pillow. The room was quite bare, panelled brown walls, smooth and shiny, with frosted white glass high up near the ceiling, all of it air-conditioned to a chill that I found instantly painful. There was a tidy row of three black phones next to the gadda. Paritosh Shah was very relaxed, and he raised a languid hand at a low stool. âSit,â he said. I sat, aware of Badriya behind and to the left, and the small click of the black door as it shut. âYouâre the boy,â Paritosh Shah said. He wasnât very old himself, maybe six, seven, at most ten years older than I was, but he had an air of tremendous and weary confidence. âName?â he said, and somehow his limp drape on the soft gadda, his one leg bent under, his stillness, all of it warned, donât try and fool me, boy.
âGanesh.â
âYouâre a rash lad, Ganesh. Ganesh what?â
âGanesh Gaitonde.â
âYouâre not a Bombay original. Ganesh Gaitonde from where?â
âDoesnât matter.â I leaned back and brought out two bars. I laid them side by side on the edge of Paritosh Shahâs gadda.
âYou couldâve tried selling those to any Marwari jeweller. Why come to me?â
âI want a fair price. And I can get you more.â
âHow much more?â
âMany more. If I get fair price for these.â
Paritosh Shah tilted, toppling upright like a childâs doll with a weight in the bottom. I saw then that he had thin arms and shoulders, but a round ball of a stomach that he folded his hands over. âFifty-gram biscuits. If they check out, seven thousand rupees each.â
âMarket price is fifteen thousand for fifty grams.â
âThatâs the market price. This is why gold gets smuggled.â
âBelow half is too
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