“Here’s to Neda.” He makes a toast, swallows his champagne, and refills his own glass. “The smartest bitch in the room.”
The look of confusion on Sunny’s face breaks her heart.
“Tell me what?”
Gautam begins to laugh.
“That you’re a fool.”
Sunny laughs too. For a second, it’s a joke. Then he has the sensation of being exposed.
“Why,” he asks, “am I a fool?”
* * *
—
Gautam tells him. “It’s as plain as your nose. You actually think I want to go off and make a hotel with you? A hotel?! Pull myself up by my bootstraps? With you?! Sunny, my boy, you’re nothing on your own. You think you could survive a minute in this world without your father? You would be a losing proposition. You’re too gullible. You lack what’s called a cutting edge. The only reason I’m sitting with you right now is because of Daddy Dear. Take away Daddy, and you’re just a . . .”
“But we . . .”
“But we,” Gautam cuts back. “But, but, but . . .” He stands. “But you said you were my friend.” He raises his glass, saunters across the room, turns at the door. “It was good while it lasted, Sunny boy, you got me on my feet, that’s true enough, but it’s time for the next adventure.”
He might have left it at that. But he goes on.
“You know what? Maybe I’ll go right now and wake Daddy Dearest. Tell him what a fool his son has been. Do you think he’ll adopt me? Do you think he’ll greet me with open arms?”
* * *
—
Sunny has been sitting dumbstruck listening to him speak. Now it’s dawning on him: it’s over. All avenues are shut. A new thought: maybe he will. Maybe he’ll greet you with open arms. She says his name. She reaches for his hand, but he pulls it away. “What did you do?” He might be talking to himself. He reaches for the bottle, grips its neck.
* * *
—
She’s shouting his name. He pushes past her. Shouting his name over and over as he holds the bottle like a club and pushes past the curtain and enters the main room. She thinks: He’s going to kill him. Or get himself killed. She puts her head in her hands. Then she hears the screams. Not one, but many. The sound of broken glass. Of a brawl. A man falls through the curtain into the VIP room, his face streaming blood. She runs.
* * *
—
She enters into chaos. Twenty, thirty sweaty and drunken men punching and kicking one another, falling over one another, shirts being torn. A dozen women too, in tight dresses, kicking, pulling, scratching. Blood on the floor. How did it happen so fast? She gets knocked to the ground. Through the melee of legs she sees Gautam running down the stairs to the street. Sunny is not far behind.
* * *
—
By the time she’s on the street, men are assaulting him. He manages to punch one cold, but the others take him down. More fights are breaking out. More screaming. Men and women are running. Men and women are climbing into their cars. A gunshot rings out. Clear in the night. Everyone freezes. Everyone scatters, Ajay is pointing his Glock at the crowd of men. He bears down on them, pistol-whips the first. The rest flee. Ajay pulls Sunny to his feet. Drags him away toward his SUV.
* * *
—
Gautam is climbing into his Mercedes, shoving his own driver out into the road. “Stop him,” Sunny says, even as he bleeds. He’s pointing Gautam’s way. Ajay sees. She could have left him right then. She could have run to her own car. She runs to Sunny’s SUV. Climbs in the back with Sunny as Ajay takes the driver’s seat.
* * *
—
Gautam is headlong through the streets, searching for the colony exit, racing around the corners for the open gate. She is in the back, pleading with Sunny to stop. Just stop. Just give it up. Think it over. He pushes her off. Scrambles from the back into the front seat. She tries it with Ajay instead, puts her hand on him, pulls at his shoulder as he drives, says his name, tells him to stop, but he turns to look at her with such bloodlust that she’s afraid.
* * *
—
Then they’re out of the colony, then they are out on the ring road. She expects the police will come. There will be a roadblock. She expects this madness to end, for sense to prevail. But no. Gautam is speeding ahead and there’s no one on the road, no one in the night, nothing but the roar of their engines, Sunny’s empty vengeful face, Ajay’s vengeful empty face, they look like twins of pain. For a moment time slows, speed and distance have no meaning, like those dreams or nightmares where you’re just falling, falling into infinity. And then it happens. A stray dog runs across the road.