Ajay’s hand trembles.
“I can’t,” he says.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think I know why.” Rastogi smiles.
Ajay’s voice is a whisper. “Tell me.”
“You don’t want to be a slave anymore.”
“But I have to kill you,” Ajay says. “I have no choice.”
“You’re in pain.” Rastogi smiles. “I can see it in your eyes. I’ve been there too, we’re like brothers, you and I.”
“I have to shoot,” Ajay says.
“Remember downstairs,” Rastogi says, “what I talked about. Imagine a universe where you didn’t need to kill. Where would you be?”
He can see Ajay’s hand losing focus, shaking.
“Home,” Ajay says.
“Home?”
Ajay closes his eyes. “In the mountains.”
“So go back there.”
“I can’t!” Ajay cries.
With great distress and searing pain, Ajay slides his fingers into his jeans pocket and pulls the photo he’s been carrying for so long.
He holds the photo pinched in his swelling hand.
Rastogi takes it from him, brings it to his eyes. He devours the image, the girl in the bed, in the brothel, so fierce, so afraid. Rastogi looks from the photo to the man before him.
“Who’s this?” Rastogi says, his voice softening, conciliatory.
“My sister!” Ajay sobs. “My sister! I have to kill you to save her.”
“Brother.” Rastogi begins to laugh. “That’s not your sister.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they lied to you.”
“What do you mean?!”
“I mean to say, that’s not your sister.”
“How?!”
“Because I know this girl. I know her only too well. She hails from Bihar, my friend. Her name is Neha. This is a brothel in Benares. I know because I used to work there.”
“No. That’s not true! She’s my sister.”
“Maybe she is and I’m wrong,”
“She is!”
“Or maybe they lied to you, brother. Listen, I know this girl. Look at her! She doesn’t even look like you.”
Rastogi holds the photo to Ajay’s face.
Ajay looks at the girl as if for the first time.
And his whole world falls away.
Maybe it’s true. Maybe this is not her.
And what if that’s so?
“Yes, they lied to you,” Rastogi says. “Like they lie to everyone. They promised to save her, didn’t they?”
Ajay looks up. “Yes.”
“But really they sent you here to die.”
Ajay’s head throbs and pounds, the mandrax comedown, the shock, the agony of confusion, the agony of his swollen hand.
From downstairs, the sounds of a mob.
Rastogi points to the open window behind.
“You can wait here for them to catch you. Kill you. Turn you in. Or you can run. You can run and be free.”
* * *
—
Up the stairs, the cook leads the way, followed by several neighborhood boys wielding cricket bats, hockey sticks, kitchen knives. They huddle together, move forward fearfully, shouting among themselves. There! They yell at the door, stumble in.
* * *
—
Peter Mathews lies sobbing on the ground.
“He tried to kill me!” he cries. He points at the window. “He ran.”
The cook darts to the window, slashing his cleaver at the night.
“Go after him,” Peter Mathews cries.
The mob complies, running out the door, down the stairs, spreading out, yelling for the property to be searched.
Sunil Rastogi picks himself up off the ground, retrieves the photograph that Ajay, in his desolation, left behind.
He smiles to himself.
Considers her body, her face.
He’s never seen this woman before in his life.
* * *
—
Now on the approach road to the Wadia mansion, a new convoy arrives.
A fleet of vehicles from the Special Task Force and the CBI.
* * *
—
Rastogi strolls through the heart of the bungalow while the search for the intruder intensifies. Across his back, a long green zip-up duffel bag is strapped.
He walks straight out the front door, grabbing a bike helmet as he goes.
As he passes out the front gate, he takes out his phone.
He dials a number. “The problem’s solved.”
In the lane, he climbs on a Yamaha sports bike for which he has the key, starts the engine, revs it hard, and rides out toward the bus terminal.