Ajay’s finger is shaking so hard on the trigger, tears are pooling in his eyes.
He feels like he’s spinning, spinning.
Falling down a deep black well.
“And then, when the time is right, I’ll give them to you. Rajdeep and Kuldeep Singh. You can kill them any way you like. You can pull their teeth from their jaws, cut their tongues from their heads, you can pluck their eyes out, you can rip their hearts from their chests. That’s my promise to you. And when that’s done, I’ll give you something more. Your sister. Your mother may be lost to you, but you still have your sister. Yes, she’s alive. In Benares. I’ve seen her myself. She thinks of you often. I’ll take you to her. But only if you do what you’re told.”
10.
Ajay takes the overnight train and arrives in Delhi early next morning. He ignores the lighthearted joking of the guards, goes straight to his room, locks the door. He feels, even in the silence there, that he isn’t safe, that Vicky is watching him. Removing his gun from the bag, he remembers Vicky’s parting words. “You are who you are, the past is gone. It’s the present you must master now.” He removes the money from his duffel, locks it away. He removes the crumpled, crusty, bloodstained suit from the bottom of his bag.
He had a chance, he thinks, in his life, to be a simple man. A good man.
Now he’s a Wadia man.
He reports to Sunny at noon.
“You’re late,” Sunny says, already nursing a whisky.
“Sorry, sir.”
“I told you. I needed you.”
“Yes, sir.”
He starts to clear empty glasses, takes them toward the kitchen.
“Well?” Sunny says.
Ajay pauses.
“Sir?”
“Did you find your mother?”
* * *
—
He tries to sleep that afternoon, but he cannot. He goes to the local gym instead to lift weights. The strain, the extinction, that comes from the dead lift is a welcome for him. But when he drops the bar, when he can hold it no longer, a hand comes down on his shoulder, and he reacts violently, turns and grabs his attacker by the throat. It’s only Pankaj, one of his gym friends. “Brother, it’s me,” Pankaj cries, stricken, then looks into Ajay’s scratched face and is afraid.
“What happened to you?” Pankaj says.
* * *
—
He returns to duty at six p.m., makes Sunny an old-fashioned. Sunny retreats to his bedroom with the glass along with the bottle of whisky and slams the door. Gautam Rathore arrives at eight, breezing past Ajay, planting himself on the sofa, flicking through magazines, calling for a bottle of whisky himself.
He nods toward Sunny’s bedroom.
“Does he have his bitch in there?”
Ajay brings Gautam his bottle along with ice and soda.
“He’s alone.”
“Well tell him to get out here! Chop-chop.”
Ajay knocks once, discreetly, and waits. Nothing.
“What’s he doing in there!?” Gautam drawls.
Still nothing.
“Sir,” Ajay says, “Gautam is here.”
Sunny emerges, sluggish with thought.
“Leave us alone awhile,” he says. “I’ll call when I need you.”
Ajay returns to his room.
Two hours later Sunny calls. Ajay is to prepare a car. No drivers. Just him.
He gets up from his bed, dresses with his Glock under his jacket, and heads to the garage, where he takes the keys for the Toyota Highlander. He signs for it without a word, climbs inside, starts the engine. Then pulls it out beyond the gates and waits beside the Mercedes belonging to Gautam Rathore.
RAJASTHAN
THE DESPICABLE GAUTAM RATHORE
(Sixteen Hours Later)
1.
Gautam wakes.
With no idea where he is, no idea how he even got here.
Lying on his back, he stares vacantly at the dust motes floating in a sunbeam.
Like a lizard he blinks.
The film of consciousness breaks.
Then the pain begins.
The throbbing of his swollen brain within that proud regal skull.
These moments aren’t uncommon.
If anything, he’s made a sport of them.
But today something is different, there’s something very wrong with this picture today.
* * *
—
He’s the son of wealth.
But not like Sunny Wadia.
His wealth is ancient, storied.
Asset rich, cash poor.
Most wouldn’t know it; appearances are deceptive, and he’s a magician by blood, the firstborn son of the Rathores of Bastragarh, famed for their jewel-encrusted slippers and tiger hunts. Rulers, one way or another, of a vast swath of Madhya Pradesh.