Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [139]
The key-maker indicated that he should move so his shadow fell to the side.
Kothari felt the key grow hot in his hand.
“Had some free time on Gandhi Jayanti, thought, let’s get it done … Go to my mother-in-law’s house in Goregaon and check for yourself. The building is right there. Near the Topi-wala cinema hall.”
“Look here,” the key-maker said. “I’ve got six orders ahead of yours.”
Nearly two hours later, Ajwani opened his door to find the Secretary standing with something wrapped in a handkerchief in his hand.
He smiled and reached for the handkerchief; but the Secretary hid it behind his back.
“Look here, Ajwani, if you’re getting anything extra for this from Shah—and I know you are—I want half of it. I did all the work today.” Coming close to Ajwani’s ear, he whispered: “I want a large glass panel in my living room in Sewri. For a full view of the flamingoes. A large glass panel.”
Ajwani grinned. “You’re becoming a man, Kothari. All right, fifty-fifty.”
He reached behind the Secretary’s back and took the thing wrapped in a handkerchief; in return he handed the Secretary a large soft packet.
“Cotton wool,” he said. “Distribute it to everyone in the Society. Before nine p.m. I’m going right now to see the boys.”
The Secretary turned his face to the right and held the cotton bale up to his ear. “Don’t tell me what is going to happen.”
Outside Vishram Society, the street lamps were flickering to life. Mrs. Puri was out in the market, shopping for fresh, vitamin-rich spinach with which she would stimulate her son’s slow neurons.
A jarring noise of brakes tore through the market. The Tata Indigo, which had swerved from the main road, slowed down, but not fast enough: there was a mad squealing, and a thrashing of living limbs under its wheels.
“You’ve killed it!” someone shouted at the driver. “And on Gandhi Jayanti!”
Two men came out of a grocery store; one of them, who wore a blue lungi, tied it up around his knees. “Pull him out of his car and give him a thrashing!” he yelled.
The Indigo sped away; the grocery-store men went back to their work.
The stray yellow dog, an uninvited and unexpelled guest at Vishram Society for so many months, lay in a puddle of dark sticky blood near the market. A crow hopped by the side of the animal. It picked at its entrails.
Mrs. Puri shielded Ramu’s face with her palm. He whimpered. Hugging him into her side, she led him back to Vishram, and left him there with Mrs. Saldanha.
She shook Ram Khare out from his guard’s booth.
Ram Khare brought water in the channa bowl Ramu had left near the black cross. The dog was too weak to drink it. They lowered the animal into the gutter, so that it might pass away in dignity, if not in comfort.
“Ask the municipality men to take it with them when they come here in the morning, Ram Khare. We can’t leave its body out here.”
She went back and explained to Ramu: that wasn’t their friendly stray dog. No, it was another dog that looked a bit like theirs. Ramu brightened. His mother promised that they would see their yellow dog in the morning, eating channa from the bowl. Promise.
She was tucking him into bed with the Friendly Duck when the Secretary knocked on the door.
“Double-lock your door tonight, Mrs. Puri,” he said.
She came to the door and whispered: “Is it really going to happen? The simple thing?”
Kothari said nothing; he handed her a small plastic bag full of cotton wool, and went down the stairs. Mrs. Puri stood in the stairwell, listening as he knocked on the Pintos’ door.
“Double-lock your door tonight, Mr. Pinto.”
“We lock them every night.”
“Lock it extra tight tonight. Wear cotton in your ears if you have any. You don’t? Then take some of this. It’s in the bag. Wear it at night. Do you understand?”
“No.”
“Try. It is a simple thing, Mr. Pinto.”
She heard Kothari’s footsteps go down another flight of stairs, and then his voice saying: “Double-lock your door tonight, Mrs. Rego.”
Just as he was turning from Mrs.