Last Man in Tower - Aravind Adiga [55]
“Twenty thousand rupees per square foot! You could buy her new eyes with so much money.” Trivedi grinned. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you, Masterji?”
The market filled with noise: a funeral procession began to move, clamorously, towards the highway.
The coconut man handed each of them a sliced-open nut, brimming with fresh water and pierced by a pink straw.
Masterji knew he ought to refuse: the nut was meant for a man who would take Mr. Shah’s money.
“… of course you must be joking, Masterji … will you really say no? Once the deadline comes near, will you really really ….”
He took the brimming coconut in his hands and felt its weight. When you’re rich, you don’t have to give people things, he thought. They give you things.
How wonderful.
Sucked through a straw, the cool sweet water was a bitter thrill: he understood, for four or five seconds, what it was to be a millionaire.
Bald, moist, chocolate-dark, the drummer’s head glistened in the mid-morning light; behind him, a swaying man blew on a nadaswaram. Four teenagers carried the wooden bier; two followed them striking bronze cymbals. On the bier lay the body of an old woman draped in a bright green sari, her nostrils stopped with cotton balls. A boy at the head of the procession broke out, every few steps, into jubilant dance.
Standing in the Vakola market with folded arms, Ajwani, the broker in Vishram Society, watched Shanmugham, a few steps away, watching the funeral procession with folded arms.
The Confidence Group man wore his standard white-over-black uniform; under his arm he held what looked like a financial prospectus.
Shanmugham turned and noticed Ajwani noticing.
The broker approached him with a smile.
“I’m from Vishram Society. Name is Ajwani.”
Shanmugham returned the smile. “I know. Ramesh. Tower A. You own the Toyota Qualis.”
Soon the two men were sitting together at a nearby restaurant. Ajwani dispatched a mouse from under their table with a kick; he made a sign to the waiter.
He picked up the green prospectus that Shanmugham had laid on the table and flicked through its pages.
“Mutual funds … I used to play the market in the nineties. Technology companies. I bought Infosys shares. Made no money. You won’t, either.”
“I have,” Shanmugham said.
“Then you’ll lose it all. Men like us don’t become rich from shares.”
Ajwani slid the prospectus across the table; he looked his interlocutor in the eye.
“I want to ask you, Mr. Shanmugham: what is your title in the Confidence Group?”
“Don’t have one. I am helping out as a personal favour to Mr. Shah.”
“No, you’re not.” The broker clamped his hand down on the prospectus. “Every builder has one special man in his company. This man has no business card to hand out, no title, he is not even on the company payroll. But he is the builder’s left hand. He does what the builder’s right hand does not want to know about. If there is trouble, he contacts the police or the mafia. If there is money to be paid to a politician, he carries the bag. If someone’s knuckles have to be broken, he breaks them. You are Mr. Shah’s left hand.”
Shanmugham retrieved his prospectus from beneath the broker’s hand.
“I’ve never heard of that term before. Left-hand man.”
The waiter put two cups of tea on their table.
“Bring me a bowl of sugar,” Ajwani said.
He courteously moved Shanmugham’s tea a bit closer to him.
“Have you heard the saying, a broker is first cousin to a builder? I’ve seen redevelopments all my life. The builder always has a man on the inside. He gives you information about the other members of the Society. You give him a bribe. Unfortunately, you picked the wrong man this time.”
Shanmugham, who had begun blowing on his tea to cool it, stopped.
The broker continued: “It’s usually the Secretary who is picked. The Secretary of Tower B, Mr. Ravi, is a good man. But our Secretary is a nothing man.”
“Nothing man?” Shanmugham asked his tea.
“Didn’t have a son till he was nearly fifty years old. He can’t do this.