The Case of the Missing Servant

Sixteen

Mummy, like so many Indians, had a gift for remembering numbers. She didn't need a telephone directory; the Rolodex in her mind sufficed.

The late Om Chander Puri had often made use of her ability.

"What's R. K. Uncle's number?" he would call from his den in the back of their house in Punjabi Bagh as she made his dinner rotis in the kitchen. Seeing the digits floating in the air before her eyes she'd reply automatically, "4-6-4-2-8-6-7."

Mummy had no difficulty remembering the numbers of "portable devices" either, despite their being longer.

Jyoti Auntie, a senior at the RTO (Regional Transport Office), was on 011 1600 2340.

It was this lady, with whom Mummy had partnered at bridge on many a Saturday afternoon in East of Kailash, who she called now to ask about tracing Fat Throat's BMW numberplate.

"Just I need one address for purposes of insurance claim," she told Jyoti Auntie when she called her the morning after Majnu had lost him in Gurgaon.

"Oh dear, what happened?" asked Jyoti Auntie.

"The owner was doing reckless driving, bashed up my car and absconded the scene," she lied. "Majnu gave chase but being a prime duffer, he got caught in a traffic snarl."

Jyoti Auntie sympathized. "Same thing happened to me not long back," she said. "A scooter scratched my Indica and took off. Luckily I work at RTO, so after locating the driver's address, Vinod paid the gentleman a visit and got him to reimburse me for damages done."

"Very good," said Mummy.

"You have a note of the numberplate?" asked Jyoti Auntie.

"No need, just it's up in my head. D-L-8-S-Y-3-4-2-5. One black color BMW. It is Germany-made, na?"

Her friend tried to look up the numberplate in the system, but the computers were "blinking," so Mummy had to call back after an hour.

"The vehicle belongs to one Mr. Surinder Jagga, three number, A, Block Two, Chandigarh Apartments, Phase Four, Home Town, Sector 18, Gurgaon," divulged Jyoti Auntie.

Mummy wrote down the details (she did not have a head for remembering addresses) and thanked her.

"You're playing bridge on Saturday, is it?" asked Jyoti Auntie.

"Certainly, if not totally," said Mummy. "Just my son, Chubby, is facing some difficulty and requires assistance."

"Nothing serious, I hope."

"Let us say it is nothing I cannot sort out," said Mummy.

Less than two hours later, Mummy and Majnu pulled up outside Block Two, Chandigarh Apartments, Phase Four, Home Town, Sector 18, Gurgaon.

Fat Throat's black BMW was parked in front of the building.

"You wait here and don't do sleeping," instructed Mummy. "Just I'm going to check around. Should be I'll revert in ten minutes. But in case of emergency, call home and inform my son's good wife. You're having the number, na?"

"Yes, madam," sighed Majnu, who was only half listening and privately lamenting the fact that he had missed his lunch.

Mummy let herself out of the car and made her way to the entrance to Block Two.

Chandigarh Apartments was not one of the high-end superluxury developments. It housed call center workers and IT grunts, most of whom hailed from small towns across the subcontinent and had flocked to Delhi to live the new Indian dream.

Like so much of Gurgaon's new housing, which had been sold for considerable sums amid a blitz of slick marketing and-false-assurances of round-the-clock water and electricity supplies, Block Two was beginning to crumble. Less than two years after its "completion," tiles had started falling off its facade; the monsoon rains had left enormous damp stains on the walls and ceilings; and the wooden window frames were warped.

The lift was out of order and Mummy had to climb the stairwell where the builders (who had cobbled together the structure with substandard bricks) had failed to remove blobs of plaster from the bare concrete stairs. Here and there, wires hung incongruously from the walls as if the very innards of the building were spilling out.

Mummy, bag in hand, soon reached the third floor landing.

Flat 3A was on the immediate left.

A pair of a men's black slip-on shoes lay in front of the door. On the wall to one side of it hung a plaque that read:

This was all the information Puri's mother required for the time being.

Now that she knew Fat Throat was a property broker, Mummy would ask around and find out more about him. With any luck, someone might be able to tell her what Jagga and his co-conspirator, Red Boots, were up to.

Mummy turned to head back downstairs. But just then, the door swung open.

Standing there in the doorway, eclipsing a good two-thirds of the frame, was Fat Throat, no longer dressed in his white linen suit but a black cotton kurta pajama. Behind him in the poorly lit interior she could make out another, smaller figure.

Surinder Jagga narrowed his eyes and stared at Mummy suspiciously, as if he recognized her, and said, in the same deep, chiling voice she remembered from the Drums of Heaven restaurant, "Yes, madam? You're lost?"

Mummy, caught off guard and intimidated by the sheer size of the man and his thuggish bearing, stuttered, "I…see…well…just I'm looking for, umm, Block Three."

"This is Block Two," answered Fat Throat abruptly.

"Oh dear, silly me. Thank you, ji. So confusing it is, na?" she said and started down the stairs.

Mummy had taken only a few steps when Fat Throat called after her.

"Wait, Auntie!"

She stopped, feeling her heart beat a little faster. Without turning around, she reached inside her handbag and wrapped her fingers around her can of Mace.

Could be, he spotted us following him home, Mummy said to herself. Curse that idiot driver of mine. It's all his fault, na.

"Which apartment you want?" Fat Throat asked.

"Um…a…apartment six number, A," she ventured.

There was a pause.

"The Chawlas, is it?" he asked.

"That's right."

"OK, auntie, it's across the way," he said. "You want I should send someone with you?"

"No, no, it's quite all right," she said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Mummy continued on her way. As she made the first turn in the stairs, she heard another voice coming from the landing above her. Looking up, she saw a second man emerge from Fat Throat's apartment.

He stooped to put on his black shoes and, in the shaft of light coming in through a window in the stairwell, Mummy got a good look at his face.

She recognized him instantly.

It was Mr. Sinha, one of Chubby's elderly neighbors. And he was carrying two thick briefcases. One in each hand.