Score, p.25
Score!, page 25
‘How do you know that?’
‘Because it’s what I would do,’ she answered simply.
Since her logic was inescapable, Arhan turned back and trained the gun on the bastard assassin.
‘Do you want to live with one eye as a free man or do you want to spend the rest of your natural life counting the bars of your jail cell?’
Bee picked up Arhan’s phone and held it in one hand.
Bhavanchandar glared some more, the area around his bleeding eye looking gory and grotesque, a character out of a Rohit Shetty film. It was a wonder he hadn’t passed out from the blood loss yet.
‘Fine. Fuck it. What do you want to know?’
Bee quickly searched for a local doctor online and dialled the number given on the website. The man answered and she asked him to come to their hotel room.
‘We have thirty minutes before he gets here,’ she said.
Arhan handed over the gun to Bee and started stuffing all their things into a bag.
Bee started recording a voice note and settled down on the single chair in the room.
‘Start talking, motherfucker,’ she said quietly. ‘How did you get this job?’
‘I was contacted by email on the dark web.’
‘Who contacted you? It would be better if you told this in story form. Beginning to end,’ ordered Bee.
‘Well, it was simple actually. They were looking for someone with my skill set to murder Zakeer Hussain and make it look like an accident. I put up my resume and references and I was emailed the job offer. I took it up.’
Arhan’s eyes widened at the sheer normalcy of ordering a hit.
Bee swallowed. ‘How did you . . . how did you do it?’
The man shrugged. ‘I watched the man for a month. I knew he was going to go away on a holiday soon with his new wife. I just had to catch him alone somewhere. I did it when he went hand-gliding. His neck snapping looked more realistic, you know . . .’ Bhavanchandar smiled in reminiscence.
Arhan’s breath hissed out as he whipped his head and gave the assassin a murderous look.
Bee stared at him. Back off, her eyes indicated.
He started wiping their prints from the room, like Bee had instructed.
‘What next? How did you get involved with the match-fixing?’ Bee asked, the perfect reporter.
‘The boss contacted me again, more money. Lamba kaam. Needed to keep some people sweet, blackmail them with photos . . . set up a few phones and get a communication chain rolling. Standard procedure.’
‘Standard procedure?’
Bhavanchandar elaborated on the MO then, explaining the logic behind burner phones and prepaid numbers and false addresses. Explaining the idea of nailing the physiotherapist when his weakness for gambling and Big Tits Sasha was discovered.
He also named the other member in the Indian team involved in the scam. It broke Arhan’s heart to learn Garry Marshall’s indifference was a calculated act to allow for this horrible scam to unfold under his regime.
The plan was simple—gather dedicated bookies who were looking for cash and start manipulating the numbers, all the while manipulating the players as well. The outcome of each match was pre-determined and the game played in accordance.
Bee was right.
It wasn’t India’s win they wanted; it was India winning like heroes . . . impossibly driving the odds against them, so that whoever was at the very end of this long con stood to make a shitload of money at the finals.
Bee felt sicker as she heard the whole sorry story, the tiny strings that had been set up to snare gullible players and staff.
The way Akshar’s death had come about. Stealing the xylazine had apparently been the boss’s idea.
‘And Sholekar?’ Bee asked.
Pal made a dismissive movement. ‘Karan Sholekar was a complication. Toh usko uda dia!’
That left . . .
‘Me,’ Bee murmured. ‘I am the only one left now.’
‘Yeah. Your contract wasn’t approved till tonight. Who knows, you could have been spared if you hadn’t holed up here.’
‘Jhooth.’
The man shrugged and then grimaced as the movement jarred his eye.
‘Do you know who your boss is?’
Bee knew the answer to that question but she still had to ask.
‘If I knew who it was, I would have squeezed them for a lot more money, wouldn’t I?’
Arhan reached over and lightly touched the toothbrush. Bhavanchandar Pal screamed in mortal agony.
‘People will hear,’ Bee hissed.
‘I don’t want to leave him here. I want him dead.’
‘That’s not our call.’ She could see murder in Arhan’s eyes and she hoped her sane voice would prevail through the righteous violence swirling in him. ‘Arhan, that’s not our call. Please.’
Arhan eased his knee off the bed and looked at her.
‘What now?’
Bee looked steadily at him. ‘Now we go to Mumbai and end this.’
34
Aghora ‘Aggy’ Vishwanathan was having a very good time. It involved a well-known actress, a can of whipped cream and a bed.
So when the knocking started, just as the actress started unbuttoning her nurse’s uniform, he twitched in reflex. Inside and out.
The knocking continued even though the actress stayed in position, whipped cream in one hand.
Aghora cursed as he struggled through layers of sleep and dreams, and reluctantly came awake. He rubbed his eyes and searched for the woman on the bed, disappointment colouring his face as he realised it was only a dream.
Except for the knocking. That was pretty effing real.
Aghora checked the time. The clock glowed 3.50 a.m.
Who the hell is banging on my door at this ungodly hour?
He ambled out of his bedroom and crossed the 10 feet of the living room to open the door.
‘Who the fuck—Bee!’ Aggy’s jaw dropped as he pulled his sister and hugged her tightly.
Bee hugged him back, just as hard, her arms wrapping around her beanpole and she breathed in the familiar scent of detergent, coffee and chemicals on him. She wrinkled her nose. She could also smell the cigarette he’d smoked before bed.
Aggy let her go just far enough to look down at her and shake her shoulders.
‘Do you have any idea what you’ve put Amma and Appa through? They are apeshit scared for you. The cops showed up asking about you and Amma started crying. I wasn’t there to handle it because, as usual, I was conducting my experiments here,’ he said making air quotes around the word experiments.
Bee knew all about her brother’s ‘experiments’ and she also knew that apart from a select few, which excluded her parents, no one else knew about them.
‘Yeah, yeah . . . I know what you’ve been up to. That is why I am here,’ she said.
‘What have you done now, Brigha?’
Bee winced at the censuring tone. ‘I can explain everything as soon as we come in.’
‘We?’
She stepped back and caught Arhan’s wrist, pulling him forward.
Aggy narrowed his eyes at the casual ease of the gesture.
‘I’ll . . .’ Bee glanced at Arhan’s grim face, ‘We’ll tell you everything. I just need to know, are you going to turn us in to the cops?’
Aggy glared at her. ‘Podi, Bee! How can you ask me that?’
‘It’s a fair assumption on her part,’ Arhan said. ‘You might be a law-abiding citizen who wants to do the right thing.’
‘I am a brother,’ Aggy snarled. ‘Her brother. And, as her brother, I know she can speak for herself so why don’t you pipe down, Coach Sir?’
Bee slapped a hand on both their chests before they butted heads like colliding bulls, the air heavy with testosterone and repressed violence.
Everyone was on edge and she had just one chance to diffuse this situation.
‘Stop it, please. Both of you.’ She turned to give Arhan an imploring look. ‘Arhan, we need Aggy. He is the only one I trust here. And Aggy, Arhan and I are in this together. So you can’t go all protective bhai on him.’
‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’
‘If you calm down,’ she told her glaring brother, her younger brother, who seemed to think that superior height and weight meant superior intellect. ‘I will explain the whole situation to you. And, of course, you’re not calling the cops. Sorry for asking that.’
Abruptly, all the anger melted from her brother’s face and he looked so intensely worried. She had to wonder what the cops had made her family go through.
What Aggy himself must’ve gone through on her behalf.
Wondered if this was the right thing to do or was she taking this crusade way too far.
Sholes’ soulless eyes stared at her, printed on the back of her eyelids. Innocent, knowing. His words echoed in her head. I am already dead.
No, she had to do this for him. His death couldn’t go unavenged.
Arhan wisely kept his mouth shut as Bee stepped forward into her brother’s arms and they hugged again for the longest time. She went up on her toes and talked to him in a low tone in Tamil.
Arhan couldn’t make out anything except Amma, Appa and it freaked him out, made him a bit envious and a whole lot jealous.
To get a handle on his insane emotions he glanced around the tiny room. Thankfully, this place wasn’t under police surveillance yet because, apparently, Aggy was ‘house-sitting’ for a friend who was off studying some lost tribe in the Amazon.
It was closer to a decrepit studio than an actual apartment, with peeling paint and sparse furnishings and a small CRT TV (with an antenna!) that looked like it was going to breathe its last any second now.
There was also a huge lamp in the shape of a snake. The genius friend of the scientist brother had questionable taste in furniture.
Arhan could feel Aghora’s eyes on him, distrusting and questioning. But he clearly loved his sister. It was evident in the rapt, disapproving expression on his face as Bee continued talking in Tamil, switching to English abruptly. ‘And then the assailant showed up at our hotel room and we ended up with a shitload of information we desperately needed.’
Aggy jerked his head in the direction of the sofa and steered Bee towards it.
‘How exactly did he find you guys when the cops didn’t?’
Bee shrugged. ‘I am not exactly sure.’ But she averted her eyes from Aggy, a move Arhan noted. ‘I assume criminals are smarter than cops.’
‘Such faith you have in our khaki force.’
‘Actually, now that I think about it, I do trust Thapar.’ Bee frowned in contemplation.
‘Yeah. Even though Thapar is a dog, a vicious sniffer hound,’ Arhan said bluntly.
They’d all situated on to the sagging couch where Arhan sat as far away from the brother as possible, while the brother sat as close to his sister as possible.
‘He will still arrest your ass when he finds you, Bee,’ Aggy said. ‘You’re in violation of the terms of your bail apparently.’
Bee was contrite. ‘I know.’
‘How did you manage to sneak into Mumbai?’
Bee flushed and grinned and shot Arhan an adoring, affectionate look. It filled Arhan’s cold, mistrusting heart with warmth. ‘Tell him about the sugar truck, Arhan.’
‘What’s to tell?’ Arhan was uncomfortable being in the spotlight.
Aggy smiled too, nastily. ‘Yeah, I’d love to know about the “sugar” truck.’
Arhan nailed him with his own little smile. ‘I own a few sugar cane processing units, and one of the largest sugar manufacturing plants in the country,’ Arhan spoke casually, ‘I made a call and asked for one of my vehicles to be redirected to Chandigarh airport. We boarded a freight plane that my company had chartered to deliver a large consignment of goods to a subsidiary outlet here in Mumbai.’
‘Right.’ The brother had no choice but to nod.
‘And we rode in a barrel of sugar to the airport.’ Bee grinned at the memory and Arhan wisely chose to not say a word more.
As he looked at Aghora, he saw him do the same. They had a moment of perfect communion. This woman was important to both of them and they weren’t going to hurt her.
Or let her get hurt.
Some of the tension eased out of the room.
‘You are insane and so is your theory,’ Aggy said three hours later, wiping the last of the instant noodles clean from his bowl.
Arhan was still on his second helping while Bee had eaten just one bowl.
Sholes’ laptop was open and Aghora’s opinion had been taken on the verification of the fixes. He’d woefully seen the pattern too, predicting when the next big stunt was coming by the end of the round robin.
He was extremely pissed as well. Someone had messed with the sanctity of his favourite game.
‘It’s all we have at this point, isn’t it?’
‘And what if India doesn’t make it to the finals?’
Arhan shrugged. ‘Even if the match isn’t fixed, I have faith in my boys. They should win if they stick to the strategy we discussed.’
‘I hope it was your idea to stick Irfan in instead of Achrekar.’
‘I wanted Achrekar out from the beginning because of his shoulder.’ Arhan was justifiably bitter. ‘But management overruled me on this one . . . like they have on a lot of things since I became the assistant coach.’
Bee gave him a concerned look. ‘Are you even allowed to talk about all this with him?’
Arhan shrugged. ‘I’ve gone rogue now. I bet they’ve already lined up my replacement and will announce it at a press con tomorrow morning.’
Bee reached over, giving his arm a squeeze. ‘You’ll be a goddamn hero soon. No one’s taking your beloved job away from you.’
The strangest haunted look entered his beetle black eyes and he said nothing to her.
‘Are you guys planning on using disguises to get inside Wankhede? The police would have circulated red alert posters of the both of you to every constable in town.’ Aggy frowned.
‘We’ll figure something out,’ Bee said.
‘We have a bigger problem to tackle before that,’ Arhan said grimly.
‘What now?’ Aggy demanded.
‘I have to call up Hasmukh Kanstiya and tender my resignation.’
‘Why?’ Bee cried in distress.
‘Because,’ Arhan spoke in a tone like death warmed over. ‘The team needs an assistant coach and they have to fly in my replacement today. He has to gel with the team.’
He clenched his fists. ‘They’re going to lose it. First Zak, then Akshar. Now me.’
Bee shook her head. ‘No, they aren’t losing you, Arhan. You are going to go back to your team. This way, if something happens,’ she gulped. ‘Well, you’ll be in the clear.’
Arhan stared at her like she’d lost her mind.
Aggy chuckled.
They both looked at him like he’d lost his mind.
‘What’s funny?’ Bee asked furiously.
‘I never thought of you as the self-sacrificing, martyr type, Bee.’ Aggy shrugged. ‘But it’s nice to see you care about someone so much.’
Bee scuffed the floor with her toe, refusing to make eye contact with either of them. ‘I am not a martyr. But I am a decent person.’
‘So am I,’ Arhan said gently. ‘Besides,’ he ran a hand through his stubble, ‘I am going to be of more help to the team outside than inside, cheering them on.’
Arhan couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned on the lumpy coir mat that Bee’s brother had thoughtfully provided as bedding for him, along with a stony pillow. The ceiling fan whirred on at full speed.
Arhan hadn’t contacted his family because he knew that even a halfway-intelligent cop would have bugged their phones. The only way he’d been able to redirect the Chandigarh truck and not get caught was because he remembered the direct number of the manager in charge of operations in the north zone.
It was sheer luck they’d managed to sneak into Mumbai undetected.
He honestly didn’t care so much about his job right this minute as he cared about keeping Bee safe.
He knew a thing or two about how big business worked . . . how food chains worked. And the match-fixing ring was a well-run food chain. If Bhavanchandar ‘Bastard’ Pal didn’t finish the job he’d been sent to do, then someone else would be hired for more money and so on and so forth until someone did finish them.
Their plan was daring and audacious and had to work for both of them to live safely and well into the future.
The future . . .
Arhan turned on his side and stared at the streaks of dawn lighting up the grey sky.
Time had lost all meaning for him in the last few days. Things had happened at the speed of light, one after the other, and it seemed like centuries had passed instead of mere days.
The worst part was accepting the murderous, violent side to himself. The predator that wanted to protect what was his. And Bee was his.
Arhan shut his eyes. He saw Bhavanchandar moving to fire the gun at Bee and his protective instincts had risen to the surface, stabbing Bhavanchandar in the eye with a fricking toothbrush. Then, he’d rushed to her side, weaving, lumbering and gathering her close to him. Breathing right for the first time in hours, centuries, millennia . . .
Arhan knew he loved her then. It made no sense but he loved her.
It was the only reason he had stayed when all he’d wanted was to leave, gathering his team close to him and running the hell away from this godawful tournament.
Love had indeed turned him into a fool.
There was a rustle against the mattress and a second later, he felt Bee’s warmth. Her arms came around him and she pressed herself against him. Tight. So terribly tight that he became instantly horny.
‘I can’t sleep,’ she whispered. ‘I keep thinking about that pyscho coming after you . . .’ She swallowed and moved closer to him.
He gripped her hands tight and said, ‘It’s going to be fine. I promise you.’
‘What if he’d killed you?’
He felt the hot rush of her tears on his skin and turned to her, gathering her close and brushing the hair off her cheeks.
