But no. Something took over him.
He’d always been stubborn, but in Delhi he doubled down. Tapped into some hitherto unknown crude despair.
It flowed.
He hit the city hard. Indulged in his vices unshepherded.
Went for the cheapest, dirtiest options and felt all the more gratified.
Whores from GB Road. Boys in Connaught Place. Inserted butt plugs into the rectums of school chums’ wives. Imagine the club.
Young Royals Go Wild: The Musical.
Reveling in the reputation he gained.
The Grotesque Gautam Rathore.
Saving nothing for the return.
He would still drink with his old school friends, the polo crowd, and drink some more, peacocking. His tongue was loose. Insults, cutting remarks, let fly. Enemies would be made. Outrageous scenes would play out in the lobbies of hotels. Spill out into the roads. He’d lech and leer and grope and mock and snort and piss himself, until his erstwhile friends would avoid his calls. That suited him just fine.
Where were we, now?
His allowance was over by the middle of the month, and the rest would be served in desperate penury. His maids.
Unpaid.
Molested.
Fled.
Only his driver stayed.
He and Shivam sat and watched TV together.
Guffawed.
And late night he would go out to bring back more.
* * *
—
It was during these foul Delhi days that Sunny Wadia burst onto the scene. The upstart, transformed. In his tailored suits, his dewy skin, his parties, his vision. But what did Gautam care?
* * *
—
“I’ll put you on a retainer,” Sunny said. “Three lakh rupees a month.”
“Make it five,” Gautam countered.
“Five,” Sunny said.
“Since that’s settled,” Gautam purred, “let’s consummate.”
He removed a baggie of shockingly white cocaine from his inner pocket.
Tossed it onto the coffee table.
“It’s of dubious origin. One part talc to one part aspirin to one part laxative to one part coke. And a part and a half of speed to spare. But boy, does it work.”
Gautam ripped the head off the baggie with his teeth, swept away the debris from the glass tabletop, then dumped the entire gram down.
“Be my guest,” he said.
“I’m fine,” Sunny replied.
“Oh no, I’m afraid that’s not the issue. You want my advice? On hotels? Then you have to mess yourself up with my bad coke.”
He took a crisp note from his wallet and handed it to Sunny.
“You have experience?”
“Of course.”
With a loose credit card, Gautam began to chop up four great ridged lines.
“Prove yourself to me.”
Sunny ignored that but started to roll the note tight.
“You know,” Gautam said, “I saw that advert of yours. Double-page spread. Very touching. All the best businessmen launder their reputations these days.”
Sunny ignored him. “So, about the job,” he said, “what do you say?”
Gautam stopped chopping, tossed the card onto the table, snatched the note.
“Job?” he replied, slightly wondrous, rolling the exotic term around his mouth. He leaned down and pulled one line, tilted his head, snorted hard again, blew his cheeks out, exposed his teeth, gripped the table, closed his eyes a long time, and just froze. Then he looked for a cigarette. “Almost too good to be true. But excuse me, I have to take a shit.”
He held the note out to Sunny as he got up and walked away.
When he came back five minutes later Sunny hadn’t touched a line.
“What?” Gautam mocked, cigarette hanging from his lip, debauched. “You already ate?”
“It’s not that.”
“What then?”
“It’s yours.”
“Oh, fuck off. Don’t be a bore. This is the cost of business.”
He detected the faintest whiff of regret as Sunny grasped the nettle, gripped the note, and bent down to snort the bad coke.
He could see Sunny didn’t want to be there.
So what was his game?
3.
A man appears on the steps to the terrace, carrying a tray, a bottle of wine.
He’s tall, dark, with long curly hair. From Kerala maybe.
Certainly not a Rajasthani boy. No gormless stare, no incipient mustache, just black wraparound shades, a crisp white shirt, dark pants.
An air of . . . security?
He stands above Gautam, staring down.
“And who might you be, young man?”
It’s always good to assume indifferent command.
But the “young man” doesn’t respond. He just puts the tray on the table and begins to open the wine.
“Are you new here?”
He can see the man’s jaw clenching.
“You really are quite tense.”
The wine pops open. The man places the bottle down and begins to remove the cork, and when he’s done he places the cork next to the bottle and holds the corkscrew in his hand as if he just might use it as a gouging device.
“Go on then,” Gautam says, “pour the damn thing.”
The man places the corkscrew on the table, picks up the bottle and glass, and pours. Pours the wine slowly, slowly it fills, keeps filling to the brim.
“Steady on!”
It fills past, spills over, starts splashing onto the hot stone.
“What’s wrong with you?!”
Gautam lurches up from the sun lounger, makes a lunge for the wine.
“For Christ’s sake.”
But the man just keeps pouring. Half the bottle is gone.
“Are you mad?”
“A little.” He has a thick Israeli accent. He extends the glass to Gautam. Gautam reaches out to take it.
* * *
—
The next thing he knows he’s coming up for air.
“What the hell!?” Gautam yelps. “You threw me into the pool!”
He splashes about, grips the side with his aching arms. The Israeli squats, balances his shades on the top of his head. His eyes are hazel, his expression hard. He nods toward a paper bundle wrapped in string.
“This is your clothes. We go inside and you put them on.”
“Or what?”
The Israeli looks at the fort wall.
“We see if you can fly.”
“You and I,” Gautam says, “both know I can’t fly.”
4.
Half an hour later, the Israeli delivers dyspeptic Gautam through the fort grounds, along a path marked private that skirts the hillside, through a wooden gate, down a few steps onto a hidden terrace cantilevered over the plains.
Adiraj’s terrace.
But Adiraj is not here.
It’s an older man, spritely so, quite debonair, wearing an inconspicuously expensive cotton suit, his eyes protected by narrow shades. He sits at a wrought-iron table in the middle of the terrace, examining a sheet of paper. A decanter full of whisky, a water jug, and two tumblers sit in the middle, a manila envelope by his left hand.
Another chair is open, waiting at the side.
The Israeli stops at the bottom of the steps, holds his hand out, indicating Gautam should go on. “Keep walking, Johnnie.”
Gautam, now dressed in his own salmon pink suit, says, “It’s not really up to you, is it.”
He has regained his bluster.
It’s the clothes.
Also the understanding that this is a game.
* * *