Also there will be a second consignment some weeks later, at Shekhadi. Same drill.
The neighbors’ plan required a precise sequence of actions. First there would be killings. In Dongri, the previous fiefdom of Daddy Jyoti who had been driven out of town by his soda-bottle beating, there lived a community of what were called mathadi workers, that is, laborers who carried loads on their heads. These were street sleepers so they were easy to acquire. A number of these head-load workers would be acquired and the dispatching would be done with small knives to the throat to give the appearance of a ritual religious rite. Dongri was an area of high communal sensitivity and the neighbor was confident that the ritual killings would cause the opposition to rise up in force. The opposition was highly organized and had police support but they would face heavily armed resistance. Weapons would be prestocked in flashpoint zones. And there would be grenades and there would be bombs. And then the bombs would incite more opposition crowds and those crowds would be met by automatic rifles and more explosives. And a fire would be lit that would spread across the country and the neighbors would be glad because the bastards would have been taught a lesson.
God willing, Zamzama said, we will give the bastards one hell of a bloody nose.
It was the last time Nero ever set foot aboard the Kipling. It was almost time to go ashore but the Z-Company chief had one more thing to say. You and I, he said, maybe we will never meet again. It will not be possible for me to remain in this country after the events that will occur. For you the position is easier. I have always been thoughtful regarding you and there is as you are aware a long chain of intermediaries between us and you have one hundred percent deniability, so I think it will be okay for you to stay put with your wife-family. But maybe just in case you also should construct an exit strategy.
Zamzama was right. The two men in fact never met again. And he was right about the exit strategy too.
The events of March 12, 1993, were widely reported and it will not be necessary to go into details. Car bombs and scooter bombs. Bomb in the basement of the Stock Exchange. Three bazaars, three hotels, airport, cinema, passport office, bank, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom. Even Mahim fishermen’s colony, kaboom. Taxi-bomb at the Gateway to India, big fucking kaboom.
The neighbors must have been disappointed, however. There was considerable loss of life but the hoped-for civil war did not occur. The city and the nation kept their nerve. There were arrests, things calmed down, peace returned. Zamzama Alankar was gone along with his lieutenant Short Fingers, and these two were named Public Enemies #1 and #2. It was widely believed they eventually settled down as guests of the neighbors, and Zamzama continued to run Z-Company by remote control. The neighbors, however, claimed to have no knowledge of the fugitives’ whereabouts.
In the following years there was a major rift in the underworld. After the attacks the police assault on Z-Company was unprecedented, all the arrangements and understandings fell apart, and the whole edifice came this close to disintegrating. The satphones and online secure communications systems went on working so Zamzama was able to send instructions and rule the roost, but wasn’t it just a little too grand of him and Short Fingers to issue orders from a distance, they weren’t the ones taking the heat. Gradually the distance between the two absentee leaders and the two in situ, Big Head and Little Feet—who had to face gangsterism and terror charges, and the not-proven verdict that allowed them to walk free took five years to engineer, that was five years of life under the hammer of the law—it caused resentment. At the end of five years Z-Company was still Z-Company, the loyalty of the cadres was still there, but everyone knew there was a Splinter-Z, a group that owed primary loyalty to the dwarf and the guy with the huge shoe size, and though a kind of truce held between those two and the two staying with the neighbors there was, increasingly, little love lost there.
Nero was invited in for a meeting with Head and Feet. This did not take place on a luxury yacht in the harbor but in a basti deep inside the Dharavi slum, to which he was taken by men who didn’t speak to him and didn’t look like they wanted a chat. Inside the slum dwelling Head nodded at him and Feet pointed a toe at a brick. Sit, Feet said.
So here’s what we know about you, said Head.
You’re the dhobi, said Feet.
What is dirty, you clean.
Therefore, hard to believe you knew nothing. We knew nothing. That is a matter for us to resolve with the boss. But you? You knew nothing? That stretches our credulity.
That puzzles our dimaags.
However. Our brains also know the following, (a) and (b). (A), you don’t like politics.
And (b), you don’t get involved in religion.
So, there’s a balance. On the one hand, on the other hand.
It has been decided to give you benefit of doubt.
The following is our position. This operation has damaged the Company. From now on it is our intention to disengage from such operations.
We have put this to the boss and Fingers.
They are in agreement.
A fresh start. Return to basics. Not straying from our area of maximum expertise.
However, in Company business, there are many issues of trust. And our trust in you is, how to say it.
Compromised.
Shaken.
Shot.
An untrustable trust is untrustworthy.
It is a distrust.
However, we have given you benefit of doubt.
See above.
Therefore we simply disengage from you. You continue with your life, we with ours.
But if at any time any single information leaks from you regarding ourselves.
We will cut off your penis.
And your sons’ penises.
And we will put them in your wife’s mouth.
And I will fuck her from behind.
While I slit her throat from the front.
You are a free man. You may go.
Go fast.
Before we change our mind.
That penis thing sounds like a good idea.
No, no. He is joking only. Goodbye, dhobi.
Goodbye.