Between the Assassinations Read Online Free PDF Page B

this for the first time. In the end, they would settle for a hundred each, plus the shirts.
    “Let me offer you a little boost first. Do the sahibs take Red Label?”
    The fidgety fellow almost jumped out of his seat in excitement, but the big one glared at him.
    “Red Label would be acceptable.”
    They’ve probably never been offered anything better than hooch, Abbasi realized.
    He walked into the pantry, took out the bottle. He poured into three glasses with the Air India maharaja logo. He opened the fridge. He dropped two ice cubes into each glass, and added a thin stream of ice water from a bottle. He spat in two of the glasses, and arranged them farthest away on the tray.
    The thought fell into his mind like a meteor from a purer heaven. No. Slowly it spread itself across his mind. No, he could not give this whiskey to these men. It might be counterfeit stuff, sold in cartons bought under false premises, but it was still a thousand times too pure to be touched by their lips.
    He drank one whiskey, and then the second, and then the third.
    Ten minutes later, he came back into the room with heavy steps. He bolted the door behind him and let his body fall heavily against it.
    The big tax man turned sharply. “Why are you closing the door?”
    “Sahibs. This is the port city of the Bunder, which has ancient traditions and customs dating back centuries and centuries. Any man is free to come here of his own will, but he can only leave with the permission of the locals.”
    Whistling, Abbasi walked to his desk and picked up the phone; he shoved it, like a weapon, right in the face of the bigger tax man.
    “Shall I call the Income Tax Department right now? Shall I find out if you have been authorized to come? Shall I?”
    They looked uncomfortable. The lean man was sweating. Abbasi thought, My guess is right. They are doing this for the first time.
    “Look at your hands. You have accepted shirts from me, which are bribes. You are holding the evidence in your hands.”
    “Look here—”
    “No! You look here!” Abbasi shouted. “You are not going to leave these premises alive until you sign a confession of what you were trying to do. Let us see how you get out. This is the port city. I have friends in all four directions. You will both be dead and floating in the Kaliamma River if I snap my fingers now. Do you doubt me?”
    The big tax man looked at the ground, while the other fellow produced an extraordinary amount of sweat.
    Abbasi unbolted the door and held it open. “Get out.” Then, with a wide smile, he bowed down to them:
    “Sahibs.”
    The two men scurried out without a word. He heard the thump of their feet on the staircase; and then a cry of surprise from Ummar, who was walking up the stairs with a tray of tea and Britannia biscuits.
    He let his head rest on the cool wood of the table and wondered what he had done. Any moment soon, he was expecting that the electricity would be cut off; the income tax officials would return, with more men and an arrest warrant.
    He walked around and around the room, thinking, What is happening to me?
    Ummar stared at him silently.
    After an hour, to Abbasi’s surprise, there had been no call from the Income Tax Department. The fans were still working. The light was still on.
    Abbasi began to hope. These guys were raw—tyros. Maybe they’d just gone back to the office and gotten on with their work. Even if they had complained, the government officials had been wary of the Bunder ever since the riots; it was possible they would not want to antagonize a Muslim businessman at this point. He looked out of the window at the Bunder: this violent, rotten, garbage-strewn port, crawling with pickpockets and knife-carrying thugs—it seemed the only place where a man was safe from the corruption of Kittur.
    “Ummar!” he shouted. “I’m leaving early today for the club—give Sunil Shetty a call to say that he should come today too. I have great news for him! I beat the Income