Delhi Noir Read Online Free PDF

approaches to it. She wanted to make sure that there was nowhere that Pandey could run, and no direction from which he could catch them unawares. She met Ramdev, who, despite the hint of delight on his face, seemed like a reliable man in a tight spot, competent and tough.
    She spent the night at Arjun Singh’s house, traveling backwards in time at every moment, full of oldness and oddity, and could hear the man pacing upstairs as she slipped into sleep.
    She woke up in the middle of the night, groggy and ill at ease, to the sound of something smashing. She rose from the bed and quietly made her way to the door. Opening it softly, she looked around until she spotted Arjun Singh. He was walking purposefully with hammer in his hand, and she saw him stop before a clock and take a mighty swing. Then smash it again. He was done with time marching backwards.
    She crept back to bed, but her sleep was filled with bad dreams, and she rose in the morning feeling more tired than when she went to bed. When Arjun Singh appeared he was wearing clothes that were precisely twenty-four years old and had a small brown diary in hand. They walked to the alleyway, and from there she called Pandey.
    “I’ll be right over,” was all he said.
    As they waited, she saw the policemen slowly arrive, filtering in one by one as if they were there by chance. Ramdev parked his jeep ten feet away and gave her a grin, tipping her anxiety to fear. There were too many of them, and they were far too close. Pandey would see them and escape. She was getting ready to signal them away when the sleek Mercedes arrived, precisely at 10. She recognized the numbers on the license plate, and suddenly she remembered where she had seen Rajan Pandey’s name before. It had been on a file on Triloki’s desk, a case he had been investigating.
    And then the car door opened and a man stepped out. She recognized him from the photographs in that file on Triloki’s desk. Rajan Pandey, the man that Suparna, the builder’s wife, was having an affair with. Rajan Pandey, whose pictures had been used by Triloki to blackmail Suparna. Rajan Pandey, the seed that had destroyed Suhasini and Triloki’s partnership.
    Pandey looked past her and waved to Ramdev, and Suha-sini knew she had been tricked, badly beaten. She turned to Arjun Singh, wanting to warn him, but he was already rushing ahead toward the culmination of his long dream. “See!” he shouted, waving the diary. “See! This is the truth, the truth that you can’t burn. I won’t give you any matches today!”
    And then the driver also stepped out of the Mercedes. It was Triloki. “You can always find matches,” he said, “if you know where to look.” And he tipped his hat at Suhasini.

HOW I LOST MY CLOTHES
    BY R ADHIKA J HA
    Lodhi Gardens
    U ntil I lost my clothes I was a regular sort of guy: lots of clothes, lots of problems, a little luck—mainly with women. I had a family that was insisting I get married again, a dog with a chronic skin disorder, a flat with a mortgage, and a growing infatuation with heroin, better known as brown sugar or “sister” on the streets. On the plus side, I was the educated, intelligent CEO and sole employee of a global consultancy company. My three ex-bosses back from when I was still a salary slave were all women who believed in me and continued to give me enough work to keep me dancing with sister all night long.
    The night before I lost my clothes was a night like any other. I had a report to finish, a feasibility study of a new iron ore extraction process the Koreans wanted to sell to an Indian company. The report had been due the previous week. I’d done all the work and only had the conclusion left to write, so I’d gone to the bar at the Habitat Center at 7:00 to celebrate. By 11:45 p.m. I was home, well lubricated, a little horny, and ready to earn my next few hits of sister.
    I opened the computer and went to My Documents . But the file wasn’t there! Believe me, I