'Brother! Where is forty-tooo sectorrr?'
'Near Tulip High School!'
'Where is Tulip High School?'
'Near Om Garden!'
'Brother, where is Om Garden?'
The delivery boy scowled and shouted in an amalgam of English and Hindi, 'Past Eros Cinema, sectorrr nineteen! Turn right at traffic light to BPO Phase three! Enter farty-too through backside!'
Some time later, Handbrake delivered Boss to the front door of the clubhouse and drove to the parking lot. He expected a long wait. But for once, he wasn't bothered and sat back in his seat to enjoy the view.
It occurred to him to take a few photographs of the manicured landscape with the new mobile phone Puri had given him. How else would he be able to prove to the people in his village that such an empty, beautiful place existed?
Puri was not a member of the Golden Greens Golf Course, although he would have liked to be. Not for the sake of playing (secretly he couldn't stand the game-the ball was always ending up in those bloody ponds), but for making contacts among India's new money, the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)-cum-MNC (Multi-National Corporation) crowd.
Such types-as well as many politicians, senior babus and Supreme Court judges-were often to be found on these new fairways to the south and east of the capital. In Delhi, all big deals were now being done on the putting greens. Playing golf had become as vital a skill for an Indian detective as picking a lock. In the past few years, Puri had had to invest in private lessons, a set of Titleist clubs and appropriate apparel, including argyle socks.
But the fees for the clubs were beyond his means and he often had to rely on others to sign him in as a guest.
Rinku, his closest childhood friend, had recently joined the Golden Greens.
He was standing in reception wearing alligator cowboy boots, jeans and a white shirt embroidered with an American eagle.
'Good to see you, buddy! Looks like you've put on a few more pounds, yaar!'
'You're one to talk, you bugger,' said the detective as they embraced. 'Sab changa?'
Rinku's family had been neighbors of the Puris in Punjabi Bagh and they had grown up playing in the street together. All through their teenage years they had been inseparable. But in their adult lives, they had drifted apart.
Puri's military career had exposed him to many new people, places and experiences, and he'd become less parochial in his outlook. By contrast, Rinku had married the nineteen-year-old girl next door, whose main aspiration in life had been to wear four hundred grams of gold jewelery at her wedding. He had followed his father into the building business and, during the boom of the past ten years, made a fortune putting up low-cost multistory apartment blocks in Gurgaon and Dwarka.
Few industries are as dirty as the Delhi construction business, and Rinku had broken every rule and then some. There was hardly a politician in north India he had not done a shady deal with; not a district collector or senior police-wallah to whom he hadn't passed a plastic bag full of cash.
At home in Punjabi Bagh, where he still lived in his father's house with his mother, wife and four children, Rinku was the devoted father and larger-than-life character who gave generously to the community, intervened in disputes and held the biggest Diwali party in the neighborhood. But he also owned a secret second home, bought in his son's name, a ten-acre 'farmhouse' in Mehrauli. It was here that he entertained politicians and bureaucrats with gori prostitutes.
It greatly saddened Puri to see how Rinku had become part of what he referred to as 'the Nexus,' the syndicate of politicians, senior bureaucrats, businessmen and crime dons (a good many of whom doubled as politicians) who more or less ran the country. Rinku stood for everything that Puri saw as wrong with India. The disease of corruption was slowly eating away at his friend. You could see it in his eyes. They were paranoid and steely.
And yet Puri could never bring himself to break the bond between them. Rumpi said it was because he had spent his childhood trying to keep Rinku out of trouble.
'So, saale, when did you get membership, huh?' asked Puri.
They had gone to the bar and sat down at a table that provided a panoramic view of the Greg Norman- designed course.
'I'll let you in on a little secret, buddy,' answered Rinku. 'I'm a silent partner in this place.'
He put a finger to his lips, the gold chains around his wrist shifting with a tinkle.
'Is it?' said Puri.
'Yah! And as a gift to you, I'm going to make you a member. No need to pay a farthing. No bloody joining fee. Nothing! You just come and go as you like.'
'Rinku, I-'
'No argument, Chubby! This is final! On the house!'
'It's very kind of you, Rinku. But really, I can't accept,' said Puri.
''Very kind of you, Rinku, I can't,'' echoed Rinku mockingly. 'What the hell's with all this formal bullshit, Chubby, huh? How long have we known each other? Can't a friend gift something to another friend anymore, huh?'
'Look, Rinku, try to understand, I can't accept that kind of favor.'
'It's not a favor, yaar, it's a gift!'
Puri knew he could never make Rinku see sense; his friend couldn't accept that he did not live by his so-called code. He would have to accept the offer and then, in a few weeks, after Rinku had forgotten about the whole thing, renounce his membership.
'You're right,' said the detective. 'I don't know what I was thinking. Thank you.'
'Bloody right, yaar. Sometimes I don't recognize you any more, Chubby. Have you forgotten where you're from or what?'
'Not at all,' replied the detective. 'I just forgot who I was talking to. It's been a long day. Now, why don't you buy me a drink, you bugger, and tell me about this man I'm interested in.'
'Mahinder Gupta?'
Puri nodded.
'He's a Diet Coke,' said Rinku dismissively.
'A what?'
'Bloody BPO type, yaar. Got a big American dick up his ass but thinks he's bloody master of the universe. Just like this lot.'
Rinku scowled at the young men in suits standing around the bar. With their degrees in business management and BlackBerries, they were a different breed from Puri and Rinku.
'You know what's wrong with them, Chubby? None of them
The suits all turned and stared and then looked away quickly, exchanging nervous comments.
Their reaction pleased Rinku.
'Look at them!' He laughed. 'They're like scared sheep because there's a wolf around! You know, Chubby, they go in for women's drinks: wine and that funny colored shit in fancy bottles. I swear they wear bloody bangles, the lot of them. The worst are the bankers. They'll take every last penny from you and they'll do it with a smile.'
The waiter finally arrived at their table.
'Why the hell have you kept us waiting so long?' Rinku demanded.
'Sorry, sir.'
'Don't give me sorry! Give me a drink! For this gentleman one extra-large Patiala peg with soda. For me the same. Bring a plate of seekh kebab and chicken tikka as well. Extra chutney. Got it? Make it fast!'
The waiter bowed and backed away from the table like a courtier at the throne of a Mughal conqueror.
'So what's this Diet Coke been up to, huh? Giving it to his best friend's sister or what?'
Puri tried to answer but he only got out a few words before Rinku interrupted.
'Chubby, tell me one thing,' he said. 'Why do you bother with these nothing people? After all these years,
