Free Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga Page A

massive banyan trees growing in the compound of one grand building, their aerial roots clinging as if glued to the boundary wall: four escutcheons of the House of Shah.
    The lift took them to the eighth floor.
    ‘We’ll go to the construction site right after breakfast,’ Shah told his assistant, as they walked towards his flat. ‘The contractor told me this morning that everything was all right and there was no need for me to be there. You know what that means.’
    A medallion of a golden Lord Ganesha sat on the lintel above the builder’s home.
    The door was open. Two black leather shoes had been left outside.
    In the living room, a tableau as if from a stage comedy. In front of a giant bronze image of the Dancing Nataraja, Shah saw Giri, his housekeeper, alongside two men in khaki uniforms, one of whom sipped a glass of cold water. The other man in uniform had a hand on Satish, his son, and was admonishing the boy with his index finger, as if putting on a dumb show for his father’s sake.
    The mucus in Shah’s chest rumbled.
    ‘Boss.’ Giri, who wore a tattered banian and blue lungi, came up to him. ‘He did it again. He was spray-painting cars outside the school; they caught him and brought him here. I told them to wait till you…’
    The policeman who had his hand on Satish, appeared to be the senior of the two. He spoke. The other kept drinking his cold water.
    ‘First, we saw him doing this…’
    The policeman made a circular motion to indicate the action of spraying. Shah listened. The fingers of his left hand rubbed the thick gold ring on the fingers of his right.
    ‘Then he did this . Then this . They finished painting the first car, and then they went to the next. It’s a gang, and each one of them has a gang-name. Your son’s name is Soda Pop.’
    ‘Soda Pop,’ Shah said.
    The policeman who had been sipping water nodded. ‘… Pop.’
    Plump, fair-skinned Satish exuded nonchalance, as if the matter concerned someone else.
    ‘Then Constable Hamid, sir’ – the policeman talking gestured to the one who was not – ‘he’s sitting in the police van, he said, isn’t that the developer Mr Shah’s son? And then, considering the excellent relations that our station has always had with you, sir, we thought…before it gets into the papers…’
    The developer Mr Shah, having heard enough, wanted possession of the goods: with his fingers, he beckoned the boy. The policeman did not stop him; he strolled over to his father’s side.
    ‘His friends? Those other boys, who were doing this—’ Shah made the same circular motion. ‘What happens to them?’
    ‘They’ll all have to go to the police station. Their parents will have to come and release them. We’ll keep the names out of the papers. This time.’
    Shah put his hand on his heart. ‘ So grateful.’
    Giri went at once into his master’s study. A wooden drawer opened, then closed. Giri had done this before, and knew exactly how much to put in the envelope.
    He handed it to Shah, who felt its weight, approved, and handed it to the policeman who had done the talking: ‘For some chai and cold drinks at your police station, my friend. I know it’s very hot these days.’
    Though the envelope had been accepted, neither of the policemen had left. The talkative one said: ‘My daughter’s birthday is coming up, sir. It’ll be a nice weekend for me.’
    ‘I’ll send her a birthday cake from the Taj. They have a nice pastry shop. It’ll arrive soon.’
    ‘Sir…’ The quiet policeman spoke.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Well, my daughter’s birthday is coming up too.’
    Giri saw the policemen out with a smile; Shah stood chafing the thick gold rings on his index finger. The moment Giri closed the door, Shah jabbed the ring into his son’s nose.
    ‘Soda Pop’ flinched, squeezed his eyes closed, and held his face averted, as if preserving the force of the jab.
    Soda Pop trembled; if he could, every part of his body said, he would have launched