Free ANTI-SOCIAL NETWORK by Piyush Jha

you know all this?’
    Usman Teacher smiled a toothy smile through his pain. ‘A khabri is always looking for information. Information is power. Information is money. Information is my life.’
    Virkar now sounded annoyed. ‘Yes, yes, I know all that bakwas, but tell me exactly how you know.’
    Usman Teacher smiled despite Virkar’s display of irritation. ‘One of my khabris is a waiter at an Udipi restaurant who also works part-time at a cyber café. He overheard a guy and a girl from this group talking about their plan. No one ever thinks that a waiter at an Udipi restaurant could be educated or know anything about computers, but they forget that this is Mumbai,’ he laughed.
    Virkar’s palms were sweating. Everything that Usman Teacher had said could either be true or could have been cooked up by his wily brain. He needed to check things out for himself. ‘Where is this waiter? And where is this Udipi restaurant?’
    ‘The waiter has gone to his gaon, where he shall remain until I call him back.’ Usman Teacher’s eyeslids narrowed.
    ‘Where is his village? Tell me; I’ll go and talk to him personally. I promise that no harm will come to him,’ said Virkar, in all earnestness.
    ‘ Bas kya , Inspector, apun ko chutiya samjela hai kya ? You get me the transfer orders to CBI custody first, and only then will I give you the waiter’s address.’ Virkar could see the beady shine in Usman’s eyes through the thin slits of his eyelids.
    It was the classic quid pro quo situation. Virkar knew there was a ring of truth in Usman Teacher’s story, but also knew that it was not very much to go by. He needed to think things over carefully before he took the next step. ‘Give me twenty-four hours,’ he said as he turned on his heels and began to walk out of the cell.
    Usman Teacher then started to lose the composure that he had maintained till now. ‘Inspector, no more than twenty-four hours.’ Virkar turned his head and nodded. ‘One last thing,’ said Usman Teacher in a pleading voice, ‘please, can you place one of your trusted men outside my cell? Until you get back.’ Virkar gave him a long look; the snake-like suspicion was gone and fear was back in Usman Teacher’s eyes.
    ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Virkar curtly, as he left the cell.

16
    I t was a moonlit night, just the kind Virkar loved whenever he was out on the Koli Queen. As he sat on his preferred seat at the back of the deck aboard his favourite fishing boat, he felt the tension in his muscles dissipating. He was looking forward to the few hours of alone time that the boat ride would give him. He could hear Peter Koli’s shouted instructions mixed with the phut-phut-phut of the boat’s engine as it made its way out of the harbour. Soon, all sounds receded into the background and Virkar was alone, accompanied by his three favourite things: millions of stars in the sky above him, a kilogram of Jinga Koliwada and four bottles of Godfather beer by his side.
    The day had been rough. He had left Usman Teacher without a clue as to how he was going to make good on his promise to get Usman’s case transferred to the CBI. He knew that he couldn’t ask any of his colleagues or his superiors for the fear of getting himself embroiled in an inquiry or becoming the target of interdepartmental rivalry. There were too many people gunning for Usman Teacher and Virkar did not want to get caught in the crossfire. In times like these, Virkar had found that there was only one person that he could turn to—retired Justice Joseph D’Gama, who had lent him a helping hand and extricated him from a couple of prickly situations in the past. Justice D’Gama had a soft corner for policemen and his number of years in the legal field had given him the knowledge that well-meaning policemen sometimes needed to do some fancy footwork to get their jobs done. He was also an expert in finding legal loopholes that policemen could jump through to reach their goals.
    But