Free BLOOD RED SARI by Ashok K Banker

the landline on her desk. That had to be Shonali.
    She slipped the Bluetooth earphone over her ear and pressed the button. ‘Yeah, Shonali?’
    Silence.
    The Qualis in front of her had stopped moving, but hadn’t put its brakes on; the vehicle rolled slowly back towards Nachiketa’s Civic. She hit her horn with the heel of her hand and the red brake lights came on at once, though she could see the driver’s eyes glaring at her through his rear-view mirror. This one looked like it was filled with Swedes. Every passenger was tall, thin and blonde. They reminded her of the cast of the movie based on a Stieg Larsson novel, the original Swedish one starring Noomi Rapace, which she had loved – and whom she had loved. She was dreading what Hollywood would do to the US adaptations.
    ‘Hello, Shonali? What up, girl?’ She wondered if she was crying. Shonali could get emotional at times, usually over a man. Though she was cut up about her mother, the fact was that after ten years of fighting cancer through successive courses of chemo, radiation and ultrasonic treatments, she had pretty much exhausted her reserves of emotion on that front. The news that the cancer had metastasized yet again, this time to the brain and lungs, wasn’t exactly earth-shattering. Don’t be bitchy, Nachos , she told herself admonishingly. People might say ‘it’s better she went soon, she was suffering so much’ all they liked, but the fact was dying was dying and gone was gone forever.
    Still no response.
    An argument appeared to have broken out four or five lanes to her right. She couldn’t see much because all the Qualises fencing her in were higher than her eye-level. But she thought it must have something to do with the Qualis convoy blocking up all lanes. She could hear the angry raised voices even through her closed window, air-conditioning and the soft rock playing on 107.1 FM on her car radio.
    Dogs barking.
    Not here, not at the Delhi–Gurgaon toll.
    On the phone.
    Dogs were barking in the background. Close by.
    It sounded like Justice and her pups. One grown dog’s high-pitched hoarse ruff and a chorus of smaller ruff-ruffs pitching in for support.
    ‘Hello? Who is this, please?’ she asked sharply. With one hand, she switched off the radio and used the other hand to cover her open ear to block the rising noise of the argument outside. People were getting out of their cars to peer in the direction of the fight. All the firangs stayed inside their Qualises, no doubt terrified of being massacred by sardarjis. She would have probably been out there if the effort of shifting to the wheelchair, then lowering herself out, then coming back and doing it all over again wasn’t so Olympian.
    ‘Hello, will you please answer me? I know you’re calling from my office. I can see the number on my caller ID. Who are you?’
    The dogs stopped barking briefly. In that moment of respite, she distinctly heard the sound of someone breathing. A man. It sounded like a man breathing with the phone receiver held to his ear.
    ‘I can hear you breathing, you bastard. Mard hai to kuch bol, gaandu! If you’re a man, then speak up, assfucker!’
    The Hindi abuses and challenge to his manhood did the trick. He spoke up at last, speaking in a coarse Punjabi accent.
    ‘Where is package? We want now. Tell us.’
    Who was this guy? What package was he talking about? A dozen recent and some not-so-recent cases passed through her mind, but none of them had anything to do with any packages. All were about women: those were the only cases she took. Women’s rights, battered women, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, rape, spousal abuse, a few high-society divorces to help pay the rent … but no packages she could recall.
    ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she replied.
    The man said something in Punjabi, but not to her, to someone else with him in the room – in my office, the fuckers! – then came back on the line.
    ‘Soni kudi hai. Bada mazaa