Old Sobhan Mahmoud, still the nominal head of the council, was gravely ill. In the years since Khader died, he'd suffered two strokes that had left his speech and much of his movement severely impaired. The council moved him into Khader's beach house in Versova-the same house where I'd gone through cold turkey with Nazeer. They ensured that the aged don had access to the best medical treatments, and arranged for his family and his servants to attend him.
Nazeer slowly groomed Khader's nephew, young Tariq, for what most on the council assumed would be a leading role. Despite the boy's pedigree, his maturity, and his unusually solemn demeanour-there was no-one, man or boy, whose dour, fervent intensity reminded me so much of Khaled-Tariq was deemed to be too young to claim a council position or even to attend the council meetings. Instead, Nazeer gave him duties and responsibilities that more gradually acquainted him with the world he might one day command. In all practical senses, Salman Mustaan was the don, the new Khan, the leader of the council and the ruler of Khaderbhai's mafia. And Salman, as everyone who knew him testified, was Khaderbhai's man, body and soul. He governed the actions of the clan as if the grey-haired lord was still there, still alive, advising and cautioning him in private sessions every night.
Most of the men supported Salman unquestioningly. They understood the principles involved, and agreed that they were worth upholding. In our area of the city, the words goonda and gangster weren't an insult. Local people knew that our branch of the mafia did a better job than the police at keeping heroin and salacious crimes from their streets. The police, after all, were susceptible to bribes. Indeed, Salman's mafia clan found itself in the unique position of bribing the police-the same cops who'd just been paid off by pimps and pushers-to look away whenever they had to run a recalcitrant heroin dealer into a brick wall, or take a mash hammer to a pornographer's hands.
Old men in the district nodded to one another, and compared the relative calm on their streets with the chaos that tumbled and trawled through the streets of other districts. Children looked up to the young gangsters, sometimes adopting one as a local hero. Restaurants, bars, and other businesses welcomed Salman's men as preservers of peace and comparatively high moral standards. And the informing rate in the areas of his control, the amount of unsolicited information supplied to the police-a sure indicator of public popularity or displeasure-was lower than in any other area across the whole seething sprawl of Bombay. We had pride, and we had principle, and we were almost the men of honour that we believed ourselves to be. Still, there were a few grumbles of complaint within the clan, and some council meetings hosted fierce, unresolved arguments about the future of the group. The heroin trade was making other mafia councils rich. New smack millionaires flaunted their imported cars, designer clothes, and state-of-the-art electronic gadgets at the most exclusive and expensive venues in the city.
More significantly, they used their inexhaustible, opiate-based income streams to hire new men: mercenaries who were paid well to fight dirty and to fight hard. Little by little, those gangs expanded their territories in turf wars that left a few of the toughest men dead, many more wounded, and cops all over the city lighting incense sticks to give thanks for their luck.
With similarly high profits derived from the new and insatiable market for imported, hard-core pornographic videos, some of the rival councils had accumulated enough money to acquire that ultimate status symbol for any criminal gang: a hoard of guns.
Envious of the wealth amassed by such gangs, infuriated by their territorial gains, and wary of their growing power, some of Salman Mustaan's men urged him to change his policy. First among those critical voices was that of Sanjay, Salman's oldest and closest friend.
"You should meet with Chuha," Sanjay said earnestly as he, Farid, Salman, and I drank chai at a little shop on Maulana Azad Road near the brilliant, green mirages of the Mahalaxmi Racecourse. He was talking about Ashok Chandrashekar, an influential strong-arm man in the Walidlalla gang. He'd used Ashok's nickname, Chuha, meaning the Rat.
"I've met with the fucker, yaar," Salman sighed. "I meet him all the time. Every time one of his guys tries to squeeze out a corner of our territory, I meet with Chuha to set it straight.
Every time our guys get in a fight with his guys, and give them a solid pasting, I meet with Chuha. Every time he makes an offer to join our council to his, I meet with him. I know the fucker too well. That's the problem."
The Walidlalla council held a contiguous border with our own.
Relations between the gangs were generally respectful but not cordial. Walid, the leader of the rival council, had been a close friend of Khaderbhai and, with him, was one of the original founders of the council system. Although Walid had led his council into the heroin and pornography trade that he, like Khaderbhai, had once despised, he'd also insisted that no conflict with Salman's council should occur. Chuha, his second in command, had ambitions that strained at the leash of Walid's control. Those ambitions led to disputes and even battles between the gangs, and all too often forced Salman to meet with the Rat at stiffly formal dinners held on neutral ground in a suite at a five-star hotel.
"No, but you haven't really talked to him, one on one like, about the money we can make. If you did, Salman brother, I know you'd find out he talks a lot of sense. He's making crores out of the fuckin' garad, man. The junkies can't get enough of the shit. He has to bring it in by fuckin' train. And the blue movies thing, man-it's going crazy. I swear! It's a fuckin' deadly business, yaar. He's making five hundred copies of every movie, and selling them for five hundred each. That's two-and-a-half lakhs, Salman, for every fuckin' blue movie! If you could make money like that by killing people, India's population problem would be solved in a month! You should just talk to him, Salman brother."
"I don't like him," Salman declared. "And I don't trust him, either. One of these days, I think I'll have to finish the madachudh once and for all. That's not a very promising way to start up a business, na?"
"If it comes to that, I'll kill the gandu for you, brother, and it will be my pleasure. But up to then, like, before we actually have to _kill him, we can still make a lot of money with him."
"I don't think so."
Sanjay looked around the table for support, and finally appealed to me.
"Come on, Lin. What do you think?"
"It's council business, Sanju," I replied, smiling at his earnestness. "It's got nothing to do with me."
"But that's why I'm asking you, Linbaba. You can give us an independent point of view, like. You know Chuha. And you know how much money there is in the heroin. He's got some good money ideas, don't you think so?"
"Arrey, don't ask him!" Farid cut in. "Not unless you want the truth."
"No, go on," Sanjay persisted, the gleam in his eyes brightening.
He liked me, and he knew that I liked him. "Tell me the truth.
What do you think of him?"
I glanced around at Salman and he nodded, just as Khader might've done.
"I think Chuha's the kind of guy who gives violent crime a bad name," I said. Salman and Farid spluttered their tea, laughing, and then mopped at themselves with their handkerchiefs.
"Okay," Sanjay frowned, his eyes still gleaming. "So, what... exactly... don't you like about him?"
I glanced again at Salman. He grinned back at me, raising his eyebrows and the palms of his hands in a Don't look at me gesture.
"Chuha's a stand-over man," I replied. "And I don't like stand over men."