Narcopolis

When Dimple left, Salim shut the watch shop and went to give his boss the day’s accounts. The Lala’s house was in an alley among a maze of alleys off the main road and it was guarded by young men armed with country revolvers. Salim was thinking about freedom and fear. The city was burning; maybe Dimple was right, maybe it was the end of the world, which meant there was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing mattered. He thought about Dimple and was overcome once more by a wave of affection and melancholy. When he got to the Lala’s room, his boss was in a meeting with other bosses, the men sitting around in their Pathan suits and drinking whisky and tea. He placed the bag of money next to the Lala’s chair and waited until the older man had the bag put away. The Lala was telling his friends about Chemical, telling them it was so strong that his guinea pig, the German junkie Eckhardt, had died while sampling it. The men laughed. The pig deserved it, someone said. He wanted to die, said the Lala, also laughing. Salim had known Eckhardt and liked him. He was always surprised by the German’s fixing technique: he poked the needle into his thigh, right through his jeans, and he used the same needle for as long as he could. The German seemed to like it that people were horrified, even other junkies, though they all watched and they all asked why he did it. His reply was always the same: Come on, isn’t it obvious? Because I cannot find a fucking vein. Eckhardt had a marijuana leaf tattooed on his calf and one day he sliced it off with a barber’s razor because, he said, the tattoo was a Satanic symbol placed there by God to torment him, Eckhardt. The German may have been crazy but to Salim he was always courteous and he was sorry to hear the man was dead. He went back to the watch shop and made himself a smoke, chasing a long line of Chemical on a clean piece of foil. He lit a Four Square and chased the heroin with a hit of tobacco. He was thinking of locking up for the day when the Lala walked into the back office and, without a word, bent Salim over the desk and pulled down his pyjamas. There’s coconut oil on the desk, Salim said. In response, the Lala rammed harder and Salim felt something tear in his ass. The Lala’s hands were on his neck, pressing him down, giant hands that made it hard for Salim to breathe. Then he saw his pocket-maar knife on the desk, a few inches away. He opened it and reached behind him and sliced off the Lala’s dick with two or three quick saws of the blade. At first there was no blood, just shreds of red and white meat, and then a fountain spilled to the floor. The Lala stared at the stump of his penis for a moment before he began to bellow. Salim stabbed the knife into the big man’s neck but nothing happened, the Lala continued to scream. It was only when Salim picked up the strongbox and smashed it on his head that the gangster shut his mouth. Salim smashed until the Lala’s head was pulp. Then he dragged the body into the alley behind the shop. He cleaned the office floor, locked up and went home.

*

It was the terrible January of 1993; the Lala’s body was one of many lying unattended on the streets of the city. Salim knew it was common knowledge, what had happened to the Lala, because he, Salim, was seen walking away from the shop in bloodstained clothes. He expected a visit from the police but it never came. Four months later, after the city had returned to some normalcy, he was arrested for a robbery he knew nothing about. During the interrogation, which lasted a day and a half, Salim confessed to the murder of the Lala and the contract killing of a movie producer. Then he committed suicide by hanging himself with his belt, all this according to the police report. Though his corpse bore bruises that did not appear to be self-inflicted, he had no family and the body went unclaimed. The policemen who conducted the interrogation were friends and business partners of the Lala. After the interrogation, they didn’t bother to conceal their marked fists and shoes, and later that night, at Topaz, a beer bar frequented by cops, many glasses were raised to the Lala and to the brave men who avenged him.

*