Over the past year or two, I've published a few short stories (under various aliases, nom de plumes, alter egos, pseudonyms, etc) featuring a very ignoble Indo-American private eye in Silicon Valley. I plan to reproduce a collection of them here, two at a time. Read & enjoy...

(1) The Case of the Distraught Dancer

As the sole Indo-American detective in Silicon Valley/ Bay Area, I get a lot of business from the community; you might have read of my exploits in “The Case of the Purloined Programmer”, “The Affair of the Disappearing Databaser”, etc. My earnings, meager as they may be, are enough for me to indulge in my few vices. One of them—ogling my niece, who doubles as my secretary and object of desire—is cheap and easy; the other requires travel to Chennai in December, an ordeal so ghastly that I’d rather face an irate housewife wielding a handgun. It’s the NRI migratory season, and for good reason. The weather in Chennai is salubrious, the music divine.

I was back in Chennai last December, prepared to be enraptured. I was staying with my sister, whose daughter (a trifle young to catch my fancy) was attending dance school in the city, learning Bharatanatyam. Personally, I consider dance to be an inferior form of art, which may be because I have two left feet, but can hum a raga or two. My Indian niece, justly proud of her American uncle, quickly spread the work about my profession. She must have given an approximate rendering of James Bond; her classmates started coming home with her, and staring doe-eyed at me. A man can only take so much temptation, especially one who likes his liquor hard, and his women soft; his dope straight, and his dames curvy; yadda, yadda . Luckily, fate intervened before I did something I would regret later, possibly in prison.

One of the girls attending the same dance school, Nivya, came to see me with her mother in tow. Nivya was tall and gangly, which I suppose is marginally better than short and fat. Her mother was swathed in layers
of make-up, yards of sari, and oodles of jewellery. She was clearly
upset; otherwise, she wouldn’t have dared to knit her brows so much for
fear of creasing her skin. She spat out the following information: Her
daughter’s Arangetram had been set for late January, about a month fromnow. Nivya was practicing so hard, the poor thing, and she herself was running around, trying to make all necessary arrangements. The father was willing to bankroll the venture, but wouldn’t move a muscle to help.

So, she had booked a hall, given tailoring instructions for the dance
dresses, fixed up a caterer, designed the invitations, etc. But the
weird thing was: someone, a female, was calling up all these places,
pretending to be her, and canceling the bookings as soon as they were
made. She wanted me to find the culprit, incapacitate her, and deliver
her so that she could pull all her hair out. For this, she would pay a
fortune.

Now, I’m usually reluctant to work during vacation, but this
case presented pleasing possibilities of discrediting some dance school.
So, I assented. I like to go for the obvious solution; if it pans out,
it saves me a lot of time. So, I turned to the daughter and asked:
“Child, are you the one doing this? Do you think your mother is too
pushy, trying to get you up on stage before you’re ready? Is this your
way out?”. The girl lifted one supercilious eyebrow, and sneered that au
contraire, mon ami, she was the best dancer in the whole school, even
better than some senior artistes. The other girls were very jealous of
her, and were trying to sabotage her ascendancy. She named three as
particular suspects, and described their appearances in not-very-flattering detail.

With an attitude like that, I figured there would be plenty of potential suspects. I roused myself from my arm-chair, and prepared to put in some leg-work. Yet, there was still one likely place to look, following the old detective’s adage: cherchez le spouse. I rang my client’s house bell, and got the paunchy husband in person. He was instantly dismissive, pegging me for a vagrant.

I resented that. Palming the brass knuckles in my trouser pocket lovingly, I motioned him over, tempting him with the flash of a gold credit card.

When he was close enough, I yanked him close to the grill-door by his
shirt-tail, and proceeded to do a tap dance on his face with my trusty
b.k. (the only form of dance I endorse, by the way). After a few minutes
of this, he was bawling like a baby. It soon became apparent that he
considered his daughter’s dancing prowess a social asset, and that money was no issue in this regard. I reluctantly left him to repair his facial features, and made my way to the dance school.

“NrithyaKuthukala” was run by Mme. J.I. Jalaja, a renowned artiste who traced her ancestry back to courtesans that entertained the Tanjore Maharajahs. Her name carried special credibility in Chennai dance circles, as someone who would not promote young dancers prematurely. The school was a bee-hive of activity in the early evening. Tykes and toddlers were stomping on the ground-floor dance floor, while the upper floor was rocking to the gyrations of teenagers and older dancers. I winced at the racket, and poked my head in. All pairs of eyes gravitated towards me, with no break in the rhythm. I picked out the three suspects quickly enough.

I managed to gather them in a group during a lull, and quizzed them. They were generally ill-disposed towards Nivya, but not necessarily pathologically so. I fantasized briefly about tying them up and tickling them to elicit a confession, but dismissed such thoughts hastily as unbecoming of the conservative Chennai milieu. I probed a little further, and came away with no vibes of guilt being evident. Either they were very, very good, or they were very, very good.

When everyone’s a suspect, and no one’s one, there is but one thing left to do: Dangle a bait, and wait for the bite. I asked Divya and Mom to discreetly circulate information in the class about a wizard of a make-up man who could transform any ugly duckling into a swan, and how Divya had hooked up with him for her Arangetram. A cell-phone number, which happened to be that of moi, was carelessly disclosed as well. I went home and waited for the damn thing to ring. Which it did, in a catchy Tamil film-song tune, around 9 pm.

The female voice at the other end did a passable imitation of Divya’s
mother, and begged to rescind the make-up appointment, citing
irreconcilable differences with the dance teacher, who wished to use her
own in-house man. I listened incredulously, the number flashing on my
display clearly matching another one I had seen very recently, on a
sign-board, above a doorway. Within a minute, I knew who she was. I
gently, but firmly stopped the caller in mid-sentence, told her who I
was and that I knew who she was, and made an appointment to see her
right away.

The dance school looked desolate in the late night, emptied of the twinkle-toed dancers. But the grande dame, Mme. Jalaja,
herself was there, waiting for me. I just asked one question, “Why?”.
She sighed, and took awhile to answer, running through all the stage
mannerisms that dancers continue to affect, even off-stage. “You see,
Sir, this girl presents a conflict for me, between my artistic self and
my materialistic self. She is not ready yet for the big stage, but the
family is offering lakhs of rupees as honorarium if I can get her up
there. Normally, I would have rejected the proposition outright. But, as
one gets older, they start liking money even more, especially other
people’s money. So, on the one hand, I’m encouraging their preparations, and on the other, I’m trying to scuttle them. I’m at my wit’s end regarding this girl. What do you think I should do?” I thought about it, and as always, came up with a solution. The Arangetram would be held as scheduled, but in the San Jose Bay Area, where a one-legged hippopotamus could perform Bharatanatyam on stage to thunderous applause from an NRI and American public that knew no better. Case closed.

Later that night, there was a knock on my door. The three ex-suspect lasses were giggling together: “We thought you might like to tie us up, and tickle us till we confessed…” A detective’s work is never done…

(2) THIS THING THEY CALL LOVE

I had just finished my first cigar of the day, and, with my feet up, was eyeing my niece who happened to be hunched over a keyboard tapping away with two fingers. As my Receptionist and Secretary, she had her work cut out. She was not terribly skilled, but I’d rather have a Miss Silicon Valley India 2004 finalist working for me than an efficiency expert, you know what I mean? I cherish youth and beauty, and if you have a problem with that, I’ve got a pair of brass knuckles in my pocket that can rearrange your facial features in a hurry.

Around 10 am, a middle-aged matron knocked hesitantly and entered upon my bidding. As the only Indo-American private detective in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have the field to myself where it concerns Indian wives with missing husbands, and vice versa. This one, though, seemed to know exactly where her husband was. Dead, and buried (or cremated, take your pick). She was obviously dressed for mourning, though a glance at her animated eyes and heaving bosom would have given conflicting evidence. She wanted something, and wanted it bad.

“My husband died a very rich man, a month ago today at 11: 59 am, and left me everything as we have no children. But on one condition. I have to produce proof that I loved him. Can you help me?”

This was a new one for me. But I started the consulting clock at my usual hourly rate, which borders on the extortionist, and started with the questions.

“Did you ever write him any love letters?” “No.”

“Did you ever record a video? Karaoke? Send him flowers?” “No.”

“Did you act lovey-dovey with him, in view of others?” “No, we fought all the time.”

“Did you feed him well, make his favorite dishes?” “No, we had a live-in cook. I had him on a diet that he hated.”

“Did you stay by his side when he was dying, made sure he took his medicines, acted like his Little Nurse Nightingale?” “No, I let his idiot brothers and slut sister take care of him. I am very uncomfortable in hospitals. Also, I get nervous around sick people.”

This was shaping up to be a little more challenging than I had expected. My niece was looking over sardonically, flashing a bit of leg just for the heck of it.

“Did you have sex frequently?” “Yes.”

Now we were getting somewhere.

“How frequently? Do you have any proof—annoyed neighbors, Peeping-Tom nephews?”

“The man was a sex fiend. Every year, on his birthday, he wanted it. If I didn’t go along, he threatened to go to a prostitute. Ask my Mother”.

Well, that took care of that angle.

“Did you have any shared interests, things that you did together? Like go to movies, worship at temples, cheat at cards, whatever?”

“No. He had his life and I had mine. We barely saw each other till bedtime. Actually, we did have one common interest—women’s underwear. But he looked terrible in a lace bra and panties, let me tell you…”

We were getting nowhere. I got up and stretched.

“Ma’am, you’ve got to help me here if you want your cut. What did love mean to your husband? Hugs and kisses? Marital bliss? If so, you can kiss the money goodbye…”

She thought long and hard. A slow smile formed on her painted lips. She beckoned my niece to come over. They whispered together for a few moments. My niece grinned wolfishly, nodded vigorously, and slipped out of the room with a wink at me. I was starting to feel a little hot under the collar. They were obviously plotting treason. The lady spoke:

“On his death-bed, in everyone’s presence, my husband said to me: “If you really love me, after my death, you will re-marry within a month, and make the slob as miserable as you have made me. Misery can only be happy when it has company”. So, all I have to do is get married by noon today, and I’ll be rich…,” she paused and, with a lingering look into my limpid eyes, said, “No, we will be rich”.

I was outraged by these feminine wiles and conspiracy. Then, I reflected. “How rich, exactly?” I enquired, giving her a leisurely once-over. A nip here, a tuck there… what the hey, none of us is getting any younger…