Chance Encounter ( PriVeer SS) Completed - Page 17

PART 5

Shaikh was hidden behind a copy of the Mumbai Mirror. Randhawa noted the way in which the others too had taken up position with similar discreetness. Hopefully this would pass muster. They were experienced enough to adapt to whatever situation that may arise. The situation in fact wasn't ideal since the arrest would have to be made in a crowded place where a hundred different things could go wrong. But Shaikh had realised the urgency and had assured his full assistance. It was an added bonus that the place happened to be in Colaba, Shaikh's division. This way he had gotten around some of the bureaucratic delays that otherwise might have been necessary.

For now, Tambe had taken up a position near the glass door of Jimmy's. From there he could observe who was entering or leaving the establishment. Shaikh sat on a bench at the opposite side of the door, seemingly immersed in the paper. Randhawa watched the pages of the newspaper turning, alert to the slightest movement from the men which could signal the approach of Pawar. He himself stood near the pavement as if awaiting a taxi, periodically checking his phone-- the picture of the busy over-stressed bureaucrat. Haider and Singh stood together near a lamppost, chatting and smoking. Around them the sounds and movement of civilian life went on, unconcerned and self-engrossed in its ant-like industriousness. However, the crowd was quite thin and the traffic was slow. In case of a chase, it wouldn't be completely unmanageable.

Inside the car, Priyanka ran her hand along the bangle. It was heavy and clunky. Then there was a chain attached to it. But the feel of it more than made up for this. It felt smooth and icy cold to her touch. In fact, she realised she was burning up. The heat inside her seemed to be volcanic in intensity. The cold metal was the one thing that seemed to stop her from bursting to flames. She raised her hand and was surprised at the way despite the weight of the metal that pulled her down, her arm shot up with such speed. She brought her wrist to her face and rubbed the bangle against her cheeks, her eyes, her lips. The chain also slid against her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

There was another bangle dangling from the chain and she wished she could put it around that voice, attaching it to her. Could you wrap a bangle around a voice? Well, if not the voice, she'd find the man. He had saved her from that inspector. She had to have him now at the other end of the chain. She felt the coolness of the metal slip inside her skin like a chip of ice sliding down her throat on a hot afternoon in summer. If only the voice reached out to her then her comfort would be complete. But why wasn't the voice calling out anymore? And the pineapples too seemed to have deserted her. The darkness around her was pushing at her now. The heat was blazing and the very air seemed to become a congealed mess. Without her pineapples, without the assuring presence of the voice, she was sinking and she wanted escape. She scrabbled at the window, at the door, needing some kind of immediate release. She needed to find the voice immediately. Something told her she needed to cross the street and head back to the restaurant.

Outside, Savarkar gulped as he stood looking at the strange woman seated inside the car, thrashing about. What fresh musibat had the inspector landed him in. She seemed to be gasping for air now as she tried to open the window. Sir had left all the windows closed. Savarkar reasoned that she must be feeling suffocated. Walking over to the door that opened to the driver's seat, he unlocked the car and bent down to roll down the glass. Now she won't die of suffocation on him. Once the job was done, he looked towards the woman with a hesitant smile on his face. But where was the woman? He found himself looking at the empty backseat while the backdoor of the car that was towards the street stood ominously open.

Pawar was in a surly mood when he stepped out of Jimmy's. The last few weeks had waat lagaofied his comfortable existence as Lala Bhai's right hand man. The word on the street was that his emergence as a sharpshooter who could hit a target in his sleep had created a buzz that had reached as far as Dubai. But this tough Byculla lad had suddenly found himself in unfamiliar waters the moment Harpreet Kaur had walked up to his table and into his life. Tall, fair and with a thick braid of hair that looked capable of strangling a man, this woman had breezed into his life on a day that he had mistakenly assumed to be just like any other.

He had arrived at Jimmy's one morning to settle a minor lafda about the hafta being demanded by some local self-appointed bhais. During the discussion, coffee was ordered and this Punjabi kudi had arrived carrying steaming cups of filter coffee. It had been instant attraction on his part. She had blushed for some reason but stoically avoided meeting his eyes that wouldn't or couldn't leave her face. Noticing his interest, someone had bent towards him and snickered about her being quite the raapchik maal. This had earned the man an immediate thump on the head. As she had disappeared through the swinging doors of the kitchen, he had glared at the company seated around the table and nothing more had been said on the matter. But he had returned the very next day and the day after. She had been surprised to see him again and then treated him to cold indifference. Being quite the Casanova with a string of conquests behind him, Pawar was not used to such treatment. But when he followed her home the next day, she had stopped in her tracks a block ahead of her house, whipped around and punched him in his face. The resulting black eye had added fire to his already simmering interest. Those who were close to him had begun to refer to her as 'Bhabi' and Pawar had gotten even Lala Bhai worried with his single-minded pursuit of this woman.

Amidst all this an insider in the police force had sent them information that the Police Commissioner was putting together a team to target the gangs. Lala Bhai had immediately ordered him to lay low for a while. And still he had found himself heading towards Jimmy's the very morning he was supposed to leave for Madurai. And now he left the place with that feeling of dissatisfaction and extreme frustration that always filled him after the high of seeing Harpreet. In some ways, he now looked forward to the journey that lay ahead of him. He needed to forget this woman and this was the perfect way to do so. Such were the thoughts running through Arun Pawar's head when a remarkably pretty woman came running and knocked straight into him. He looked into the woman's face and found it familiar. She too was looking at him with a searching look. She opened her mouth and said something. He couldn't hear over the noise and was about to leave when she caught his hand and slipped something cold across his wrist.

Priyanka Oberoi was worried as she ran through those dizzying stream of cars and people. She stopped a few in hopes of finding the man she was looking for but no one stopped. She saw the gleaming red sign of Jimmy's ahead of her and decided that she would find whatever she was looking for there itself. As the people pushed against her, she found herself beginning to run so as to push through those bodies. As she ran she felt the terror in her intensifying. She felt like the crowd would suck her into it, pull her down and drown her. She desperately needed an anchor. And then she had suddenly come to a stop forced by a wall which turned out to be a person. She tried to ask this person if the voice belonged to him. Instead of a reply, she felt him leaving and so she did what she could to stop him. She put the round bangle around his wrist the way she had seen it being put around hers and locked it in place. And thus Miss Priyanka Singh Oberoi became the one responsible for nabbing a man wanted for possible involvement in over twenty suparis, numerous charges of extortion and smuggling.

ACP Randhawa watched Pawar step out of the restaurant. The fellow was smoking which was good since in case of weapons being drawn, it would slow the bas***d down just by the fraction of second necessary for the police to have an advantage on him. He tightened his fingers around the gun concealed in his pocket as he made his way towards the man. Out of the corner of his eyes, he observed Haider and Singh do the same. All of a sudden he noticed in alarm a figure running towards them. Blast that idiot, Savarkar! She had gotten away! Before he could do anything, Priyanka Oberoi had slammed right into his target. The shock froze him. For a moment, he didn't know what to do. The next moment, he saw the bas***d Pawar turn towards her and he found himself running towards the pair.

Pawar did not even noticed him and went down like a light as he brought his revolver butt crashing down on the villain's head. The crazy woman shrieked and promptly fainted even as he reached out to hold her. The three crooks accompanying Pawar took a moment to realise what had just happened and when they turned to run, found four cops waiting for them. Cops generally are assumed to be experts at poker-face. These were no exceptions and hid well their surprise at the turn of events. And thus, one of the most hardened criminals in Mumbai was nabbed by the police in a completely unplanned, impromptu encounter which would go down in the history of the Mumbai police as a lesson in fortuitous accidents.

NEXT