'I was now seriously worried. Why did Ahmed receive pictures of people in the mail and why did those people die soon afterwards? This was still a mystery to me. So when the next yellow envelope was delivered three weeks later, I not only took a peek at the photograph, which was of an elderly man, I also wrote down the address. It was of a house on Premier Road in Kurla. The next day, I followed Ahmed. He took a local train to Kurla and walked to Premier Road. But he didn't enter the house. He just passed it three or four times, as if checking it out. Two weeks later, Crime Watch announced that the same elderly man had been found murdered in his house on Premier Road in Kurla.
'I am not a fool. I knew there and then that Ahmed had murdered the man and that I was living with a contract killer. But I didn't know what to do. Ahmed had saved my life once and I couldn't even contemplate betraying him to the police. Meanwhile, Abbas Rizvi called me up and made a firm offer of a supporting role in his next film. When I heard this I ran all the way to the shrine of Haji Ali. I touched my forehead to the cloth covering the tomb and prayed for Rizvi's long life.
'For the next two months I lived an uneasy double life. If Ahmed was a contract killer masquerading as a businessman, I was an actor masquerading as a servant. Ahmed had licence to kill, but I knew that a day would come when he himself would get killed. I simply hoped that I wouldn't get caught in the crossfire. And then everything fell apart.'
'What happened?'
'It was four months ago – the twentieth of February, to be exact. I remember the day very well, because India was playing Australia in the last match of the series and Ahmed had just placed another bet. He used to bet on everything: not only on which team would win, but also the first wicket to fall, the bowler to take the first wicket, who would win the toss, whether there would be rain during the match. Sometimes he would bet on virtually every ball in the match – whether it would be a four, a six or a dot ball. That morning, Ahmed had just spoken to his bookie.
"Sharad bhai, Code 3563. How do you think the pitch will behave? Yesterday it was flat, but will the ball start turning from today? The weather forecast is good, but do you think it might rain later in the day?" Then he placed his bet. "Book me on Sachin Malvankar making his thirty-seventh century today. What's the rate?" The bookie said, "He is already on seventy-eight and everyone feels a century is a sure shot, so the odds are not very promising. The best I can do is thirteen to ten." "OK," said Ahmed, "then put me down for ten lakhs. This way I will at least make a profit of three lakhs."
That whole afternoon Ahmed sat in front of the TV set and watched Malvankar play, cheering his every run with loud whistles. As Malvankar inched towards his century, Ahmed became more and more excited. By the time Malvankar entered the nineties Ahmed was a nervous wreck, biting his fingernails, praying before every ball, cringing whenever Malvankar was beaten by a delivery. But Malvankar played like the master batsman he is. He moved from ninety-one to ninety-five with a magnificent straight drive for four. Then he took a single to reach ninety-six. Another single. Ninety-seven. Then Gillespie bowled a short ball and Malvankar pulled it majestically to the cover boundary. Hayden was running after it, trying to stop it from crossing the rope. Malvankar and his cobatsman Ajay Mishra were running quickly between the wickets. They took one run. Ninety-eight. Then they raced to complete the second.
Ninety-nine. Hayden gathered up the ball inches inside the cover boundary and sent in a looping throw, not to Adam Gilchrist, the wicketkeeper, but to the bowler's end. Malvankar saw the throw coming and shouted "Nooooo!" to Mishra, who was running towards him for the third run.
But that idiot Mishra kept on charging down the pitch towards Malvankar. In desperation, Malvankar was forced to set out to complete the third run. He had almost made it to the bowler's end when the ball from Hayden landed directly on the stumps! Malvankar was caught just six inches outside the crease and declared run out by the third umpire. On ninety-nine.
'You can imagine what happened to Ahmed. He had bet ten lakhs on Malvankar's thirty-seventh century and now he had lost it all by one run. He cursed Gillespie, he cursed Hayden, and most of all he cursed Mishra. "I want to kill that bastard," he growled and charged out of the house. He probably went to a bar to drown his sorrows.
'That same afternoon, another yellow envelope came. I was worried that it might contain the picture of a certain Indian batsman, but when I saw what was inside I almost died.'
'Why? What was inside? Tell me quickly.'
