murder at the press club

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Murder at the Press Club

Murder is easy, even if it takes place in plain sight in a room full of people. It becomes that much easier if the people in the room are a motley crowd of

drunken journalists, who would sell their grandmother's epitaph to the obit column of a newspaper for a half a bottle of booze. Nothing is sacred in the

Press Club and no one and if someone dies in this place of bottle worship, well it’s just a statistic. In the newsroom it wouldn't even merit an eye brow, a

solitary death would just find its way into the overflowing bin of unwritten stories, because next to a grog, we journalists worship numbers. Statistics is our

minor God, our major deity is Hooch and we ooze in liquid prayer through all hours of the day and night and wherefore Bacchus has joined together, let no

man put asunder, not even a tiny item like murder.

I was togged up in one of those clingy creamy numbers, all set to exude oomph at a promising party where I had been assured men and manna would flow

forth in equal measure. There was the minuscule matter of an unwanted night duty to dispense with, but midnight I had been told was when the fun would

begin and I had made up my mind that this was to be the night I would embark on a life of endless sin and gin. But then the ruddy telephone rang and my

party flew out of the betel stained window. I was so fried, that I almost cried. I knew before I picked up the receiver that my party at least was over even

before it had begun.

``There's been a murder,'' slurred Sandy, otherwise Sandeep Saha of the Sporting world, a rag mag which he covered with a magnifying glass and a

poisonous pen.

``There's been a what?'' I yelped trying to make sense of his cursive words over the crackle and clamour of the static that was louder than his voice.

``There's been a murder.'' He repeated patiently.

``Well, hell, '' said I. `Ànd how would you know? You're not on the crime beat.''

`Ì saw it. The body is lying slumped in front of me?"

I went speechless for a moment. ``You've gone and killed someone?'' I shrieked.

``Don't be stupid. Of course I haven't. I just saw it happen.''

`Ì always knew you'd come to a bad end, Sandy. You must be sliding into really bad company. Why couldn't you just go to the press club, like you said you

would?''

`Ì am at the Press club,'' he whispered, his words wobbling over every other syllable.

``You're at the -, '' finally the paisa d ropped. ``You mean there's been a murder at the press club? '' I asked, suddenly overawed.

``That's right, babe.'' He stated, his voice suddenly more firm.

``Well then cover it,'' I said irritably, suddenly remembering the post midnight pleasures that awaited me.

`Ì can't,'' he pointed out virtuously. `Ì'm not on the crime beat.''

``So?'' The party was becoming dimmer and dimmer, as the reality of his words began to sink in.

`Well, darling, you're on night duty, so I think you'd better get your ass, out of there and get your delectable behind here as quickly as possible.''

``Duh Um.'' I spluttered out, feeling incapable of stringing two words into a coherent whole. He obviously translated that as an assent, because he told me

to get my ass to the Press club double quick once again and then rudely put down the phone.

I twisted the telephone wire viciously, wishing it was his neck and then yielded to my fate. I grabbed my note book and a couple of pens and raced down

the corridor to ask for a car. There was just one available and I grabbed it. The driver was an old buddy of mine. ``Step on it, '' I ordered as the car glided

out of the parking. ``There's been a murder at the Press Club.’’

The driver stepped on it and the car wheezed out onto the road, weaving maniacally round a mass of moving automobiles . Traffic lights were suddenly

irrelevant, as were the other vehicles on the road. We narrowly shaved past a few harried drivers who heaped the most creative swear words I have ever

been privileged to hear, on us. A conscientious cop tried to flag us down, I just yelled press at him, waved my press card and we sped on. It normally takes

fifteen minutes to reach the press club from the office. We made it in eight.

I scrambled out of the car with scant grace, feeling a like a bit of a mutt in my glad rags. I was also feeling like an idiot because I had not had the presence

of mind to ask Sandy about the murdered man. Had he been a journalist? One of us? Somebody I knew? My mind buzzed like a beehive as question after

question hissed in mind, a little too late as usual.

I crossed the lawn, cursing my heels and Sandy the Slime in the same b reath. Inconvenient sods, both. I speared the security desk, with my most basilisk

glare. It was the only thing I had really mastered in my twenty - well let’ s say odd years - and pushed my way past the security personnel without so much

as a by-your-leave.

``Madam,'' he said, scurrying after me. ``You forgot to sign register,'' he chanted in a sing song voice that sounded more like a malayali shloka than a

rebuke. It left me unmoved. He knew me well enough by sight to know that I was no security threat. Then I thought of the dead man and felt slightly sorry

for him. In the mood that I was in, I was quite capable of committing the second homicide of the evening and he looked puny enough to tempt me into

embarking on a career of crime. I pictured myself as a gangster moll for a few delicious seconds and then regretfully gave it up as a career option. I did not

have the figure for tight leather skirts that went up to ones buttocks or the sleek long legs that said come hither. A gat sounded good, but gangsters weren't

really my thing. I liked my men suave and civilised. I had a dirty feeling that most gangsters did not qualify.

``Madam,'' he whined. ``The register.''

I took pity on him. ``Bring it inside, please, '' I said, pasting the sexiest smile I could muster. I'd been practicing it all morning before the mirror. It was an

obvious failure because it didn't seem to move him by a single millimetre. I sighed. Some people just did not understand kindness, I thought regretfully and



changed tactics. I withered him with my iciest look. ``Bring it in and I 'll sign. I don't have the time to sit and exchange pleasantries with you. Do you get

that?'' I did not even bother with frigid politeness.

My scowl was apparently more effective than my smile. It worked like a dream. ``Yes madam,'' he said and evaporated.

I pushed open the swinging wooden flaps lined with thin horizontal bars. They always made me think of a portal opening into a sleazy bordello in the wild

wild west of old. I stepped into the usual thick smog of cigarette smoke and surveyed the scene before me with an ironical air. All the vultures of Delhi's

fleet street were there in varying states of inebriation. The murder had made no appreciable difference to the decibels levels in the joint. Death, as I said

was just another statistic and by their reaction, I figured that the dead man was not one of our tribe. There weren't enough signs of rioting. The murder of a journalist would have been Page One news and this one looked liked like it was not even going to make it to double column. I felt conned.

Sandy the baddie, waved at me cheerfully. ``Hey babe, you're here. Come, come, I've been waiting for you. Bearer -'' he yelled at the top of his voice.

``Madam ke liye blood Mary lao (Get a Bloody Mary for Madam).''

I flinched. It sounded like a highly inappropriate drink given the circumstances and the colour of my favourite tipple at the PC was too gory for my pa late

that evening. `Ì don't want any Bloody Mary, you scumbag, I'm supposed to be here for work -remember?''

He flashed a vacuous grin at me and said. ``So what? You can drink and work at the same time. Besides, I would have thought you'd want something stiff

before you tackled your first murder.''

I slid into a chair beside h im. I took one look at his mug and knew that it was pointless climbing on to my high horse. He was as drunk as a skunk and if I

knew anything of the matter, he was going to be totally wasted by the time he called it a night. ``Well, okay, but not a Bloody Mary, I couldn't handle it.''

``Sure,'' he said magnanimously. ̀ `Have anything you want. Just name your poison.''

`Ì'll have a Screw Driver,'' I muttered. There are times in one's li fe when one must give in to the inevitable. It was going to be a hard night and a little

liquor would make it less of a pill. Sandy the Dandy flicked his wrist and the bearer came scurrying. ``Madam's drink is being made, Saar. Just give me two

minutes.''

``Madam, is going to have a Screw driver. You can b ring the Bloody Mary for me."

I looked fixedly at his glass of rum. ``Do you think, that's a good idea?'' I asked him b luntly. He fancied himself as a second Hemmingway, but it was just a

myth in his head, if past experience was anything to go by. Besides, I needed him sober if I was going to get the low down on the murder. I decided to get

to work on him before he got too sloshed to be of any use to man or beast.

``Where are the cops?'' I asked him.

``Still to arrive,'' he said, as he took a hefty swig. The security chap descended on me with the all important register. ``Just sign your name, Madam,'' he

said. `Ì'll fill in the rest.'' I signed.

Then the bearer arrived with our drinks. `Èk aur Rum (One more rum), '' Sandy ordered.

I looked at him irritably. ``You've just got your Bloody Mary.''

``So? I can drink Rum and Bloody Mary at the same time, if I want to, can't I? Last heard of its still a free country.''

I gave up. ``Where's the body?''

``Next to you.''

I jumped. `Àre you bloody nuts, you made me sit next to a dead body. I am going to kill you, '' I shrieked hysterically.

Bad choice of words and volume. There was a sudden hush and everybody stared at me. I grinned weakly, grabbed my glass and slithered into the chair on

the other side of Sandy the slug. Lousy move. The corpse was slumped backwards, bang opposite me and he/it, slapped my vision with a resounding clap. I

seized my glass and quickly gulped down a large portion of my screw driver. `Ì need another drink.'' He looked at me approvingly. `Òn second thoughts,

make that two - no three - super Patialas.''

He hollered for the bearer, who was beginning to look a little frayed around the edges. I couldn't blame him. Serving a bunch of determinedly drunk journos

was no one's idea of paradise.

`Òkay, Sandy, let’ s have it. Who the heck, was this bloke?'' I asked, carefully avoiding eye contact with the stiff before me. I wasn't drunk enough.

`Òne Sumeet Chaddha, lately of Timarpur. Two-bit Civil lawyer by profession. Had a not very roaring practice at Tees Hazari. Forty odd years of age. Papa

Chaddha's name unknown. Survived by divorced wife and no kids. Karol bagh type girl friends are said to be lurking large around the horizon somewhere.''

`Ànd the murderer?''

`Ùnknown.''

``What do you mean unknown?''

`Ìt means there's a gag on us,'' he said apologetically.

``What dya mean there's a gag.''

``We passed a resolution before you arrived. We didn't see no evil, hear no evil and we shall be speaking no evil either.''



I took a large gulp of my Screw Driver. `À man gets shot in a room full of at least three hundred people and nobody heard or saw anything? You think the

cops are going to believe you Gandhians?''

He sniggered, raising an eyebrow in gentle mockery. ``You think they're gonna mess with us?''

Stupid me. Of course they weren't. I looked at the Stiff for a moment. He was short squat and ugly. The mind boggled at the thought of him cavorting

around town with a bevy of beautiful bosoms from Karolbagh. His eyes had a glazed fixed expression not unlike the fish one bought in Indira Nagar. There

were enormous purple bags sagging beneath them. His nose was florid and his lips thick and wide. He had multiple chins and a number of fleshy folds

around his squabby neck. He was wearing a light blue shirt that was stained a rust brown by a large splotch of dried blood that had al ready congealed. Hislips were drawn apart and sagged slightly as if in surprise. He had obviously been shot at point black range. Not that I was an expert.

``Who shot him?''

`Òff the record?''

I looked at him in exasperation. If there was a Gag order, it wasn't like our Editor, the Mighty Atom was going to lift it in the interest of free and fair

journalism. He had spent most of his life in the hallowed precincts of the Press club. ``Well, of course off the record,'' I muttered, ungraciously.

`À businessman called Bonnie M Singh.''

I was bemused. ``Businessman or woman?'' I asked, wondering if he was more tanked up than I had thought.

``Businessman,'' he said patiently. ``Thirty-five year old Sardar, from West Patel Nagar. Cycle parts agency. Mother was apparently convent educated and

loved Bonney M as a sweet nubile young thing before she sprung forth horrid murderous offspring.''

I giggled and then hiccupped. ``Why did he kill him?''

``Brand war.'' He said succinctly.

`Èh?" I peered at him somewhat owlishly.

``See those sunshades?'' He asked, pointing with his chin, at a pair of dark glasses that lay carelessly on the table near the mort. I glanced at them, still at

sea.

``Guccis,'' Sandy the Sage, explained. ``Bonnie dear had a pair of Raybans. They apparently had hot words over whose shades were b igger and better -

argument turned torrid and Bonnie slugged Sumeet. End of story.''

I glanced at the deceased. A few drinks down and he didn't look that real any more. `Ì wonder if these designers realise what a lot they have to answer

for,'' I commented, finally. ``Stupid way to go.''

``Very.'' He agreed.

I suddenly remembered my party and felt aggrieved. `Ìf there's a gag. Why the f-k did you call me?''

He looked at me apologetically. `Ì called you before the Gag.''

`Òh!'' I said. I glanced at my watch. It was only half past ten. `Òh, well, I'd better push off. I can still churn out a para and make it to the party.''

There was a loud noise outside. Sandy the Sober shook his head.``Too late, my precious, the cops are here. Grab your glasses and lets git to some other

table.''

The next day, I wrote a single column story that was motherlessly chopped to a single paragraph and got lost in the crime briefs. The cops investigated the

incident with lackadaisical indifference and closed the file after the few months. As far as I know Bonnie M is still a respectable member in the world of

Commerce.

-Namita Kala.

THE END.

murder at the press club

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