Please find below the first chapter of my novel Behind the silicon mask, to be launched in a matter of weeks. Hope you like it.
The serial killer
kept the passenger window ajar so that he would hear the approach of his next victim. But outside his Chevy Bravada, Campus Drive
remained quiet and subdued by the bone-crushing chill and
early hour, not showing signs of life even when a rare car
whizzed past.
He checked his watch. 3:04. Half an
hour since the last cop car had driven past him. An hour
since it had stopped snowing. Almost two hours since he’d switched
off his engine and let winter into his car. He shivered
and contemplated rolling up the window. Better still, he could
switch on the engine and the heater. Just for five minutes.
He mentally cursed himself. This was no time to be weak.
He shook off his woollen gloves and
rubbed his palms together. Unsatisfied, his hands
instinctively reached into his jeans and held his crotch. A shock
of dry heat greeted his hands. He closed his eyes and began
playing with his penis. Before he knew it, it wanted more
room. He unzipped and
admired its ability to kiss the
dashboard from where he sat. Leaning back, he let his left hand
do the work. He pictured Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz and
Pamela Anderson in quick succession, as if this in itself
would make him normal. None of them did it for him. So he thought
of Susan Sarandon. She
was better, and it felt like she
would go the distance with him tonight. But no. He lost her when
he was too deep in the act to withdraw. He sighed, succumbed,
and thought of his wife. Ex. The woman he could no longer
access. He thrust his helpless present into his rich past
and felt her welcome him,
hold him tight. It didn’t take long
after that. The first squirt of semen hit the bottom of the car’s
windshield. The second, he aimed at the brake—because he was
better off getting his foot
stuck on the brake than the
accelerator.
‘Gooey glue,’ he told the
windshield, trying to sound like his elder brother. ‘Gooey glue,’
his brother had said that evening all those years ago,
moments after the live demo. The best lesson an eleven-year-old
could ask for. The words had stuck; they had been gooey glued to
his brain.
He zipped up. Studied the white,
sinister night. Drummed the steering wheel. Wished he could
have a smoke. Checked his watch again. 3:21.
‘The night’s wasted,’ he thought,
and was surprised to feel relief rather than disappointment.
He wondered if it was time to quit. Maybe it was. He could
simply get rid of the cleaver. And just drive away. Become an
enigma, a phenomenon that Milwaukee cops would forever talk
about during the graveyard shift. Their tone would be
reverential.
‘Wonder what happened to the
bastard. Farley was this close to nailing him.’
‘Yeah. Farley would have caught him
all right.’
Fuck! That was anything but
reverential. And Farley couldn’t nail him even if he gooey glued
himself on the revolving door of the police HQ. Who the hell was
Farley? The smartest cop in Milwaukee, according to the
local media. That didn’t make him Agent Scully, did it? Nah.
‘Farley has a fuck-face,’ he
thought, reaching for the ignition. But before he could turn it on, he
heard a car—an Accord by the sound of it—screech to a halt.
A door opened. A woman’s voice cut into the still air:
‘Didn’t you hear me? Get out.’
‘We talk it out, lah,’ a guy
replied. ‘I li you very much. I know you li me also very good. True
anot?’
‘Out!’
‘Cannoh anihow go liddat. We talk.
Li good frens.’ He paused. ‘Can? Oright. Doan push. I
go oready.’
A rotund, spectacled man got out of
the Accord. Through his rear view mirror, the serial
killer saw him shut the door softly and peer inside with hope.
The car, however, sped away. The serial killer waited for
it to turn the curve and then got out, cleaver in hand. He no
longer felt cold or afraid or
sleepy. He scanned the surroundings
as he approached the man, and then scanned the man
himself: he was young, perhaps in his early twenties,
although you could never be sure with Chinese faces. And this
man’s face was especially confounding. It was a fat boy’s
face on a fat man’s body. Only
the eyes didn’t look fat. They were
forlorn, weak, glazed with recent loss.
Eventually, the man sensed his
presence and looked at him.
‘Hi there,’ the serial killer said.
‘You from Singapore?’
The man nodded vacantly.
‘Been there myself. Are you here on
a scholarship?’
‘Yeeaaah?’ the Singaporean said,
waking up to the situation and finding himself puzzled.
‘A full scholarship?’
‘Dat’s right. Hey listen . . .’
‘No time for that,’ the serial
killer said. He scanned the surroundings again, unsheathed his
cleaver from its leather pack, saw the Singaporean’s eyes
come alive with the fear of death, steeled his voice and
continued: ‘You don’t have universities down there, huh?’
‘I study American history,’ the
Singaporean said quickly, hoping that this piece of
information would save him. ‘Civil Woh and all dat.’
‘And you be what, lah? Professor in
Yay University, lor?’ the serial killer asked, bringing
down his cleaver swiftly in one straight, uninterrupted line from
the man’s throat to his stomach. A cold wind pinched the
leafless pine trees, as if to ask, ‘Did you see what I just saw?’
The trees jittered.
It began to snow again.
*
Detective Farley was sleeping on
his office bed when his phone rang. He rose briskly without
appearing to be in a hurry, noticed the flurry of
snowfall outside his window and answered the phone.
‘Farley.’
‘We have a homicide on Campus
Drive,’ Larry Oates, his assistant, said. ‘Chinese student.
Five feet seven. Cleaved from throat to stomach. He was found
hoisted on top of a Nissan Sentra.’
‘Chinese or Chinese-looking?’
Farley asked.
‘Er, Chinese-looking.’
‘How far is Campus Drive from the
campus?’
‘It’s right there.’
‘Really?’ Farley asked, which Oates
knew translated to: ‘Be more precise, you moron.’
‘I don’t know the exact distance.’
‘Go there. Find out.’
‘Aren’t you coming to the spot?’
Oates asked, unable to hide his incredulity.
‘It’s snowing,’ Farley replied.
‘Yeah.’
‘Find the guy’s friends. Ask them
two questions. One: did he speak in a marked foreign
accent? Two: was he on a full scholarship? You got that?’
‘It’s the immigrant thing, isn’t
it?’
‘It’s the immigrant thing,’ Farley
agreed and hung up. He then dialled Josh Eiken—his other assistant, the one who, like him, preferred working indoors and
insisted on going home to sleep.
‘Yeah?’ a scratchy voice answered.
‘You better have the entire list of
immigrants for me,’ Farley said.
‘We were doing air passenger lists
and car rentals yesterday,’ Eiken said, taking advantage of the
hour to sound grumpy. ‘You asked me to put the immigrant
list on the backburner.’
‘Bring it to the front. I need
separate lists from the INS and Social Security.’
Farley hung up, visualized Oates
and Eiken shouting F-this-Farley, F-that-Farley,
chuckled for five seconds, and then lay carefully on his bed. He
fell asleep as he was counting the seventh sheep.
*
As her cameraman drove their OB van
to the crime scene, Stephanie Zachary saw a weak sun
pop into the passenger-side rear view mirror. Ahead of her, an
unmarked car pulled up from the University side of the
road. Larry Oates got out of the car before it came to a
complete halt.
‘Your man Oates is here,’ the
cameraman said, winking. ‘Can you call the studio and give
them a heads up? We should be ready in ten minutes.’
Alighting from the van, she said: ‘Make that fifteen. We’ll
make a nice interlude to Breakfast
News.’ She ran towards Oates, shouting: ‘You’ve had
a busy morning.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Oates replied,
smiling broadly.
‘But your boss is nowhere to be
seen.’
‘He’s doing his bit,’ Oates said,
lighting a cigarette.
‘I hear he’s put a queen-size bed
in his office.’ Oates’ smile weakened. Stephanie continued: ‘Is
it true that he sleeps even while driving? I mean, he sees a
one-mile stretch on the freeway and’—she snapped her
fingers—‘he’s dozed off, just like that.’
‘If it’s true,’ Oates said, ‘he
must be waking up before the next curve.’Coz he wasn’t dead as
of an hour ago.’
‘A real puzzle, that. So what can
you give me?’
Oates gave her so much input that,
a little later, Stephanie stood before the camera, ready to
break the biggest story of her career. She shivered from the
cold and excitement; she decided not to brush off the flecks
of snow latching on to her hair—they would accentuate the new
auburn hair-dye she’d
used.
‘Gimme a byte, sugar,’ a male voice
said from the studio.
‘Hear you loud and clear, Ned,’
Stephanie replied.
‘Sounding good. Looking
good.
All right, you’re set.’
‘By when?’
‘Two minutes nine seconds.’
‘Good.’
Stephanie used the time to
fantasize.
She’s in Times Square, sharing the
studio with Peter Jennings. Variations of this fantasy features
Dan Rather, but today, Jennings sits next to her. He’s
mesmerized by her presence. He blushes. The blush spreads even
to the usually colourless half-moons under his eyes. Without
warning, the title music
for News
at 9 begins playing. The side camera does an arc and zooms into her face. She’s wearing
crimson to make her debut grander, more memorable. The
prompter flashes text. She doesn’t miss a beat. ‘Good evening.
I’m Stephanie Zachary.’ ‘And I’m, ah, Peter Jennings.’ The
next moment, she’s with Regis Philbin, co-hosting Good
Morning America. ‘Look at her. Isn’t she gorgeous?’ Regis asks the
camera.
From half-closed eyes, she noticed
her cameraman motioning to her. She gave herself a vigorous
shake and smiled at the camera.
*
In apartment B-506 in the Downtown
Crescent condominium, Partho Sen awoke feeling tired and
restless, as if he hadn’t really slept at all. He had dreamt
of arguing with Rashmi and quarrelling with Varun, and the two
fights had kept his brain on high alert the whole night. On
waking up, he felt relief. It was just a dream. Then he
remembered. He had quarrelled with Varun more than a week ago.
And he had fought with Rashmi just the other day. So the
two people in Milwaukee he could talk to, really talk to,
weren’t on talking terms with him anymore.
‘So I now argue with them in my
dreams, is that it?’ he asked himself, clenching his teeth.
He looked to his left, at Varun’s bed. It was neatly made, as
always. Clearly, it hadn’t been slept in.
‘Another night-out,’ Partho
thought, shaking his head.
He rose from the bed and felt
indecisive, so he went to the living room, plonked on the couch
and switched on the TV. It was tuned to a local news
station.
‘So let’s go right away to
Stephanie Zachary,’ the anchor said. ‘Stephanie, what do you have
for us?’
‘Linda, I’m here on Campus Drive,
where the serial killer claimed his fourth victim last
night, a Singaporean student named Charlie Wang. Charlie was
studying American History at the UWM, his friends describe
him as a warm and emotional person, quite popular in his class,
and this news has shaken them hard, as you can expect, now
Linda, we also know that Charlie was an only son and we can
only imagine what a loss this will be to his parents who, as
we speak, are being contacted by the police.’
‘Any idea how this happened?’
‘Linda, as you can see behind me,
the police are still collecting evidence, and the
constant snowfall is making their job doubly difficult, but it’s
possible that the serial killer was driving either a Chevy Bravada or a
Honda Accord because they found tyre tracks of both
makes leaving the spot in a great
hurry. Again, we can’t be sure as
of now. Of course, we still don’t know what Charlie was doing
at this spot at around 3:30 in the morning, which is when the
incident possibly happened. All we know is that Charlie had a
date with his girlfriend of three months, an American, a
Milwaukeean in fact, whose name we can’t give out. But the
cops are contacting her as well and she might hold a clue for
us.’
‘Stephanie, are we sure that this
is the serial killer’s handiwork?’
‘There are no doubts about that,
Linda, because the cleaver was used, and I’m told that it was
a clean and brutal strike, as if he or she wanted to finish the job
and scoot, and Linda, there’s another reason why we know
this is the serial killer’s, er, handiwork, as you put it. Now,
this is as yet unofficial, and
we’re expecting a statement from
Town Hall later this morning, but I have it from reliable sources
that the serial killer is targeting immigrants. And that’s
the big development, Linda.’
Linda took a while to respond.
‘Stephanie, that is indeed a huge
development, but how does Gerry Maier fit into all this?’
‘Good question, Linda. Gerry Maier,
as our viewers will remember, was the second victim and
he was killed exactly a week ago, and his killing threw the
cops off the track. Linda, remember that no identification was
found on Gerry. In fact, he wasn’t identified till his
colleagues saw him on TV and they knew next to nothing about him
except that he was a gifted software programmer, a shy
true-blue geek, if you will. They, the colleagues, had heard him
mention that he was from Michigan, but we now know that he
was actually from Saskatchewan in Canada. The police
discovered this late last night, after which it was quite
easy to spot the pattern. The first victim was Alonso Vasquez,
the Mexican janitor, rather, a janitor from Mexico who had become
a naturalized American citizen. Gerry Maier came next,
after which came the Iranian preschool teacher . . . I forget
her name. And last night, it was Charlie Wang. Four clinical kills
in eleven days. Linda?’
‘Wonder who would do such a thing,’
Linda said, with a clear intent to move on to the next
story.
‘Linda,’ Stephanie said,
interrupting her, ‘it seems to me that this must be the work of a
totally deranged man, someone who studies his victims for days,
maybe weeks, before striking. How else could he have known that
Gerry Maier was Canadian? Even those close to him
hadn’t discovered that. But this pattern is also a good
thing because the immigrants in Milwaukee needn’t fear an abrupt
strike. You don’t have to worry unless a stranger has tried
to befriend you of late or unless you have a feeling that you’re
being tailed. And stay indoors over the weekend, which, in
this weather, is a good
idea anyway.’
‘Thanks, Stephanie. That’s sound
advice. And I see you’re bundled up,’ Linda said, turning to
another camera, ‘which is how you should be if you’re heading
out today and over the weekend because our friendly
neighbourhood weatherman John Galt has the other big story
for you. John?’
Partho picked up the phone, punched
numbers and heard the phone in Apartment B-909 ring.
A sleepy voice answered on the seventh ring.
‘Vish,’ Partho said, ‘can you call
Varun and see if he’s all right?’
‘You have to wake me up so much
early for that?’ Vishnu Reddy asked.
‘What time is it? Oh, sorry. I
thought it must be seven already.’
‘It’s not
seven.
Asshole.’
‘The serial killer is targeting
immigrants.’
‘What?’
‘I knew that would wake you up,’
Partho said, laughing.‘Will you call Varun?’
‘Behaving like school kids, you
two. And why I should go between?’
‘Call me back and let me know if he’s
unreachable.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Listen, you were
joking about serial killer, right?’
‘No. It’s on the news. He’s
planning to kill all immigrants and return the land to the Native
Americans.’ He remembered Rashmi. ‘Yeah. He’ll reserve the
last bullet for himself.’
‘Hold on. I’ll switch on TV.’ Vish
paused. ‘They’re talking about weather. Look at that. The
whole map is covered in white.’
Watching the snowstorm swirl on the
screen reminded Partho of Kolkata during the rains.
Of rain water forming swirling eddies in overflowing
gutters. Of returning from school with his mother and kid
brother, with the rain pounding on yellow cabs, caterpillar-like
trams, potato-laden pushcarts,
his mother’s rainbow-coloured
umbrella, his cheap plastic raincoat, the even cheaper canvas
schoolbag. Rain in Kolkata could be deafening. Why didn’t the
world melt under its onslaught, he had asked his mother
when he was seven. A couple of years later, he informed
her that, in cold countries, rain was solid and white. People
could use the rain to make ice creams. That kind of rain, his
mother added enthusiastically, would make washing clothes so much
easier. And, and, he interjected, wanting to make his
point, that kind of rain wouldn’t slip through his fingers.
No, it wouldn’t. It would stick firmly to his palm.
Seventeen years later, he was still
seeking something that stuck. An idea he could devote his
whole life to. Or perhaps a complete family, with a father and
all. Or a job that excited him. But was he doing anything to
get closer to those desires? Of course not. Instead, he was
burning his bridges—how else could he explain the fact that he
was sabotaging Rashmi’s love and Varun’s friendship?
He gazed vacantly around. His eyes
came to rest on photographs he had taken,
photographs that presented the eternal conflict between light and
darkness. Photographs, to be precise, of shadows thrown by
objects.
‘Trust you to be interested in
shadow photography, Partho,’ Rashmi had told him about a month
after they first met. ‘It’s as if you can’t look at things
directly. You’re only interested in what they do to the world around
them.’
The persistent sound of a dead
telephone line brought him back to the present. He realized
that he was still clinging to the cordless phone. He flung it
down on the carpet and focused on the TV.
‘So John,’ Linda was saying, ‘Super
Susan might, just might, miss Milwaukee and hit Sheboygan
instead?’
‘Linda, the depression building up
further east of Super Susan makes it difficult to predict
where she will strike. Mind you, even if she’s centred on
Sheboygan, we’ll still see plenty of action, but not as much as
Sheboygan would.’
‘I know you are a betting man,
John. So where’s your money?’
‘I’m a weatherman, Linda. I have no
option but to be a betting man,’ John laughed. ‘So I’ll
stick my neck out and say there’s an eighty per cent
probability that Susan will blow down on us, here at Milwaukee. The
good people of Sheboygan won’t have it so bad. So
in effect, I’d follow Stephanie’s advice and stay indoors
the whole weekend, whether you’re an immigrant or not.’
Partho lit a cigarette, picked up
his cordless phone and called his mother.
‘Ma,’ he said when she picked up, ‘I’ve
started smoking again. Is it raining in Kolkata?’
*
Varun felt a hand softly waking him
up. His subconscious mind decided that it was his
sister.
‘Inondu nimisha,’ he said in
Kannada. ‘Just a minute more.’
‘Vahrun, wake up.’
‘Onde nimisha, kane!’ he said,
before realizing that his sister wouldn’t speak to him in English.
He felt wood on his forehead, raised his head and found
himself in his office. He stood up in a hurry, causing his
chair to wheel back.
‘Becky!’ he said, embarrassed,
reaching for his spectacles. ‘Sorry. So sorry. I was . . . I don’t
know how. You’ve come early.’
‘Big day today,’ Becky Dalton, his
client and project manager, replied. ‘Here. I got you some
coffee.’
He took the Styrofoam cup, decided
not to tell her that he hated coffee, and took a sip.
‘Thanks,’ he said, smiling with
pursed lips, acutely aware that he hadn’t brushed his teeth.
‘I finally have proof that you’re
human,’ Becky said. ‘You sleep!’ Varun smiled again and studied
the floor, as he always did in the face of a compliment.
Becky continued: ‘The last six months have been rough on you,
yeah?’
‘Same as you. At least, I don’t
have to go home and take care of two kids,’ Varun replied.
He considered asking her about them. ‘Becky, why don’t your
kids look like you or each other? Do they have different
fathers? Or do they take after grandparents whom you don’t
resemble?’ But of course he didn’t. You’re supposed to
admire cubicle photographs, not conduct a code walkthrough on
them. So he stuck to safe words: ‘Really, you’ve worked hard.’
‘Coming from you,’ Becky said.
‘It’s different for us,’ Varun
said, not bothering to explain that ‘us’ meant employees of CIKS—CIKSons.
‘You mean I work hard for an American?’
‘No, no, I didn’t mean that,’ Varun
said. What he meant had nothing to do with nationality.
It just so happened that Indian software professionals were
amongst the best academic performers in the country. They
were survivors of a ruthless education system that had taught
them, above all else, the
virtue of slogging for its own
sake. Many Americans did exactly the same thing. But unless
those Americans were based in the Silicon Valley, they
usually didn’t work in IT. They practised law, managed PR,
studied the economy or the universe, created new corporates,
etc. Very few of them became techies. So, clearly, if one
pitted all the Indian software professionals in a duel against
their American counterparts, there could only be one clear
winner. ‘No, I didn’t mean that.’
‘I know what you meant. You don’t
fool me,’ Becky said, laughing. She paused. ‘This is
nice, isn’t it, talking about something other than the project?
We haven’t been able to do that, what with the meetings and
deadlines and all. Know what? We should go out for a drink.
The whole team. This evening, after we go live.’ She saw
a shadow flit across Varun’s face. ‘What’s the matter? Something
I should know about?’
‘Huh? No. Nothing,’ Varun said,
running a couple of fingers over the bristly ends of
his moustache.
‘So the drink is on?’
‘I go out after one peg.’
‘Go out where? Oh, you mean you
conk off.’
‘Conk off,’ Varun agreed, rolling
his eyes. ‘But not tonight. The implementation will begin only
at midnight.’
‘Why?’
‘We have to let the nightly batch
jobs run before we push in our new code.’
‘In that case,’ Becky said, standing up, ‘I
suggest that you go home and sleep for a bit. I’ll meet
the business users and get the formal signoff.’
‘Actually, I was thinking . . .’
‘That’s an order, kiddo,’ Becky
said, trying to sound like a GI and failing. In a softer tone,
she added: ‘I spoke to the users. They’re thrilled. They don’t
even want to test the system today. We’re there. Just go
home. Come back fresh.’
‘Okay,’ Varun said. ‘I’ll return by
noon. Will that be fine?’
‘Take your time,’ Becky said,
leaving for her cubicle.
Varun donned his jacket and fished
in his drawer for his monkey cap. His phone rang.
‘Are you alive, asshole number two?’
Vishnu asked.
‘So far. Why?’
‘Asshole number one wanted to know.’
‘Oh,’ Varun said, not knowing what
else to say. He wished he hadn’t fought with Partho,
especially now—he could have used his help to solve the goddamn
bug that was threatening his project. ‘Yeah. I’m alive. Bye,
Vish.’
‘Wait. Party tonight at our place.
Seven.’
‘OCHRE’s going live tonight. Can’t
make it.’
‘Damn. Bye.’
Varun checked his watch. 6:55. Big
Boss Laks Deshpande would be riding the elevator any moment
now. It was time to get a directive from the top.
