Chapter 1: Where Inspector Vinod is Accused of Being a Socialist

On the fifth day of the protests, there was a sword. It was actually a rod of heavy steel, but he couldn’t help think of a sword as he saw the sun glint on its surface. He marveled at the graceful arc it made through the air. It cut through the autumn chill and the cacophony of the drum beats and came at a blinding velocity towards him.

As it hit him on the head, he visualized the changes that would take place within his body over the next few minutes. Within the rigid confines of his skull, a growing swelling would compress his brain like a fat man pressing against an airbag of a small, eco-friendly sedan. The coroner would conjecture that subdural hematoma was the probable cause of death – a diagnosis that would be confirmed by the dilated pupil in his right eye. And all along, the drumming would continue, as he continued his march into the carriage of Yama, the God of Death.

But the drumming subsided. He heard the soft whirring of the air conditioner. His mind latched on to the beeping of the EKG that delivered assurances of life at a regular frequency. As his turbulent thoughts settled one by one, he was able to recollect what had happened in the aftermath of that fateful murder on Wall Street….

As one of Interpol’s most accomplished officers, Inspector Vinod had been sent to New York to help locate and extradite a thirty seven year old Czech man called Frantisek Prochazka.

Mr. Prochazka had stolen twenty million dollars from a security firm in Prague. The Interpol had issued a red alert for him. Mr. Prochazka was a clever man, but was no match for the wily Inspector and the efficient New Jersey State Police, who had caught the man even as he was going to take the first bite of a Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich.

Inspector Vinod thought that it was remarkable just how many citizens of the world were currently involved in trying to bring people who had stolen money to justice. By no means was he the only one.

The protestors outside his building were trying to hold the greedy among the Wall Street bankers accountable for their financial sins. They had been forced to take matters into their own hands.

True, there was not one banker that had been arrested to date. The Interpol hadn’t issued a red alert for any of the miscreants. The New York Police Department had looked by obliviously as many of the criminals continued to buy lattes, sip red wines and visit massage parlors.

If Inspector Vinod had to arrest one man in the aftermath of the crisis, he would have arrested Dick Carr, the CEO of the now defunct Walton Brothers, who was one of the principal miscreants that had put the word 'sub' before 'prime' and brought down the entire industry.

The police would not find it difficult to locate Mr. Carr. Inspector Vinod could have told the NYPD his location. Mr. Carr was his neighbor. The doorman of the building had told him so.

It wasn't like it was his building or for that matter his apartment. Inspector Vinod had been put up at the fancy condominium by a old jeweler Mr. K...who ran one of the most respected establishments in New York's jewelry district.

A few years ago, Inspector Vinod had helped track down an employee of mr. K... who had escaped with millions in dollars of jewelry. A large portion of the stolen goods was uninsured, and Inspector Vinod's decisive action had saved the jeweler from certain bankruptcy. When Inspector Vinod told the jeweler over the phone that he planned to be in New York, the jeweler had shown up at the airport with a key to his 'other apartment in New York'.

Inspector Vinod didn’t particularly like the apartment. It was far too expensive a dwelling for an Inspector, no matter how accomplished or renowned. Besides there was too much glass in the apartment. So much sunlight wasn’t entirely conducive to the affairs of a man of romance.

What such a man needed, though Inspector Vinod, was a dimly lit room with dark corners that knew how to hold on to secrets. A room with carpets that muffled footsteps so that one could hear a jazz note break against a piece of crystal. A room that was lined with old wood paneled walls that had gazed upon the follies of men and women for hundreds of years.

But Evelyn hadn’t noticed the excessive sunlight. She had rushed at him as soon as he opened the door. By the time they let go of each other, the shadows had lengthened across the length of the room.

Inspector Vinod clicked open a Zippo lighter. Her smooth feline like body lit up in the halo cast by its flame, and for a moment, he forgot to light his cigarette. The room was eerily silent. Inspector Vinod thought that they had been taken to an other-worldly place, a place outside New York.

But silence never lasted in the Big Apple. Someone was always crunching their way towards a rotten core. The affairs of modern day commerce disrupted their blissful state as the sounds of the protestors rose to a shrill and came in rudely through the bedroom window.

-Oh, these protestors, Evelyn sighed. But she sighed contentedly.

-What about them?

-Why don’t they get jobs and get on with their lives?

-Maybe they don’t have jobs, said Inspector Vinod.

-Oh, there are jobs, said Evelyn. She sounded half asleep. There are jobs in the restaurants, at the fast food chains, at the post office…

-Maybe they are protesting at the unfairness of it all…

-How so?

-You know, the industry lost 40 billion dollars in 2008. The year of the meltdown. The New York Daily News reported that the bonuses paid out the very next year amounted to an astounding $20.6 billion. There’s some kind of disconnect here. A disconnect that some might label as unfairness.

Evelyn sat up on the bed. She could see that Inspector Vinod was serious. He wasn’t one of those flippant men who used words like ‘astounding’ lightly.

-My dear Vinod, she said. I love you. You know that. But I don’t know how I feel about carrying on with a man who is a socialist.