Title: "how much can you drink?"
Author: monimala
Fandom: "Kaante"
Rating/Classification: AC for language, slash/het-ish.
Disclaimer: Nope. I don't own him.
Summary: A killer's holiday.
"Sawaal yeh nahi hai ki bar mein kitni sharab hai. Sawaal yeh hai ki tu
kitni pi sakta hai?"
--Jay "Ajju" Rehan.
i.
He's out for twenty minutes...maybe a half-hour. Sirens are blaring in thedistance, getting closer. His timing is, as always, just about perfect.
He takes off the Kevlar, leaves it propped up against the blood stain that would've held bits of brain matter if the Major had been a better shot. He
paints a smiley face in the concrete with the tip of one finger.
A little "fuck you" gift for the cops.
He stops by Marc's body, checks the pulse, closes the eyes, calls him
"Whore" one last time, affectionately...and kisses his forehead.
A little "fuck you" gift for himself.
He staggers from the warehouse into the bright, unforgiving, sun.
He looks back. Just once.
ii.
"Jay...Jay, beta...school ki gaadi aagaya....!"
He ignored his mother's cry, pulling off the starched clip-on tie as the
metal school van rattled through the dust, pulled by old Veeru on his cycle.
The village school was for bahenchods and idiots.
Not for bastards.
There was a whole different school for harami... and he'd be first class first.
iii.
"Kitney paise hain yaahan? Ek lakh? Do? Teen?" How much money is this? One hundred thousand? Two? Three?
Marc reclined on the crisp pile of bills, rubbing a handful across his
flat stomach. "Ajju?" he prompted, needing an answer after four beats of
silence went by.
"Tera Lisa aur tu ke liye kaafi," he assured, wearily. Plenty for your love story.
They needed to put it back in the duffel bags.
They needed to get back to the hide-out.
He whispered, "Give." In English, it was "give," they said. "Give it here."
He didn't mean the cash.
iv.
"Mr. Rehan...I'm afraid we cannot allow you to leave the country. Not
with active warrants out for your arrest."
The suit stares at him, prim, chewing on her lower lip.
He can't pretend to have fucked her wife all night. He can't feign illiteracy.
So, he gives her what's real.
He slides his hand across the desk, the 9mm shiny and silver beneath his palm. "You cannot allow *what*...?" he asks, innocently.
She blinks. There's a stack of hundred dollar bills under his other hand.
The phone rings and it's going to be a call from someone she's only had
nightmares about.
He kisses her cool cheek and retrieves his passport with a jaunty "thank
you, Miss!"
She's still stammering into the receiver as he slams her office door and
walks out of the federal building a free man.
v.
He boards the flight for Delhi at the last possible minute...as they're
closing the gate, getting ready to roll back the walk-way.
The seat next to Lisa is open.
Her face is pale, but she's stopped crying.
She starts all over again when he strokes her lips with his thumb and she sees the flakes of red beneath his nail.
"No...nahin...Ajju...nahin..."
It's all right, he tells her, soothes her. They'll get married. He *won't* start a dance bar.
A little "thank you" gift for Marc.
A little "fuck you" gift for himself.
His timing is, as always, just about perfect.
--end--
May 17, 2004.