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THE CROOKED BULLET

A Frank Wire Mystery

ROTIMI OGUNJOBI

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

AM Book Publishing Limited

www.ambookpublishing.com

THE CROOKED BULLET

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER 1

Upton Park, London.

Raj Desai sat alone in the back office of his jewelry shop. It was Saturday night, and the staff and security had left; but like every other night, Raj locked up by himself – he was a very careful man.

He opened the front door to peek up and down the street, Bhatti’s Jewellery was on Green Street and about a hundred yards away from the tube station. All around, the street this night teemed with African and Asian immigrants, many of whom perpetually looked defeated.

Not a lot different from what he and his wife must have looked like when they had come to live here more than two decades ago, he knew. The only appreciable commercial traffic at this time was from the Tesco supermarket. It wasn’t football day, else the pubs around would have been rowdy with drunken revelers from the stadium down the road where Westham FC played their home matches. Here on these streets, spotted with phlegm and perpetually smelling of disinfectant, he and his late wife had nevertheless found good fortune

Raj shut the door and turned the key. He failed, however, to see Kalyan Shetty his son-in-law to be, running down from the train station. Kalyan knocked eagerly on the door just as Raj turned away. He is dressed in a dark suit; obviously coming from work. Raj again opened the door to let him in and then drew down the electric-operated front window security grille.

“Good evening Papa. How are you today?” Kalyan asked.

“Very well thank you, my son. You are coming from work?” Raj Desai replied. They both spoke in Hindi,

“Yes, Papa. Rupinder says to meet her at home, but it is too early since she does not arrive from work at the hospital for another two hours. So I thought to come to have a chat with you, and then maybe go home along with you “, Kalyan said

“That is fine. She works long hours at the hospital sometimes. Too long for a woman even if a doctor.” Raj regretted.

They both entered Raj’s office at the back of the shop floor. Conspicuous on a wall of the cramped office were three portraits. One was of his deceased wife Sangita, her scowl still intimidating even in the picture. The second was of his only daughter Rupinder in her graduation attire from medical school. The third portrait was of Raj, Sangita, and Rupinder, taken twenty-two years back in Mumbai, and when Rupinder was just about three years old.

Raj looked up and pointed to the picture of Rupinder.

“She takes after her mother. Unfortunately, Sangita died when Rupinder was still a little child and left us alone.” he seemed to apologize.

“I am always sorry to hear that Papa. You have done quite well, however.” Kalyan told him.

“Oh no, she has done quite well. All that you see here in this shop means nothing to me. This shop, Bhatti’s Jewellery belonged to Sangita, and she made it a success by hard work. Only she taught me enough to be able to make it prosper still. This shop we bought the shop from her uncle Shami “Bhatti” Bhatnagar. He was widowed, quite fed up with his bad arthritis, and going back home to New Delhi. We came here poor, she determined to make us rich, and rich we became. Bhatti’s belongs to Sangita, my son, Rupinder is my only success. You will take care of Rupinder for me when you eventually get married will you?” Raj asked

“I promise Papa; I promise.” Kalyan patted his hand.

Raj opened a solid wood locker and brought out a black box, expensively decorated with black velvet and gold trimmings and about the size of a medium-size pizza box. Inside, the box was lined with purple satin. It contained a gold pendant attached to a gold chain. The pendant has the shape of a bent bullet.

“Look at this; what do you think?” Raj eagerly asked.

“It is beautiful Papa, and it looks very valuable,” Kalyan confessed.

“Yes, it is valuable. It is the Crooked Bullet. It is supposed to bring peace to the marriage. By family tradition, it must be passed to the first son to get married in the family as it had been passed down for five generations. But since I do not have a son, I will give it to you”.

“Thank you, Papa. I will take care of it and cherish it.”, Kalyan was pleased to learn.

“The pendant must not be lost though, else the result will be a life plagued with great hardship for many generations following.” Raj Desai warned.

“It will not be lost, Papa. I promise to keep it and also give it to your grandson when the time comes.” Kalyan promised

Raj closed the box, quite lovingly tucked it away again in the locker, and turned the key. Then he opened a big steel safe door to put the key in. The safe contained a lot of money that had been carelessly thrown in. He changed his mind; opened the locker once again, took out the box, and put it in the safe, nodding his head in the satisfaction that this made more sense.

“You have too much money in that safe Papa; you ought to take it to the bank at the end of every day.” Kalyan worried.

“Yes, I know. There must be more than a hundred thousand pounds inside there, which are the cash sales for the entire day. Too many customers prefer to pay cash for the jewelry you know. Sangita would have insisted that the cash should be taken to the night deposit at the bank down the road, but never mind I will do that in the morning. Nobody is coming to steal a safe my son, this is London.” Raj reasoned. Up on the wall, the scowling picture of Sangita seemed to accuse him even more and to make him momentarily nervous.

“After you and Rupinder are married, I think I will sell the shop and like old man Shami “Bhatti” Bhatnagar, return home to Mumbai.” He declared

They both exit the office, switching off the lights behind them. Raj engaged the shop security system, after which they both exit the shop through a side door, which Raj also locked. Raj’s car, a Mercedes, was parked a few yards away, and both walked slowly toward it.

There was still a bit of a chill outside; summer was still several weeks away. Raj pushed his wool cap tighter on his head and wrapped his coat tighter around him. He had been thinking of what to do next. When you were nearly sixty, life seemed to become so routine, and the choices available for nearly everything became so few. Before Kalyan arrived, he had been trying to make a choice between having dinner at the Hyderabad Darbar Restaurant down the road or going nearer home at Romford to Aroma on High Street. And maybe thereafter going to The Bitter End pub for a pint or two and a chat with the denizens. Now he wasn’t quite sure anymore what to do with himself, his coveted companionship with loneliness suddenly broken

“Give me the key Papa, I will drive you home,” Kalyan suggested. They both entered the car and drove away into the darkness.

Later that night, a grim conference took place at an upmarket health spa known as Woodstock. The place, located near Chigwell had previously been a farm. Now it was a celebrity hideout – where the annual membership was rumored to cost nearly as much as a brand new Rolls Royce. The rules inside Woodstock were for those to whom money meant very little – the primary of those rules being that shoes were not permitted to be worn within the grounds of the estate.

The office in which the night conference took place looked quite like it had been time-warped from the sixties. Moses Samuel or Rabbi Zulu as the proprietor of Woodstock was more fondly called, was having a discussion with four men of Eastern Europe stock. Also in his office were three other people, one of them his closest aide Sasha Cohen, a slightly plump lady who habitually wore dark John Lennon glasses.

The huge room was completely decorated with vintage furniture and fittings; including a large Beatles grandfather clock and an RCA radiogram. On one of the walls were two huge posters each of them about eight feet tall. One was of the singer Isaac Hayes playing at the Sahara Tahoe in the “70s – with dark aviator sunglasses, a heavy chain around his neck, naked to the waist and looking so sweaty sexy. It was an image Moses Samuel always faithfully tried to imitate to the limit that his own white skin would permit. The other poster was of a barefooted Masai warrior in a full battle leap. This was the one around which he had built the new philosophies behind his life and business.

Only one of the four men in attendance spoke English, but they all nevertheless understood the instructions that were being passed to them.

“The bank is in Hackney. It was in there that a person I knew, a hard-working man, lost his home to them way back and killed himself as a consequence, do you understand?” The men nodded.

“Yah! Yah!”; they understood. They also still understood the intolerable iniquities of uncontrolled capitalist economics.

Moses Samuel pointed to a television camera on the table before them.

“See this thing? Real techie stuff. I had it specially made for me in China. It is not only a camera; it will also scramble all CCTV signals and disable all other security equipment, and so nobody will be able to understand what happened. After the job, you will drive away to Dover from where you will cross the channel and then get a plane to Brazil. By the time you return home in a couple of months, you will have no worries. Plus you will be rich.”

Sasha gave the leader of the men a large envelope which contained plane tickets, some fake travel documents. They nodded quietly and left with the television camera.

Moses Samuel switched on the huge gleaming imitation vintage RCA radiogram standing in a corner of the room, and eagerly twiddled the tuning dial till he found the channel he was looking for. It was a rogue radio channel. A hip-hop remix of an Earth Wind and Fire ballad seeped out of the large speakers of the retro-modern music center.

You will find peace of mind

If you look way down in your heart and soul

Don’t hesitate “cause the world seems cold

Stay young at heart “cause you’re never (never, never, ..) old at heart

“He’s good, isn’t he?” Moses Samuel nodded his head, and at the same time seeking the ladies” approval.

“Yes, He’s cool,” Sasha said. The other girl in the room was not so committal; neither was the small, bespectacled young man who looked like a newspaper guy. They didn’t understand this type of music.

“I’d surely enjoy working with this guy. We do have a lot in common”, Moses Samuel said.

“Half of London is dying to know who he is. Keeps extremely modest for a musician, I think. I admire that”, said Sasha.

“Ex-Man,” Moses Samuel gushed. “Ex-Man; the most mysterious and perhaps the most talented musician in England. I love the name - Superhero; superstar.”

“I’ve got to go to bed now Rabbi”, Sasha said with a reverent bow. Moses Samuel pleasantly waved both ladies goodbye.

“This job you asked those men to do at the bank, do you think it has a hope of success?” the young man asked.

“Why not?” Moses Samuel seemed surprised that anyone could think this way.

“Oh well; robbing a bank with a camera. It seems such a ridiculous notion as I see it “, the man truthfully opined.

“Exactly,” Moses Samuel agreed with him. “And it is because it looks so ridiculous that is why it will succeed. Difficult to rob a bank with a machine gun; a hundred times easier to rob a bank with a camera”.

Together they had a good laugh over their ridiculous plan. The young man shut his laptop computer and lugged it out of the room, with a reverent bow at the door.

Alone in the office, at last, Moses Samuel sat behind his huge ornate oak desk nodding and humming to the music. Ex-Man’s weekly hour-long broadcast had become a phenomenon - regularly bringing the boredom index in London crashing down every Sunday night. The pirate radio came on around eleven till midnight and then completely disappeared from the air till the next week. Within a short time, it had become one hour that discerning Londoner came to look forward to.

Much of Ex-Man’s music was not new. Much of it was really a remix of old tunes but done in ways that nobody had ever thought possible. Now, Moses Samuel thought, here was one musician worth putting money on to go places. Ex-Man’s first single - “Dynomite”, had just about a month ago, hit the chart and quickly climbed up as fast as a monkey with its tail on fire. But still, nobody knew who Ex-Man was and so deliciously, neither was he going about advertising his identity.

Dynomite had been quietly released by Def Adam - a new and unknown private label - no parties, no press. Def Adam as he found out was owned by an Isle of Man company of the same name but with nominee directors, and the distribution of the four records of the label so far was being done by Michael Jah, a Jamaican agent from a shop hemmed in between two vegetable shops right inside Brixton Market. There the trail had gone dead.

“I just sell records man, I don’t sell comics. Yeah man”, the seemingly perplexed records broker had reasoned with him.

Moses Samuel had subsequently been even more intrigued by and full of respect for this unknown artist. Certainly not like any of the no-talent wannabes parading selves as musicians on the strength of being able to ingest a lot of mind-bending chemicals and scream at the top of their voices as a consequence; the papers were always plastered with their stupid faces.

Who was Ex-man? Ironically, that mystery really had contributed in a major way to the success of the new record. Moses Samuel loved that bit of irony. As a matter of fact, it was the same sort of device which had moved his life and business forward.

He walked over to another table on which sat the one-foot high scale model of what was a shopping mall, though anyone else could have called it an art gallery. It was two-stories high, looked about a hundred yards wide, and was painted up like Andy Warhol had been at work on it. Who is Moses Samuel? Yes, they did have a lot in common, him and Ex-Man; they were both definitely destined to go places. Possibly together.

CHAPTER 2

Dynoooomite!!

The wide-mouthed black youth looked like J.J. Walker from the old-time TV series Good Times. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and doing a mime to Ex-Man’s remix of Tony Camillo’s Dynomite on MTV. Frank O’Dwyer woke up to find the time was ten o’clock. He was horrified. When you had a boss who didn’t like you very much, and you woke up at ten o” clock on Monday morning, you knew dead cert that your ass was already grass.

Frank had fallen asleep on the couch, as he realized. An open can of Guinness was spilled on the carpet. He had no recollection of when he had popped the can or switched on the TV; he also couldn’t tell for certain how he had got home last night. It had been really a hell of a gig and a demon or two were still trapped in his head, hacking away with sharp axes and picks. Frank picked up his mobile phone and called his office at East End Mirror.

“Ellen, I am going to be a bit late this morning, I am not feeling so well,” he told Ellen Wescott, the secretary.

“Frank, you had a meeting scheduled for nine-thirty with Spencer, and He’s hopping mad. Better come in as soon as you can, but I think you’re dead meat already”, Ellen told him.

Frank’s heart sank. It was the day of the monthly departmental meeting with his boss Spencer Cowley aka The Beast; who also owned the East End Mirror newspaper. As the journalist who handled the crime beat, Frank’s absence wouldn’t go unnoticed, at least not by Spencer who seemed quite lately to have a special place in his heart for him - a place where poisons were kept.

David Fernandez would be there of course. David was the bespectacled young Indian rookie journalist who presently covered the trivia departments and the cocktail circuit. David was okay really - quite friendly and efficient. He was also very unnaturally gifted with computers, and so prodigiously prolific that Frank suspected the little guy had programmed his computer to crank out fake stories.

David did remind him of a long time foe Phil Jenner, who used to work with The Independent but had somehow just disappeared; like fallen off the face of the earth. Phil Jenner had been quite a terror to Frank’s life because Spencer Cowley always compared Frank’s puny effort to the prodigious Phil Jenner. And so prolific had Phil Jenner been that it appeared he manufactured his own stories – like when he wanted to report a murder, he just went off and killed somebody. But somehow he disappeared, and life had since then become more bearable for Frank – until David Fernandez showed up. Later though, Frank had learned to his shame that David Fernandez just made more creative use of Google and Yahoo! Frank had afterward learned to live amicably with David since their tasks rarely encroached.

Somewhere along the line though, Spencer had determined that newspapers thrived more on gossip and trivia than on real news and thus had David become to be much more seriously reckoned with at the East End Mirror. And as David grew in importance so had Frank begun to feel his own relevance diminished. In his nightmares, the little Indian guy now played a significantly menacing role, and as a matter of fact, Frank suspected that David was being prepared to take over from him in the event of his demise, which now seemed quite near.

Never one to distress nevertheless, Frank took off his seven-inch wide plaque which said MC Wire, had a quick shower, coffee, a burnt buttered toast, and eventually set out for work. Trevor “The Mad Scientist” Cook, his tandem deejay act, did bring him home last night, he knew. Trevor had just bought a new BMW, and they’d together taken it for a spin to Brighton for a gig along with two mad West Indian chicks and two cases of wine. Pity he couldn’t now remember the girls” names.

The sun seemed unusually bright and hot this morning; shining with such intense malice. The entire world seemed to jog along sluggishly around him like gargantuan mobile Dali sculptures. Frank’s flat was mere minutes from Hackney Central, which was not too crowded at this time. From there he caught a bus to the office of the East End Mirror, located in Shoreditch, ten minutes away.

It was an open-plan office containing ten cubicles on either side of a central aisle. A conference room, as well as the office of the proprietor Spencer Cowley, was at the far end. Frank slipped in quietly, said a quick hello to Fernandez with whom he shared a cubicle. Frank had barely sat down at his desk when Spencer Cowley breezed by. He is a burly man with fat jowls and a booming voice

“Could you come with me for a little chat Frank,” he said, without a pause in his steps and without looking in his direction. Frank noted that nobody was looking in his direction either. The greetings this morning had been quite lukewarm all around - something heavy definitely seemed expected.

Frank found Spencer in the small conference room at the end of the corridor which ran the entire length of the office. Everyone remembered the room as the place where major negotiations were made: such as hiring, promotion, ass-kicking, and firing. Spencer was smoking a cigar when Frank came in, and Frank felt an irresponsible urge to point to the No Smoking sign on the wall. An irresponsible urge because here at the East End Mirror, Spencer Cowley, owner, Chief Executive, and Chief Editor was the law.

“Good morning Spencer. Sorry I was late. I wasn’t feeling well this morning when I woke up”, Frank apologized.

“Oh, of course, yes, and I guess I am the cause of it, isn’t that right? Especially as this happens so frequently. Frank, what do you think this place is about?” Spencer didn’t sound amused.

Frank grimaced. He had a very bad headache which was presently being exacerbated by Spencer’s loud voice. He looked away into the clear glass tabletop and doodled nervously on it with a finger.

“Frank, do you honestly think this newspaper is a joke?” Spencer asked, puffing violently on his cigar like a mad marijuana fiend. Frank thought this a trick question and safely kept quiet. Besides, his head hurt like hell.

“Let me put it another way, Frank, do you honestly enjoy working here?”

Against common sense, Frank this time around had an irresponsible impression that Spencer genuinely had his best interest at heart; like your anxious mother hassling you for spending the whole night out at a party. Frank looked away into the clear glass table and doodled nervously on the top with a finger.

“No I don’t enjoy working here, Spencer”, he truthfully replied; and this did somehow make him feel good.

“So why don’t you be man enough about it then and quit?” Spencer said to him, and this made Frank feel bad.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to say that” Frank apologized. Too late though; he found Spencer looking into his eyes with contrived pity, slowly and very sadly shaking his head.

“I’m sorry I’ve got to let you go Frank”, Spencer said to him; and this made Frank feel a lot worse. He tried to feel man enough about it nevertheless.

“Don’t I get any kind of notice?”

“Your contract entitles you to one month's notice Frank, but never mind. I have signed you a check for the next month, and you can leave today”, Spencer told him, offering a sweaty handshake.

“If you need references, I will be pleased to give you some. I’ve already given Ellen a check for you, and you may collect it immediately. Good luck Frank”.

Frank returned to his desk and silently began to empty the drawers. The entire office seemed unusually quiet and busy around him. He felt angry with them all, with Spencer Cowley and most of all with himself for handing Spencer the perfect excuse to throw him out, right on a golden platter. It hadn’t been a great job, but it paid the bills. Ellen came around a few minutes later with his check.

“He’s in a hellish mood today, innit?” She commiserated.

“Yeah, well it’s got to happen one day; and I guess the sooner, the better,” Frank puts up his brave front.

Fernandez came over, cautiously.

“Wat happened over there Frank?” he worriedly asked.

“Just lost my job. I guess you will be doing the crime watch circuit all by yourself for a while unless Spencer has found a replacement for me yet.” Frank wheezed.

“That’s awful. What are you going to do now Frank?” Fernandez sounded genuinely concerned.

“I don’t know yet. You never plan to lose your job, I believe, or do you? I’ll get by somehow, I am sure.” Frank shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m happy you can think like that. It’s all really no more than just a job, see? Just hang on to that truth and you won’t feel so bad anymore” Ellen advised.

“Thanks, Ellen,” Frank said to her and signed the voucher for his check.

“Good luck Frank, we’re going to miss you” Ellen shook his hand

“Going to really miss you, Bro. I know we didn’t get along so well on some issues, but I really think you are a great guy. Namaste.” Fernandez also emotionally took his hand.

Frank emptied much of the contents of his desk into the bin. They were mostly half-written stories that were long dead. This completed, he left the office of East End Mirror, giving one last tired salute at the door, and his few prized possessions in a little box under his arm. Spencer Cowley standing menacingly in the middle of the news office returned the salute.

Frank caught a bus home from Shoreditch to Hackney Central, looking pensively out of the window all through the journey. At Hackney Central, he bought some fruits from a stall and walked to his flat which was about two hundred yards away.

It was still just around midday. He found it strange and a really confusing experience to be home at this time of the day.

Frank put the fruits in the fridge, took out a can of Guinness, and lay on the sofa to watch MTV. The Ex-Man’s newly released video was still getting prime-time play treatment. Every time he heard the song, he always got this feeling that he knew the voice even though it had been passed through a synthesizer. But then a lot of rap often sounded quite like the same, unless you were doing it in some patent way like Snoop Dogg or even like Grandmaster Flash, who he very much thought was the boss. Frank soon drifted off to sleep.

There were three missed calls on his phone when he woke up. He dialed his voice mail. There was one message from Trevor:

“How are you doing, Frankie? You did have quite a skinful last night, didn’t you? Talk later” [click]. The second message brought him fully awake.

“Hi Frankie, it’s me Nancy. You’ll call me back, will you? [Click]”. No, he wouldn’t. Nancy Hughes was an old flame, who had house stepped on her foot three weeks ago at a rave party. Life had a way of working funny new habits into lonely people’s lives because as much as Frank had ever known, Nancy was chronically agoraphobic and would rather watch a golf game on television than from the middle of a mile wide green. That was how shocked he had been to find Nancy at a rave, where six dozen lunatics were getting smashed on cheap booze and screaming above the deafening music.

The third was from his mum in Manchester, wanting to make sure that he was still wearing clothes and not walking around naked in the night like all those hooligans. Now, Frank knew this was an important message, and if he didn’t reply to his mum’s call, she would probably come knocking on his door the next morning. So Frank called mum and assured her yes, he still was wearing clothes; no he wasn’t wearing manacles around his neck; no he wasn’t smoking pot yet, and yes He’s still got a job - the last one being now a lie.

He returned to watching television. Again the video of an EX-MAN rap rendition of Herbie Hancock’s “Chameleon” was playing on MTV. He liked it.