should a ghost or a vampire or whatever be different?”
Smita digested this for a moment. “So what they say about you is correct? That you’re into Delhi’s history?”
“It’s where I’m from, Smita. Aren’t you?”
“I’m from here,” she replied, waving outside her window. “From this city that’s sprung from your necropolis. My grandparents were refugees after Partition. These new colonies are my home. I don’t even know who Zauq is. And I’d be surprised if the streets he’s talking about are the ones we’re driving on.”
The DCP looked at her in surprise, then inclined his head. “You’re right. Let me begin again. I am interested in Delhi’s history. Very interested. And my connection to Delhi predates Partition, as you’ve probably gathered. Are we . . . cool?”
Smita looked at him and smiled. “We’re cool. But who is Zauq?”
“An Urdu poet. Rather famous. He was writing around the time of the Uprising of 1857.”
“Really? A contemporary of Ghalib’s?”
An eyebrow, raised. “Quite right. But you’ve heard of him?”
“Who hasn’t?” she grinned.
They were pulling into the overly grand entrance of a hotel already famous for its lofty cuisine and tiny rooms and beautiful views of urban sprawl. The way ahead lay off to the side, where the entrance to the nightclub was.
The DCP, while not antisocial, didn’t make a habit of going out on the town. His famed incorruptibility militated against a regular enjoyment of Delhi’s luxury nightspots, the cost of which was equally legendary. But there was nothing self-consciously austere about his demeanor when he did get out and about, and he looked around, following in Smita’s self-possessed and evidently right-at-home wake, with real appreciation. He enjoyed the clubby little bar that also functioned as the entrance, the quite charming way the management had of dismissing those whom it felt were unsuitable, and was impressed with the uniform sullenness of the tight-shirted males who were waiting to get in and the equally invariable smiles of the women who had all, it seemed to his aging eyes, been allowed to escape their homes in their lingerie. It fit together. His innate sense of symmetry was pleased with the way the aspects of this ritual, arcane as it seemed, were being so closely observed.
A beautifully dressed young man detached himself from the bar and hurried toward him, his hand outstretched, just as the DCP was reaching into his pocket for his ID and cards.
“DCP Dayal,” he said with a smile, “what an honor. And this lovely lady is your date? It’s good to have you both here,” he said, leading the way into the temple, past the waiting line of the supplicants, the bouncers one step away from bowing and scraping. Then the older officer didn’t have any time to think at all, because the music, hitherto muted by the door, hit him in the chest.
He was glad in those first few moments of Smita’s company, of her comforting presence at his shoulder as the lights and the sound and the dense crush of people on the fringes of the dance floor threatened to overwhelm him. Kapoor’s beauteous nephew cut an apparently seamless path through the multitudes to the bar, where he set them up with cocktails which, at the DCP’s almost imperceptible nod, Smita accepted.
There, over the music, he told them the lay of the land. The first table over there, he gestured, behind the intricately wrought steel and wood screen, was the Colonel’s court. “It’s the quietest private booth we have. It has an unobstructed view of both the entrance and the dance floor. Would you like me to introduce you?”
The DCP shook his head and took a sip of his drink, raising it in appreciation to the younger man.
“And yours?” he asked Smita. “Is it to your satisfaction?”
“Entirely, sir,” she replied.
The DCP nodded and thanked Kapoor’s nephew and walked toward the Colonel’s table with Smita in tow.
She was ensconced on a purple banquette, a stemmed glass in front of her and laughing female acolytes to either side. A lone gent patrolled the outskirts of their party, there apparently to replenish drinks at his own expense. The DCP and Smita walked up to the table where, without preamble, the older officer sat down, inviting Smita to have a seat next to him. By a trick of the acoustic designer’s art, the table was a quiet haven, while still close enough to the floor that the officers could glimpse the sweat in the cleavage of the feverish dancers who threw themselves about a few feet away, beyond the almost diaphanous screen.
The Colonel looked inquiringly at the DCP as he made himself comfortable.
He then leaned across and said, loud enough that the young women to either side of her could hear, “I don’t know whether to shake your hand or salute you.”
The woman looked at him with her eyebrows raised, then smiled. “You can greet me the way you like, Commissioner. I am yours to command.”
The DCP would remember that first smile, her perfect even teeth, the warmth in her eyes.
“You know who I am,” he said without surprise.
“Who doesn’t?” she replied.
“I know who you are, but not what to call you. Colonel sounds awfully formal.”
“These girls call me Razia. I don’t know why.”
“It fits. Delhi’s own sultana. Regal, powerful.”
“Dead, too, these past eight hundred years.”
“A blink of the eye in this city’s history, surely.”
“Perhaps, Commissioner, but she’s still a bit before my time. But if the name pleases you, it is yours to use.” She waved her hangers-on away. The young women obediently went off with their solitary male attendant, and the DCP and Smita moved closer to her.
“And you, my dear?” she smiled at Smita. “What’s your name?”
“Smita Dhingra.”
“A policewoman, perhaps?”
“I am.”
“And how,” said Razia, “can I be of service to the law?”
“Doubtless you’ve heard,” replied the DCP, “of the finger-snatcher?”
Razia inclined her head.
“Perhaps you’ve also heard of these gangs of pretend vampires and werewolves who’re fighting each other all over Delhi?”
An eyebrow acknowledged that she was indeed in receipt of this information.
Why, wondered the DCP, would a young man who thought himself a vampire be looking for pictures of her? Why, indeed, would a woman such as Razia, an habitué of nightspots far removed from the louche battlegrounds of the angsty undead, have come to the attention of one such as he?
Razia pursed her lips thoughtfully and registered contemplation, and the DCP remarked, as he would again, at how the theatricality of her every movement was rendered with such poise as to make it seem natural. Was it, she said as if to herself, because of the paucity of such material? Perhaps, acknowledged the policeman. Is there a reason for this shortage? he asked in turn. Privacy is a commodity, replied the woman. Like any other, it becomes more precious when the supply begins to dwindle.
“You don’t have to come out, you know,” said Smita. “If you like your privacy so much.”
The woman’s soft laugh defused both the acerbity of Smita’s response and the rebuke in the older officer’s eyes. “In response to your questions, Commissioner. I don’t know. But clearly the young man has an unhealthy fascination with creatures of the night. No doubt he classifies me as one.”
“Does he search for you because he