Trixy and The Crescent Of Rana

CHAPTER 23 : IDEAS

Twenty-four hours fast forward, they were seated in front of the manager, Manoj Kumar, tired and discomfited after a full day of futile trials. They started with the belief that questioning each and every employee of Pearl agencies would lead them somewhere in the end, and it did – only to the manager's cubicle.

While the murderer had made it painfully obvious that he's hunting Manoj's precious customers exclusively, his crew had made it equally obvious that their boss should be the first suspect, if the case had anything to do with being shady. Apparently, he had made sure the recruitment process remains clearly not transparent and had nosed his way into the files of many applicants to work out things in his own way, allegedly for his own benefits, at several instances. Naturally, the agents weren't okay with their applications meddled with. Some of their applicants got rejected and someone else took the job arbitrarily.

So, they used every trick in the book to make Manoj gag the truth. Maahir pulled a few martial stunts with his rod, made an unnecessary loud big bang thud on the poor old oak desk, threatened to have the rats and lizards in the building host an eat everything party and even let Quiroshi lick every inch of his uncovered body. That didn't work though, he only moaned like he was having strange orgasms.

But Manoj stood firm over his statement. He did confess to getting bribed habitually and letting in people who were often unqualified or under qualified for the jobs but he swore he never sold anyone the applicant list. The very idea was absurd, he cried. Who would even want the applicant list?

Ezhil only wished they already knew. Questioning so many people proved to be overwhelmingly exhausting, even if Maahir did all the asking and Quiroshi did all the glaring. She never knew listening alone could be so hard. They did get information, tons and tons of them, from how Sharma ji's son scored 482 in boards to why there is always less sugar in the canteen coffee ("Is it our fault that the manager is diabetic?")

She closed her eyes and savoured the coffee slowly. She didn't care it had less sugar, she relished the bitterness and just wanted the caffeine to kick in. They had had a very short nap the previous night, after foreseeing the forensics to the end and doing a bit of mind numbing paper work. She thought it was quite spectacular how she hadn't fallen on the ground already.

Her eyelids felt heavy now and she reckoned so did everyone else's. They had made everyone stay in the office until they figured out something useful, which they soon figured out they won't. Manoj might even piss in his pants next but will not reveal anything admirably dramatic.

"Fine," said Maahir, giving up finally, "Go, tell the others to leave too. Everyone can go home."

He sounded rather defeated now. He sighed, closed his eyes and stretched back, getting his arms behind his head. He would stay in that position for a while, ostensibly reflecting. She decided not to interrupt.

She glanced back, through the glass window. Beneath the first row, Quiroshi was lying beside the feet of the clerk, Linga, peacefully who too was snoozing ruggedly, sitting in an armless wooden chair. As Manoj announced their release, he got up clumsily, rubbed his eyes, caressed Quiroshi gently and went out. Quiroshi too had taken an odd liking to him, just like her.

He was cheerful normally and conversed with everyone amicably but when you saw him alone, doing some office chore, he looked rather lost. It was like he was fighting to make a connection to somewhere, to someone, at that age. She felt oddly sad on seeing him.

Half an hour passed before Maahir spoke again.

"The second one."

"What second one?" she asked, drearily. She had begun to lose interest and focus.