A clean strike at the right spot

He wheezed sincerity pleading with them his innocence, pleading he had done no offence, pleading he would do anything to make amends, if only he knew how.

The hired killers knew he might be telling the truth, but it did not matter to them either way whether he was telling the truth or not.

He was the fat old man they were told would open the door.

The fat old man who had opened the door stood pleading with them wheezing convulsively. He was wearing a colourful 'lungi' and a silk 'jooba' and his dress had no wrinkles and his white hair was neatly combed back although he had just got up from bed to answer the bell.

A man of neat habits, dignified even in his toilet, now standing undignified before them, pleading and wheezing.

The wheezing now and again seemed as though he was shivering, his teeth chattering.

The car that brought them to the estate cottage waited on the gravel path with its engine running, its bonnet vibrating in convulsive bouts.

Urine streaked down his legs to form a yellow puddle on the floor around his feet, the puddle glittering in the light, heavy at the edges like spilled mercury.

They could not help smiling.

The fat old man looked down at the puddle in embarrassment and giggled. He would have never imagined this happening to him. He giggled and shifted his gaze from one face to the other, begging the men who had come to kill him to share this joke about the sheer absurdity of someone like him behaving like that.

They were feeling bad about letting the fat old man plead to them that way and stand before them that way looking like a miserable joker. And they were feeling bad about smiling that way at the yellow puddle at his feet.

Three of them stood on the steps, while the fourth, a pleasant-looking youth in his twenties, pushed the fat old man gently back from the puddle at the door.

The youth had an iron rode in his hand. He swung back and aimed a swinging blow at the fat old man on the head and the rode bounced off the head and clanged across the room.

The fat old man fell heavily to the side, bumping against the sofa and sliding slowly to the floor. He had stopped wheezing and he looked a more tolerable sight lying peaceful and heavy on the floor.

Finished, the youth said.

The leader of the killers kneeled before the body of the fat old man, felt for his breath and nodded.

He tilted the dead man's head to the side to look at the spot from where the iron rode had bounced off. The skull had a blunt type of wound that was not a big-bleeding wound, but the thing was the dent. The skull had lost its shape.

Nice work, the leader told the youth.

As he drove the car rattling down the estate road, the youth was feeling pleased with himself. Just one clean strike at the right spot, and that was it, the leader had told him the first time he was given a job.

The leader sat in the front seat by his side, smoking a cigarette. The other two in the back seat were speaking about how the boy was coming along and how the light had gone 'phut' for the fat old man at a single tap on the head.

He should not have let the iron rode bounce off like that from his hand though. In fact, he was surprised the fat old man's skull had such bounce. They laughed when he told them about the recoil impact.

The car's headlights were rather bad and he had to concentrate hard for the big potholes on the dust road.

And he was not feeling good about the leader putting all those accusing questions to the fat old man, making him plead and tremble and urinate. He did not like it, but it was not his business to bother about a thing of that sort. Probably part of the brief, putting the old man through it all, making him first beg and plead, the youth thought. Would it please whoever had sent them to the job to learn how the fat old man had simply urinated in panic?

As the car turned from the dust road and entered the well-laid State highway, he wondered what the fat old man should have done to get killed like that and why he was alone in the estate cottage that night.

There were several things he would have liked to know about this job. For instance, he would have liked to know who the fat old man was and what his family was like. But the thing in this business was not to ask unnecessary questions.

The car rattled less on the State highway and he shifted it to the top gear. Other headlights started passing them in the dark. They would reach the town in two hours. A good bath and three-four hours of nice sleep at the leader's place and it would be time for him to catch the bus. If he caught the 10 o'clock bus, he would reach home by evening. He had promised his wife he would be home to take her to the temple festival in the evening.

The leader was sleeping slumped on the seat by his side and snoring. The other two were silent in the back seat. The needle hovered between eighty and ninety as the car sped along the State highway.

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