The encounter with Ganesh's goons left a chill that the Mumbai heat couldn't dispel. Harsh had parried the first thrust, but the threat remained, a shadow at the edge of his vision. He needed more than a clever lie about a constable. He needed leverage. He needed a victory so decisive, a profit so large, it would grant him a new kind of immunity—the kind that came from being too valuable, or too connected, to touch.
The answer came from the docks, carried on the salt-tinged air and the whispers of men who moved goods in the dead of night. Prakash Rao, his new, wary ally, mentioned it offhandedly one evening as they haggled over a batch of salvaged transformers.
"The electronics are good," Rao said, counting out rupees. "But the real money… the real money is in what doesn't come through the auctions. The stuff that slips off the ships before the customs sharks get their teeth into it."
Harsh's ears pricked up. "What kind of stuff?"
Rao gave a dry, hacking laugh. "What do the rich people want? The things they see in the films. VCRs. Japanese calculators. Stereo systems. Still too expensive in the shops, but falling off a truck? Suddenly very affordable."
The risk was astronomical. Getting caught with smuggled goods meant more than a fine; it meant jail time, or worse, becoming indebted to the dockyard mafia. But the potential profit was a siren's call. A single VCR, bought cheap from the source, could sell for triple, even quadruple, in the hungry, status-obsessed markets of South Mumbai.
He spent the next two days haunting the periphery of the dockyards, a ghost in the industrial fog. He didn't ask questions. He watched. He learned the rhythms, the signals, the faces of the men who really controlled the flow of goods. He identified the key player not by his swagger, but by his stillness. A man named Shetty, who held court on an overturned crate near a warehouse, sipping tea while chaos swirled around him. He was a man who dealt in shadows.
Getting an audience was the first hurdle. Harsh sent Deepak, whose calm demeanor was less threatening than his own intense presence, with a message. "The boy from the railway auctions. He has a proposal. About moving specialty goods."
Shetty agreed to meet, his curiosity piqued. The meeting place was a cramped tea shack overlooking the oily water of the dock, far from prying eyes.
Shetty looked Harsh up and down, his expression unreadable. "You are the one with the constable cousin?" he asked, his voice soft. The word traveled fast.
"That's one of my assets," Harsh replied, not confirming or denying. "I have another. A distribution network. I can move volume. Quickly. Quietly. For the right product."
Shetty sipped his chai. "I have buyers. Established buyers."
"Who pay you a fraction of the street value," Harsh countered. "I'm not a buyer. I'm a partner. You have the supply. I have the retail arm. We cut out two layers of middlemen. Your risk stays the same. Your profit doubles."
It was a bold claim. Shetty's eyes narrowed. "Double is a big word for a small boy."
"I have five VCRs. Sony. In the box," Harsh said, laying his cards on the table. "A test. You give them to me at your cost. I sell them. I bring you your full asking price, plus half of my profit. You see I'm good for it. If I fail, you're out five VCRs. If I succeed, you have a new, more profitable pipeline."
It was an offer designed to be refused. Shetty was meant to laugh him out of the shack. Instead, he studied Harsh with a strange intensity. The boy wasn't begging; he was negotiating from a position of calculated strength. The audacity was either stupidity or genius.
"Three VCRs," Shetty said finally. "Not Sony. JVC. And you bring me my full price, plus sixty percent of your profit. Not fifty. And you do it in forty-eight hours. No longer."
The terms were brutal. The profit margin was slashed to a razor's edge. The timeframe was insane. But it was a foot in the door.
"Done," Harsh said, without a second's hesitation.
The three VCRs were delivered an hour later, wrapped in nondescript gunny sacks. They felt impossibly heavy, not just with weight, but with consequence.
Selling them was a masterclass in targeted pressure. Harsh didn't go to the markets. He went to the source of desire. He had Sanjay, fast-talking and presentable, approach the secretaries of high-end law firms and the managers of five-star hotels. The pitch was perfect: "A gift from a foreign client, slightly surplus to requirement. Brand new, in box. A fraction of the showroom price. Discretion assured."
The allure of a forbidden luxury, combined with a massive discount, was irresistible. Within thirty-six hours, all three VCRs were gone, sold for a sum that made Harsh's head spin.
He returned to Shetty's warehouse, the money neatly stacked in an envelope. He handed over Shetty's full asking price, then counted out sixty percent of the substantial profit on top of it.
Shetty took the money, his fingers slowly counting the notes. He didn't smile. But he gave a single, slow nod. The boy had delivered. Faster than any of his other distributors.
"Next week," Shetty said, his voice still soft, but now holding a new note of respect. "I have a shipment of watches. Calculators. You will be ready."
"We'll be ready," Harsh confirmed.
Walking away from the docks, the envelope in his pocket feeling lighter than it should have, Harsh felt no triumph. Only a cold clarity. He had stepped into the dangerous currents of the gray market. He had a powerful, dangerous new ally. And he had made himself irrevocably complicit.
The money was pouring in now, a tidal wave compared to the trickle from repaired radios. But the walls of his world were closing in, woven from threads of lies, smuggling, and the ever-present threat of violence. He was building an empire, but its foundation was shifting sand. One misstep, and it would all come crashing down. The danger was no longer a possibility; it was the air he breathed.