The envelope of cash was a shackle, but it was also a key. Every week, the ghost would appear, and every week, Harsh would hand over a thicker stack of rupees. The transaction was always silent, the man's dead eyes giving nothing away. But with each passing week, the unspoken truth solidified: they were now a line item on Venkat Swami's balance sheet. They were valuable.
The crate of water-damaged Walkmans was just the beginning. The following week, it was a box of handheld calculators with cracked LCDs. The week after, a shipment of "cosmetically damaged" digital watches, their screens pristine but their casings scratched. The quality and volume of goods were beyond anything Prakash Rao's railway auctions could ever offer.
The work was relentless. The alcove was no longer just a repair shop; it became a small-scale factory. Deepak's soldering iron was a blur of motion. Sanjay mastered the art of replacing watch batteries and calculator screens with dizzying speed. Harsh managed the flow, testing circuits, sourcing generic parts in bulk, and, most importantly, finding new outlets for their suddenly vast inventory.
The music shop manager, still pale with fear, initially refused to see Sanjay. But when Sanjay showed him a refurbished Sony Walkman, priced well below market value yet with a higher profit margin than their old radios, the man's fear was overtaken by greed. He took ten on the spot.
This was Harsh's strategy. He wasn't just selling repaired goods; he was selling value. He could undercut every other vendor on Lamington Road because his cost of goods was now artificially low, subsidized by the "protection" fee he paid. He wasn't just competing; he was reshaping the local market.
One afternoon, a familiar, hulking figure loomed at the entrance of the alcove. It was Ganesh, the local goon whose threat felt like a childhood memory compared to the shadow of Venkat Swami. He looked nervous, shifting his weight from foot to foot.
"Harsh Bhai," he said, the honorific feeling strange and forced coming from him.
"Ganesh," Harsh replied, not stopping his work. "Come to break something else?"
"No, no, Bhai," Ganesh said quickly, holding up his hands. "Nothing like that. I... I hear things. I hear you are the man to see for good electronics. Good prices."
Harsh finally looked up, an eyebrow raised. The irony was thick enough to taste. The thug who had smashed his stall was now a potential customer.
"What are you looking for?"
"A watch. Something sharp. And maybe a calculator. For my son. He is in college now." There was a awkward pride in his voice.
Sanjay, catching Harsh's subtle nod, immediately brought over a tray of refurbished watches. Ganesh picked a sleek silver model, his rough hands surprisingly gentle. He paid the asking price without a word of haggling, a sign of respect—or fear of the new power backing Harsh.
As Ganesh left, Deepak let out a low whistle. "Even the goons come to us now."
"That's the point," Harsh said, a hard smile touching his lips. "We're not just a stall anymore. We're a distributor."
He took the concept further. He identified the smallest, struggling electronics vendors in the market—the ones who couldn't afford to buy in bulk from the big wholesalers. To them, he became "Harsh Bhai," the reliable source for quality, affordable stock. He'd sell them five calculators, ten watches, a few Walkmans. His profit on each unit was smaller, but the volume was staggering. The alcove became a hub, a constant flow of goods and money.
The power shift was subtle but profound. Where once rivals had looked at him with envy or mockery, they now looked with a wary calculation. He was no longer just a clever repair boy; he was a node in a network they didn't understand, a node that was suddenly supplying half the market.
One evening, as they were counting the day's substantial earnings, Sanjay shook his head in disbelief. "Harsh Bhai, even after we pay... him... we are making more in a week than we used to make in a month."
Harsh nodded, stacking the rupees into neat piles. The twenty percent cut was a deep wound, but it was a wound that bled money, a paradox of profit through loss. "We are playing a different game now, Sanjay. We're not fighting the current anymore. We're building a bigger boat."
But the bigger the boat, the more attention it drew. The ghost's weekly visits were a constant, chilling reminder of the precariousness of their position. They were thriving, but they were living on a leash, and the hand holding it belonged to a man they had never seen.
The success was a drug, addictive and heady. The fear was a constant, low hum in the background. Harsh had multiplied his profits, but he had also multiplied his risks. He had traded the threat of a quick, violent end for a more complex, gilded cage.
And as he locked up the alcove that night, the weight of the week's earnings in his pocket, a boy ran up to him, not from the dhaba, but from the main road. He was well-dressed, too clean for the market.
"A message, sahib," the boy said, handing Harsh a folded piece of paper before darting away.
Harsh unfolded it. The message was typed, impersonal, and utterly chilling.
Your presence is required at the customs office, Apollo Bunder. Tomorrow, 11 AM. Ask for Officer Desai.
The paper felt like ice in his hand. The leash had just been given a sharp tug. The cliffhanger of their newfound success snapped into focus, replaced by a far more immediate and terrifying question.
The customs office. The one government agency that could unravel his entire operation, that could see through the false invoices and the smuggled components that still formed the foundation of his best goods.
The profit multiplier had just attracted the attention of the law.
(Chapter End)