The Quest | Final post - pg4 (Page 4)

Part V

They were at the hotel lobby, positioned near the two entrances. Vicky was disguised as an escort girl, Gaurang, as an old, cranky businessman.

It was the best they could do, Vicky thought, resisting the urge to rub those irritating fake eyelashes out of his eyes. Gaurang couldn't act to save his life and would make the most unconvincing girl ever. He was best as a grouchy old man. It meant he didn't have to act. Vicky chuckled silently at his own joke.

For once, Vicky was not the only one being humorous. As they were driving to the hotel, Gaurang had tried his hand at making a joke too, commenting on how Vicky would give Katrina Kaif a complex.

Vicky had appreciated the attempt, even though the outcome was far from being funny. After many months, he could feel the thrill of working as a detective. It felt like they were a team; it felt like Gaurang did not hate him.

The thought prompted Vicky to throw a half smile at Gaurang who was irritably shuffling through a newspaper. Gaurang scowled back. Vicky wondered if the scowl was directed at him or if Gaurang was merely getting into the skin of his character.

Suddenly, Gaurang got up and began to walk towards the reception. It was the signal. Vicky looked around carelessly and saw the subject, Shah, a businessman who was funding terrorist operations. They had been watching him for the past month. Their plan was to get to his contacts and hopefully, one thing would snowball into another, and it would be their biggest catch ever.

Vicky pouted, catwalked past Shah, his hands swinging gracefully, and gave him a flirtatious wink and smile.

"How much?" the fat man asked, business-like. He was a regular.

"You decide," Vicky whispered, maintaining eye contact in the blazing manner that he knew made guys breathless.

"Later. I have business. Room 856 at eleven?"

Vicky smiled widely and walked away, feeling like punching the lecherous man for looking at him like that. What all girls have to put up with! He sat on the couch and looked at Gaurang who was still at the reception counter complaining about something only so that he could plant a tiny recorder on Shah.

There was something odd in the scene though. Vicky could feel it. A few seconds later, he found it. That girl, in the onion-coloured saree. She was just standing in the middle of the lobby and had not moved in the past two minutes. And she was looking directly and pointedly in Gaurang's direction. Vicky could not see her face, and neither would Gaurang since he had his back to her.

Vicky looked around in his character's laidback style. There was a washroom to the girl's right. He could go there just to see what she looked like. He had to know. He had an inexplicable intuition that she knew Gaurang and was watching him. That could not be good news. But before Vicky could reach the washroom, she had left the lobby from the opposite entrance.

"Damn," Vicky whispered. The last thing they needed was a spoke in their plan. This was a big one. Any slippage could mean death, or worse. He needed to tell Gaurang, he thought as he reached the washroom.

The two ladies in the washroom looked at him in such derision as he entered that for a second he panicked. Did they know he was a guy? But then he remembered that he was dressed as a hooker and gave them an appropriately conceited sneer before locking himself in a cubicle and fishing out his cell phone.