“Eric the Red? Smart enough. But secretive and paranoid about his assignments and features.”

“What about personally?”

“He had a roving eye. And hands, too, if you know what I mean.”

“Why did he leave so suddenly?”

She shrugged. “Just came in one day and said he was through. Didn’t like it here. He left the next day for Seattle.”

“What about his stories? What kind of stuff interested him? Politics? Terrorism?”

“You should ask Mr. Muller. I didn’t talk to him much after he accidentally brushed against me one too many times.”

Once Janice had decamped, I took up the notebook again. Eric Nielsen had been obsessed with getting an invitation to Willy Smets’s parties. He’d lived in the same building as Willy, in my flat, in fact. I was curious to see what he’d written about my neighbor.

There was a date—Wednesday, March 5—with “cocktails” underlined after it. Three exclamation points, too. About a third of the way down the next page, he’d provided his recap of the evening. “Sushmita. No dice. Bitch.”

I stashed Eric’s notes deep in the drawer and turned back to my story on the Supreme Court decision. I’d run into a newspaper guy, Jithender, who covered legal matters and, though politics weren’t normally his bailiwick, he was well connected and informed. Seemed nice enough, so I called him and asked if he’d meet me. On my way out the door, Kishore the “office boy” handed me an envelope. Office boy sounded even worse than servant, but everyone said that was his title. I hated referring to him that way and made a point of always calling him by his name. Inside the envelope was Ashok Pethe’s business card along with a brief note about the dinner party the following Wednesday. He’d scribbled his home phone number on the back of the card.

Jithender G. met me at Cream Centre, across the road from Chowpatty Beach. He was already deep into an oily chana bhatura when I arrived. I ordered a coffee and sat down opposite him.

“Not eating?” he asked, tearing off a hunk of the fried bread and digging into the chickpeas.

“I had lunch.”

He grunted, his mouth full. “Me too. What’s so urgent?”

“Listen, Jithender, I’m covering this Mrs. Gandhi story, and I was hoping you’d give me your take on it. I’m new here and don’t know much about the legal system.”

“Call me Jeetu.”

“Sure thing. So what do you think about her?”

“Mrs. Gandhi? Well, the court ruled her election invalid two weeks ago. It’s hard to be PM when you’re not even an MP.”

“Then she’s out? You think they’ll remove her from office?”

“If she loses the appeal in twenty days’ time.”

I sipped my milky coffee. “You don’t think she’ll lose?”