The Fifth Horseman

Poker Night

Ram sat on a small little chair, frantically sweating from every pore of his already greasy skin. He tried focusing his attention on the flickering lights above. Memories came back to the all times he had viva voce and other such interviews. He figured this would feel close to that. Telling himself repeatedly that he had done it before was actually helping calm himself. 'Can't be worse than that right?' A closed room, bright flickering fluorescent lights hovering over his head, and he knew they were looking past the wide one-way mirror right into him. He was vulnerable, guilty and lost.

A tall Malay person walked inside with a folder in one hand and a hot beverage in the other. He was dressed in casual clothing. He placed the mug over the table that laid before them separating significant inches just enough to draw the needed tension between parties. His tag read Inspector Malik.

'So, first offense doctor?' he started with a gurgle in the throat pushing a night's worth of clogged up phlegm from his vocal cords.

'I'm going to be honest and say, No! You have the old records there?' Ram tried to remain smug.

'Oh mean, all the DUI charges, speeding, and parking tickets,'

'Yes, those things,' Ram was not going to be intimidated.

'Nobody messes with the doctors. Not unless you're another doctor,' the Inspector joked.

'Sir, this is unusual even for me,'

'Then I'm going to guess it's personal. The residence you were breaking and entering was not just anyone's. They are respectable members of the community. Their security alarm immediately called the police. Do you know the number of calls I had received before I walked in this room?'

Ram understood the officer's motives. Painting the VIP as distinguished untouchable, a person you don't want to mess with, and everything else to that affect was all to make Ram feel small, inadequate and out of his league.

Ram brought himself closer to the table, confident as if he knew how to level the playing field. 'I don't care about any of that. That man deserves to go down. The things he did, only I know and I will find the proof of exactly what sort of man he is.'

'So it was the man you were after and not the wife. Good, that tallies with our hypothesis. What was the plan then? Record a sex-tape. Blackmail? They are a married couple. So what if it gets out?'

'That lady was not his wife.' Ram interjected.

'So it was a blackmail.' Inspector Malik smiled. Ram pulled back, and cursed, 'shit' under his breath. From every one of his response the officer was able to draw something from him and that meant Ram needed thread lightly. He immediately found a new level of respect for the man in front of him. Malik reached into his pocket, 'Was this the woman?'

Ram peered closely at the cellular device the officer pushed toward him. The screen glared from the lights above until it was close enough for Ram to discern what he was seeing. As Malik swept through the image gallery, it was more obvious that the women in the photograph was the wife of Head of Department of Surgery and highly likely also the woman that was in Ram's explicit recording. In fact, the pictures only proofed that she loved changing outfits, hairstyles and posed provocatively for many of her followers whether with or without her husband.

'I would think you would stalk them in social media first. But you decided to go old-school?' The inspector had a laugh to himself, 'you learned espionage from the movies I guess?'

Ram tried to hide his embarrassment. 'So what now?' he was tired of talking.

'Now, it depends on the complaint.'