The phone rang. He looked up from the table he was adjusting. Where were those fellows? Always somewhere else when needed. The phone rang six times before he got to it.
‘Royal Bengal…’
‘This is how long you take to pick up phone?’ Nagi Babu said.
‘Sir…’
‘No sir-shir and all. Listen. Take Camry parked outside, keys are in drawer under reception counter, and go to my Artesia house. Satish knows address. Go there, pick up the girls and take them to your house. Immediately. Urgent, understand. Police are coming there. Hurry up!’
‘But, sir…’
‘Are you stupid? You don’t know English? Yedava. Go now, understand? Go alone, don’t take anyone with you. No drama-shama. If you screw this up, I screw you, understand? Kukka na kodaka!’ Nagi Babu disconnected the line.
Shantanu scrabbled for the keys of the Camry in the drawer beneath the reception counter. They were not there. He rushed into the inner room. No sign of Satish. Murthi was there, putting on his uniform.
‘Murthi! Where is Satish?’
‘Satish gone to Mister, saar. Last minute, buying something.’
‘Where are the keys to the Camry? Where is Nagi saab’s apartment?’
‘Don’t know, saar. Satish know, saar.’
‘You fool, I need to go there immediately. Nagi saab said urgent. Police are coming!’
‘Police, saar?’ the boy said, alert.
‘Go bring Satish! Hurry up, I don’t have time!’ Murthi rushed out of the front door. Shantanu scrambled out of his uniform. If the cops saw him, it would lead them straight to RBT. Nagi Babu would skin him alive. He jumped into his jeans, pulled the T-shirt and trainers back on. He had to stay calm. Focused. He hadn’t driven a car in all the years he had been here. He had to remember to stay on the right. Where was that goddamn Satish? He ran out of the room to find Satish being shoved through the restaurant door by Murthi.
‘Satish, where is Nagi saab’s apartment? Bolo, jaldi!’
‘House, sir, or apartment, sir?
‘Apartment, goddammit! Are you an idiot?’
‘Sir, 27 Rockaway Street, sir, third floor, Apartment 2.’
‘Where are the Camry keys?’
‘Chenni Babu took the car, sir. He gone out, sir.’
Jesus. ‘Is any other car there outside?’
‘Mustang, sir. Red colour. Keys are there, sir. I just cleaned it in the afternoon, sir.’ Satish found the keys. Shantanu grabbed them. Looked at his watch. Seven minutes since Babu had called. How the hell was he going to get there before the cops? He felt like rushing to the john. There was no time. He ran out, closely followed by Satish and Murthi.
If he hadn’t been in a panic, he would have noticed how the Mustang sparkled in the afternoon sunshine, sweet as a jam tart. Could there be a worse car in which to avoid attention? Babu bastard had really put him in a spot. He rushed automatically to the right-hand door, then remembered and ran all the way around the car. Got in. Wished Satish could come with him but Babu’s instructions had been clear. No one else. ‘Satish, just help me start this up, will you. Hurry up!’
Satish leapt into the passenger seat, turned the ignition, cranked up the engine. The Mustang responded with a full-throated roar that seemed to fill the entire street.
‘What are you doing?’ Shantanu said. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Just his luck it had to be such an ostentatious-looking and sounding car. A red 2005 Mustang, for chrissake. The cops probably knew every last one in town.
‘Shall I come, sir?’
He could see the boy was dying to be part of the action. Didn’t he get it, how dangerous it was? He wished he could just let Satish do the job instead. He felt every one of his forty-one years.
‘No, Nagi saab will kill us. Okay, manual transmission, thank goodness, accelerator, brake, clutch, right? These bloody gauges, I can hardly see them. Which crazy bastard puts grey on black? Now, jaldi, get out. Don’t say anything to anyone. You answer the phone and take the orders and all, okay?’ He adjusted the mirror.
Satish jumped out, then opened the passenger-side door. ‘Sir, sir! You need the directions.’ Gave him a set of instructions he just about registered.
Shantanu manoeuvred the Mustang out nose first. He jerked it across the road, barely managing to contain the powerful impatience of the car. It was like some kind of animal. He started sliding across the road, trying to get into the right lane, just missing two passing cars.
Motorists slammed their brakes, livid, honking nonstop, rolled down windows to curse at him. Someone flipped him the bird. He somehow got on to Pioneer Boulevard, remembering to stay on the right. He drove as fast as he dared to the first lights. They turned yellow. He slammed the brakes, and skittered to a halt.
A cop car came up next to him. The cop looked at him and at the car and back at him again. Shantanu put his hand up as casually as he could, as if to smooth his hair, looked at himself in the mirror. He knew he did not look like a guy who owned a Mustang. He could feel the cop’s stare. He held his breath, tried to look normal. Turned the CD player on. Some dreadful Telugu-sounding music blasted out of the player. He hastily turned down the volume. The cop looked at him and turned the other way.
The lights changed. Shantanu eased the Mustang forward. What had Satish said? Go straight down Pioneer Boulevard, take a left on the street after the abandoned dairyhouse building. He remembered to stop at the stop sign, then turned left. The car clock said eighteen minutes had passed since Nagi Babu’s call. The sound of a siren. Could they have got there ahead of him? He increased his speed as much as he dared.
He went all the way down, till he hit the street with the old unused water tower. He turned right at the next lights without incident. A small street on the left, the boy had said. ‘The second apartment block, white one.’ He could see it, an old dirty-white building with the paint peeling. There was an empty lot next to it, separated from the apartment block by a high wire fence. Outside, on the street, someone had dumped an old brown sofa with its stuffing spewing out from what appeared to be a vertical knife-cut. Clearly the venue for Babu’s less-than-posh activities.
There was a parking lot on the other side, part of a bunch of stores. He drove straight into it, realized the Mustang was too visible there, drove right out and down the street a few buildings down, parked the car, leapt out. Pressed all parts of the car key, hoping it would lock. It did. Ran back up the street. The front door of the building was not fully shut. He pushed it open, rushed into the grimy, dank-smelling foyer. Thank god, there was an elevator. He got in. Pushed the buttons for the top floor. Nothing.
Of course it wasn’t working.
He could hear the police sirens approaching.
He took the stairs two at a time. He heard the cop car turning into the street with the high pitch of rubber. He gasped for breath. Rang the bell of Apt. No. 2. He noticed that someone was peeping out of a crack in the door opposite. No response from Apt. No. 2. He banged on the door. Nothing. He banged again.
It opened hesitantly. Pink Girl was standing there, her face streaked with kajal. Behind her, the other girl lay on the floor on her back, limbs following no placement Nature had intended, eyes fixed, it seemed, on nothing in this life. A thread of saliva was coming out of her mouth. He rushed to take her pulse at the neck. Nothing.
‘You have to come with me,’ he said. Pink Girl stared at him. Fire escape. Was there a fire escape? He grabbed Pink Girl by the hand, rushed her out of the apartment. Released the lever on the self-locking door.
The door of the other apartment was now shut. He heard the cop car screaming to a halt outside the apartment block. He would have a few seconds before the cops came in and discovered the elevator jammed. He hurried Pink Girl down the fire escape he found at the end of the hallway. It went down the back of the building into a yard overrun with undergrowth and the detritus of god knows how many lives: old milk crates, mattresses, broken chairs, beer bottles, even a pedestal fan whose cord someone had tidily wound around its neck. He heard the cops rushing up the stairs. He waited for a few seconds. There was silence. The doorbell was rung, someone hammered on the door. Silence. Then the unmistakable sound of splintering wood. He rushed shivering, sweating Pink Girl along the side of the building to the front, onto the street, past the abandoned lot and buildings to where he had parked the Mustang. He squawked the car doors open, threw her into the passenger seat as though she were a stuffed toy, ran around, got in and took off with a roar. In his rearview mirror, he saw the cops yelling from the window of Babu’s apartment.
He knew he had only a few minutes before they radioed for backup. He drove the Mustang, which obstinately chose this, of all goddamn moments, to throw its heels up, bucking and jumping, down the road.
He tried not to grow static with tension. Think, think, Shantanu. There had been an all-day parking garage on the way up. Where was it?
He found it three streets away, at a junction. He drove straight in, parked in the basement, grabbed a long coat he had seen in the back of the Mustang, pulled the girl out, and covered her up with it. It was a hot day. But a coat was less noticeable than the sari the girl was wearing, at least till they got some distance away. A Crown Vic went past at high speed, light bar flashing, siren on. He waited, then rushed Pink Girl out onto the street and towards the main road on the other side. There was a 7/11 with a payphone. He deposited Pink Girl on a bench outside the store. Dialled a number.
‘Sam, you’ve got to come get me,’ he said, barely able to get the words out.
‘What you gone and done now, man?’
‘Look, there’s no time. Just come get me.’ He saw an MTA bus approaching. ‘We’re going to take the bus towards Redondo Beach, meet us at Galleria Mall, by that Mexican restaurant. Hurry up, man.’
He heard Sammie ask ‘We?’ as he slammed the phone down. He grabbed Pink Girl by the hand and shoved her up the steps of the bus.
The bus was full except for seats at the very end. Shantanu tossed some change into the machine, escorted Pink Girl to the back of the bus. He fell into the seat next to her. She had her head down, hands in her lap. He patted her hand. She jumped. People stared at them as people did in buses; some dull, some inquisitive. The bus driver looked at them in her mirror and looked back at the road.
Some welcome minutes to steady his breath. He stared out of the window, not seeing anything. The cops could not have seen him very clearly, just an Indian man driving away with a woman in a red Mustang. They would already have connected the Mustang to Nagi Babu. He felt inside his back pocket for the keys. They were there.
DANISHA
NOTES FOR ESSAY ON JAMAICA KINCAID, ‘GIRL’ AND JUDY BRADY, ‘I WANT A WIFE’
Prof. Kumar says it helps to read things from our position, as who we are. Otherwise we can’t know how they affect us. So – young black woman, working class, raised in the projects by my mama who has to manage on nurse’s salary, no dad?
My classmates. Some white (?) but from other countries: Colombia, Greece, Czech Republic, Azerbaijan. A couple Japanese, one Korean. Another half-Chinese and half-Italian! One Indian. English not their first language. Only mine. They don’t find it odd that I’m in an ESL class for international students!
NOTES
Both story and essay have a rushed tone. Words tumbling out. As though the speaker is speaking for the first time/has never been allowed to speak/doesn’t want any interruptions. Both about women’s lives, roles. What people expect of them. How little they can expect in return. Class difference between speakers. Story – working class, essay – middle class, educated.
‘Girl’: mother talking to her daughter. Telling her all that is expected of her by the world. How to manage different things. Domestic things. Emotional things.
Social things. Tells her how she is not free. That if she does anything different, tries to be free, someone would call her a slut. Sounds like Mama when I hang with Dee Bee. Says he’s a pusher, a loser. Well, he thinks I’m fine. She had me at my age, for crying out loud. Have to live my own life.
I suppose the mother wants to protect the girl in the only way she knows. By giving her instructions all the time about everything. The girl only says two things back. I say a lot of things back! Instructions – really the mother’s love.
I guess Kincaid is black. Speaker’s voice sounds black. Details are black: okra, pumpkin fritters. But not American. Caribbean?
Brady definitely not black. Her anger is different from the mother’s in ‘Girl’. It’s based on the possibility of breaking free. The things she wants she can actually have. Or, rather, she can actually be free. Who wouldn’t want a wife? Mama didn’t even have a husband. Women do have it bad, I guess. Some worse than others.