by A. X. Ahmad
Her fists pushing in the sand grow still. She says nothing, just draws her knees up to her chest and lowers her head.
“Leela, tell me what you know about Shabana’s death. I can go to the cops, cut a deal, get documentation for your family. It’s done all the time. What the hell is a green card to them? It’s just a piece of paper.” He doesn’t even know if she is listening. “Think of your son. He’s going to grow up here in fear, seeing his mother being beaten up. Is that what you want?”
Leela jerks her head up. “He doesn’t know what’s happening. I make sure he doesn’t see anything.”
“That’s bullshit. Children are like sponges, they absorb emotions. You think he’s fine, but he’s being scarred. He will go through life carrying your pain, your fear. Is that what you want?”
She doesn’t reply, just sits as immobile as a rock, the twin lenses of her sunglasses reflecting the glittering water. Ranjit is suddenly exhausted, and his arm throbs with pain. Maybe Ali was right, after all. Maybe he should just run, go anywhere he can, Canada, Mexico, just get the hell out of here—
“If you go to the cops. Can you guarantee that they will let my mother and son stay?”
“I’ll do my best, Leela. I’ll talk to them—”
“No. You have to promise me that they won’t be deported.” She pulls off her glasses and glares at him, one eye hazel, the other full of blood. “Who is the most precious person to you, in this world?”
“My daughter, Shanti.”
“Swear on her life that nothing bad will happen. And remember, Ma Ganga is watching.”
This is really infantile. “Okay, I swear on my daughter’s life.”
“No. You have to mean it.”
He places a hand over his heart, and Shanti’s heart-shaped face flashes into his mind. “I swear on Shanti’s life that your son and your mother won’t come to any harm. I swear.”
Even as he says the words, he is conscious of passing across a threshold: he is responsible for Leela now, and for her mother and son, and he feels the weight of it.
She pats the sand next to her, and he sits down clumsily, so close that he can feel the heat from her body.
“I thought I could take it, Ranjit, I thought I could take it for their sake, but Lateef—” She shudders. “—he’s awful, I’m afraid of him, and—”
“It’s okay. Tell me what happened. From the beginning.”
She stares out at the ocean and licks her dry lips with her pink tongue, a quick, catlike gesture.
“When I met Mohan I was working as a nanny at the Dakota,” she says slowly, “looking after that little boy I told you about.”
He knows then that she is going to start her tale from far out, from a place of safety, then circle in to the hard truth.
“Mohan was always nice to me, and the child I looked after. He would let the boy wear his uniform hat, and play in the sentry booth. Kids that age, you know they like that kind of thing…”
Her voice gathers strength as the story takes hold of her.
Chapter Nineteen
Leela says that soon after she came to live with her father in Richmond Hill she found herself alone all day, while he drove his cab. She was supposed to study for a nursing degree, but stuck in that stuffy house, she couldn’t concentrate; she was used to the bustle of Guyana, and the silence here unnerved her. Besides, America was out there, far away in Manhattan. A lot of young girls from the neighborhood worked there as nannies, and she saw them walk to the train each day, wearing their tight designer jeans, their hair done up in weaves and braids.
One older girl told her that she was leaving her job at the Dakota, and that Leela could interview as her replacement. The hours were long, the girl said—the mother worked as an editor, and the banker father traveled—but the child had been potty trained, was well behaved, and even understood Creole. Leela fought with her father to let her take the job. At first he wouldn’t hear of it; only when she threatened to go back to Guyana did he agree.
At first she was thrilled by her job. The Dakota, with its hushed corridors and high-ceilinged apartments, seemed like another world, filled with rich people and celebrities—she bragged to her friends about how she once took the elevator down with Connie Chung. Even the air on the Upper West Side seemed sweeter, perfumed with luxury and money. The little boy she looked after, long-lashed and blond, was adorable, and they soon fell into a good routine of playtime, naps, and trips to the park.
The child was only four, and often asleep when his parents came home at nine or ten at night. But then the mother started working even later, and the father—tall and gym fit, with Scotch on his breath—stared at Leela. One night he pushed her up against the wall and squeezed her breasts so hard that she almost passed out. This, Leela found out from the other nannies, was part of the reason for her generous hourly rate.
Having fought so hard to work here, Leela felt as though she couldn’t leave, but now, the apartment—with its dark wood paneling, chandeliers, and shining parquet floors—felt like a trap. To fend off the man’s advances, she kept the child up later and later, or got into bed with him and locked the door. The little boy, sensing something was wrong, became whiny and insecure, and when she went to the bathroom he stood outside and banged on the door.
It was only when Leela walked out to Central Park that she felt free. And every time she passed the young Indian doorman, Mohan, he instinctively sensed her mood, and cheered her up with a joke or a piece of gossip. He said that she reminded him of his younger sister, and, with his swagger and charm, he reminded her of the boys back home. When he was off duty he would walk over to the park and sit next to her, and she began to confide in him. Mohan didn’t judge her, or seem surprised at the rich banker’s behavior—as the doorman, he was used to sending young, scantily clad girls and pretty boys up to the apartments of famous people. Besides, Leela knew that Mohan lived a compromised life himself—the other nannies gossiped that he was the lover of the famous actress on the fifth floor.
Mohan never talked about Shabana, but Leela saw them together a few times a week, at ten or eleven at night, getting into a cab. He wore nice civilian clothes, and she was always dressed up, in a pink or red sari with gold embroidery, and heavy gold jewelry.
The situation with Leela’s employer went on for six months. Then one night, the father, drunker than usual, pinned her to the wall in the corridor and unzipped his pants. When Leela refused to comply, he called her a cock tease. He told her that if she didn’t obey him, he’d fire her, and without a reference, she would never find work as a nanny again.
Leela gathered up her things, kissed the sleeping child’s sweaty brow, and left, knowing that she would never return to that apartment, even though her employers owed her two weeks’ wages. Mohan was just going off duty, and seeing the tears in her eyes, he grabbed her wrist, took her to a bar, and bought her a succession of apple martinis. Holding back her tears, she told him what had happened, and he listened, his eyes becoming hard with rage.
“A squeeze here and there, okay, you can tolerate that. But this is over the line. You go home, and I’ll get your money for you.”
Two days later he called her, and they met on a park bench by Columbus Circle. Without a word, he pressed a roll of bills into her hand, and she gasped when she counted it: four thousand dollars, more than three times what the man owed her.
Mohan grinned, and said, “Severance pay. Don’t worry about it.”
She didn’t ask him how he had obtained the money, and he didn’t tell her. The money was fine, she said, but now she was out of a job. Even if she returned to studying for her nursing degree, it would take at least two years, and living for two years with her father would drive her insane.
Mohan hesitated, and then told her about a job opening at a nightclub. It was an exclusive place, frequented by rich Indian and Pakistani businessmen, hedge fund guys and Wall Street types. These men wanted to go out, but they didn’t want to deal with the American club sc
ene of bouncers, promoters, and half-drunk bimbos from Jersey. These men wanted samosas and pakoras with their magnums of vodka and champagne, and they wanted to be waited on by pretty black and brown women. Mohan said that this club was looking for ethnic-looking bottle girls, and when Leela seemed puzzled, he explained it to her.
The club made all its money from selling massively overpriced alcohol, he said. But just a nice atmosphere would not make an investment banker buy a three-hundred-dollar magnum of Grey Goose vodka. There had to be a personal touch involved, and that is where the bottle girls came in: they acted as hostesses and sat with the businessmen as they drank, subtly urging them to buy the expensive liquor.
The bottle girls had another job, too. Along with their overpriced alcohol, their male customers wanted women. The club allowed in young, attractive women, but they were not allowed to approach the men, and instead lingered at tables, or tried to attract attention on the dance floor. It was the role of the bottle girls to know which of these women were discreet, and to bring them over to the men.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat the job,” Mohan said. “It is what it is. This is New York. There is nothing clean, nothing dirty. It’s all about what you want.”
Leela stayed silent, and he continued. “Look, what you have to do is look good, show a little cleavage, flirt, make small talk. All you need—” He examined her like an artist inspecting an unfinished painting. “—is an exotic look. Maybe tinted contact lenses, one of those glue-on weaves.” She looked blank, and he became a little impatient. “You buy the hair in a packet, you do it yourself, no need to go to a salon. That money I just gave you?”
She looked down at the bills in her hand, the most money she had held since coming to New York.
“At the club, you can make a thousand dollars in one night. If you’re smart, you’ll save it. Then study for your nursing degree, go back to Guyana, whatever. Much better than getting groped in a hallway for six hundred a week … and that guy, the banker, he wasn’t the only one. A pretty girl like you works as a nanny, you can’t win. The fathers will eye you, the mothers will hate you, and sooner or later, you’ll get fired. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen again and again.”
They sat together on the park bench. Out of the corner of her eye Leela could see Columbus Circle, a stream of red taillights swirling around the tall statue in its center. Beyond were the blue glass monoliths of the Time-Warner Center. She had once walked into the tall lobby lined with exclusive shops, but she couldn’t even pay the price of a coffee and a pastry. Now Mohan was offering her a way to earn more money than she’d ever imagined.
Leela stops her story and stares into the glare of Jamaica Bay. A wave comes in, flecked with debris, and when it recedes, Ranjit sees a waterlogged garland of marigolds lying on the sand: another offering to Ma Ganga.
So far everything she has told Ranjit has the ring of truth to it, but now comes the tricky part. Will she be straight with him, or distort the truth?
“So you went to work at Ghungroo?” he prompts. “Then what happened?”
“It was fine, at first…” Leela digs her bare toes into the sand. “I was making a lot of money, just like Mohan said. It seemed incredible. All I had to do was dress up and go there. I did the blond weave, bought colored contact lenses, called myself Lenore.
“Soon it became routine. I’d go up to the whales when they came in—a whale is a banker or a hedge fund guy, with a black AmEx card—tell them they looked good, lost weight, whatever. Sit with them, let them kiss me on the cheek—but no hands on me, never any hands. And most of these guys had class, they wouldn’t dare make a scene. I’d order champagne—Dom Perignon or Krug, a magnum—and when it came, I’d bend over a little, show them some cleavage, work the cork out slowly, stroke the neck of the bottle, then pour for everyone, making sure I spilled some. Propose a toast, drink a glass myself, whoops, this bottle is gone, let’s have another.
“It was all so obvious. The men were like little boys, they were actually easier than little boys, so eager to spend their money and show off for me.
“My God, I was making so much money, I used to take a car service home at night. I’d get back late—my father thought I was working in Manhattan at a new nanny job—and he’d be asleep on the couch, stinking of sweat, and I knew he had made two hundred bucks, and I’d have six, eight hundred stuffed in my bra … but I drew a line, and I never crossed it. The other girls, they would get to know the customers, and then they’d say, Oh, I’m short on my rent this month, or There is this dress I really want, or I really need to go to Miami and work on my tan. You see, they were becoming whores, but it was so subtle, they fooled themselves into thinking that they liked these men. But not me, I never played that game.”
Ranjit squints out into the water. His arm is aching like hell, and he wishes he could take another Percocet, but he dare not break the mood. What he needs to know is so close now, within reach.
“And Shabana? What was her connection to the club?”
Leela wipes sweat off the soft curve of her cheek. “So I had been at the club for four, five months, when I saw Mohan one night, waiting inside the club, by the dressing rooms. I figured he had a girlfriend here, that’s how he knew so much about the place. I had always wanted to call and thank him for the job, but I was sort of ashamed, you know? Anyway, I went over and gave him a kiss, we started talking, and he seemed very stressed. He was smoking, which he never used to do, and staring at the dressing room door.
“And out came Shabana. I was stunned. She came out of the dressing room.”
“She was working at the Ghungroo?” Ranjit’s pulse quickens.
“Yeah. I was shocked. Shabana was a movie star, she lived at the Dakota, and here she was, working at the club.”
“Well, an ex–movie star. You never saw her at the club before?”
“No. But I was working the floor. She would have been in the sky-booths, it’s a different world up there … oh, you haven’t been inside the atrium, have you?”
“Only in one of the dressing rooms, I think. It had lockers.”
“Oh, those are for the staff, not the girls. We have nicer dressing rooms at the top. Anyway, how the club works is, the new girls get the floor. They’ve gutted the building, there is an atrium four, five stories high, and they have these sky-booths up there, where the high rollers sit. That’s where Shabana would have been working. Those girls are the top earners, they have their own dressing rooms, and they only work when there are VIPs visiting.”
“What kind of VIPs did she work for?”
“One of the girls who worked in the sky-booths told me that when the businessmen came from Mumbai, the club called Shabana in for the evening. Those guys got a huge kick from drinking with a movie star.
“Then, a month later, Patel called me into his office. As usual, he was sitting there staring into his laptop—I swear, he’s surgically attached to that thing—and he didn’t say anything. I thought I was about to be fired, but then he closed the damn computer and said I had been doing a good job, I had proved to be trustworthy, blah, blah, blah.
“He promoted me to the sky-booths, and I began to see Shabana up there with the guys from Mumbai. They were supposed to be successful businessmen, but they wore polyester suits, cheap shoes, and they were rough. They got hammered in an hour—no champagne for them, they were drinking straight Scotch, Johnnie Walker Red Label—and then they would ask Shabana to perform for them…”
“What do you mean, perform?”
“You know, recite lines from her movies. Act out a scene. She’d smile and say, No, no, but this one young guy, he was very slick—later on I found out it was Lateef—he was very, very insistent. He had Patel talk to her, and after that, she did whatever Lateef wanted. He would ask her to dance to some Hindi film music, then throw money at her, shout at her. I don’t understand Hindi, but even I could tell he was humiliating her, calling her names…”
The glare from the bay is beginning to give Ran
jit a headache. “I don’t understand. Why was Shabana working there? Did she need the money?”
Leela’s sunglasses slip down her nose, and she stares at him out of her bloodshot, damaged eye. “Patel owns her apartment at the Dakota. It’s his. You didn’t know that?”
The dozens of statues of Ganesh lining the shelves of Shabana’s apartment. Of course: Jay Patel and his obsession with the gods.
Leela continues. “Patel was very upset about the way Lateef treated Shabana, but he put up with it. He was scared of the guy.” Despite the deserted beach, her voice falls to a whisper, and she moves a little closer. “The girls are always saying, this guy is a mobster, that guy is a mobster, it gives them a thrill. But Lateef, he’s the real thing. He’s very well dressed, but he’s used to treating people a certain way, like, like … servants.” She chooses the word carefully. “There are rumors that his uncle is a huge mobster. He lives in Dubai, but he runs Mumbai from there.”
“Don Hajji Mustafa?”
“How did you know?”
“Just a lucky guess.”
Okay, so Don Hajji Mustafa’s nephew has come to Manhattan, and is bossing Patel around. But what the hell does all this have to do with Shabana’s death? Leela is still tiptoeing around the heart of the story; he has to provoke a reaction from her, a surge of anger that will carry her to the truth.
“The cops are sure Mohan killed Shabana,” he says. “Why? Was he jealous?”
“No, no, he didn’t kill her. You don’t understand. He loved her.”
“Bullshit. I was with Mohan in Shabana’s apartment the night she was killed, I left some time before it happened. Mohan was drunk, and he said he was going to sleep over at her place. Maybe Shabana came home unexpectedly and found him there, they got into a fight and—”
“No, no—”
“They argued, he lost his temper, he picked up the statue, he hit her once. She went down. After that first blow, he found it easier, so he just kept on going…”
