by Levy, Marc
“To thank you for hosting me.”
“Considering what you’re doing for us, I should run into the kitchen and bake you a three-layer cake.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Sanji asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.
“Ask it and we’ll see.”
“How did you find the courage to flee India?”
“You’re not asking it right. Fear makes people flee. Courage is what pushes you to move forward, to embrace a new life. Courage is hope.”
“But you still had to give up everything.”
“Not what was essential. Besides, I didn’t flee, I left with Deepak. I hope you can see the difference.”
“When did you know he was the one?”
Another smile lit up Lali’s face—this time, a mischievous one.
“What’s her name? Oh, please, don’t play coy with me! Asking that kind of question means something is tugging on you right here,” she said, pressing her index finger to Sanji’s chest. “Does she live in Mumbai? No, of course not,” she interrupted herself. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be asking your old aunt.”
Sanji remained silent.
“Well?” Lali continued. “What do you want me to say? When you know, you know. You can overthink everything, especially the reasons it’s a bad idea, and put blinders on so you can’t see what’s right in front of you, but in reality, our only choice is to seize our chance or let it slip away. If I hadn’t followed Deepak, I would have spent my whole life regretting it.”
“You weren’t ever afraid that you were too different?”
“I’m going to give you some good advice: if you ever find yourself in a place where everyone around you is just like you, get out of there as fast as you can. And by the way, considering what time it is, if you don’t want Deepak to get cross, you should probably get going now.”
Sanji looked at the kitchen clock and rushed into the bathroom.
He was only half an hour late to 12 5th Avenue.
Seeing the look on his uncle’s face, Sanji decided to take the bull by the horns.
“We said eight o’clock!”
“That was the other day. Well, at least you look respectable today. Did you hear the news?”
“What news?”
“So you don’t know?”
Deepak told him about the robbery.
“Incredible!” Sanji said with a low whistle.
“Unacceptable!” his uncle retorted. “Whatever trick you used to take a shower the other night, I hope you didn’t forget to lock the door on your way out. I don’t want to know any more about it. Be vigilant tonight. This burglar might have the crazy idea of coming back here.”
Deepak handed Sanji the detective’s card and gave him another piece of advice: the less you talk, the less risk there is of regretting what you said.
“He wants to see you tomorrow. Remember what I said. Meanwhile, go put your uniform on—I want to get home!”
Sanji turned the card over in his hands and put it in his pocket before going down to the basement.
21
Sanji had an hour to kill before his meeting with Sam. He stuck his hand into his jacket pocket and read the address on the card that Deepak had given him. The police station was on 10th Street between Hudson and Bleecker. Ten minutes to get there, fifteen minutes at the station, and twenty minutes to go meet Sam. Maybe he’d even be early for once.
He went up to the desk of the Sixth Precinct and asked to speak to Detective Pilguez.
“What do you want with Detective Pilguez?” inquired a man busy pounding the coffee machine with his fist.
“I don’t want anything, but he wanted to see me.”
The detective turned around and looked at him.
“Oh, yes, the case of the widow’s necklace. The crowning glory of my career. Okay, follow me. I would offer you a coffee, but this piece-of-junk machine must be clogged.”
Sanji wasn’t sure he understood what was going on, especially what had put the detective in such a mood, but he followed him into an adjoining room and sat down on the chair that the policeman indicated.
“So, you’re the replacement elevator operator at 12 5th Avenue.”
Following Deepak’s advice to the letter, Sanji simply nodded his head.
“The surveillance cameras had some interesting footage. You leave your desk at twelve twenty a.m., and you don’t come back until six ten a.m. The next day is pretty much the same thing—you disappear between midnight and six a.m. Where were you?”
“I was sleeping.”
“Okay, but where?”
“In the basement storeroom.”
“Now that’s strange, because you never appear in the basement hallway, which is also under surveillance. The next night, you stay at your desk, but then your movements become really intriguing. You leave the building just about every hour and come back a few minutes later. Since I’m curious by nature, I took the trouble of paying a visit to the restaurant across the street. I noticed they have a surveillance camera out front. And that’s where it gets even stranger: you cross the avenue and hang out on the sidewalk looking at the windows. Were you counting the pigeons on the balconies?”
“Do you have any proof that this theft took place during the night?”
“Mrs. Collins told us she went out for two hours in the afternoon, but burglars are rarely active in the middle of the day. And your uncle assured us that he locked the door whenever he went upstairs, which is clearly not the case with you.”
“That’s not true—I do it as soon as the last resident comes home.”
“Not according to the cameras, so you’re not helping your case much.”
“My case? Does this mean I’m a suspect?”
“Not a single crime in this building in forty years. I’m not making this up—your dear uncle told me. And then, bam! A few days after you’re hired, there’s a break-in, and a necklace disappears. Well, not necessarily a break-in—this burglar is a real Houdini, because the locks weren’t forced. Maybe he just walked through walls. Unless he has a set of keys—like you. One of the owners thinks he saw a man hanging out in his living room in his underwear in the middle of the night. I admit that, given this guy’s condition, a judge would require a blood test before accepting his testimony, and I doubt there’s much blood in his alcohol. But you lied when you said you slept in the basement, and I still don’t know where you were. So if all that isn’t a reason to hold you, I don’t know what is.”
“You’re going to hold me?” Sanji asked worriedly. “But you don’t have any proof.”
“Not yet, but I have serious grounds. So as long as a lawyer doesn’t come and spring you, you’re going to enjoy a complimentary stay in our hotel.”
“I look the part, is that it?” Sanji challenged.
“Buddy, if there was a type who looked the part, that would sure make my job easy. But there is one thing that’s bothering me. To commit a crime so clumsily, you’d have to be a real idiot, and you seem pretty bright.”
Pilguez ordered Sanji to follow him. He had to fill out a form and get his picture taken.
“I thought it was always the motive that betrayed the guilty party,” Sanji said.
“A necklace of this value is a pretty nice motive, isn’t it?”
“What would I want with a necklace?”
“Fencing it would offer you half its value. If I had that much money, believe me, I’d know what to do with it. A quarter of a million dollars—how many years’ salary is that for an elevator operator?”
“For an elevator operator, I have no idea, but for me, not a whole lot.”
The detective stared at Sanji and handed him over to two uniformed officers. They took his fingerprints and then photographed him from the front and side.
Sanji asked to make a phone call, but the officers ignored him and locked the cell door.
The morning rush had ended, and Deepak had finally caught his breath when his phone started to vibrate. He sigh
ed and went up to the ninth floor.
“You aren’t coming down?” he asked when he saw that Chloe was facing him.
“Could you put this envelope out on the desk when you leave this evening?” she replied before thanking him and closing her door.
Deepak asked no questions. He spent the next hour gazing at his nephew’s name written on the letter that Chloe had given him.
At six p.m., a taxi stopped at the corner of Bleecker and 10th. Sam got out, along with a legal assistant from his firm.
“Let’s go over it one more time,” he said as they approached the police station.
“What you’re asking me to do is totally illegal.”
“Only if you’re a bad actor.”
“I’m not a lawyer, for crying out loud!”
“You handle legal matters, right?”
“That has nothing to do with it!”
“Look, we need to get my buddy out of here pronto. So you say you’re his lawyer, you ask what the charges are, and you explain that they have no evidence against him and no grounds for holding him. If need be, you threaten to go and complain to a judge, and bingo! You bring him out to me.”
“And if there is evidence against him?”
“Evidence of what? If Sanji found a hundred-dollar bill on the ground, he’d take it to the lost and found. It’s just racial profiling—they picked the first guy who wasn’t white, that’s all.”
The legal assistant wasn’t listening to a word of what Sam said, as he was busy practicing his lines under his breath.
“You’re really going to owe me one, I swear!”
“Refresh my memory: Who was it that arranged for you to meet the girl who works on the sixth floor? Marisa, Matilda, Malika . . .”
“Melanie, and all you did—”
“I got stuck planning a work dinner for eight people and finagled it so that you could sit next to her. And if I hadn’t spent the evening praising your legal expertise, you would have had zero chance with her, so prove yourself; otherwise, I’ll have every reason to tell her I got a bit carried away about your talents. I’m waiting, and every half hour, your reputation takes a dive!”
Thirty-seven minutes later, the legal assistant came out of the station, sweating profusely but with Sanji at his side.
“So?” Sam asked. “No, don’t say anything—I know, the police department screwed up. It’s disgraceful! Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“Because they didn’t let me make a phone call all morning. The detective wanted to wear me down. He probably thought he’d get a confession.”
“A confession to what? This is crazy! I can assure you, I’m not going to let this go. An entire day of meetings, canceled—can you imagine the damages?”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t do anything,” murmured the legal assistant.
“That’s enough out of you,” snapped Sam. “The lawyer act was for the police station—when I need your advice, I’ll let you know.”
“Very well, but you should know your friend is suspected of committing a crime in the apartment building where he works.”
Sam looked at him, stupefied.
“What building, what work?”
“He’s an elevator operator!” said the legal assistant.
Practically apoplectic, Sam turned toward his friend this time.
“We need to talk,” Sanji mumbled.
Sanji hadn’t had anything to eat since the day before. After devouring a pizza in a nearby restaurant, he told Sam everything.
“Spending your nights in an elevator . . . you couldn’t have found an easier way to chase after a woman who gets around in a wheelchair?”
“It wasn’t premeditated—it was just a random chain of events.”
“What kind of events?”
“You know full well I didn’t take this necklace. Of course, I did have the opportunity—I slept on Mrs. Collins’s couch the night she was away.”
“You what?”
“In any case, it wasn’t that night or the previous one that the burglar struck—I would have heard him.”
“Oh, because you went into other apartments?”
“Just Mr. Morrison’s, but he had no idea. He was absolutely sloshed, and I know, because I put him to bed.”
“Any minute now, my alarm clock is going to ring, and when I tell you about the nightmare I had, you’re going to bust a gut laughing.”
“Tomorrow this will all be over, and you’re right, we’ll both have a good laugh over it.”
“Well, before we start laughing, let me make a couple things clear to you. A burglary happens in a building where you . . . I can’t even say it. You leave your fingerprints in the apartment where it happened, and you have no alibi. Tell me you have a set of keys, too, and I’ll drive you across the Canadian border this very night. Do you know how the justice system works in this country? And wipe that idiotic smile off your face—this really isn’t funny.”
“But, Sam, I’m innocent.”
“Innocent . . . and a foreigner. What’s this necklace worth, anyway?”
“About the amount you want me to invest.”
“That has to remain strictly between the two of us. I’m going to get you a lawyer, a real lawyer, and he’ll easily show that, with what you’re worth, you had no reason to steal anything.”
“So the Indian elevator operator is guilty, but if they find out he’s a wealthy man, then he’s as white as snow? If I had to get out of it like that, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror for the rest of my life.”
“Sanji, you’re a real pain in the ass with your principles. I’m also at risk here—if my boss finds out what you’re accused of, I’ll be fired on the spot. So let’s do things my way, and we’ll deal with your remorse later.”
“I’m going to bed. I’ll figure it out tomorrow. Thanks for everything.”
Since he had arrived in New York, Sanji had spent his nights on a backbreaking sofa bed, the marble floor of a lobby, the couches of an alcoholic and an absent widow, and now he’d spent the afternoon on a bench in a ten-by-ten-foot cell. Enough was enough, and he went to check in at the Plaza.
Deepak was worried. At nine p.m., Sanji still wasn’t there. He called Lali, who hadn’t had any news of her nephew all day. Deepak wondered how to remedy the situation. After much reflection, he went into his storeroom and came back and hung a little sign that he had never used before on the knob of the elevator door.
Then he went home.
22
A bath, room service, a movie on the giant TV screen in his suite, and a good night’s sleep in a king-size bed with three pillows. All in all, the kind of night in a palace that should have taken his mind off things. That, in addition to the conversation he’d had with Mr. Woolward, the lawyer that Sam had hired, should have calmed him down. For a nonviolent jewelry theft, Woolward doubted the police would take fingerprints. And without any evidence or motive, he didn’t think they would prosecute. You couldn’t predict the course of a case like this, but he had assured Sanji there was no reason to be overly concerned.
Yet Sanji felt guilty. For having missed his shift, for not having had the basic courtesy to inform Deepak, for benefiting from the protection of a lawyer whom he never would have been able to afford as a real elevator operator. He would go apologize to his uncle that very morning. First, he made himself a cup of tea, took a quick shower, and got dressed. But as he was paying his bill, he suddenly wondered if he would still be welcome under Deepak’s roof. On the way to 12 5th Avenue, Sanji was even more troubled. What had started out as a game was turning, day by day, into deception. He came up with another morning promise: he was done lying. He had to speak to Chloe.
Deepak raised his glasses as his nephew entered the lobby.
“Did you let your aunt know?” he asked in a dismissive tone.
“Let her know what?”
“That you’re alive. She didn’t sleep a wink all night because she was busy calling every hospital in the city.”
“I’m sorry, I’m out of the habit of letting my parents know when I’m not coming home at night.”
“And you’re insolent to boot! Why didn’t you call? It was humiliating! I had to lie because of you.”
“I couldn’t call because I spent the night at the police station.”
Deepak looked Sanji up and down.
“There are five-star jails now?”
“I changed at Sam’s.”
“I don’t know who this Sam is,” said Deepak with a sigh. “What did you say to that police officer to make him put you in jail?”
“I didn’t say anything, but someone who advised me to weigh my words carefully told him that there had never been a burglary in this building until I started working here.”
“I didn’t say it like that.”
“Well, that’s how the detective took it.”
Deepak frowned.
“This is a strange business. The thief didn’t come in through the roof, so how did he get in and out without you or me seeing him?”
“I have no idea,” Sanji replied. “Okay, I explained about yesterday—”
“That’s your way of saying you’re sorry?” Deepak grumbled, putting his hand into his pocket. “I’m being called. Wait here, it won’t take long.”
Deepak came back a few moments later with Chloe. He held the front door open and was surprised to see her stop in the lobby and remain planted in front of his nephew, and just as surprised to see Sanji gaze at her without saying anything.
“Nice suit,” she said, then wheeled around and left through the open door.
She joined Deepak on the sidewalk and turned down his offer to hail her a cab. She wanted to get some air and would go to the studio by subway.
Deepak turned around and was almost knocked over by Sanji.
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Which way did she go?”
“Remember my three rules?”
“Left or right?” Sanji insisted, grabbing his uncle by the shoulders.
“Well, she didn’t go right,” he replied, brushing himself off.