The Last Taxi Ride

by A. X. Ahmad

  “Hello, Ranjit. They called to say the shipment is on its way. Can’t talk now, I’m rushing a custom order to some West Coast movie star, but come and talk to me later, okay? I want to hear about your taxi adventures. Oh, and Patel Sahib is coming tonight.”

  “Patel’s coming? Why? Something wrong?”

  “Oh, you know how he is. Likes to keep an eye on things.” Kikiben’s voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “The shipment tonight is valued at two and a half million—I saw it on the invoices. Can you believe it? Well, I better get back to work…”

  Kikiben runs up the creaking stairs to the second floor, and Ranjit heads through a door into the loading bay, his footsteps echoing on the concrete floor. One side is piled high with boxes of low-quality “comb-waste” hair for reprocessing. The rest of the space will house tonight’s shipment: thirty cartons of prime Indian hair that has been acid-stripped and repigmented in Tunisia and then processed in Italy.

  If its wholesale value is two and a half million, its street value could be three times that. No wonder Jay Patel is showing up tonight. He’s one of the richest Indian businessmen in the city, and he keeps a close eye on the apartment buildings, yoga studios, and restaurants that he owns. Patel has a murky past—there are rumors that he started out in the Mumbai underworld—but Ranjit tries not to think about that. He needs this job too badly, and as long as he isn’t asked to do anything illegal …

  At the far end of the dock, he squats and tests the heavy rolling shutters. They are securely locked, and he feels better.

  Just then there is the screech of brakes outside, and Ranjit knows that Jay Patel has arrived, driving his latest sharklike silver BMW.

  Soon Patel Sahib comes through the door clutching a silver laptop, his shaved head gleaming in the dim light. Despite his years in America, Patel still moves with the characteristic slouch of the bazaar trader, stomach stuck out, dragging each foot so that his leather sandals slap against the floor. He is dressed, as always, in a simple white shirt and pants, his wrists bare except for some frayed red strings, amulets from a holy man’s shrine in Rajasthan. He practices yoga for three hours each morning, and despite his ungainly walk, there is a sinewy, hard quality to his body.

  “Ah, Sardarji. Sab theek hai?” Everything all right?

  “Yes, sir. Kiki said the shipment is on its way.”

  “Good, good.” Patel’s dark, hawklike eyes rove across the loading dock. “Listen, store the boxes here, as usual. There are also five … special boxes. The driver knows. Bring those up to my office, okay?”

  “No problem, sir.”

  “Good, good.” Patel tries to look calm as he wipes beads of sweat from his bald pate, then climbs the stairs to his small third-floor office.

  Ranjit has seen the same look of stifled anxiety on the faces of his commanding officers before a battle. Well, if the shipment is indeed worth two and a half million, Patel indeed has a reason to be stressed.

  Ranjit unlocks the rolling door and pushes it upward, peering out into the narrow alley that runs to Twenty-ninth Street. A far-off streetlight casts a slice of light that dies halfway down the alley, and he swings down into the darkness, gripping his nightstick tightly. He walks the length of the alley, inhaling the stench he has come to associate with New York: asphalt, impregnated with urine and old garbage.

  There is no one there, not even the homeless people he has to occasionally rouse. Walking out onto Twenty-ninth Street, he feels a blast of hot air and hears the clack-clack of loose manhole covers as a car careens down the street, then vanishes into the distance. He looks for anyone loitering in a doorway or sitting in the rows of parked cars, but the street is empty.

  Standing at the mouth of the alley, he relaxes a little and allows his mind to drift: he sees Shabana Shah in the back of his cab, smiling as she holds up the sparkling black dress for approval. What would it feel like to bury his face in her neck and inhale the scent of her thick hair?

  Just then an engine growls and a van appears, white in the gloom of the street. Ranjit steps out into the street and waves his arms, indicating the alley, and the van headlights blink back an acknowledgment.

  It slows to a crawl, and then backs into the narrow alley. As the driver unloads, Ranjit stands guard at the mouth of the alley, the nightstick in his hand. Used effectively, it can shatter a limb with one blow, but a handgun would make him feel a lot better.

  Behind him he hears the rear doors of the van open, the grunting of the driver as he swiftly unloads the boxes. Despite the volume of cardboard cartons, the hair weighs very little, and Ranjit knows that the driver will soon be done.

  Minutes later, the van doors slam shut, and it edges out of the alley. Ranjit glimpses the driver’s sweaty face, and then the van is gone, gunning down the street for the West Side Highway.

  Returning to the loading dock, Ranjit climbs back inside, pulls down the shutter, and locks it. He sees familiar pale cardboard boxes stacked in rows, all stamped in red with a crude Nataraj logo. Five smaller boxes are set aside, of a darker cardboard, with a different stamp that resembles a small house. They are as light as the other boxes, and he wonders if they contain a special type of hair—sometimes movie stars and celebs will have custom lengths and colors made up for them.

  Gathering up two boxes, he climbs the stairs, passing the room where Kikiben works, to Jay Patel’s tiny office on the third floor. Patel is sitting behind a battered metal desk, peering into the slim laptop that he takes with him wherever he goes. The room is almost bare except for three old plastic phones and a calendar hanging on the wall illustrated with a picture of the elephant god Ganesh.

  “There,” Patel says, pointing to a corner, and Ranjit brings the rest of the boxes up in one more trip.

  When he is done, he is gasping for air, and curses himself. In the old days, he wouldn’t even have broken a sweat.

  Patel clicks his laptop shut and gestures to a plastic folding chair. “Sit, Sardarji. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ranjit is eager to return to the Dakota, but maybe Patel is about to offer him a regular job.

  There is a spark in Patel’s eyes as he leans forward. “Tell me, Sardarji, how do you feel about this hair business?”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “You know that the hair comes from temples in South India, right? Women make requests of the gods, and if they are granted, they sacrifice their hair. The temples conduct hair auctions, and these days, they are making so much money that they don’t know what to do with it.”

  Ranjit hesitates, and then decides to speak his mind. “There seems to be something wrong with that. Something immoral.”

  Patel chuckles. “You Sikhs are blunt, aren’t you? But I do agree with you. For centuries the West has colonized us, taken our diamonds and minerals. Now they want our hair. But you know what I say?

  “Let them wear our hair and pretend it is theirs. It is all part of their dream existence. They make nothing here anymore. We make the clothes on their backs. They need help, they call a number, and we answer it. All they sell is dreams, big colorful dreams, and they’ve been doing it for so long that they’ve forgotten what reality is. The West is getting weaker, and soon it will be our turn.”

  He stops abruptly, as though embarrassed. “Aare, here I go again. Just the musings of an old man. Pay no attention … Anyway, I wanted to tell you that we are going to be getting more shipments soon, four, five nights a week. Can you work every night? And if it goes well, maybe I can hire you full time, hanh? Much better than driving that ratfatiya taxi of yours.”

  “Yes, sir, of course. And full time would be very good for me. But there is one thing…” He hesitates, and Patel gestures impatiently. “If we do get hit, my nightstick is going to be useless. I would feel better with a sidearm.”

  “Hanh. But if I apply for a firearms license for you, they’ll do a background check. You’re sure there is no hanky-panky in your past?”

/>   “No, sir.” Ranjit thinks about what happened in the Vineyard, and how his client, the Senator, had arranged to have all traces of it wiped away.

  “Good, good. So you come back tomorrow night.” Patel opens his laptop in a gesture of dismissal.

  Ranjit heads down the stairs, stopping at Kikiben’s large, windowless room. Its green linoleum floor is heaped with skeins of hair neatly packaged in plastic, complete with labels that say WAVY SPANISH or PURE EUROPEAN STRAIGHT. Kiki sits cross-legged in one corner, combing out a swatch of hair by running it through a bed of nails.

  “Come, Ranjit. Sit, na? Let’s talk. I’ve been alone in here all day.”

  “I’ll stay a minute. Have to go and meet a friend.” Ranjit leans against the door frame.

  “What, a hot date? Who is it? Tell me! Someone you met in your cab?”

  “No, no, just an old classmate from India. But guess who was in my taxi today. Someone famous.”

  Kikiben’s pinched face looks up expectantly. “Tom Cruise? George Clooney? I hear that Halle Berry is shooting in town…”

  “No, a desi movie star. Shabana Shah. Remember her, in Amerika Ke Kahanie?”

  “Hanh, hanh, of course. So beautiful, she was, in the old movies. But the last three, four, all flops. Did you get her autograph? What is she doing here?”

  “Shooting a film, she said, but it was canceled. And no, I didn’t get her autograph, she seemed preoccupied.” A thought strikes him. “Is she married?”

  “Shabana Shah.” Kikiben closes her eyes as she thinks; Ranjit knows that she has a photographic memory and reads all the fan magazines. “No, not married. People say that S. K. Nagpal, the producer, was her lover. Seduced her when she was nineteen. But he’s dead now. She never married, no kids, poor thing. She must be, what, forty? She shouldn’t have continued doing those young roles, she can’t compete with these young, shiny actresses.”

  “Shabana’s still beautiful,” Ranjit says stubbornly, but he knows that what Kikiben says is true. The hit films these days have sleek, fair-skinned actresses like Bipasha Basu and Karishma Kapoor, who flaunt their taut, aerobicized bodies. Shabana’s dusky looks and subtle acting have no place in the new world of Indian film.

  “Aare, looks like you have a crush on her.” Kikiben giggles, her shrewd eyes lighting up with pleasure. “You’re turning red, like a schoolboy.”

  “Got to go. And put in a good word for me, okay? With Shanti coming and all, I need a full-time job. I can’t be roaming the streets all day and night in my cab.”

  Kikiben starts combing the hair in front of her. “Of course, of course. But listen, Ranjit. If you want to work here full time, you must know one thing…”

  He is turning to go, but stops.

  “If you work for Patel Sahib, you work for him. He pays well, yes, but you have to obey everything he says. And you’re … different. You’re not used to being ordered around. Think about it.”

  “Sure, sure. Till tomorrow, right?”

  He leaves, wondering if Kikiben is alluding to Patel’s past. Surely all those rumors are exaggerated: that he started out in Don Hajji Mustafa’s gang, that he once stood by calmly as an informant’s nose and ears were cut off. That even now, Patel’s business ventures are financed through hidden channels leading deep into Mumbai’s underworld.

  The guy is just a shrewd businessman. He does yoga every day, for God’s sake.

  Putting all this out of his mind, Ranjit rushes to the train, the possibility of seeing Shabana again making him light-headed. As the B train rockets uptown, he takes out her dress, raises the silky fabric to his nose, and smells again the alluring mix of sandalwood and jasmine.

  A Hispanic woman sitting across from Ranjit notices him, gives a barely perceptible shake of her head, then looks away. It is a New York gesture, one of disgust, followed by quick dismissal. Weird. Whatever.

  Ranjit hurriedly puts the dress away and zips up his bag.

  Chapter Four

  It is past ten at night when Ranjit walks up to the arched entrance of the Dakota. A white-haired doorman peers at him suspiciously, taking in his black uniform and turban.

  “I’m here to see the other doorman, the Indian guy, Mohan. Is he around?”

  “Mo-han?” The man relaxes a little. “I’ll call him. You better go through the archway, wait back there.”

  Heading through the arch, Ranjit finds himself at a locked gate leading into the courtyard, and the sounds of the street fade away, replaced by the splashing of water and the rustling of trees. Hundreds of lit windows look down into the courtyard, and someone up there is playing the piano, a slow classical piece that makes Ranjit’s heart swell with emotion. What would it be like to live in a place like this, with a view of trees and sky?

  Lost in his thoughts, he doesn’t see Mohan cross the courtyard and unlock the gate.

  “Captain, you’ve come. I was waiting.”

  The two men shake hands. Mohan wears tight-fitting jeans and a lemon-yellow shirt unbuttoned to show his chest, and Ranjit is conscious of his own sweaty uniform.

  “Sorry about my clothes. I have a night job as a security guard.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m just a servant here. Let’s go up to my apartment before a tenant sees me and gives me an errand to run.”

  “You live here?”

  “It’s a shoebox, you’ll see.”

  “Before we head up…” Ranjit gestures to his gym bag. “There is one thing. That actress who was in my cab, she dropped something. I’d like to return it. Do you know her?”

  “Shabana?” Mohan frowns. “Yeah, I know her, but she left for the Hamptons an hour ago. Won’t return for a few days. I can give it to her when she gets back.”

  Ranjit hesitates, and Mohan smiles broadly. “I see. You want to return it yourself. I don’t blame you, she’s a beautiful woman.”

  “Nahi, nahi, nothing like that. It’s a new dress, she probably wants it back. But maybe later, it would be nice to meet her, get an autograph…”

  “Sure, sure. Anything for you, Captain.”

  They walk to a door at the far side of the courtyard and head up a dark, winding staircase. The risers are steep, and Ranjit finds himself breathing hard again—too many goddamn greasy meals at Karachi Kabob—but Mohan climbs easily, two stairs at a time. In the bright yellow shirt, with his long, slicked-back hair, he looks more Latino than Indian.

  As they ascend, the air becomes heavy with heat. There are no windows up here, only landings with arched openings in the walls, all bricked in now.

  Mohan points to them. “This used to be a shaft for a dumbwaiter. Tenants would call down to the dining room for food, and it would be whisked up to each floor, delivered to each kitchen.”

  Ranjit nods wordlessly, and by the time they reach the top his chest is aching, and his head is light with exhaustion. They walk down a dim corridor, passing a row of pine partitions with closed doors, each labeled with a number in shaky white paint. One door is ajar, and Ranjit sees that it is a storage space, crammed with frayed rattan chairs, a huge armoire, and an overturned couch, its carved feet sticking up into the air.

  “The attic is empty now, but servants used to live up here.” Mohan gestures to the cubicles. “When the building went co-op in the sixties, they discovered twenty, thirty people up here. Some had been abandoned by their employers, others were just squatting.” He laughs. “This place is so huge, it’s been reconfigured so many times, no one really knows every nook and cranny. Except for me.”

  At the end of the corridor Mohan stops in front of a door and fumbles with an old-fashioned brass key. “Habit,” he says. “I don’t really need to lock up. No one but me lives up here now.”

  The door swings open, and Ranjit follows him into a small, square room, not much bigger than his own basement apartment, but with a high, pyramidal-shaped roof. There is a carved mahogany bed pushed along one wall, with a red leather armchair next to it. Most stunning are the three enormous arched windows that
take up an entire wall. The view is of Central Park, its vast darkness illuminated by the globes of streetlights. A gentle breeze blows, and the tops of the trees sway, a ripple of motion that stretches away into the distance.

  “You like it? Make yourself comfortable, Captain.” Mohan busies himself in an alcove fitted out with a hot plate and a small refrigerator.

  “It’s amazing.” Ranjit throws his gym bag onto the floor and studies a wall hung with faded black-and-white photographs in mismatched frames. They are portraits of stern-faced men and women in white collars, sitting stiffly with their hands on their knees.

  “Hey, Mohan, who are these people?”

  “Those?” Mohan appears, clutching a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red and two crystal glasses. “I don’t really know. I found them in a storage area buried back there. It’s full of trunks and suitcases. I think they’re servants who used to work here. But look at this one.”

  He points at a large sepia photograph on the opposite wall: the Dakota, taken from a distance. It looks the same as it does now, except that there is nothing around it—where Central Park should be is a muddy wasteland, and in the foreground is a row of tarpaper shacks, with goats and sheep wandering in their muddy yards.

  “That’s from 1884.” There is a note of pride in Mohan’s voice. “It was just built. They called it the Dakota as a joke, because it was so far uptown that it might as well have been in Indian territory. They even carved Indian heads over the doorways.”

  “You know a lot about this place. How long have you been here?”

  “Almost a year. Oh, the stories I could tell you, Captain. There is a woman here who has a whole stuffed horse in her living room. Another tenant has a man come over from Tiffany’s every day to wind his collection of antique clocks…” He sits cross-legged on the bed and pours large slugs of Scotch into the two crystal glasses. “Have a seat, Captain, relax.”