The Last Taxi Ride

by A. X. Ahmad

  The man bought a ticket. His friends followed him and a short line soon formed. S.K. waited expectantly: he knew that if these men liked a film, they would see it over and over, filling their empty lives with its dialogues and fantasies.

  By the time S.K. ordered a second cup of tea, the line snaked all the way to the corner. And most joyously, the ticket scalpers had appeared; they took one look at the line, and instantly began to buy blocks of tickets. Very soon they had cornered the market and stood in front of the cinema, their hands in their pockets, muttering, Ticket, ticket, ticket, out of the corner of their mouths. Latecomers walked up to them, grumbling, and pressed twenty-rupee notes into the scalpers’ hands.

  “Shabana,” S.K. said, “how would you like another role? As the star this time?”

  “Me?” She gasped in surprise. “I would love that, S.K. What is the story?”

  “Story?” S.K. thought quickly. Clearly, the masses wanted romance and escapism, not violence. And if they liked Shabana wearing rags and standing under an overpass, they’d eat her up in a more glamorous role. “Story? Okay, there is this young village girl, she is engaged to be married, but … one day, returning from the fields, she gets hit by a car and loses her memory.”

  “I’m the girl?”

  “You’re the girl. So the girl loses her memory … and the car that knocks her down is driven by this millionaire’s son. He lives in America, but has returned to India to visit his ancestral village, okay? So he knocks down the girl, and falls in love with her. She’s in a coma, so he takes her back to New York, and she has surgery, and wakes up.

  “He is in love with her. She travels with him all around Europe, he proposes to her in Paris, they decide to get married. Then, one day, she hits her head again and remembers who she is, and that her true love is back in the village. Does she stay, rich in America, or does she go back to India?”

  “I love it. But S.K.-ji, how about a part for my sister? She’s so disappointed not to be in the first film.”

  “Your sister.” S.K. was tired of the mournful Ruksana, who shadowed Shabana and sat like a ghost in the corner. “Look, we can’t have both of you in the film, it will be too confusing. Why don’t you give her a job to do? Make her your manager.” S.K. waved grandly. “You’ll need someone to take care of all the details. Because this time, we’ll be shooting internationally. New York, Amsterdam, Paris! Big budget, lots of locations!”

  “Abroad?” Shabana’s mouth fell open. “But where will you get so much money?”

  “Money? Don’t you worry about money! When Bollywood hears this story, the financiers will throw money at us!”

  S.K. was loud and confident, but he knew that making a film was a risk-laden proposition, and that loan officers at UCO Bank and State Bank of India would just laugh at him. Most of the films in Bollywood were financed by undeclared “black money,” delivered in hard-topped suitcases by men in badly cut safari suits. These “financiers” were just fronts for the Mumbai mafia, and once the mafia was involved, there was no telling what could happen. Directives could come down from mobsters to replace one star with another, or to give a key role to a niece or nephew.

  There had to be some other way. S.K. thought of his friend Jayram Patel, a lanky Gujarati accountant. Jayram-bhai was a modest man with a quiet demeanor, but he did the books for Don Hajji Mustafa, the most powerful man in Bombay. And Don Hajji was moving into legitimate businesses like construction and import-export. Maybe the Don would like to become the producer for a film.

  Yes, S.K. would talk to his friend. Jayram Patel was a clever man, and more importantly, behind his accountant’s bland façade, he was a romantic, always infatuated with the latest young starlet.

  S.K. smiled and squeezed Shabana’s shoulder. “Aare, don’t you worry your pretty head about money. I will take care of all that. We’ll call the film Amerika Ke Kahanie, The Tale of America, what do you think of that?”

  S.K. could see the whole movie in his head, and ten more after that.

  He would ensure that Shabana lived forever on the silver screen.

  II

  BLOODSTAINED COTTON

  Make contentment your earrings, humility your begging bowl

  Let meditation be the ashes you apply to your body

  Let the remembrance of death be the patched coat you wear.

  —Guru Granth Sahib, Jup

  Chapter Seven

  Ranjit is having trouble breathing.

  The air in the basement cell of the Manhattan Detention Complex is stale, as though all the oxygen has been used up. He sits on a hard wooden bench, each labored breath reminding him of the three years he spent in the army prison in India, most of it in solitary confinement. He had developed very bad claustrophobia, and it is all coming back now.

  How long has he been in here? It must be past midnight, but without his watch, he can’t tell. They took his watch, wallet, and belt, and even made him remove his turban before marching him down a twisting stair into the basement. He wishes he had his postcard of the Golden Temple, so that he could concentrate on it and meditate, but the cops must have that too, stashed inside his gym bag.

  He leans against the yellow tiled wall, the ceramic cold against his cheek. Across from him sit two stunned teenage girls arrested for smoking pot in Washington Square Park, an African man who was selling fake Louis Vuitton handbags, and a chaste-looking woman in a pink twinset who has kicked off her shoes and fallen asleep.

  Ranjit has been waiting to use the wall phone, but it has been occupied by a stocky Hispanic man who has been making endless calls to his girlfriend, his baby’s mama, and his own mother. Now the man smiles apologetically and flashes Ranjit the “just five more minutes” gesture.

  The MDC isn’t called “the Tombs” for nothing. It is stifling hot down here and there is a strong sense of being buried deep under the earth. Ranjit closes his eyes, but he can still feel the walls closing in.

  He takes one deep breath, then another, forcing air into his body, and tries to imagine that he is at the Golden Temple, the marble tiles warm under his feet. But each time the temple comes into focus, it is interrupted by the images they showed him during four hours of interrogation: Shabana, sprawled on the polished parquet floor of the living room, her face smashed into a bloody pulp. Her fine high brow was gone, as was her nose, and her broken mouth was full of shattered teeth. Only her hair, lying around her in a glossy fan, still retained its luster.

  It was as though the attacker had tried to erase every trace of her beauty.

  Ranjit’s body tenses at the memory. Breathe.

  Rodriguez had played the tough guy and shouted into his face, while Case hung back and watched him with her gray-green eyes. Rodriguez said that the doormen across the street had remembered him dropping off Shabana earlier that day. Later that evening, he had appeared on the security camera at the entrance to the Dakota; he was seen walking across the courtyard with Mohan, but there was no record of him leaving. His prints were all over the marble statue of Ganesh, along with Mohan’s, and Shabana’s dress had been found in his bag in Mohan’s apartment.

  Breathe. Keep breathing.

  Leaning over Ranjit, Rodriguez said, “You are fucked, Mr. Singh. Royally fucked. We have enough evidence to nail you.” His breath was foul, a mixture of stale coffee and something rotten inside him. “Talk to us. Tell us where your friend is, and we might be able to help you.”

  Breathe. Remember to breathe.

  They made him tell them, again, and again, what had happened that night. Strangely enough, they also wanted to know all about his job at Nataraj Imports. Case asked him many questions about Jay Patel, and though he had little to tell her, she scribbled it all down in a notebook.

  None of it had made any sense. Nothing, except that Case said Mohan had been involved with Shabana for over a year. The other doormen all knew that he spent a few nights every week in her apartment.

  When Ranjit heard that, he knew it was true. So that was why Mo
han had taken him down to Shabana’s apartment, hinting, in his own perverse way, that he knew her well. Why hadn’t he come right out and told Ranjit? Was it his shame at being a kept man?

  Ranjit thinks of his friend’s scornful comments as they stood in Shabana’s messy bedroom: Your idol has feet of clay. Did he resent his status as a kept man enough to kill her?

  No. Mohan would never do something like that. The man that he knew was a seducer of women, yes, but he adored them, thinking that each one would save him.

  One thing was for sure: Mohan wasn’t supposed to be in Shabana’s apartment last night. Had she perhaps returned late, with another man? He imagines her in her white dress, stepping into her living room, laughing, turning on the enormous plastic chandelier.

  Maybe Mohan had awakened and come out, sleepy and disheveled. Had there been an altercation? Something so terrible that Mohan picked up the staute of Ganesh—it was heavy, at least twenty pounds—and smashed it into the face of his beloved? Then, terrified and full of remorse, he had run away, vanished into the city?

  “Hey, buddy, I’m done, you want the phone?”

  The Hispanic man gestures at the receiver in his hand. When he hands it over, the mouthpiece is warm and smells strongly of spittle.

  Ranjit dials the number he has memorized, praying that Senator Neals is home at his town house in Georgetown. After Anna’s death, the man had turned into an insomniac, nursing a Scotch and poring over his papers deep into the night.

  The phone rings and rings, and a clipped voice finally answers. “Senator Neals’s answering service. How can I help you?”

  Ranjit stifles a groan. “I’m a personal friend of the Senator’s. It’s urgent I reach him. Is he back from China?”

  “Sir, I cannot reveal that information. Would you care to leave a message?”

  “Look, it’s urgent I talk to him—”

  “Would you care to leave a message?”

  Ranjit pauses, and then collects himself. “Tell him that Ranjit from the Vineyard called. He has my number. Look, I need to talk to him urgently, any idea when he’ll call back?”

  “Sir, all I can do is convey the message. Have a good night.”

  Ranjit slams the receiver down and the Hispanic man glances up at him. He is long-haired, wearing granny glasses and a dirty jean jacket covered with sixties PEACE and LOVE patches.

  Ignoring the man, Ranjit dials again, trying to remember the number that Jacobo had made all his drivers memorize before they went on the road.

  “Al’s Pizza.”

  Fuck. Hanging up, Ranjit reverses two numbers and redials.

  “Krumholtz and Thompson. Sandy Thompson here.”

  “My name is Ranjit Singh. I drive for Jacobo, at Uptown Cab. He said to call this number if we ever needed a lawyer.”

  “Jacobo? How is the old crook? So what did they get you for? Moving violation? Please don’t tell me that you hit a pedestrian.”

  Ranjit pauses. “No, I didn’t hit anyone. This isn’t about the cab. They’re saying … accessory to murder.” There is a silence. “Hello, are you there?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Where are you? When did you get picked up?”

  “Around noon. I’m in the Tombs. It’s on—”

  “I know where that is. Look, for Jacobo, we usually work on a preset fee, but this … this is open-ended. You sure you can afford a lawyer? Maybe a public defender is better.”

  “Don’t worry, I can pay.” Ranjit thinks of the eleven thousand dollars he has saved up for a new apartment, so that Shanti can have her own bedroom. “Can you handle this kind of thing?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been doing this for twenty-one years. Give me your name and tell me who arrested you.”

  Ranjit spells out his name, and then tells the lawyer about Rodriguez and Case.

  “Okay. I’ll be there in an hour. And listen, do not talk to anyone. This is not TV, Mr. Singh. You get zero points for being cooperative. Just shut your mouth and sit tight.”

  The line goes dead and Ranjit slumps back on the bench. The Hispanic man sidles up to him. His round glasses are tinted purple, and deep lines appear at the corners of his eyes when he smiles.

  “Hey. What happened to your hair?”

  The man gestures to Ranjit’s topknot, held in place only by a black bandanna.

  “They took my turban away.”

  “Shit. That’s an invasion of your civil liberties, man.” He springs up and goes to the bars. “CO. Yo, CO.”

  A heavyset female corrections officer in a dark blue uniform heaves into sight.

  “Why you hollering at me?”

  “This man needs his turban back. And I’m hungry. When are we getting breakfast?”

  “Do me a favor, Hector. Shut the fuck up.”

  The woman waddles away and Hector settles back onto the bench.

  “See, they know me here,” he chuckles. “They know me, but they can’t hold me. Know what they got me for? Turnstile jumping. Can you believe that shit? Bankers on Wall Street are robbing the country blind, and they’re after me. Well, at least we get breakfast. They got these small boxes of cereal, and milk. You gonna eat your breakfast?”

  The thought of eating anything makes Ranjit sick. “If I’m still here, you can have it.”

  “Oh, you waiting for your lawyer? They always say they’ll be there in an hour, but it’s never an hour. If he’s any good, he’s gonna call around, talk to some cops, see what he can suss out.”

  “Well, in that case, maybe I can get some sleep.” Ranjit closes his eyes, praying that this lawyer can get him out of here.

  Hector tugs at his shoulder. “Buddy, don’t fall asleep. If you asleep when they call your name for the judge, they ain’t gonna wake you up. Then you gotta spend twelve more hours in here.”

  Ranjit is forced to open his eyes.

  “Hey, you think they got Cocoa Puffs for breakfast? I love Cocoa Puffs.”

  * * *

  Five hours pass, and breakfast still hasn’t been served when they call Ranjit’s name and escort him to a single cell on the first floor. At least this one has a small, barred window high on the wall, and Ranjit drinks in the sight of the pale dawn sky.

  After Hector’s nonstop monologue, Ranjit is glad to be alone. He sits, listening to the murmur of far-off traffic: outside these walls, the city is waking up.

  His cell door suddenly rattles open. A corrections officer steps aside to let in a short man with uncombed, faded red hair and a patchy beard. The lawyer wears an expensive checked suit and penny loafers. Ranjit is reassured, and then notices the faint food stains on the man’s lapels, the rim of dirt on the soles of his loafers.

  “Mr. Singh? Sandy Thompson. Here’s the deal. I bill at two-fifty an hour, but because I owe Jacobo, this consult is free, okay? After that, you pay.”

  “All right.” Ranjit feels sick to the pit of his stomach.

  Thompson sits down, clicks open a calfskin briefcase with gold-edged corners, and takes out a yellow pad.

  “So. They are charging you as an accessory to the murder of this actress, Shabana Shah. The most important thing is that you make bail.”

  “Bail? I’m innocent. I had nothing to do with this, I—”

  Thompson lifts up a finger to stop him.

  “This is an arraignment, not a trial. Nobody is judging your guilt or innocence. You’ll go before a grand jury in a week. They’re the ones who will decide if there is enough evidence to try you. If we don’t post bail, you’ll spend that time on Rikers Island. You’re a Sikh, right? With your turban and beard, someone will fuck with you for sure. You don’t want that.”

  “Bail? How am I going to do that?”

  “I can arrange for a bail bond. The most important thing is to establish there is no flight risk. Can an employer vouch for you? Jacobo doesn’t count.”

  “I used to work for Senator Neals, as a caretaker. He’s the one who sponsored me for my green card.”

  “Clayton Neals? The black senator? I can wor
k with that. Okay, I gotta put all this together. We’re going in front of the judge very soon. You just keep quiet. I’ll do all the talking.”

  “I must get out. I can’t stay in here, I have … claustrophobia.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s hope the judge got out of the right side of his bed today. Lansky is a real motherfucker, but he’s quick. If … when you get out, go across to Pham’s Pho, on Baxter Street. There’s a back room there, ask for me.”

  * * *

  The arraignment takes place in a small, shabby courtroom with dirty, dark green walls. The judge sits at a battered wooden stand, looking tired and cranky. The public prosecutor is a stooped man in a shabby suit who doesn’t even look at Ranjit, just speaks in a monotone directly to the judge. He and Sandy Thompson exchange a bewildering array of papers.

  All Ranjit hears is the prosecutor saying that he is not a United States citizen, and thus a flight risk. Sandy Thompson buttons his jacket and stands up.

  “Your honor, this man was previously employed by Massachusetts Senator Clayton Neals. In fact, it was the Senator who sponsored his green card. Mr. Singh has no prior convictions or outstanding arrests, and he is an active member of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.”

  “Senator Neals?” The judge hesitates, then sets the bail at three hundred thousand dollars. Thompson looks satisfied and nods at Ranjit before leaving the courtroom.

  After another two hours in a holding pen, a corrections officer gestures at Ranjit with an upward jerk of his chin. Ranjit walks down a long corridor, signs for his possessions, and heads out of the Tombs into the hot morning air of Chinatown.

  They don’t return his turban.

  * * *

  Pham’s Pho is one street over on Baxter, a narrow storefront tucked between two bail-bond places. At this hour of the morning it is completely empty, and a small Vietnamese man takes Ranjit through a beaded curtain to a small, windowless room in the back. The lawyer is sitting at a round plastic table, his red hair even more disheveled, jacket off and shirtsleeves rolled up. Judging from the large bowl in front of him, he is just finishing his breakfast.