by A. X. Ahmad
Ranjit glances at Mohan’s reddened face and knows it is true. “So for that you killed her?”
“No, it’s not just that.” She blinks back tears. “Any man I ever was involved with, Ruki scared them away. But that evening, Mohan just stood there, naked, and laughed at her. She had no hold over him—he wasn’t an actor, he wasn’t rich, he wasn’t worried about his career—he just loved me. He is the one good thing I have, and Ruki couldn’t stand it. And then she told me something … something that drove me crazy.”
Shabana looks at Mohan before continuing. “Many years ago, I was in love with a man, and we made a life together, a life that didn’t include my sister. One day, I was kidnapped, held for money. After I was released, I was told that my boyfriend—his name was Sanjeev—had engineered the whole thing. And then he vanished. They never found his body, nothing.
“That evening at the Dakota, Ruki told me what really happened. She and Don Hajji Mustafa planned the kidnapping, and they blamed Sanjeev. He didn’t vanish. Ruki had him killed. She laughed and told me that Don Hajji Mustafa’s men beat Sanjeev to death, buried him in the foundation of a new skyscraper. Ruki said that if I continued seeing Mohan, the same thing would happen to him.”
She covers her face with her hands and her voice is muffled. “I went crazy … I screamed at Ruki, I pushed her, and it was an accident, she fell, she hit her head on a corner of the table … I tried to wake her up, but…”
Mohan speaks calmly now, his arms crossed across his thin chest. “The rest was my idea. The bitch was dead, that was an accident, it couldn’t be undone. But if people thought it was Shabana who was lying on the floor, she would be free from Patel, from Lateef, from the club. We could run away, we could be together. I mean, the two sisters are identical, and their voices are the same, the way they look…”
“Except for the scars on her cheek.” Ranjit imagines Ruksana lying dead on the parquet floor, her thick black hair billowing around her like a shroud. “So her face had to be erased.”
“I thought, we’ll make it look like someone broke in and killed Shabana. We dressed Ruki’s body in Shabana’s white dress, then I took the statue, I was the one who…” Mohan’s shoulders slump. “God help me, I forced myself to do it, but there was so much blood. There was the blood, and it made a lot of noise … I panicked. I thought a neighbor had heard us … so we came up here and hid.”
There is silence again.
“And afterwards…” Ranjit addresses Shabana, speaking slowly, thinking it through. “… you pretended to be Ruksana. You went to the police station and identified your sister’s body as your own, right? It must have been the easiest role to play, all you needed was some thick makeup on your cheeks. Then you came back here to be with Mohan, and waited till it was safe to run away together.”
Shabana looks down at the floor.
“What now, Ranjit?” Mohan’s voice is soft and powerless.
“Shabana, tell me what you know about Patel’s operation. I found the piece of cardboard you hid at the club. I know it’s from a box of hair. What does that red symbol mean?”
Her voice resigned, she tells him about the red stamp on the boxes. She tells him that she’d overheard the businessmen at the club, and then slowly pieced together the details of Patel’s smuggling operation. Knowing that Patel loved old movies, she had figured out that the password to his laptop was “Pakeezah,” and one night she had sneaked into his office at the club and copied his e-mail correspondence. Then she approached Patel and told him that unless he made Lateef stop, she would go to the cops. Patel had offered her assurances, but in the end, he had been powerless to intervene.
“So the red stamp was the key, yes? The evidence, it is hidden?”
“No, I have it here.” Shabana digs through one of the suitcases and hands him a flash drive. She says that some of it is in Chinese, but other documents are in English, that there are names here, and dates, and dollar amounts, a clear picture of Patel’s entire operation.
Shabana steps back and hangs her head and he knows that she has assigned her fate to him; she no longer has the energy left to fight.
“What now?” Mohan repeats. “Are you going to call Patel?”
“Your bags. Where were you going?”
Mohan gestures helplessly at the old laptop lying in the corner. “I contacted this guy on a merchant ship, he owes me big time. He can get us to Venezuela, it sails in a few hours. Is there any way … Ranjit, any way you can keep Patel out of this?”
“You don’t need to worry about Patel.” Ranjit looks at his watch: thirty-four minutes have passed since he entered the Dakota. “But you will have to tell your story to the cops. A friend of mine waiting outside has called them, they’ll be here any minute.”
Shabana cries out, and Mohan hugs her tighter, desperately trying to comfort her.
“Let her go, Ranjit. I’ll stay here, I’ll take the blame.”
“No.” Shabana shakes her head violently. “I’m staying with you. I’m not going. Even if we have ten minutes more together, it’s worth it.”
Mohan’s arms circle her shoulders, and she clutches at him desperately, kissing him. They are both crying, looking more like frightened children than murderers.
The cops will be here any minute, and Mohan and Shabana will be arrested and separated, they will see each other only at their trial, and spend the rest of their lives apart.
Ranjit stares at his friend, and then at Shabana. They have been up here for a week, in this baking heat, they are filthy and exhausted, and yet he feels a current between them of what can only be described as love.
He thinks about his own failed attempts: his ex-wife, Preetam, now lost forever; his affair with Anna; his two nights with Leela that will never go anywhere. And here are these two, having found each other after long, tormented lives. It is terrible that Ruksana is dead, but putting them in jail isn’t going to bring their whole sad story to a close. He reaches a decision.
“Is there another way down from the attic?”
“What?” Mohan looks confused.
“Another staircase?”
“Yes, the southwest staircase, you have to get to it through a storage room. Nobody uses it, but why—”
“You still have a few minutes. The cops will take the main staircase. Take Shabana, use the southwest stair, and get out of here.”
“Really?” Mohan asks. “Oh, thank you, Captain, thank you, I—”
“Leave your suitcases behind. And before you go, hit me hard, knock me out. Remember the boxing competition, that right cross I taught you?” Ranjit turns his face toward Mohan.
“Thank you, my friend, thank you—”
“No time for all that. Hit me.”
There are tears in Mohan’s eyes as he steps closer and raises his fist.
Ranjit hears Shabana gasp and sees her glistening eyes and smooth cheeks and feels a sharp sadness that he will never see her again and the world explodes into stars and it all goes black.
* * *
He is back on the Siachen Glacier and it is dark and he is alone, slogging through the deep snow. All he can see behind him are his own footprints, and all he can hear is the howling of the wind.
His hands and feet begin to turn numb. He walks on in an exhausted stupor, his head lowered. He knows that if he stops for even a second he will freeze to death.
The wind fills his ears with its eerie howl. Soon he begins to hear the voices that are contained within it, whispers and burbles and cries, and he knows that the dead are talking to him.
Ruksana’s melodious voice tells him that Shabana stole her life. Anna, lying dying in his lap, looks up at him and smiles a bloodstained smile and asks for forgiveness. His dead from the botched mission on the glacier: Sergeant Khandelkar’s calm, authoritative voice tells him to keep walking. Private Dewan, killed at nineteen, sings one of his awful rock songs.
They are all waiting for him, somewhere up on the glacier.
Ranjit trudges
on, his legs sinking knee-deep into the soft snow, and the voices grow louder.
* * *
A light shines in his face, so close that he can feel the heat of the bulb.
“Is this him? This the guy, what’s his name, Mo-han?”
“No.” Case sounds irritated. “That’s Singh, the guy we picked up last week. Is he unconscious?”
There is a chuckle. “Looks like someone clocked him good. Hey, Mr. Singh, wake up. Wake up.”
A sour-smelling hand slaps his face, and he opens his eyes, staring into the blinding eye of a flashlight. Beyond it is the silhouette of Case, and more cops in uniforms. The small attic space echoes with the crackle of radios.
He drags himself up on both elbows and sits against the plywood wall, shielding his eyes with one hand. Rough hands pat him down, and pluck the gun from his waistband.
“Detective Case, this fucker is armed.”
The flashlight moves away, and Case hikes up the gray trousers of her pantsuit and squats down in front of him. “My, my. First someone breaks your arm, then someone knocks you out. Quite a rat’s nest you’ve uncovered here. So the doorman, Mohan, he was hiding up here all this time, with the sister, Ruksana?”
“He hit me. Mohan hit me.” Ranjit tries to focus his eyes.
“Where did they go? Airport? Train station?”
“I don’t know. Mohan’s with Shabana.”
“Are you concussed? Shabana is dead, remember?”
“Ruksana is the dead one. Shabana is alive. You got it all wrong.” Case’s blouse is gaping open, and he glimpses the white outline of a utilitarian bra. “I figured it out when you told me about the corpse. Shabana had a weave, but Ruksana had all her own hair. Apart from that, the sisters are identical twins. You didn’t know that, did you?”
Case’s mouth falls open. “It can’t be.”
“The two sisters fought, Ruksana fell, hit her head, it was an accident. To cover it up, Mohan bashed in the corpse’s face, made it look like a murder. Look in those suitcases—you’ll find his clothes stained with Ruksana’s blood.” He waits for the information to sink in. “The person who identified the body was Shabana, pretending to be her sister. It was an easy role to play—all she had to do was wear a lot of makeup and glasses. She’s an actress, for God’s sake.”
Case scowls up at the uniformed cop with the flashlight. “You getting this? Put out an APB for them both.”
Ranjit blinks painfully. “Where is Rodriguez? I thought you two went everywhere together.”
“Never mind him. Rodriguez has his own problems.” Case looks away briefly, and Ranjit knows then that Rodriguez was Patel’s informant. “So the actress and the doorman, they were in it together? What about Patel? Where does he fit in?”
“I was mistaken about him. After Shabana’s latest movie was canceled, he gave her a job at his club. That’s the only connection.”
Case’s mouth is a straight line under the hawklike nose. “Bullshit. So what is the Mumbai mob doing over here?”
“Security. Patel’s making millions from the hair trade. He needs the muscle to guard his shipments.” Ranjit waits to see how his lie will play out. “It was a simple murder case. Except you guys got it all wrong.”
Case presses her lips together in a bitter smile. “Even if we did, you, Mr. Singh, will keep your mouth shut, understood?”
“Of course. What about the grand jury?”
“The grand jury?” Case tilts her pointed chin downward and frowns. “We’ll have to lay out this case all over again.” She swallows hard. “I’ll talk to my boss, who will have to talk to the Chief. You’re off the hook for now … but your story better match up when we find the actress and her boyfriend.”
She gets to her feet. “We’ll find them, don’t worry. We’ll watch every train, every bus, every flight out of here. They are trapped.”
So Case doesn’t know about Mohan’s past working on cruise ships.
“I’m sure you will.” Ranjit stays slumped on the floor. The uniformed cops have been joined by men in civilian clothes who are examining each inch of the room. The attention has palpably shifted from Ranjit to the missing movie star and her lover.
“You need to see a doctor? No? You can leave, then. And, oh, your girlfriend? She’s the one who called us, right? She’s waiting for you outside. Seems pretty anxious.”
Ranjit staggers to his feet, and a young, hatless cop escorts him down the stairs and through the courtyard to the open front gate. He glances back, knowing that he will never again set foot in the Dakota.
Perhaps in deference to the building’s famous inhabitants, the three police cruisers parked by the entrance do not have their lights flashing, but cops mill around them, radios crackling.
Leela is standing farther back, but he instantly spots her. She stares fixedly at him as he draws closer.
“I found Mohan.” He smiles reassuringly. “And Shabana is alive. It’s Ruksana who’s dead. The two of them were hiding up there. Mohan hit me, then they took off. Thank God you called the cops … Leela?”
She doesn’t seem to be listening, and is looking past him, fascinated perhaps by the cops in their bulky bulletproof vests and shotguns.
“Did you hear me?” He sees that the tendons in her neck are strained. “What is wrong?”
“Lateef.” She gestures at the phone gripped in her hand. “He called.”
“Called you? What did he want?”
“He said”—she blinks hard—“my mother and Dev are back home. She must have fought with her cousin, gone back home without telling me. Lateef said that his men are at my house. He said they will kill my mother and Dev, if, if you don’t…” They stand inches apart, and he can feel her jerky breathing. “… if you don’t…”
“Are Auntie and Dev hurt? What does he want me to do?”
He tries to put his hands on her shoulders, but she moves impatiently aside, as though he is interrupting her train of thought.
“Lateef wants you to go to Patel’s motel in Jersey. Right now. If you do that, he’ll let my family go. But, Ranjit, if you go to Jersey, they will kill you, for sure.” She speaks in a rush. “Listen, you have your gun, right? There are just two of Lateef’s men at my house. Can’t you … couldn’t you … just do something?”
He feels for his gun in his waistband, then remembers being frisked.
“The cops took my gun. But in any case, it’s too dangerous. If Lateef’s men even think anyone is coming, they will … No. Better that I go to Jersey.”
“Lateef, he will kill you.” Her voice rises. “It’s just two men at my house. I could call those boys from the neighborhood, we could try to—”
He grabs her arm tightly. “Listen to me. Even if we succeed now, Lateef won’t give up. He’ll try again, and again, and one day he’ll kill us all. That’s how these people are. I have to go there and get him off our backs.”
“Ouch. You’re hurting me.”
He looks down to see his fingers digging into her flesh, and lets his arm drop to his side. “There is something I need you to do, right now.” He pulls out the flash drive from his pocket. “Take this, the packet of hair, and the box with the red stamp on it. Put it all in an envelope, write a note and say…” He lays out her task, and tells her to stay in Ruksana’s apartment till he calls her.
“Are you sure this is going to work? What if Patel doesn’t believe you—”
“One step at a time. One step at a time.”
Leela stares wordlessly at him, and he can see that her overwhelming fear has been replaced by her wish to believe him.
“You better be right this time, Ranjit.”
Turning abruptly, she walks away, and he watches her for an instant, then takes out his cell phone and calls Ali. It goes unanswered, so he calls again.
A hoarse voice answers. “Ranjit. You know what damn time it is? Four twelve A.M. On my one day off. This better be good, you camel-fucker.”
“I need your help, my friend. I need you
r courage.”
“You need my car, is what you’re saying.”
“I’m in front of the Dakota, and I have to go to Jersey to see Patel. If I don’t come back, I need you to take care of something for me. I’ll tell you everything on the way over there.”
“What do you mean, if you don’t come back?”
“Can you pick me up?”
He hears the bed creak, and the swish of Ali putting on his slippers.
“Of course. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” The line goes dead.
Ranjit walks away from the police cars toward the benches on Central Park West. It is still pitch dark, but he can hear the rustling of the birds in the trees above him. As the sky lightens, they will wake and fly into the park. They will live to see the new day, but will he?
Chapter Thirty-Four
As they drive off the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, Ranjit turns to Ali. His friend must have dressed in a hurry, because the buttons of his pink-flowered Hawaiian shirt are done up wrong.
“Do you remember everything I told you? You wait for me outside the motel. If I don’t come out, go with Leela to Queens. She knows some tough guys in her neighborhood. Get her mother and the kid away from Lateef’s men.”
Ali swallows hard and his chins wobble. “How the hell am I supposed to do that? I’m a cabdriver, Ranjit. Back home I was an accountant.”
They drive on through the darkness. The jagged cliffs of New Jersey close in on both sides, and soon the Patel Motel appears: its orange neon sign is lit up, but as usual, it says NO VACANCY and the large parking lot is empty.
“Shit, I don’t like it.” Ali’s pudgy hands tighten on the steering wheel. “It’s like a ghost town.” He is sweating heavily now.
The taxi pulls into the lot and Ranjit reaches over and touches his friend’s shoulder.