Beg Me

by Lisa Lawrence

  I saw only one staff person. You know what? When’s the last time you walked into a bookshop and actually witnessed one of the salespeople reading? I know, I know—they’re supposed to be at work. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone into a bookshop and asked a question about a well-known author and been met with this adolescent, illiterate blankness. Please, please, I mumble under my breath, go work in Sainsbury’s, where you might at least recognize food. To me, if you’re reading the stock, that’s product endorsement.

  And the guy with the volume in hand happened to be very good-looking. He was thin, but I bet he was toned under that black cotton turtleneck. His skin was a rich deep brown, and he had large dark eyes and a goatee with flecks of gray in it. He was reading with such intense concentration, I’m sure I could have shoplifted about twenty books in plain sight if it weren’t for the detector.

  I liked the way his fingers stayed poised on a page in almost a caress. He seemed to be one of my kind, us quirky geeks who like to smell books, feel the texture of the old ones that were made out of decent paper, enjoy a binding that was sewn and not just glued. (Okay, yes, I admit to having one fetish.)

  Finally he looked up and smiled, and I think he was the first guy I ever found attractive who had diastema—a slight gap between his two front teeth. Somehow on him it worked.

  “Are you looking for something specific?” he asked pleasantly.

  Stall.

  “Umm, just thought I’d take a look around first.”

  I did. He had an impressive stock of titles, especially the latest university press stuff on African history. But what caught my eye immediately was this large poster for a lecture by Ayann Hirsi Ali, the Somali feminist who used to be a Dutch politician.

  “Wow!” I said. “Your owner impresses me.”

  “Why?”

  I tapped the poster. “Guts. You don’t worry about someone making a stink?”

  Hirsi Ali had written Submission, the movie made by Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who seemed to revel in insulting people and religions. Submission is a searing indictment of the way some Muslims treat women. For his trouble, Van Gogh was gunned down, and the nut job who shot him stuck a knife in his chest with a five-page hate-mail letter threatening Hirsi Ali, Jews, and Western regimes.

  The guy behind the counter leaned back and waved to the shelves. “Hey, I sell copies of The Caged Virgin. I sell the Koran, and I also sell Salman Rushdie. In fact, I sold The Satanic Verses when the whole shit storm started years ago. Disgusted the hell out of me when the other bookstores pulled their copies. And you know what? Not one threat. I had people filing in here asking for it like a teenager trying to buy a skin mag. I made a nice tidy profit that year. I’ll be damned if someone’s going to tell me what books I can’t sell.”

  “So you’re the owner?” I asked needlessly. “You’re the one I’m impressed with.”

  “I guess that’s me,” he laughed.

  “What are you reading?”

  He lifted up the cover so I could see. It was Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe.

  “Ah. One of the sequels.”

  “Well, you impress me,” he said. “Most people only know Things Fall Apart.” He extended his hand for me to shake. “I’m Oliver Anyanike. How ya doin’?”

  “Teresa Knight. Must be great to have your own bookshop.”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Why do people always say that? Distributors are ruthless in keeping my discount as thin as they can make it. I’m up against Brentano’s and Barnes and Amazon. The wolf parks at my door, girl!”

  “And you love it,” I said.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do. My store, my rules, my time. So you on holiday over here or what?”

  I smiled back. “Kind of—a working holiday. I saw your store, and this is going to sound silly, but I wondered if you’d be interested in carrying my books?”

  “You’re a writer.”

  “Well, I’m an author,” I said sheepishly.

  And I slipped out a couple of my books from the Dean & Deluca bag I was dragging around. On a strange whim, I had started writing a series of children’s books about a girl detective—only the little girl, Nura, was a resident of a refugee camp in an African country I never did identify. In her first book, she foiled a ring of petty black marketeers. In the second volume, she helped warn everybody about poisoned wells. The books sold okay, but I was stumped for what I was going to write for a second encore. Not that I would tell Oliver Anyanike that.

  “Hey, these are nice,” he said with genuine enthusiasm. “The art’s good. I got to tell you, we don’t carry much children’s stuff. And I really need to go through whoever your distributor is. Plus any UK book that gets sold here usually has a hefty price on it to cover the shipping. I barely get any discount on imports, you know what I’m saying?”

  “I know, I know,” I said quickly, though I didn’t really know at all. “I’m just, you know, trying to drum up interest. I’m thinking maybe if I bug my publisher, tell them that a few New York bookshops have shown interest, then they might get more aggressive with the overseas sales.”

  His eyebrows jumped, and he said patiently, “It’s an interesting approach. Huh…Tell you what. Have you had lunch? I’d really like to know what them British bookstores are like, how things are done over there.”

  “Well, I just had in mind giving away a freebie copy as a taster…” Can’t make it too easy for him.

  “I’m buying.”

  “Oh, well, if you’re buying, how about dinner?”

  “Get a load of you! Difficult. I usually stay open ’til around nine o’ clock, you understand.”

  “Hey, I thought you were the boss of you,” I argued.

  “Uh-huh.” He leaned forward, dropped his voice an octave, and touched my hand resting on the counter. It was pretty obvious, but it sure was effective. “How about,” he said slowly, “you swing back here at around quarter after eight, eight-thirty. If it’s dead, I’ll close up early.”

  “What if it’s not dead?”

  “I will personally organize your own impromptu book signing,” he replied. “Your first in New York.”

  “It’ll be bloody quick with only two copies!” I laughed.

  “Great! So we’ll still get out early for dinner.”

  As luck would have it, the bookshop was dead in the evening. So much for my American debut. Fine by me, because I was hungry by then. But the amount of food they put on my plate at the restaurant could have fed three Teresas. Never say they give you too-small portions in America.

  Afterward we strolled the wide boulevard, and I listened to the unusual rhythms of the street. New York is American and yet it isn’t, a bohemian city–state and Wall Street Sodom that’s apart, just like London is a separate place from England in its own ways.

  “What’s it like over there?” Oliver asked. “For us?”

  “You’ve never been?”

  He shook his head. “Most I’ve seen is Heathrow Airport for a connecting flight.”

  I didn’t know what to tell him. “It’s…different. It’s not as homogenized. There are fewer of us, and we’re certainly more invisible.”

  “What do you mean homogenized? You think black British—”

  “I’m not crazy about that term,” I cut in.

  He was mildly incredulous, smiling at me with that slight gap in his two front teeth. “You don’t think of yourself as black?”

  “I’m African, not black,” I said. “And I’m only British due to an accident of geography. Look, we don’t have to talk about this.”

  “Hey, I’m interested. I’m not offended.”

  I don’t know why I kept the apologetic tone in my voice. Maybe it was because I already liked him. “I just don’t particularly like what’s passing itself off in the mainstream as black culture over here, or if you like, African-American culture. Fifty Cent and a slew of other forgettable rappers, shit movies where everybody’s a criminal or appallingly stupid an
d stereotyped, people talking with this slang that perpetuates the wrong ideas, the stupid wide-sloppy-pants thing, none of this speaks to me—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he laughed. “That brush you’ve got is pretty wide.”

  “You think I’m being unfair?”

  His head tilted side to side, and I discovered this was his gesture for turning things over. “No. No, you’re not. I get frustrated with it myself plenty of times.”

  “It’s more American than anything black,” I argued. “It’s so bloody insular! It’s like you people forget there’s more than just this culture here. I see people back home trying to emulate the silliness they see in movies and videos.”

  “Well, don’t say ‘you people’—”

  “No, you’re right, sorry.”

  “Like I said,” he continued, “I get frustrated myself. When I was in school, I had a few kids actually come up to me and say, ‘Wha’s wrong wit’ you, man, why don’t you talk black?’ Or some shit like that. And I’d have to laugh. They’d get pissed, and I’d say, ‘Look, pal, you want to come home and meet my mama? You want to hear what a real black person sounds like?’”

  “What did you mean?”

  “My parents are Nigerian,” he answered. “Well, my mom is; my dad’s dead. My last name is Anyanike, remember? My mama would slap me upside the head if she heard me talking in anything so illiterate as that.”

  My parents. The words echoed in my head. My parents are Nigerian, that’s how he’d put it—not I’m Nigerian-American or something. Odd. “So what does that make you?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “American. I was born over there, but I was brought here nine months after.”

  “So…you think of yourself as American?”

  We intrigued each other. “You don’t think of yourself as British?” he asked.

  “Yes and no. They don’t make it easy for us, believe me.”

  “Wow.”

  We stopped and stared at each other a moment across this cultural divide, smiling together in recognition at what separated us and what united us. Then we began walking again.

  “So what do you do for a living?” he asked me.

  “What?” I laughed. “I can’t be a glamorous children’s author?”

  “Yeah, right! If you were J. K. Rowling, baby, you wouldn’t be coming into my sad little store asking me to hook up with your distributor.”

  Smart, I thought. I didn’t see the need to lie too much. I just wouldn’t volunteer my direct purpose for coming into his life. I spun out my tales about doing a little of everything—art assessment, courier, receptionist temping when I had to. To see how he’d react, I told him I had come back only weeks ago from Asia.

  “Asia? What were you doing in Asia?”

  “You’ll laugh.”

  “No, I won’t. Okay, maybe I will, but it’ll be with you, all right?”

  “I was doing a friend a favor,” I explained. “He wanted a black model for this photo shoot, and it’s not like they have many girls of my complexion out there. Plus I had to pose in some kinky stuff.”

  He chuckled, and I punched him in the arm playfully.

  “Laughing with you! Honest, laughing with you! You at least get well paid?”

  “Mmm-hmmm. You don’t seem put off by the details.”

  “But you didn’t tell me any details,” he said coyly. “If you describe what you were wearing, then maybe…”

  “Uh-huh!” I laughed. “Forget it!”

  I called him the next morning and suggested I swing out to the bookshop, but he told me no, could we make it the day after? He said something about year-end tax statements he had to do, which I didn’t understand because I was pretty sure we were past the month when Americans handle that sort of thing, but maybe it was different for businesses.

  Okay, Teresa, now what? I debated the pros and cons of checking out the black BDSM scene in New York, but something told me that, as with vampires and those oh-so-sad white suburban Goths, nothing would happen until nightfall. I could at least do a recon by hitting a few of the fetish shops and seeing what were the hot places. I got ten business cards and met seven guys on the prowl. No, thanks.

  The next day I didn’t wait for Oliver to phone but went straight out to Bindings. From the moment I walked in, I could feel the plunge in temperature. No smile of greeting, more like an apprehensive grimace. It was mid-afternoon, and there were a few customers browsing in Caribbean literature and two over in self-help.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “Can you come out for lunch?” I asked. I saw he had somebody to help him today: skinny guy who looked about twenty, with round spectacles and long dreads.

  “No, I’m going to be busy.”

  “Dinner?”

  “Can’t,” he snapped. “It’s a big city. I’m sure you can find someone else to play with.”

  Oh, boy.

  “You care to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’ve got customers.”

  “I thought,” I said, lowering my voice, “that we hit it off and—”

  “Whatever you’re looking for, I hope you found it,” he said as he moved a box of paperbacks from the counter to a table. “Because I am not going to let you sucker me anymore. Now please get the hell out of here before I call the cops and have you taken in on a trespassing charge!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded. “Where’s all this hostility coming from?”

  “Don’t make a scene in my store.”

  “Not trying to. Just tell me what this is all about, would you please?”

  Exasperated, he hunted for his assistant among the shelves and called him over to mind the till. “I’ll be in the back,” he told him.

  And he stalked off to what I could only assume was his office—expecting me to follow.

  It was a small, tight room with more stacked boxes and what looked like a thoroughly out-of-date computer. The desk needed a cloth to remove the patina of dust.

  “You must think I’m really stupid,” he complained as he shut the door.

  “At the moment, I think you’re being a callous bastard. If you don’t like me or you’ve changed your mind, all it takes is a phone call. You don’t have to duck me or come up with this fanciful—”

  “Drop the bullshit!” he snapped. “You’re not here because you’re interested in me, and you’re not here to sell me your kids’ books. You’re poking around, trying to sniff out something. What are you? Some kind of detective? What is it you’re after, Teresa?”

  2

  My breath caught for a second, and then there was nothing to do but come clean. How the hell…? I folded my arms and let my boot heel click on the unfinished floor.

  “Truth? I do like you, Oliver. But I am after something—”

  “Son of a bitch! I was hoping to be wrong. Goddammit!”

  “How did you learn about me?”

  He laughed in my face. “I may never have got to England, baby, but I got friends there. My boy out front? He works here just two or three days a week, doing me a favor. His main gig is working for a buddy of mine who owns an African art gallery in Sugar Hill. They sell to Europe, so I got him to check out your name with a couple of dealers in London. You’re known. You’re quite the legend, Teresa. They say you gallivant all over God’s creation helping people ‘solve problems.’ What I want to know is: What are you doing in my business?”

  I didn’t have much choice. He was my one lead, and my instincts told me he was an innocent in all this. So I laid it all out for him. Learning of Anna’s death, going to Bangkok and meeting with Jeff Lee, and tracing his store through the photograph.

  “Anna’s dead?” he whispered, and he slowly leaned back against his desk.

  “You didn’t know?” I asked incredulously. “It must have been in the papers.”

  He shook his head and looked up at me with genuine embarrassment. “I stopped reading stuff about murders and mayhem. I never pick up the Pos
t. I read the Times. I remember seeing something about a girl in an alley, but they hadn’t identified her when that story came out. That was—that was Anna? Oh, God.”

  “You did know her, then?”

  “She was a friend,” he answered, and the feeling bled out of his voice.

  “Well, she was my friend too, and the sister of my client. Someone—someone I bet you know, Oliver—dumped her like trash in an alley.”

  “Oh, Jesus…”

  “I want to know who these people are, Oliver.”

  “No, you don’t, Teresa. Believe me. They are scary-ass fuckers, and I am lucky I got away from them. Your Chinese buddy was right. They’re a cult. They are crazy. They’re scary way past street-gang shit right into the Darth Vader zone, you know what I’m saying? I am not involved with them anymore, and I don’t want to be ever again!”

  I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Then why did you help Craig Padmore?”

  “Who?”

  “Come on, Oliver. I’ve got my sources too. They murdered him as well.”

  “Oh, man…”

  “You sold him a French book about Vietnam. What did he want with that? He could have got it from anyplace, so why come to you for it?”

  He looked up at me, and I couldn’t tell whether he was measuring me for the sake of trust or honestly trying to think of the answer. “I don’t know.”

  “Oliver!”

  “Teresa, all he wanted was to take his girlfriend back home with him, but Anna wouldn’t go. It was around the time I was extricating myself. He came to my store one afternoon, asked me a whole bunch of questions about the group’s leader and about…”

  He hesitated a second. “Padmore picked up that book himself. He came back the next day to say good-bye and leave a message to Anna for me to pass on, that he’d welcome her back in London, pay her way if she needed him to.”

  “It sounds like he was really worried about her,” I suggested. “How could he just up and leave her in their clutches? This was his girlfriend.”

  “What’s the man going to do?” argued Oliver. “His contract’s up, his work visa’s expiring, and she says, ‘Go home, I’m happy here.’ Doesn’t want to listen to him. You think she’d kiss and make up with him if he dropped a dime on her to immigration? So he tried another tack. Prove they didn’t deserve her faith. Like I said, he asked me questions, bought the book—made a big deal out of how much it helped him.”