The Best American Noir of the Century

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  A cautionary tale about being careful what you wish for, “When the Women Come Out to Dance” was first published in the author’s short story collection of that name (2002); it was selected for The Best American Mystery Stories 2003.

  ~ * ~

  L

  ourdes became mrs. mahmood’s personal maid when her friend Viviana quit to go to L.A. with her husband. Lourdes and Viviana were both from Cali in Colombia and had come to South Florida as mail-order brides. Lourdes’s husband, Mr. Zimmer, worked for a paving contractor until his death, two years from the time they were married.

  She came to the home on Ocean Drive, only a few blocks from Donald Trump’s, expecting to not have a good feeling for a woman named Mrs. Mahmood, wife of Dr. Wasim Mahmood, who altered the faces and breasts of Palm Beach ladies and aspirated their areas of fat. So it surprised Lourdes that the woman didn’t look like a Mrs. Mahmood, and that she opened the door herself: this tall redheaded woman in a little green two-piece swimsuit, sunglasses on her nose, opened the door and said, “Lourdes, as in Our Lady of?”

  “No, ma’am, Lourdes, the Spanish way to say it,” and had to ask, “You have no help here to open the door?”

  The redheaded Mrs. Mahmood said, “They’re in the laundry room watching soaps.” She said, “Come on in,” and brought Lourdes into this home of marble floors, of statues and paintings that held no meaning, and out to the swimming pool, where they sat at a patio table beneath a yellow and white umbrella.

  There were cigarettes, a silver lighter, and a tall glass with only ice left in it on the table. Mrs. Mahmood lit a cigarette, a long Virginia Slim, and pushed the pack toward Lourdes, who was saying, “All I have is this, Mrs. Mahmood,” Lourdes bringing a biographical data sheet, a printout, from her straw bag. She laid it before the redheaded woman showing her breasts as she leaned forward to look at the sheet.

  “‘Your future wife is in the mail’?”

  “From the Latina introduction list for marriage,” Lourdes said. “The men who are interested see it on their computers. Is three years old, but what it tells of me is still true. Except of course my age. Now it would say thirty-five.”

  Mrs. Mahmood, with her wealth, her beauty products, looked no more than thirty. Her red hair was short and reminded Lourdes of the actress who used to be on TV at home, Jill St. John, with the same pale skin. She said, “That’s right, you and Viviana were both mail-order brides,” still looking at the sheet. “Your English is good —that’s true. You don’t smoke or drink.”

  “I drink now sometime, socially.”

  “You don’t have e-mail.”

  “No, so we wrote letters to correspond, before he came to Cali, where I lived. They have parties for the men who come and we get — you know, we dress up for it.”

  “Look each other over.”

  “Yes, is how I met Mr. Zimmer in person.”

  “Is that what you called him?”

  “I didn’t call him anything.”

  “Mrs. Zimmer,” the redheaded woman said. “How would you like to be Mrs. Mahmood?”

  “I wouldn’t think that was your name.”

  She was looking at the printout again. “You’re virtuous, sensitive, hardworking, optimistic. Looking for a man who’s a kind, loving person with a good job. Was that Mr. Zimmer?”

  “He was OK except when he drank too much. I had to be careful what I said or it would ‘cause him to hit me. He was strong, too, for a guy his age. He was fifty-eight.”

  “When you married?”

  “When he died.”

  “I believe Viviana said he was killed?” The woman sounding like she was trying to recall whatever it was Viviana had told her. “An accident on the job?”

  Lourdes believed the woman already knew about it, but said, “He was disappeared for a few days until they find his mix truck out by Hialeah, a pile of concrete by it but no reason for the truck to be here since there’s no job he was pouring. So the police have the concrete broken open and find Mr. Zimmer.”

  “Murdered,” the redheaded woman said.

  “They believe so, yes, his hands tied behind him.”

  “The police talk to you?”

  “Of course. He was my husband.”

  “I mean did they think you had anything to do with it.”

  She knew. Lourdes was sure of it.

  “There was a suspicion that friends of mine here from Colombia could be the ones did it. Someone who was their enemy told this to the police.”

  “It have anything to do with drugs?”

  The woman seeing all Colombians as drug dealers.

  “My husband drove a cement truck.”

  “But why would anyone want to kill him?”

  “Who knows?” Lourdes said. “This person who finked, he told the police I got the Colombian guys to do it because my husband was always beating me. One time he hit me so hard,” Lourdes said, touching the strap of her blue sundress that was faded almost white from washing, “it separated my shoulder, the bones in here, so I couldn’t work.”

  “Did you tell the Colombian guys he was beating you?”

  “Everyone knew. Sometime Mr. Zimmer was brutal to me in public, when he was drinking.”

  “So maybe the Colombian guys did do it.” The woman sounding like she wanted to believe it.

  “I don’t know,” Lourdes said, and waited to see if this was the end of it. Her gaze moved out to the sunlight, to the water in the swimming pool lying still, and beyond to red bougainvillea growing against white walls. Gardeners were weeding and trimming, three of them Lourdes thought at first were Latino. No, the color of their skin was different. She said, “Those men ...”

  “Pakistanis,” Mrs. Mahmood said.

  “They don’t seem to work too hard,” Lourdes said. “I always have a garden at home, grow things to eat. Here, when I was married, I worked for Miss Olympia. She call her service Cleaning with Biblical Integrity. I wasn’t sure what it means, but she would say things to us from the Holy Bible. We cleaned offices in buildings in Miami. What I do here Viviana said would be different, personal to you. See to your things, keep your clothes nice?”

  Straighten her dresser drawers. Clean her jewelry. Mrs. Mahmood said she kicked her shoes off in the closet, so Lourdes would see they were paired and hung in the shoe racks. Check to see what needed to be dry-cleaned. Lourdes waited as the woman stopped to think of other tasks. See to her makeup drawers in the bathroom. Lourdes would live here, have Sundays off, a half day during the week. Technically she would be an employee of Dr. Mahmood’s.

  Oh? Lourdes wasn’t sure what that meant. Before she could ask, Mrs. Mahmood wanted to know if she was a naturalized citizen. Lourdes told her she was a permanent resident, but now had to get the papers to become a citizen.

  “I say who I work for I put Dr. Wasim Mahmood?”

  The redheaded wife said, “It’s easier that way. You know, to handle what’s taken out. But I’ll see that you clear at least three-fifty a week.”

  Lourdes said that was very generous. “But will I be doing things also for Dr. Mahmood?”

  The redheaded woman smoking her cigarette said, “What did Viviana tell you about him?”

  “She say only that he didn’t speak to her much.”

  “Viviana’s a size twelve. Woz likes them young and as lean as snakes. How much do you weigh?”

  “Less than one hundred twenty-five pounds.”

  “But not much — you may be safe. You cook?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I mean for yourself. We go out or order in from restaurants. I won’t go near that fucking stove and Woz knows it.”

  Lourdes said, “Wos?”

  “Wasim. He thinks it’s because I don’t know how to cook, which I don’t, really, but that’s not the reason. The two regular maids are Filipina and speak English. In fact, they have less of an accent than you. They won’t give you any trouble, they look at the ground when they talk to anyone. And they leave at four, thank
God. Woz always swims nude — don’t ask me why, it might be a Muslim thing — so if they see him in the pool they hide in the laundry room. Or if I put on some southern hip-hop and they happen to walk in while I’m bouncing to Dirty South doing my aerobics, they run for the laundry room.” She said without a pause, “What did Viviana say about me?”

  “Oh, how nice you are, what a pleasure to work here.”

  “Come on — I know she told you I was a stripper.”

  “She say you were a dancer before, yes.”

  “I started out in a dump on Federal Highway, got discovered and jumped to Miami Gold on Biscayne, valet parking. I was one of the very first, outside of black chicks, to do southern hip-hop, and I mean Dirty South raw and uncut, while the other girls are doing Limp Bizkit, even some old Bob Seeger and Bad Company — and that’s OK, whatever works for you. But in the meantime I’m making more doing laptops and private gigs than any girl at the Gold and I’m twenty-seven at the time, older than any of them. Woz would come in with his buddies, all suits and ties, trying hard not to look Third World. The first time he waved a fifty at me I gave him some close-up tribal strip-hop. I said, ‘Doctor, you can see better if you put your eyeballs back in your head.’ He loved that kind of talk. About the fourth visit I gave him what’s known as the million-dollar hand job and became Mrs. Mahmood.”

  She told this sitting back, relaxed, smoking her Virginia Slim cigarette, Lourdes nodding, wondering at times what she was talking about, Lourdes saying “I see” in a pleasant voice when the woman paused.

  Now she was saying, “His first wife stayed in Pakistan while he was here in med school. Right after he finished his residency and opened his practice, she died.” The woman said, “Let’s see . . . You won’t have to wear a uniform unless Woz wants you to serve drinks. Once in a while he has some of his ragtop buddies over for cocktails. Now you see these guys in their Nehru outfits and hear them chattering away in Urdu. I walk in, ‘Ah, Mrs. Mahmood,’ in that semi-British singsongy way they speak, ‘what a lovely sight you are to my eyes this evening.’ Wondering if I’m the same chick he used to watch strip.”

  She took time to light another cigarette, and Lourdes said, “Do I wear my own clothes working here?”

  “At first, but I’ll get you some cool outfits. What are you, about an eight?”

  “My size? Yes, I believe so.”

  “Let’s see — stand up.”

  Lourdes rose and moved away from the table in the direction Mrs. Mahmood waved her hand. Now the woman was staring at her. She said, “I told you his first wife died?”

  “Yes, ma’am, you did.”

  “She burned to death.”

  Lourdes said, “Oh?”

  But the redheaded woman didn’t tell her how it happened. She smoked her cigarette and said, “Your legs are good, but you’re kinda short-waisted, a bit top-heavy. But don’t worry, I’ll get you fixed up. What’s your favorite color?”

  “I always like blue, Mrs. Mahmood.”

  She said, “Listen, I don’t want you to call me that anymore. You can say ma’am in front of Woz to get my attention, but when it’s just you and I? I’d rather you called me by my own name.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Ginger. Well, actually it’s Janeen, but all of my friends call me Ginger. The ones I have left.”

  Meaning, Lourdes believed, since she was married to the doctor, friends who also danced naked, or maybe even guys.

  Lourdes said, “Ginger?”

  “Not Yinyor. Gin-ger. Try it again.”

  “Gin-gar?”

  “That’s close. Work on it.”

  ~ * ~

  But she could not make herself call Mrs. Mahmood Ginger. Not yet. Not during the first few weeks. Not on the shopping trip to Worth Avenue where Mrs. Mahmood knew everyone, all the salesgirls, and some of them did call her Ginger. She picked out for Lourdes casual summer dresses that cost hundreds of dollars each and some things from Resort Wear, saying, “This is cute,” and would hand it to the salesgirl to put aside, never asking Lourdes her opinion, if she liked the clothes or not. She did, but wished some of them were blue. Everything was yellow or yellow and white or white with yellow. She didn’t have to wear a uniform, no, but now she matched the yellow and white patio, the cushions, the umbrellas, feeling herself part of the decor, invisible.

  Sitting out here in the evening several times a week when the doctor didn’t come home, Mrs. Mahmood trying hard to make it seem they were friends, Mrs. Mahmood serving daiquiris in round crystal goblets, waiting on her personal maid. It was nice to be treated this way, and it would continue, Lourdes believed, until Mrs. Mahmood finally came out and said what was on her mind, what she wanted Lourdes to do for her.

  The work was nothing, keep the woman’s clothes in order, water the houseplants, fix lunch for herself— and the maids, once they came in the kitchen sniffing her spicy seafood dishes. Lourdes had no trouble talking to them. They looked right at her face telling her things. Why they avoided Dr. Mahmood. Because he would ask very personal questions about their sexual lives. Why they thought Mrs. Mahmood was crazy. Because of the way she danced in just her underwear.

  And in the evening the woman of the house would tell Lourdes of being bored with her life, not able to invite her friends in because Woz didn’t approve of them.

  “What do I do? I hang out. I listen to music. I discuss soap operas with the gook maids. Melda stops me. ‘Oh, missus, come quick.’ They’re in the laundry room watching As the World Turns. She goes, ‘Dick follows Nikki to where she is to meet Ryder, and it look like he was going to hurt her. But Ryder came there in time to save Nikki from a violent Dick.’”

  Mrs. Mahmood would tell a story like that and look at her without an expression on her face, waiting for Lourdes to smile or laugh. But what was funny about the story?

  “What do I do?” was the question she asked most. “I exist, I have no life.”

  “You go shopping.”

  “That’s all.”

  “You play golf.”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding.”

  “You go out with your husband.”

  “To an Indian restaurant and I listen to him talk to the manager. How many times since you’ve been here has he come home in the evening? He has a girlfriend,” the good-looking redheaded woman said. “He’s with her all the time. Her or another one, and doesn’t care that I know. He’s rubbing it in my face. All guys fool around at least once in a while. Woz and his buddies live for it. It’s accepted over there, where they’re from. A guy gets tired of his wife in Pakistan? He burns her to death. Or has it done. I’m not kidding, he tells everyone her dupatta caught fire from the stove.”

  Lourdes said, “Ah, that’s why you don’t cook.”

  “Among other reasons. Woz’s from Rawalpindi, a town where forty women a month show up at the hospital with terrible burns. If the woman survives ... Are you listening to me?”

  Lourdes was sipping her daiquiri. “Yes, of course.”

  “If she doesn’t die, she lives in shame because her husband, this prick who tried to burn her to death, kicked her out of the fucking house. And he gets away with it. Pakistan, India, thousands of women are burned every year ‘cause their husbands are tired of them, or they didn’t come up with a big enough dowry.”

  “You say the first wife was burn to death.”

  “Once he could afford white women — like, what would he need her for?”

  “You afraid he’s going to burn you?”

  “It’s what they do, their custom. And you know what’s ironic? Woz comes here to be a plastic surgeon, but over in Pakistan, where all these women are going around disfigured? There are no plastic surgeons to speak of.” She said, “Some of them get acid thrown in their face.” She said, “I made the biggest mistake of my life marrying a guy from a different culture, a towelhead.”

  Lourdes said, “Why did you?”

  She gestured. “This ...” Meaning the house and all that went
with it.

  “So you have what you want.”

  “I won’t if I leave him.”