by Tikiri
When I suggested we give up the apartment altogether—that Katy officially move in with her new boyfriend and I move into the shop and sleep on Dick’s couch to save money—it fell on deaf ears. Neither Jose nor Dick nor Katy wanted to even discuss it. I wondered about Katy. Though she was still starry-eyed about Jose, I got the distinct feeling something was not well. She kept saying she wanted to keep the apartment in case she needed to move back quickly.
“Why?” I’d asked. “Is everything okay?”
“You never know,” she’d said, with a shrug. “Just good to have my own place.” Then she’d changed topic. Katy was a private person, so I knew she’d tell me when the time was right.
Thirty seconds after I’d put the phone down, it rang again.
Again?
“Hewwo?” I answered, my toothbrush still in my mouth.
Whirr… buzzzz…
I had little time for pranks that morning. This time, I’m calling the phone company to blacklist this number. I was about to hang up when a crackled voice came through.
“Is this Asha?”
My heart sank. It was the same voice as the previous mysterious caller. The same Indian accent. I hadn’t dreamed it up, I was sure now. The voice was muffled, as if the caller had a bad cold or something. With the headset stuck to my ear, I ran to the bathroom, pulled out my toothbrush, and spat into the sink.
“Who’s this?” I asked.
“Someone pay very good money for visa.”
“Who…who are you?”
“You cannot run away all the time.” There was something familiar about the way he spoke. “You’re a very naughty girl, you know.”
“I said, who are you?” I demanded.
“Franky is disappointed, very disappointed with you.”
The bathroom felt suffocating. I stepped through the door, half expecting to find the intruder inside our apartment. It was early and Katy was still asleep, it being one of those rare nights she’d slept at our apartment.
I walked toward the kitchen with the phone glued to my ear, my legs wobbly, ready to give way any minute. I leaned against the table and clutched the back of a chair to steady myself.
“I want to know who you are.” I tried to sound as authoritative as I could. “And I want you to know I’m going to call the police.”
To my surprise, I heard a chuckle. “If you want to go to prison, go ahead. Otherwise, we are waiting for you.”
A chill went through my spine.
“Waiting for what?”
“You must keep promises.”
“I never made any.”
The phone went dead before I could say anything else. The buzz and crackles ceased, leaving a monotonous dial tone.
“Morning.”
I whirled around. A sleepy Katy was stumbling into the kitchen in her pink pajamas, her hair askew.
“What’s the matter?” she said stopping to squint at me. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Nothing. It’s…er…just a prank call.” I put the phone down quickly and picked up the kettle with shaking hands. “Want some tea?”
“Sure, thanks,” Katy said, pulling out a chair to sit down. “Must have been a heck of a prank to make you shake like that.”
I stood still for a full minute, before turning around.
“Katy, there’s something I need to tell you.”
Chapter Fifty
“Missus Rao!”
My head jerked up so fast, the egg whisk flew out of my hand.
It was four days after the mysterious phone call, four days after I’d spilled my guts to Katy and told her everything. Sharing my story had been a relief, but doing so had brought back memories—memories I’d rather have forgotten, and now, I was all nerves. I hadn’t slept for days and I was starting to hear and see things everywhere.
With three months to go before I returned to Goa, my mind was buzzing with mixed feelings of hope, worry, relief, and nerves, tumbling through my mind, day and night. I thought I spotted Ashok at the grocery store, Franky at the gas station, and someone who looked suspiciously like Kristadasa at the bakery parking lot. I shook my head. I had to get rid of these wild imaginings or I’d end up in a straitjacket.
I picked up the whisk, threw it in the sink, and plucked a clean one from the drawer. My hand was shaking. Stop it. I shook my head to clear my mind. I’m working too hard and I’ve become paranoid. What do I have to be so worried about? Sure, Dick was the worst boss in the world, but he’d not let anyone hurt his best baker, would he? I was bringing in good money now. Real good money, like never before. And Jose, who’d started to date Katy in earnest, was turning out to be tolerable—nice, even. I knew he thought me demanding, but he respected me. He’d help if I’m in trouble, wouldn’t he? Maybe, I thought, it was time to stop mistrusting everybody and ask for help for once.
I continued to mix my batter, but my mind was elsewhere, back in the past, remembering Mrs. Rao’s home, those odd moonlit nights, Tim’s crazy escape, Ashok’s sudden arrival, Franky’s call, Preeti’s letter.… My mind got stuck on Preeti’s letter. What did last week’s call mean? What did he mean when he said they were waiting for me? Who? Where?
“Misses Rao!”
I put my whisk down and listened. The sound was coming from the front of the store.
“Raoooo!”
This was not my imagination. This was real.
I tiptoed toward the front trying not to make any noise, glancing around as I went. Did someone come in? But the front door was locked and I was the only one in the bakery. Katy always locked the front door when I was working alone in the kitchen and everyone had stepped out. It was Friday afternoon and Dick, while telling us he was at a church fund raiser, was really with his brother at the local strip joint having a beer and ogling women swinging naked around poles. And Jose had taken Katy on a lunch date at a fancy restaurant downtown.
So no one should have been in the store other than me. I looked at Dick’s office and heard a “Hellooo!”
And Jim, of course.
I peeked inside.
“Hellooo!” Jim said, cocking his head at me.
“You silly bird. Is it you making all this noise?”
He gave me a condescending sniff and looked away grandly, like I wasn’t worth the effort. He was perched on top of the safe on Dick’s desk. Next to him was a glass tumbler half-filled with dark rum. While I watched in surprise, Jim casually slipped his curved beak into the glass and took a sip. He tipped his head back and swallowed expertly. This was the first time I’d seen a bird drink liquor. Hiccup! Oh, no. I looked at him closely, hoping he wouldn’t get sick.
Right next to the tumbler was a magazine turned upside down. I didn’t have to turn it right-side-up to know what it contained. On the back cover was a platinum blonde holding a leather whip and wearing nothing but tiny black panties. It was one of Dick’s magazines. I looked at the bird sitting nonchalantly next to it, one claw over the woman’s breast and the other scratching his head.
I shook my head. This bird was something. Jim seemed to agree. He rustled his feathers proudly and opened his beak. “Rao!” he said, nearly splitting my eardrums. I jumped.
“What did you say?”
He gave me an innocent look and blinked.
“Heeellooo,” Jim replied solemnly.
“Where did you learn that name?”
“Dammittohell.”
“Tell me. Where’d you learn that new word, Jim?”
He cocked his head and scratched the back of it with a claw.
“Come on, tell me, Jim. Please.”
I sighed. I was trying to have a conversation with a parrot. I considered the possibilities. Jim had never met Mrs. Rao, so he must have heard the name from somewhere or someone else. Or had he met her? At a meeting after Katy and I had left for the day, maybe? Someone calling her on the telephone? I stared at the bird. He stared back.
“Why can’t you speak intelligently for a change, you silly bird?”
He glared at me as only an annoyed parrot can glare. He turned around and began to preen his feathers. Squawk… squawk…he muttered softly to himself, as if in disdain he had to talk to me, a lowly human.
The front door banged open, making me jump.
“Hey,” Katy said, her face pink from the crisp air outside.
“Hey, you’re early.”
“Is Jim giving you trouble again?”
“You could say that.” She’ll think I’ve gone bonkers if I tell her what I’d heard. “What happened to your lunch date?”
Katy looked crestfallen. “Jose had a business meeting, so we just went to the corner café.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She’d been looking forward to the fancy outing, and had even dressed up for it.
“Yeah,” Katy said to the floor and let out a large sigh.
“Everything all right?”
“Not really.”
“What’s wrong, Katy?”
“Things have changed.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It was great at the beginning, and then, he started to act kind of like…”
I looked at her expectantly.
“Not very nice,” she said finally. “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and he’s gone off.”
“Gone off? Where?”
“I dunno.” She shrugged. “When I ask him, he tells me he’s got insomnia or something and goes for long walks to shake it off, but every time he comes back to bed, he smells of cigarettes and rum. Just like Dick used to. But he never lets me go out at night. I have to stay home alone, while he’s out.”
I looked away. Why did sweet, lovely Katy always have to pick the wrong kind of man?
“Today, he got mad at me for leaving fingerprints on his car.”
“What?”
“Called me useless.”
“Katy!” I looked at her, shocked.
“And yesterday, he told me he’s going to make me work from home starting next week, because he thinks I’m always checking out other guys.”
“What?”
She nodded forlornly. “And that trip to Mexico…”
A series of red flags were going up, one by one. “What about it?”
“He said I’ve got work to do and he doesn’t want me to waste time on trips.”
“Are you serious?”
“I know.” Katy was still looking at her shoes.
“He sounds totally controlling.” I paused. This was the guy who made a big fuss of calling us “ladies” and even opened doors for us like a gentleman. I knew he had another side.
“He was mean to me at lunch today. Was on his phone the whole time and didn’t even look at me when I left.”
“Oh my god,” I said. What I really wanted to say was “Drop him now!” but those words didn’t come out.
“Ever since he started that important project with the Indian company, he’s been acting strange.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Indian company?”
“That’s his twelve thirty meeting.”
“Who’s he talking to?”
“I dunno,” Katy said, shrugging her shoulders. She wobbled into the den, plopped down on her chair, and started to mindlessly straighten her ledger books. “He doesn’t tell me much anymore. Anyway, I guess I’m not important enough to be at the meeting.”
“Why are they meeting at a coffee shop? Don’t customers normally come to our office?”
“Think they had a few meetings already here last week, after our shift ended. Saw them on Jose’s phone calendar,” Katy said, looking slightly guilty. “I thought he was seeing someone else at night, so I peeked.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“That’s why I’ve been sleeping at our apartment, because he said he had late work meetings here.”
“Come with me,” I said.
“What?” she asked, not getting up from her chair.
“I want you to hear this. Come.”
I walked into Dick’s office with Katy shuffling behind me. Jim was half-asleep on the desk now, the tumbler next to him empty.
“What is it?” Katy asked, looking around the room.
“Shhhh,” I said, putting a finger to my lips.
“Hello, Jim,” I said in a soft voice, stooping in front of the bird.
“Helloo,” said a slurred, sleepy voice.
“Hey Jim, wake up, sweetie, and tell us what you learned recently,” I said.
“Helloooo,” the bird said softly, without opening his eyes.
“That’s good. What else, Jim? What’s the new word you’ve learned?”
“Dammittohell,” Jim said happily to himself.
“Come on, Jim. Try once more. Please.” I looked around, wondering how to prompt his memory. Ply him with more rum? Give him another porn magazine?
“Missus Raooo!” the bird called out.
“Ha!” I said, whipping my head around. “Did you hear that Katy?”
“What?”
“How many people do you know called Mrs. Rao?”
She shook her head.
“Missus Rao,” Jim said again softly, cocking his head and regarding us warily with one open eye.
“See? I know I’m not imagining this,” I said, pointing at the bird. “I don’t know where he’s heard that, but it has to be recent. You know how he likes to repeat his new words? Who knows what goes on here when we’re out making deliveries or after our shift ends?”
Katy’s face was blank.
“Mrs. Rao must have been here for Jim to hear her name. Or someone called her a few times and Jim heard the name.”
Katy’s face looked strange, like she was remembering something.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“At lunch today—”
“Yes?”
“Jose took a call. He was talking to his phone, but I was close enough to hear. It was a woman on the other end, a woman with an Indian accent. I didn’t think much of it because he said he was meeting an Indian company, but I remember the photo avatar on the screen now. It was an Indian woman with a short bob haircut and warts on her face. I couldn’t help notice the warts.”
My blood ran cold. “That sounds exactly like Mrs. Rao.”
We stared at each other with widened eyes.
Chapter Fifty-one
“That’s him!” I said, ducking in my seat. “Oh my god, that’s Ashok.”
We’d just driven to the café where Jose was supposed to have his meeting with the Indian company, and there in the parking lot was Mrs. Rao’s unmistakable white Land Rover with Ashok squatting beside it. I peered above the dashboard. Yes, it was him and he hadn’t changed a bit. And right next to the white Rover was Jose’s black Mercedes.
“Stay down!” Katy said in a fierce whisper.
An unearthly squeal came from underneath us. The old bakery van always squeaked like a giant mouse, but right now it sounded like the rodent had a megaphone. We were announcing our arrival to every living thing in the vicinity. A month ago, Jose had slyly asked me for half of my commission so we could get a new van and “do even bigger business together.” I refused.
“Can we try not to make so much noise please?” I whispered, glancing up at Katy from the foot well.
“Can’t help it,” she said. “It’s the brakes. This van’s dying.”
“Let’s park far away,” I said. “There’s only one van like this in the whole city. Everyone will know it’s us.”
Katy drove slowly through the parking lot, toward the back of the café, with me hunched low in my seat. A semitruck, with a photo of a giant iced donut plastered on the side, sat parked in the back. No one was around.
“Right behind that truck,” I said, pointing. “Good place to hide this.”
Katy swung in and pulled the hand brake. We got out, closed the doors quietly, and scanned the area. Traffic was swooshing by on the busy highway next to the café. We could hear the h
um of voices talking near us, but saw no one. I silently signaled to Katy to follow me and walked toward the back door of the café.
“Do we go in?” Katy whispered, when we got to the door.
“I don’t know,” I whispered back, looking around. I didn’t have a plan, except that I wanted to find out who Jose was meeting with, without them seeing us.
“What if they see us?” Katy asked, reading my mind.
“Then we’ll—” But I didn’t get to finish. The back door opened with a bang, almost bowling us over.
Katy and I shrieked at the same time.
“Sorry!” said a young pimple-faced man in a café uniform with a broom in one hand and a dustpan in the other. He stopped and eyed us. We stared back. My heart was pounding. Does he know why we’re here? Is he going to rat us out?
“Hey, you gals have a lighter?”
“Oooh.” Katy looked visibly relieved. “Sorry, left mine in the car.”
“I’m totally desperate for a smoke,” he said. “Is your car here?”
“Right there,” Katy said automatically, pointing at our hideout behind the semi.
I shook my head. “Katy, I think you forgot to bring—”
“Can I use your lighter please? You’ll so totally save my life. I’m dying here.”
“No problem, I’ll go get it,” the ever-pleasing Katy said, turning to return to the van.
“Oh, thanks, man. Sweet.”
He followed her with his broom dragging on the ground. I followed them both, racking my brain to think how to tell Katy to stop drawing any more attention to us. The problem was she was always too nice.
“Here you go,” she said, opening the glove compartment of the van and bringing out a silver lighter. “It’s not mine,” she said, when she saw me shaking my head in warning, but it was no use. “It’s Jose’s,” she said. “Don’t worry, I haven’t started smoking.”
“Dammit to hell!”
We jumped.
“That’s not a fair deal!”