Half the Day Is Night Read online

  She was thinking about what if something developed between her and Saad. She was thinking it was possible, he was in some ways so North American. Not a Caribbean male who would be threatened by her own success. And she liked him, he was funny and smart. She hadn’t been fair to him at first. Some day she would tell him that. He would come to Julia some weekends and stay with her, she would come to Marincite some weekends and stay with him.

  Maybe she would move to Marincite. She could imagine living here, and she could probably get a job with Marincite Corp.

  She wondered what kind of family he had back in Pakistan. A gaggle of doe-eyed sisters in saris who spoke no English? Was he a cultural stranger to his family? Were they cosmopolitan?

  She knew they were just going out to dinner.

  She wasn’t really having these thoughts one at a time, they were kind of all jumbled up with standing here next to Saad, who was quiet because her bodyguard was standing behind them, pretending not to pay attention to them.

  The restaurant was American. She wasn’t really surprised.

  “I will wait there,” David pointed to a bench on the street. He showed her his book, something in French.

  While they were waiting to be seated Saad said, “Isn’t he allowed to eat?”

  “He ate before we came,” Mayla said.

  Saad nodded.

  “It’s his job,” she said.

  “That’s why there are two of them?” Saad said. “Days and evenings?”

  “Well, no,” she said. “Tim is quitting. David is taking over.”

  “Tim is getting a different job?”

  “Tim isn’t really security. It’s complicated,” she said. She wasn’t going to explain Tim to Saad, certainly not now.

  The dinner lurched along. They neither of them seemed to know how to conduct a conversation. It’s a first date, Mayla thought. How could they save this? Through the menu bound in hunter green, and the too-expensive chowder and her glass of wine and his beer and crippling onward. He wasn’t funny or quick and her head was empty.

  It was her, he was usually different. Things had started wrong by having David come along. She should get things back to the way they had been in the afternoon when Saad had been easy to talk to but she didn’t know how.

  “Do you like Marincite?” she asked.

  “It’s all right,” he said.

  “It’s not Cincinnati, Ohio,” she said.

  “No,” he said. That was all, just “no.” No quip.

  “It’s not like Julia, either,” she said. “In some ways it’s more like the U.S.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s sort of better organized. There’s less bribery, maybe.” Like you, she thought, although she didn’t dare say it. He didn’t understand, how could he? “In Julia, everything is paybacks and kickbacks and somebody has his hand in someone else’s pocket. I know that happens in Marincite, too, but Marincite is different.”

  “I don’t think Marincite is like the U.S.”

  “It’s not, really,” she said. “It’s run by Marincite Corp., you’re really not allowed to breathe without permission—”

  “Air tax,” he said, grinning. The old joke, in Caribe you even had to pay for the air you breathe.

  “But Marincite keeps everybody running by company regulations, which is kind of honest. Julia’s not like that.”

  “Sure,” he said, although she couldn’t tell if he really agreed with her or was just being agreeable.

  “I was thinking of moving here,” she said, “you know, getting a job with Marincite Corp.” Which was stupid, because if she moved here, she would have to have a job with Marincite Corp. “I’ve been having some trouble in Julia, I’ve become a target of some, you know, political people.”

  “You?” Saad said. “I mean, not that you don’t have a good job, but, I mean.…”

  “I’m not important,” she said. “Don’t worry, I’m not insulted.”

  He grinned. “I mean, I think you’re important, after all, you’re doing this loan for me.”

  She felt her face crinkle with pleasure at his joke. “Well, my grandfather started First Hawaiian, that’s the only angle that the police can come up with. But I guess that Marincite isn’t really any safer than Julia. Look what happened to poor Tumipamba.”

  Saad had to think a second. “Oh, yeah. Right, the guy, the CFO.”

  She nodded. “If politicals could get to him.…”

  “If it was politicals,” Saad said.

  “Yeah?” she said. “I heard something about gambling debts.”

  “I didn’t hear that. But I think there’s a shakedown going on at the upper levels of Marincite Corp.”

  “You think they’re killing their own execs?”

  “Hey,” Saad said, “I don’t know. And the walls have ears.”

  Another dead space. Too serious, she thought. She should have kept things light.

  When dinner arrived she was grateful for the business of putting sour cream and butter on her potato. For the occupation of eating.

  “I ah, I hate to bring up business at dinner,” Saad said, “but I have a friend and he and I are trying to get something started and I was wondering if we might be able to talk to you about a loan?”

  “A loan?”

  He nodded.

  “What kind of loan?” she asked, gone still inside. Suspended and waiting.

  “For a business,” he said. “I was wondering if maybe you could come with me and meet my friend, we could talk about it at the shop.”

  Not an answer, she thought, which was a different kind of answer. “Why don’t we talk about this at the office tomorrow?”

  “The shop isn’t far,” he said.

  “I don’t usually do business away from the office.”

  “We could get it over with.”

  “When?” she said. Maybe she wasn’t being fair again. Maybe he would say Saturday or Monday, after the papers for the clinic loan would be signed.

  “Tonight?” he was eager. “Would that be all right? It wouldn’t take long.”

  No, she thought. No no no. “How about Friday?” she said. Hoping he would say “sure.”

  “Really,” he said. “Tonight might be a better time.”

  “Or there might be trouble getting signatures on the loan papers?” she said. Rude, angry with him.

  He didn’t say anything, but it was true.

  “Goddamn you,” she said. And then, “Goddamn you, you have a lot of nerve.”

  “Yeah,” he said. No explanation, no apology.

  “Why did you wait until the night before the papers were signed!”

  “Because the loan would almost be in your hand and it would be harder for you to say ‘no’.”

  “What makes you think I need this loan? Do you have any idea how big a deal the Marincite loan is, and how really tiny your piddling clinic is?”

  “It’s all Marincite,” he said. “This whole city is all Marincite.”

  Then she remembered that Polly Navarro had sent Saad.

  She sighed. “Okay. Let’s go see this friend.”

  * * *

  There were lots of young people out on the street. She was glad of the noise, glad to have David behind her because it all kept Saad from saying much, just things like “cross here.”

  Mayla was so angry at herself. So stupid. All that fine speech about how Marincite was different. People don’t borrow money from stupid bankers.

  Saad took them down one of the hubs a couple of levels. “We have to take the chute,” he said.

  “Public transportation,” Mayla explained to David.

  The walkway back to the station was tiled in Marincite maroon and cream and they stood on the platform in silence. David looked at her, a silent question. “We’re working,” she said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Bank business,” she said.

  Saad stared down the tunnel, at the concrete platform, anywhere but at her.

 
; Served him right, she thought.

  The chute was a string of seats, like an amusement park ride. Each pair of seats had a smoke-colored canopy. The one that came into the station was almost empty, only a woman with a string bag full of groceries near the front. Mayla waited until Saad started to climb in and then sat down in the seat behind him. David frowned but got in with her.

  When the canopy came down the dome light came on. Saad glanced back, his face distorted by the plastic. She should have smiled but she looked down at her hands until the chute jerked forward. When she looked up it was at the back of Saad’s head.

  They went into the dark of the tunnel. In front of them was a string of dome lights, each made hazier by the succeeding layers of plastic canopies. The chute curved down.

  “What is wrong?” David asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “It’s just business.”

  He looked at her a moment and then shrugged. “Okay.”

  “In my business,” she said, “in this country, if you’re going to do a loan for someone you have to do them a favor.”

  He smiled. “I think that when you get a loan, the bank does you a favor, no?”

  “Maybe for regular people,” she said. “Not for businesses.”

  “Ah,” he said. “What kind of favor?”

  “He wants a loan for a business he is starting up. Either it won’t have any credit or it’ll be illegal,” she said.

  “You do that?” he said, surprised. He regretted it. “I mean, it is not my affair.”

  “No,” she said, “it is your affair, in a way. I mean, considering your job.”

  He didn’t seem to care for that.

  The string began to slow and curve upward and for a moment the dome lights in the front seemed to brighten as they curved above the canopy behind them. Then they leveled off. The dome light flicked out and David grabbed her arm, but then they came into the lighted station.

  David laughed nervously, embarrassed.

  The tile looked green and yellow through the plastic but when it lifted she could see that they were actually blue and white. Saad stood up, “This is our stop,” he said.

  On the wall it said “Cathedral.”

  One of the overheads was out at the exit and the tunnel beyond it looked dark. The tiles on the wall were cracked and scratched and painted with angry graffiti she couldn’t read. David balked a moment, “Are you sure we are in the right place?”

  “Why don’t we do this in the office?” she said to Saad.

  “We’re almost there,” he said. “You can meet my partner this way.”

  A few feet farther and the light was back, although dim. The tunnel smelled of urine and mildew. Then a flight of stairs and they were outside on the street. Mayla’s shoulders were hunched and she had to make a conscious effort to loosen them.

  There were lots of young people here in this hub, lots of couples. The kids were all dressed slap, some of the girls shining as if they were wet, looking like the pop singer, what-was-her-name, DanHe. David was tense, watching everything.

  Saad seemed at home, although he was dressed too well to fit in. Following, watching the bare-armed boys standing corners, who were watching them, Mayla felt painfully obvious.

  “It’s not far,” Saad said.

  Two streets over and he stopped at a heavy, industrial looking door and opened it with a key. They followed him up narrow, badly lit stairs to what looked like a manufacturing loft, mostly empty except for a couple of workbenches against the wall. At the end were a couple of offices, one with a light on.

  Saad knocked on the door and then opened it without waiting. There were two people waiting. One was a young black girl, street pretty and feral, with a mane of tawny hair tipped in black. The other was an anglo, thick and middle-aged, with a moustache. “Saad,” he said, “this is your banker?”

  “Right,” Saad said.

  “Okay,” Moustache said, “go get yourself a cup of coffee. Café,” to the girl, and then to Mayla, “decaffeinated?”

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  “Antoinette will take care of Saad and your friend,” Moustache said.

  “No,” Mayla said, “this is my security, he has to stay with me.”

  The girl took her feet off the desk and stood up. Moustache thought about it a moment and then shrugged. “Okay,” he said. Then to the girl and Saad, “Vamos.”

  “I don’t think—” Saad started.

  “That’s right,” Moustache said, “you don’t think. Go on.”

  Saad hesitated and the girl laughed, “Viene chico.” Mayla didn’t know if Saad understood Spanish or not, but he gave in and followed her out of the office.

  “So you are a banker,” Moustache said. “Pretty little blanc. What bank? The chico told me but I don’t remember.”

  Moustache had brown hair and was fairer than she was—she thought he might be Argentine. “First Hawaiian,” she said. David was behind her and she was glad he was there.

  “Did the chico tell you about the business?” Moustache gestured at the office. “It’s a little manufacturing concern. We need some working capital to get started.”

  “What kind of manufacturing?” she asked. As if it mattered.

  “Jewelry,” he said.

  Jewelry, she thought. Right. Who gave a damn about jewelry? “What just exactly is the problem?”

  “Eh?” he said, frowning.

  “With the loan,” she said, impatient, wanting to be out of here. “What’s the problem? Do you have a credit statement? Or is it en la sombra?”

  Moustache flinched. Apparently anglo women bankers weren’t supposed to say things like en la sombra, “in the dark.” Or maybe he just didn’t expect her to come out point blank and ask if it was illegal.

  “There is a problem,” he said in Spanish. There was always a problem. With papers, he explained. Her Spanish wasn’t good but she could follow him well enough.

  “¿Una problema con Los Tontons?” “A problem with the Uncles?” she asked. If Marine Security wasn’t in on it she didn’t want anything to do with it.

  Oh, no no no, Moustache said, the Uncles were fine, everything had been arranged with the Uncles.

  In English she said, “Do you have a front?”

  “¿Qué?”

  “A front,” she said. “A business statement, balance sheet, for whatever this company is supposed to be. Something I can use as a credit statement at the bank.”

  “Ah!” Moustache understood, “¡La barba!” “The beard.” “Si, yo lo tengo.” He had a chip and hard copy and passed it to her. The hard copy was the paperwork for a concern that made facsimiles of Incan and Aztec jewelry pieces using the lost wax technique. The facsimiles would be sold in the United States. Each piece would be made by hand.

  She wondered what the business was. Caribe was an open gold market, like India, so there were no restrictions on buying and selling gold and the price wasn’t regulated. Maybe fraud? Gold labeled fourteen carat when it was really eight? Or the pieces would be sold as the actual items rather than reproductions? Or maybe nothing connected to jewelry at all.

  “How much?” she asked.

  “200,000cr,” he said and started to say more but Saad was in the door. “What is it?” he said, brusque.

  “Nothing,” Saad said. “I’m just your partner, remember?”

  “You have done your part,” Moustache said. “Now let me do mine.”

  “I’m not going to say anything, I’m just going to listen, okay?”

  “I tell you everything.”

  “So if I’m here, then you don’t have to tell me.”

  Moustache was irritated. Mayla glanced back at David, he looked very tense. “Okay,” Moustache said to Mayla, “this is how the money will be handled.”

  He wanted the money to come through a numbered credit account, and the mailing address to be a mail drop. Two-bit, crooked little game, she thought. What was she doing here? She didn’t handle legitimate loans this small. She di
dn’t like Moustache, she was royally sick of Saad-rhymes-with-odd Shamsi. And she was offended.

  Bankers were not supposed to be offendable. The credit committee wouldn’t have any trouble with this, as long as the credit statement checked out—and she knew it would. With the papers for the front, the bank could pretend ignorance in the event something happened, could even claim fraud.

  “I have to put this through the credit committee,” she said. “I won’t know until the bank approves it. But it should be fine.”

  “Excellent,” Moustache said. “Thank you for coming. If you need to get in touch with me, you may do so through Saad.”

  She didn’t have any intention of getting in touch with him. She had done some strange things to get loans, but she had never sat in a manufacturing loft in the wrong part of town. If Saad had wanted to buy the loan that would have been fine. People did that. People came to her office. But this was two-bit, shoddy, appalling.

  The girl was sitting on one of the bare work tables in the loft, swinging her legs. She was dressed like a pop vid star; lynx-haired, black industrial nonskid top, rainproof boots. Too much makeup. Not much jewelry, though, just a plain bracelet. She was leaning back on her arms and the bracelet was turned around so the flat black plate was pressed against the inside of her wrist. The bracelet struck Mayla as odd, but she wasn’t up on industrial chic. The girl looked at Mayla, looked down at her own wrist and laughed. “Un otra pollo,” she said to Moustache. “Another chicken.”

  “Shut up,” Moustache said.

  “Hasta luego, hermana,” the girl said, “See you later, sister,” and laughed again.

  “Yo no soy tu hermana,” Mayla said. “I’m not your sister.”

  “Va a la oficina,” Moustache said, the way someone would tell a child to go to their room, but the girl didn’t move. She was still sitting on the table, watching them, while Mayla promised she would get back to Saad when she had heard from the credit committee.

  Saad took them down to the street. “Go straight for three blocks, then turn left.” He pointed, not looking at her. “That’ll take you to the chute.” At least he had the decency to be embarrassed.

  David was still, looking up and down the street.

  The boys were still on the corner, watching, and there was a swirl of Indian dance music from the Indian restaurant across from them, light spilling through the beaded doorway. A little street cleaner swished up the street, leaving a black trail that reflected the overhead lights.