Beg Me (6 page)

“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 and 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

M
y 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
Post.
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.”

“Right, but why? Helped him with what?”

“He didn’t tell me that.”

I looked at him in disbelief, and he insisted quietly, “He didn’t!”

“Can you read French?”

“Hell, no! I sell a few foreign titles because we get people walking in here from Rwanda, Algeria, Cameroon. Every so often I get a few white European tourists and a few Asians, so I carry some Indian novels, Asian history. You’ve looked through the store, Teresa. It’s only two shelves for that stuff. I go by titles and catalogs.”

“He must have thought it was pretty important,” I thought aloud.

“Well, he didn’t explain—I think maybe he was trying to protect me. He knew I wanted to stay out. And he was just as determined to win Anna back. He said he could bring the whole group of these psychos—his word, not mine—crashing down. I wished him luck but doubted he could pull it off.”

“Well, how did
you
get out?”

“Aw, nothing dramatic. I sort of ‘weaned’ myself from them. I left them the impression I didn’t know anything about what else they were doing—and I didn’t
want
to know. And I stopped coming around so much. I said the bookstore needed me. I was neglecting my business. It’s far easier for a guy than a girl.”

“Better to have a high ratio of girls to guys, eh?”

“Actually, yeah.”

I remembered what Jeff Lee had told me secondhand from Craig Padmore. How did he put it?
The group thinks black men are the sexual supreme, and they have to learn how to dominate women as the first step to taking back family power and financial power.
I asked Oliver if this was accurate.

“That’s pretty close,” he said, looking embarrassed at the sexism.

“So what else
are
they into?” I asked.

“Straight up, I don’t exactly know. Really. But it’s got to be criminal—I just don’t know the specifics. They’re sitting on major real estate, and they’ve got cash to burn. I pretended everything was aboveboard for a long time—too long. And then I just couldn’t stand not knowing and wanting too badly to know, knowing it might be dangerous to go looking. So I up and left.”

I didn’t say anything for what felt like close to a full minute.

“No, you didn’t.”

He crinkled his brow, staring at me in mild wonder that I should contradict him like this. But he wasn’t making a denial.

“I saw pictures of how Anna was tied up, how she let herself be tied up,” I told him. “You go to dark places doing this stuff, don’t you, Oliver? It must get pretty wild.”

I was conscious all of a sudden of how he’d slumped against the desk, half out of the light of the one naked bulb. I couldn’t see his eyes anymore. “What do you know about it?” he croaked.

“Nothing,” I said softly. “But I’ve seen it in your face. You’re haunted.”

“Yes…”

“You did things with those people, and after some time you knew what they were capable of. And you didn’t like that you might be capable of it too. So you left.”

“Yes.”

“You still have a conscience, Oliver. We were both friends to Anna.
They
killed her. They killed Padmore. Help me bring them down.”

“No—fucking—way. You’re nuts! You’re gonna get yourself killed and me too if I keep listening to this shit. Go home. I don’t know what you’ve pulled off in England, but this is America, Teresa. Most of us wake up every morning to a goddamn war zone anyway, and—”

“Quit it!” I said, losing patience. “Just quit it, will you? I have been in real war zones in Sudan, Oliver. I’ve had to run for my life in Chicago. I nearly got my head shot off in Bangkok—and I wasn’t even looking for trouble then! I’ve had militia soldiers shove rifles point-blank in my face, and I once talked my way out of a nasty shakedown in Tunis. I’m telling you, Anna’s dead, they’re responsible, and I
need your help.
Now will you please tell me about them?”

He came back into the light and looked at me kind of sideways. “What do you plan to do?”

“Get in. Infiltrate them. It’s the only way. Tell me about the leaders.”

“That’s not what you’ll need.”

“Oh?”

He shook his head. “You’ll never get in. And I pray to God you won’t.”

“I’ve got into worse places.”

“It’s not a question of geography.”

“Then what is it?”

He didn’t answer. He moved in close and kissed me. At first it was tender, and I thought there was genuine affection behind it. Maybe it was protective desperation on his part. I closed my eyes and tasted his tongue, and the room felt even smaller, the air staler. Then I felt his hand slide up under my top and cup my breast, and while I enjoyed this, it disturbed me, this sudden inappropriate eroticism.

He was tugging down my bra cup, bringing his lips to suck my nipple as his hand undid the button of my jeans and burrowed down under the band of my panties. I felt his fingers working me, fumbling with me to make me wet.

“Wait, wait…Oliver?”

My lips below were starting to open for him.
No.

“Oliver, what is this?”

Breaking away from him now, putting myself back together.

“You’ll never get in, Teresa.” It was the second time he’d said that to me. I was getting tired of it.

“Why not?” I demanded, annoyed at his negativity, wondering what the hell he was doing.

He sighed, his eyebrows jumping, as if there was a huge gulf of ignorance on my part and he would have to explain something about a surgical operation.

Then he said: “It’s the kind of person you are. You can’t…playact with them. You can’t pretend you think you’re second place to a man—you’ve got to act like you believe it, that it’s your
duty.
And they don’t go in for nasty fluids or leg worship or foot fetish. They’re about fucking with your body and fucking with your mind. I’d have to teach you stuff, and you wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

“So was that a sample?” I demanded sarcastically.

“No,” he said slowly, with an edge in his voice. “That was because I’m tempted. I like you…. And since I like you, I wanted to touch you a proper loving way before I have to—This is nuts! We’re not doing this. I can’t teach you, and I can’t help you.”

“Try me.”

He shook his head again, his eyes full of disdain. “You have
no
idea what this shit is about. You’d have to let me do things to you. As a matter of fact, you’d have to give me blanket permission to do things to you, and once you give it, you can’t take it back. These people don’t have safe words for where they go with your head! It’s not about pain at that point, it’s about taking you to mental places that are goddamn scarier than you’ve ever been.”

I don’t know how he expected me to react to all this hype. Sometimes people think an appropriate expression of fear should be displayed like respect, but I was wearing my poker face. After a pause, I said, “All right.”

“No, no, no!” he said, getting frustrated with me.

“Look, all this big talk is not—”

“You don’t understand—”

“I’m sorry I’m not as intimidated as you want me to be.” I shrugged. “I said I’m in. Go ahead and train me for them.”

“Hey, I don’t know if I want to do this either!” he snapped. “I don’t like the person I was turning into, and you want this shit, I’ve got to be that guy again.”

Oh, please.

“How long is this going to take?” I asked, my voice bored.

He considered it for a moment. “You wear contact lenses?” I shook my head. “Any breathing problems? Asthma? Good. I’m going to psychologically break you—I hope you’re prepared for that.”

I tried hard not to burst out laughing.

“Take your clothes off!” he ordered.

“Are you kidding me?” I said. “Your shop’s still open. Suppose your guy comes back here?” And I noticed that the windows toward the back faced out on the cross street. There were protective bars, but anyone passing would still have a view. “Listen, you’ve got no drapes for—”

“Take your clothes off
now.
Training starts this minute.”

I hesitated. I didn’t care about being nude in front of him. I had considered seducing him, after all, to get information. It was being ordered around that instantly got my hackles up.

“See?” said Oliver. “You want to pass yourself off as one of them, you do instantly what you’re told. Any of their guys can command you to strip. They can come up and touch you. They can play with your tits or your pussy whenever they like, and you say, ‘Yes, sir, that feels good.’ They can fuck you in front of a room full of people—you think you can handle that?”

I didn’t tell him I had done that before.

“You’re still dressed,” he growled.

“How do I know this isn’t just you getting your rocks off?” I asked. “You haven’t told me the name of the group, you haven’t told me who’s in charge—”

“The Sarcophacan Temple of Nubian Princes,” he answered. “There are plenty of ‘princesses’ too—Anna was one. But that’s the name. They own a big-ass mansion where all the shit happens. The leader’s name is Isaac.”

“Sarcophacan temple…” I mumbled that a couple of times. “What’s a
sarcophacan
temple?”

“Later. First, obedience.”

“At least lock the door,” I suggested.

He muttered a curse under his breath and said, “This isn’t going to work—”

“Oliver!” I said quickly.

I undid my blouse and then shed my bra, slid out of my skirt and panties, and stood in front of him. I felt cold, and my nipples were hardening. He inspected me without one flicker of lust, like a drill sergeant. I stood in place, dreading that someone would walk in or pass the windows at the back and notice. The moment went on, and as my outrage rose over this petty cruelty, I woke up and understood. This was to be a test of wills.

They would all be tests of will.

Okay, then. I can play along. I can do what he asks and take it, and it won’t make me any less, because I’m on a job—

“Come over here,” he ordered, walking backward. “Closer to the window.”

I hesitated again.

“Now.”

I moved toward the window.

“Get down on all fours,” he told me quietly, “and face away from me. Show me your pussy.
Do it.
”

My skin goose-pimpled, and I felt an outbreak of cold sweat down my spine rounding the tops of my buttocks. I already knew I was supposed to act first and not think, but my mind hung on to a two-second lag. I realized that I’d be under the edge of the window where I probably couldn’t be seen unless you pressed your face right up against the bars. Still, it was humiliating.