MONEY TREE Read online

  ‘Is this true Mr Chowdury? Is this what is really behind the accusations? Anila is entitled to borrow money – I suppose – from whom she wants. It is up to her. If she does not want to borrow money from you, we cannot make her.’

  ‘You don’t understand! This is not the end of it. You will see. I know she has plans to take my business away from me. I will be ruined! Then, who will support the village with loans for a new well or seed for next year’s crops? Tell me that?’

  Mr Bhandariti felt the soft mud gripping his ankles again. He was speechless in indecision. Anila saw her chance.

  ‘Can I go now please sirs? My mother and daughter are waiting for the water.’

  The sarpanch stood aside with relief, the money lender with unsuppressed fury, as she gathered up her water jugs and walked past with her head up. Inside her head, a thought was stirring, put there by Chowdury himself. What if the bank did send an official here? And what if they offered more people good loans. Perhaps Mr Chowdury was right after all? Maybe he was smart enough to see what could become of him? Anila smiled to herself in a rare moment of simple and malicious joy at the amazing workings of karma.

  TWELVE

  Erin Wishart had never walked the streets of the Lower East Side before. Her driver had sometimes skirted the run-down tenements and the shuttered shops on the way to FDR Drive or the Queenstown Tunnel for JFK. But she’d never stopped, and certainly never gone there with a purpose.

  ‘Ok lady. Here we are. Sure this is where you want?’

  The Yellow Cab pulled up at the corner of 2nd and Delancey. Erin got out into the flattening heat of Manhattan summer. The smell of burst black bags swept over her in a sweet embrace. She’d left work early to change out of office uniform. She deliberately dressed down, but maybe not far enough. Jeans and light blouse, baseball cap and dark glasses hid her wary eyes. She paid the driver and waited till he’d driven off before reaching inside her shoulder bag. She walked down Delancey glancing at the numbers on the three and four story tenements. She crossed over. There. Number 1025, third floor. A dark blue door.

  She paused uncertainly. The street smells were pricking at her nose. She remembered another door, a brown door with a broken glass panel, the cracked and blistered entrance to her new home. Staring up at the moth-eaten tower, terrified of going in, clutching her raggedy doll and her schoolbag. Wondering what she’d find behind the door. Stepping into the sordid reek of careless humanity. . .

  She blinked and dismissed the past. She climbed the four steps and looked at the panel of names and buzzers. She pressed the top one, just below what looked like a fish-eye camera. There was no voice, simply a buzz of someone unlocking the door. She pushed and it opened.

  She stepped into a dingy hall and pulled off the baseball cap and glasses. Light flooded the passage and the stairway ahead of her. Her feet made creaking sounds as she climbed up and round the spiral. By the third floor she was breathing hard and stopped on the landing till her chest calmed. She looked around at the three silent doors. Each bore a letter; G, H, and J. She stepped towards H and pushed the bell. She felt she was being watched. She spotted the little camera in the corner of the ceiling. Once again the door clicked and moved open. A high and amused voice came from deep inside.

  ‘Come in, Miss Wishart. Come in.’

  ‘Mr Feldstein? Is this you?’ she called as she walked tentatively over the threshold.

  ‘You want it should be somebody else? Come in.’

  There was a short hall and then Aladdin’s cave. Or perhaps a Tardis. The room was vast, more than seemed possible from the layout in her mind of the top three apartments. Light spilled in from windows in front and back. It was furnished in sumptuous and dazzling fabrics. A riot of reds and blues and rich browns. Persian carpets on dark stained wooden boards. The walls pink. A strong smell of incense tarted the air.

  But in the centre of the room, drawing the eye helplessly towards it, was a pool with a central fountain. Water jetted out of the over-sized penis of a golden cherub who stood in truly gay abandon on top of his plinth. Glints of silver and black in the pool became fish. They broke the surface, gawping with their rubbery mouths. Her own mouth turned up in a grin.

  She felt someone examining her. Tearing her eyes away from the centrepiece, she found him in the corner. A huge man, much bigger than the voice suggested, sat in a squashed leather swivel chair studying her. He was surrounded by banks of screens and several keyboards on top of a desk that fitted into the corner and wrapped itself part way around his bulk.

  Erin fought away unfair comparisons with Jabba the Hutt. This man’s eyes sparkled with human intelligence. He sported a small twist of hair under his bottom lip. His ears were studded with jewels. Small hands lay crossed on his dome-like belly as he reclined in his chair. He wore a long multi-coloured gown that shrouded his bulk from neck to feet.

  ‘Mr Feldstein, this is quite a place you have.’

  ‘Well I think so.’ He was the only one whose views mattered. ‘What do you think of Puck?’

  Erin fought for a suitable response. ‘He’s - charming.’

  She walked half way into the room towards him and stood by the tinkling pool. She gazed around, knowing he was looking for approbation. It wasn’t too hard. She knew the real thing when she saw it. Though the clutter and confusion wasn’t her taste, the furnishings and the art were top bracket.

  ‘You’re wondering how a place this big fits into one of these tiny apartments, mmm?’

  ‘Well, yes. I can’t reconcile. . .’ She waved her hands round the room.

  ‘There are no other apartments. The doors you saw outside are all locked up. I bought them all and knocked a few walls down.’

  But if he had the money to live like this, why in god’s name would he choose to live here and not up town? Though they might have something to say about a pool in the living room, she supposed. As if reading her mind:

  ‘I like it here. The Upper East is so cut off you know? I always feel myself shrivelling when I go up there.’ His big body shivered with the memory. ‘Like my soul was being eaten, you know? All those tight faces and tight asses. And anyway, can you imagine me getting past one of those boards? Those priggish little creatures inspecting me to see if I came up to their standards? My dear, it’s so not me.’

  Erin laughed. She’d faced those tests herself and had had to bite back acid retorts to questions about her personal life. She learned later she could have told them she liked throwing sex and cocaine parties in the lobby and her accent would still have got her through.

  ‘It’s their loss, Mr Feldstein.’

  ‘Shall we do the first name thing? I’m Oscar. You’re Erin, and a long way from home. If I’d known, I’d have worn my kilt.’

  A laugh broke from her. ‘Glasgow, ages ago. I’m fine with Erin. Do you really have a kilt?’

  ‘Royal Stewart. Now why did that naughty boy Theodore Saddler want you to see me?’

  ‘I pointed him at a story. He wanted proof. He said you’d helped before. Said you were the man to turn to for - this sort of thing.’ She finished lamely.

  ‘This sort of thing?’ He smiled and swivelled round, sweeping his big hand across the bank of screens behind him.

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Let’s have coffee – make that tea - and you can tell me all about it, my dear. Sit here.’ He pointed to a massive soft chair near his desk. He turned and touched a screen.

  ‘Albert, can you bring us some tea please. I think,’ he eyed Erin carefully, ‘some Earl Grey. Thank you, Albert.’

  Erin had sunk into the folds of the chair and was beginning to explain her situation when a door in the far side of the room slid back. In came a muscly young man with a tight face, and hair pulled back in a pony tail. He was carrying a tray loaded with florid china. He set it down on the low table between Oscar and Erin. He eyed her carefully, and minced out without a word.

  ‘Thank you Albert. Such a treasure,’ he said to his retreating back.<
br />
  Erin sipped from her cup.

  ‘Oscar, before we go any further, it would really help me to know a bit about you. How you and Ted worked together? Etcetera. Do you mind?’

  ‘Etcetera indeed. Well let me say that I’m very angry with Mr Pulitzer Prize. We were so close and I gave him such fantastic stories. And then I don’t hear from him for ten years. Ten years! I told him when he called. I told him, Theodore Saddler, you’ve got a nerve calling me up after all this time. I have a good mind not to help you. I’m trying to stay out of trouble, I said. I certainly don’t need to have loud and ugly NYPD boys come knocking on my door again. All that boring interviewing and shouting. And I certainly don’t want to see the inside of those grubby little cells again. I mean, I like my comfort.’

  ‘So you won’t help us?’

  Relief flooded Erin. She could walk away. She’d tried.

  ‘I need to know what you’re up to and whose little secrets we’re planning to reveal. My skills my dear, are all in these.’ He held up his fat fingers and waggled them at her. ‘The last time they had an outing with your Theodore, they dug up lots of little gems about Senator Joshua Farmer that the good senator and the good people of Idaho wished had never come to light.’

  ‘Farmer? That was years ago wasn’t it? Something about a porn ring and buying other senators? The papers were full of it.’

  ‘Almost ten years ago. Porn, and drugs and extortion and blackmail. What makes the world go round. The good senator had a lot of interesting hobbies. I think he’s still doing time. And that’s what Theodore got his prize for.’ Oscar mused. ‘Now, what are you and Ted up to?’

  Her stomach knotted again. Before she’d arrived, Erin had vowed to reveal as little as possible about herself and the bank and Warwick Stanstead. But it was like talking to an old girlfriend. She took a breath and found herself unburdening about her boss and his manic drive and massive ego.

  ‘Is he a user?’ Oscar asked, his eyes searching her face and getting his answer before she said it.

  ‘How did you. . .? I mean. . .’

  ‘Let’s just say his behaviour is familiar. And it kind of goes with the territory. How bad?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was into coke for a while. Recreational, he said. Then he stopped.’

  ‘Hmmm. It’s hard to stay at the fun level. But tell me about this other bank. The goody two-shoes bank.’

  She told him about the People’s Bank and what it was doing and how she thought it was being undermined by her bank. And she told him more than she’d planned about herself and her late-flowering morality.

  ‘My girlfriends today – those you can fit into a 24/7 life – are some help. They hear me out, dole out sympathy, then we get back to things like who’s heading to the Hamptons this weekend. They’re not shallow or don’t care. But it’s one of those problems that doesn’t have an answer. Men always have to find a solution. Change your job, take up running, dye your hair, come to bed. I’ve heard them all. If it had been that easy I’d have come up with my own.’

  ‘Men are such bastards, my dear,’ he said complicitly.

  ‘So, will you help?’ She felt strangely liberated by her disclosures to this extraordinary stranger, as though she’d just paid for an hour’s therapy.

  ‘Oh, I think so. I think these terrible tools,’ he held up his fingers in front of his face, ‘need an outing. Justice to be defended, the poor to be helped, the righteous to be exalted, the wicked slapped down. Yes, I think I’ll help.’ He dropped his hands into his copious lap again.

  ‘And to be clear, Oscar – all we’re looking for is some evidence of the dirty tricks. Some emails or the like. You won’t go into the customer files or the bank’s accounting systems.’

  ‘Cross my heart. Besides, I’m sure your office systems are completely separate from your operational.’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘There you go. I’m good. But I’m not that good.’

  Her face showed her relief.

  ‘And, Erin dear, if we find anything interesting, what will you do with it?’

  ‘Leverage? Let’s see what we come up with.’

  ‘I like the ‘we’ my dear. I’ll need your help.’

  Erin teetered on the brink.

  ‘I thought you’d kind of do it from here. . .’

  ‘Oh, we’ll collect here. This will be our repository. But we need a teensy bit of inside help to get us going.’

  ‘This isn’t going to land me in jail, Oscar?’

  ‘You won’t feel a thing. No trace. No evidence. And in return. . .’

  ‘What do you charge?’

  ‘Oh you silly thing! I don’t do this sort of stuff for money. This is fun! I don’t need any more money. All I want is a promise.’

  ‘What sort of promise?’

  ‘That you’ll do me a favour some day. I may never ask. But if I do, whatever it is, you’ll do it. Is that fair?’

  She laughed. ‘That’s too open-ended. I mean you could ask for something completely outrageous or illegal or impossible. Like Rumpelstiltskin.’

  Oscar was amused. ‘I’m glad you like fairy stories. Don’t worry your pretty little head. You’re not my type dear. And the favour won’t be so awful, I assure you. Ask Ted. Do we have a deal?’

  Erin was beginning to feel she was striking too many deals lately, all of them taking her further into the quicksand of deviousness and deceit.

  ‘It’s a deal. Now what?’

  Oscar glanced at the Dali clock oozing down the wall. ‘We’re between lunch and supper. Let’s do high tea. I’m sure Albert can conjure some salmon and cucumber sandwiches. And you can tell me all you know about your head office systems.’

  THIRTEEN

  It wasn’t unusual for Erin Wishart to be working Saturday mornings. It happened most weekends. The doorman at the side doors of Global American saluted her and wished her a good day. Using her pass card, she made her way up in the lifts to the executive floor on level 48 of GA Tower. She wandered round the corridors checking she had the place to herself. All the executive offices, like hers, were locked.

  She swiped her pass, typed in the code and stepped inside her office. As usual, her heart lifted and she was drawn to the window. Straight ahead, she had a clear line of sight to Liberty far off in the bay. The day was fine, with a heat haze already building up. The New Jersey shoreline was blurred and out of focus, as though a muslin curtain had been dragged across it. Inevitably, her gaze was drawn to the right. She wished she’d taken more notice all those years ago; she could never quite locate the exact spot where the Twin Towers had dominated the skyline. Another regret. Now the Freedom Tower cut the air and glistened provocatively; try it again if you think you’re hard enough.

  She turned away and walked round, touching things, and realised she might be saying goodbye. Was this how it began? The slide? She sat down at her white ash desk and wished her dad had been able to see this. Would he have been impressed or censorious? It depressed her that she didn’t know the answer, not for sure. But she had a sneaking feeling that some of his drunken sermonising had stuck after all. Or why else was she doing this?

  She touched the edge of her desk and her computer screen slid up into view. A panel opened and her keyboard lifted up. The screen swirled and settled.

  ‘Password please.’

  The voice was female and friendly. Sexy even. Why did Scarlet Johansson need the money? Erin typed in lochlomond with zeroes for the Os. The picture cleared and brought up her preferred icons and layout. Erin fumbled in her purse and pulled out a memory stick. She put it on the desk, played with it for a bit, then got up and paced back and forth. Why was she really doing all this? Was it really worth the risk?

  Oscar had explained that the first task his software performed was to create a safe area, shielded from all firewalls and bug detection code, for his code to operate in. It would be like an invisible cloak thrown over a corner of her drive, or like the camouflage on a stealth bomber. She
perfectly understood the approach. But her computer science degree had taught her scepticism. What if the whole bloody system crashed and they traced it to her? What if it triggered a complete shut down and she got locked in until the cops led her off in cuffs?

  She sat down, took a huge breath and slid the stick into the USB slot.

  ‘Please wait.’ An icon appeared on the screen showing speed of loading.

  ‘Software accepted and loaded. Activate?’

  She swallowed. ‘Activate.’

  A trumpet volley blared. She jumped and jabbed the sound key to lower the volume. When her heart slowed down she smiled. It was the William Tell overture. The screen cleared and a figure galloped towards her on a huge white horse. They crashed to a halt in a swirl of dust and the camera zoomed in on the head sporting a white cowboy hat and a black mask.

  ‘Tonto! My trusty friend! You summoned me?’

  The voice was high-pitched and camp. Oscar’s. A grin spread across Erin’s face. It would turn into hysteria if she didn’t control it. Her dad would have loved this. He’d made her sit through some early Lone Ranger reruns. She knew the response.

  ‘Yes, Kemosabe.’

  She knew the software was doing a voice recognition check based on the words she’d recorded at Oscar’s.

  ‘Tonto, have you scouted ahead?’

  ‘Yes, Kemosabe. The way is clear.’

  ‘Mount up Tonto. It’s time to ride! Hi-Yo Silver. Away!’

  The face moved away and became a full shot of the rider dressed in white and wearing an old-style six-gun on his hip. He caught up the reins of the majestic white horse and made it rear on its hind legs. He waved his hat in the air and the horse landed and galloped off into the distance to the strains of the overture.

  Erin sat back and waited. Her stomach was playing up again. The ache and the rumblings were sawing for attention. She’d forgotten her pills, so she took some water from her fridge and sat sipping it and gazing sightlessly out of her window. A few minutes later her screen flickered and she turned in time to see the horseman galloping up in his dust cloud. He leapt down and strode towards her. Oscar’s masked face filled the screen.