Mister Jinnah: Securities. Donald J. Hauka

“It is indeed one of the receptionists from work. I know her slightly. I believe she is on drugs. I had better try and talk her down. If you could just go into the next room —”

      “Surely anything you have to say to this young woman whom you know only slightly you can say in front of your wife, can you not, Hakeem?” said Manjit, her voice dripping with an acid that was as strong as the gastric juices currently consuming Jinnah’s innards.

      “Of course,” said Jinnah, waving a hand. “I simply didn’t want you to get upset.”

      “Oh, I’m not upset, Hakeem.”

      Manjit pulled up a stool next to the telephone and sat down with an alarming air of finality. Well, there was nothing for it. He took his hand off the mouthpiece.

      “Crystal, tell me how much of the drug you took, sweetheart,” said Jinnah.

      “Sweetheart?” cried Manjit.

      Jinnah glared at her. Manjit glared back.

      “Another unfortunate turn of phrase?” Manjit asked.

      “Is your wife still there?” asked Crystal. “She sounds nice.”

      “Oh, she’s a nice person, all right,” agreed Jinnah.

      Inwardly, Jinnah was vowing to murder Crystal in as gruesome a manner as he could possibly devise — that is, in as gruesome a manner as a man who had recently been castrated by his wife could manage.

      “Crystal, is it the crack again, hmm? Or maybe the meth? You can tell Jinnah.”

      “Stow it, Pepe. Are you gonna tell your wife about us or am I?”

      “What’s to tell?”

      “Hakeem! Sweety! You promised you’d do anything for me!”

      Jinnah closed his eyes. He was by now drenched in perspiration and Manjit’s eyes looked like they were about to start from their spheres.

      “I promised to buy you a coffee,” he said, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

      “A coffee!” squawked Manjit. “This young woman does not rate herself very highly if all she charged you —”

      “Manjit!” shouted Jinnah. “For God’s sake! This is about work!”

      “I don’t know about work,” returned Manjit. “But it certainly has to do with being on the job!”

      “Hakeem,” said Crystal. “Hakeem, put Manjit on.”

      “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

      “Trust me. I’ll tell her the truth.”

      “Which version?” asked Jinnah quickly.

      “Don’t worry. You won’t be in trouble anymore.”

      I won’t be in trouble any less either, thought Jinnah, but shrugged and, with that sense of fatalism peculiar to those born under African skies, handed the phone to his wife.

      “She wants to talk to you,” he said.

      “Now I have to talk her down, hmm?” Manjit said, eyeing the phone suspiciously.

      “Other way around, actually,” said Jinnah and made for the dining room.

      “Where are you going? You’re not leaving!” shouted Manjit after him.

      “Don’t worry sweetheart,” he said, opening the liquor cabinet and pouring himself a triple scotch. “I’m merely having a small drink.”

      “What are you doing that for?”

      “To dull the pain of the knife,” muttered Jinnah and collapsed onto the couch.

      Five minutes and four ounces of scotch later, Jinnah heard a sound emanating from the kitchen that made him jump. He listened for a few seconds and heard it again.

      Name of God. His wife was laughing.

      “Et tu, Manjit?” he groaned.

      “Hakeem!” Manjit called brightly from the kitchen. “Crystal wants to talk to you.”

      For a terrible instant, Jinnah thought perhaps the receptionist had told his wife the whole truth and Manjit was waiting for him behind the kitchen door with a knife. He stuck a hand timidly through the archway. For if thy left hand offend thee, then cut it off…. But nothing happened. He edged inside. Manjit was on the phone, moving around the kitchen, tidying things as she chatted, smiling. Oh God, what has she told her?

      “Here you are,” said Manjit happily, handing him the receiver.

      Jinnah looked at the thing with revolted fascination. His instincts were telling him to hang up now, he didn’t really want to hear whatever sordid news Crystal had for him. But, like Ahab, something pushed and dragged him on, he knew not what. He put the thing to his ear.

      “If you want to inform me of my pending divorce or Bobitization, speak now.”

      “Oh, Hakeem! You really don’t understand women, do you?” said Crystal.

      “Madame, I hardly understand myself.”

      “Well, don’t worry about that. We got you ‘sussed.”

      “Then what the hell do you want?”

      “It’s what you want. I know what Grant’s writing for tomorrow’s paper.”

      “Shabash, Crystal!” cried Jinnah. “What lies and half-truths has he managed to fabricate into a semblance of a story?”

      There was a pause at the other end of the line.

      “You’re not going to like it,” said Crystal finally.

      “That, Madame, is a given. Tell me.”

      “Okay. But don’t you want to know how I got it and why I’m telling you?”

      “Again, I thought that was a given.”

      “Don’t flatter yourself. Grant told me.”

      “Why would he tell you?”

      “Honestly, Hakeem! I would have thought that was a given!”

      “Of course. I apologize. And you’re defying Blacklock’s ban because?”

      “Because right after he told me what he was writing, he tried to pick me up.”

      “Has the man no shame!”