"Great. I'm going right back, I just came to get money. Can I have my portfolio?"
When he fetched it from an inner office, I opened it and looked for my remaining two hundred dollars in traveller’s checks hidden behind a picture. I couldn't find them!
"I can't find my traveller’s checks!"
"Traveller’s checks? You did not tell me there were traveller’s checks inside." He frowned.
"Oh. No. They're gone! I have absolutely no money. What am I going to do?"
The corners of his mouth wrinkled downward. "I know nothing about traveller’s checks. You said only pictures. I would not have taken your case with money inside. Are you sure they were indeed there?"
I searched again from cover to cover, looking behind every photo. "Oh, no. I'm dead. I have only three rupees left. What am I going to do?"
"I am sorry. I know nothing of traveller’s checks. The briefcase has been in my locker all the time." He stood up, now looking as if he couldn't wait to get rid of me. There was no mention of the tour of Bombay he'd hoped to take me on. My money was gone. My life was ruined.
"Well . . . anyway thanks for keeping my pictures, I guess."
Slowly, I stood and walked out to the street. What to do now? I had no money. The hotel would evict me if I didn't pay in advance for the room. I knew nobody in Bombay. I couldn't go to American Express to report my loss because I didn't have the receipt numbers—I'd said them to Momsy for safekeeping. I'd been told to keep the receipt numbers separate from the traveller’s checks. So how was I to report lost checks? I'd never recorded the checks I'd cashed, so the receipts would probably be useless anyway.
I had no idea which way I was walking. I plodded through the streets, past thin women in saris with braids hanging down their backs, past men in light-coloured pyjamas, past beggars who followed me, calling, "Paisa, paisa." I came to a waterfront. What to do? No brainstorm descended on me.
Eventually, I asked for directions to the hotel and plodded back.
"Cleo, man. Shambo."
The voice startled me as I climbed, dejectedly, up the front steps of the Rex. And there he was, standing in the doorway—I couldn't believe it—a friend! It was Kadir, the Algerian I'd met at Dayid and Ashley's party.
"KADIR!" I yelled. He kissed my cheek. "Oh, Kadir. I've just lost my traveller’s checks. I have three rupees to my name. The hotel is going to throw me out. I don't know a soul in Bombay. I'm so glad to see a friendly face. I don't know what to do."
"Don't worry about it, man. Come to my room. Know who’s here? Ashley and Norwegian Monica."
I followed him to an elevator that clunked and clanked us upstairs.
"But, Kadir, I have no money. The hotel is not going to let me stay."
"I told you, man, don't worry. You're with friends now. I might even have a job for you. Tell you later."
His room was bigger and sunnier than mine. A lovely terrace overlooked the street. Outside, their blonde hair glimmering in the sunlight, sat Norwegian Monica and Ashley. Friends!
"Hey, man, look who I found."
"Hoo, boy! Cleo!"
They greeted me with big smiles. Maybe my life wasn't over after all.
As usual, Ashley wore a slinky silk gown, this one yellow and covered to its flouncy hem in pearls. Around one ankle hung a pearl-skidded gold chain. She rearranged her pearly fringe shawl and handed me a mirror covered with coke. Monica brought me a chair. I snorted a few lines and told them my sad tale.
"Have another line," said Ashley, her pearl bracelet tinkling as she offered the mirror again. "It'll make you feel better. Are you hungry? Kadir, let's order lunch. Where's the menu?"
We ordered strawberry juice and a tray of snacks. Coked-out as we were, nobody ate much, but we nibbled, and I felt safe, saved from catastrophe. Tinkling, Ashley handed me four hundred rupees.
"Are you sure?" I asked. "I don't know when I'll be able to pay you back."
She gave me another two hundred.
"She can work for me, man," said Kadir. "I can use another girl."
"Really? Doing what?" I asked, overwhelmed with gratitude and relief.
Kadir took me inside the room for privacy from the other terraces. We settled on the bed, and, chopping cocaine, he explained. "You will go to Canada. I have suitcases." He snorted the fly-away coke off his fingers. "Expertly made, man, wait till you see them. They're excellent, and this is a new scam, so nobody's used this type yet. Two matching cases that hold eight kilos of hash built into the leather."
Eight kilos of hash?
He wanted me to smuggle hash?
Aha! That's how the Goa Freaks made their money! So here was the chance to become a real Goa Freak. But—smuggling? Could I do that? Part of me was terribly excited, and part a little scared. I had to think about this.
"You think it over, man, there's time," he said. "I'm sending someone else first. She'll be here tonight, you can meet her."
I snorted another line. I hadn't been to America in three years. I'd be able to see my old friends. "How much would I make?" I asked.
"Eight thousand dollars. Canadian."
Eight thousand dollars! I'd existed on practically nothing since I'd left the States—sleeping in my car in Switzerland, panhandling on the Hedseplein in Amsterdam, living on people's floors in Denmark. Yes, I'd modelled in southern Europe, but the money I made went into the car or supported me to the next country or the next adventure. I couldn't remember the last time I'd bought a new dress. Wow—with eight thousand dollars I could have new clothes, find a house in Anjuna and fix it up, buy my own coke . . .
"You'll stay at the best hotel in Montreal, man, the Hilton," Kadir continued. "Dayid is there now. You know Dayid, my partner. He will take the suitcases and pay you."
Dayid! Magnificent Dayid. Yes, I remembered him. My thoughts went back to a beach party. I wasn't sure how it had come about—if he'd been there that night without Ashley or what—but somehow, Dayid and I strolled down the beach, and in the moonlight, with the sound of waves mingling with the distant rock beat, we fucked on the sand. Quick, sandy, and satisfying. Mmmmm, Dayid.
"I have to go now and do things," Kadir said, breaking my reverie. "You can stay here with Monica and Ashley. Or else come back tonight and meet the other girl. Alright, man?"
Later, alone in my tiny room, staring at the cracked plaster on the wall, I thought of what I could do with eight thousand Canadian dollars. My own permanent house in Anjuna Beach. Like Dayid and Ashley's. No more sleeping on people's floors, or eating the cheapest item on the menu, or scrounging drugs off friends. The scene in Goa differed from the hippie one in Europe. The Goa Freaks were money oriented. All that coke and jewellery and parties. I wanted to settle there, didn't I? Goa was to be my home, right? Well, this was the way to become a rich Goa Freak.
The gritty bedspread beneath me smelled old and cruddy. I'd he able to stay in a better hotel room, like Kadir's. Hallelujah!
That night I told Kadir I was eager for the trip. He introduced me to the other woman. Also a newcomer to India, this would be her first trip too. She'd leave at the end of the week, and I'd go two weeks later, as soon as a set of new cases were made. We sniffed coke and discussed details.
"Let me see your passport," said Kadir. He flipped through it briefly and shook his head. "This is no good, man. You'll have to get a new one."
"What do you mean no good?" I asked. "What's wrong with it?"
"Too many stamps. Look at this, it's filled up. Iran. Afghanistan. No, man, it won't do. They'll get suspicious. The Immigration people see you've been travelling to these countries, and they'll wonder what you do for money. They'll ask questions, man."