The Bandit Queens (112)

“Why did they deserve it?” Ramesh demanded, the jut of his chin belligerent. “Just because you thought so?”

“They were molesting children,” Khushi said. “They deserved far worse than death.”

Ramesh quieted. “Still?”

“You knew?” Geeta blinked, stunned. Her ears roared. “And you never said anything?”

Ramesh tried to shrug. “I mean, yeah, it’s kinda fucked up, they’re little girls—but what, I’m gonna tattle on my friends? No way. There’s a code to these things you’ll never understand. Besides, it’s not like I touch little girls.”

“So you’re not a pervert, just a coward?”

Ramesh’s face twitched in rage at the insult and he launched himself off the wall toward her, knife poised.

When Geeta pulled the gun from BB’s waistband and shot Ramesh in the face, she was not reacting impulsively. Later, when the women would tell the twins the story, they’d fill in what they assumed: Geeta’s instincts overcame her. She would not correct them, she would not try to explain how in that moment time was generously slow, allowing the far-reaching dendrites of her mind to leap several places as she first squeezed the trigger and then squeezed harder when she met resistance. She thought of the hanging tree on the village’s edge, those young girls strange fruit. She thought of Darshan’s hands on her, Ramesh’s hands on her. She thought of entitlement and vulnerability, shame and lechery, justice and inequity, and she thought of how only half of these were available to her gender. She thought of how much she hated male cowardice and the way they all protected each other and got away with it every time. So, no, then. Geeta did not react.

She decided.

Ramesh’s head jerked to the side as though he’d been slapped. The sound cracked through the room and ricocheted, vibrating off the walls and through their bodies. After a suspended moment, Ramesh slumped to the floor.

“Oh my God! Geeta!”

BB’s jaw hung loose. “What the fuck!”

Geeta offered his gun back. He warded her off.

“Oh no. I am done with this fuckery. I’m outta here.”

“I mean, you did shoot him first,” Farah pointed out.

“By accident. She did it on purpose! Bitch is already a churel!”

Ramesh lay supine, legs splayed out, head turned away from them. Blood spread around his head in a dark corona. It would be, Geeta knew, a bear to clean.

“Is he, like, dead?” Farah asked, looking to Khushi.

“We should check,” Khushi agreed, looking to Geeta.

Geeta looked to Saloni, who conceded with a growl. As she squatted near Ramesh, her fingers on his neck, she muttered, “I don’t like how this is just my job by default now. His pulse is slow but, yeah, he’s still alive.”

A mixture of relief and disappointment extinguished Geeta’s adrenaline. She felt exhausted as Saloni continued, “God, Geeta, you, like, blew his jaw off. Well, not off-off. It’s just…hanging there.”

“Mandibular fracture?” Farah asked with mild interest.

“Yeah,” Saloni said. “He won’t be talking anytime soon.”

“C.I.D.?” BB guessed and the women nodded. “I should really start watching that show.” He checked his watch. “Okay. Fuck the bullet, keep the gun. No way I’m getting caught in this mess.”

“Not so fast,” Geeta said, the revolver warm in her hand. She was willing to push her luck if it meant freedom from Ramesh. “The price for our silence just went up.”

He eyed her. “Are you seriously stupid enough to keep threatening me?”

“That’s blackmail actually,” Farah said.

“Extortion,” Saloni corrected. “I think.”

“You,” Geeta said carefully, “are a businessman. We are businesswomen. I think we can come to an arrangement that satisfies everyone.” She looked at Ramesh’s body. “And screws him.”

“Why should I bother?” He looked at the gun, however, and stayed.

“Because we can help you finally get that don reputation you want so much. We won’t tell the cops anything, but you can take full credit for shooting him. Twice. People won’t mess with Bada-Bhai then.”

BB rubbed his jaw. “That, I like. But I could just tell people that anyway. I’m a man, who’s gonna believe a loan group of women?”

Geeta nodded in earnest. “Exactly. No one’s gonna believe we’re murderers. But you know we are. You’ve seen what I’m capable of.” Men like him would always look at her and see the things they were glad they weren’t: weak, small, timid, powerless. Let them. She’d expended so much energy vying for a broken seat at an uneven table. Fuck it, she’d make her own damn table. “But don’t look so stressed. You’re going to get your number one tharra supplier back. Because you’re not going to test on dogs anymore. Not now that you have a very willing human subject.”

BB glanced at Ramesh’s slack form with doubt. “He doesn’t look like he’ll be testing anything anytime soon.”

“You’d be surprised. Monsters don’t die so easily.” Geeta pulled in a shaky breath. “But in exchange, you take him and make sure he never comes back here. You get our silence, your freedom, your reputation and your tharra business. But Ramesh never bothers me again. Have your men threaten him or cage him or whatever it takes, I don’t care, but you keep him away from me. Forever. Understood?”