The goonish emcee grunted instructions to the men who stared at him mostly with blank expressions, as if they didn’t understand. They waited, as did Ranjit and I. Then our host turned and snapped his fingers again. This time a heavyset lady—a typical Indian auntie—emerged, pushing a girl of ten or eleven before her. The child was made up to look like a doll bride. She was wearing a sparkling sari, and her face had been made up with exaggerated red cheeks, bindi, painted lips, and a nath—a nose ring. The hooped ring was attached by a gold chain to her bejeweled headdress. She gazed demurely at the floor, even as the auntie spun her around for the men to see.

“What the fuck is this?” I whispered to Ranjit.

He cleared his throat and leaned closer to me to explain in a low voice. “That man over there is about to sell this little girl’s virginity to one of these perverts.”

“You’re a cop. Stop them. This is criminal.”

“I’d love to do that, Dan. But this place is run by a powerful gangster. He has half the Bombay Police in his pocket.”

“You too?”

“I’m not with the Bombay Police. And the CBI have no authority on this kind of case. It’s the responsibility of the states, unless they request our help. They resent us coming into their territory.”

“So what? We have to do something.”

“If we interfere, I promise you we will never leave this room alive, you and I. Throats slit like that,” and he dragged his right forefinger across his neck.

I gazed at the little girl, my face surely betraying my horror. Surprised and—apparently frightened—to see a gora, she stared back at me. The terror in her eyes was too much. I couldn’t take it. Yet I couldn’t look away. And neither could she. We held each other’s eyes for a long moment. She didn’t blink. This little girl on the auction block, tarted up in some caricature of wedding finery, was about to be sacrificed to some piece of human garbage. Maybe even the tall white man. Then the auntie twirled the girl around again for the men to see, and our brief bond was severed.

The emcee began soliciting bids from the shits on the bench, and I backed out the door, then rumbled down the stairs, cursing Ranjit and myself for our cowardice. I needed air. What I got instead was a downpour of biblical proportions when I reached the street. I didn’t care. I had to get away from the smell and memory of that dank room. Ranjit joined me in the middle of the now-empty road. The rain pelted us.