Layover in Dubai (19 page)

“A Bedouin? How so?”

“In the most important way of all. Tell me, do you know why the Bedouin move around so much?”

“For the grazing. That’s what they would tell you.”

Ali waved his hand dismissively.

“A convenient pretext. The real reason is because they are too lazy to clean up after themselves, even though they are masters at making a mess. The moment they find some new place and pitch their tents, they begin to soil it, them and their stinking animals. When it finally becomes too filthy and clotted with goat shit even for them, they strike the tents and move on. And that is what you do. You make a mess by stirring up a lot of the wrong people, then you strike your tent and move on to the next case, because you are never willing or able to clean up behind yourself. The problem, Anwar, is that the desert is huge, practically limitless, but your department isn’t. Soon there will be nowhere left to pitch your tent.”

“I never knew you were such a snob about the Bedouin.”

“You’re ignoring my point.”

“Where do you get these stupid theories, Ali? From the Egyptian you pay to change court dates, or the Palestinian who fixes your friends’ speeding tickets? I don’t make messes, I clean them up. Can you help me with this young man or not?”

Ali grinned and slid his double-six back into the starting position.

“Of course I can. Don’t worry. I will discreetly find someplace where he can stay awhile. We’ll have him resettled by sundown. But tell me—not until after you’ve selected your seven dominoes from the boneyard, of course—what level of camouflage does he require? Because some of the more secure places I have in mind, well, I am not so sure he would find them much more to his liking than a jail cell.”

Sharaf obliged Ali by selecting seven tiles. He placed them on a small wooden rack that kept Ali from seeing them, then chose a three-six combination and positioned it endwise to the middle of Ali’s double-six.

“For now it doesn’t need to be so extreme,” Sharaf said.

“In that case I can probably have a place lined up by …” Ali checked his watch, a massive Breguet with a jeweled rim. “Let us say three o’clock. I will send a driver to fetch him. A sedan with smoked windows, so he can relax and not be seen. Plenty of places to choose from. In fact, there are all sorts of new apartments lying vacant right now. Some of them don’t even have an assigned address yet, that’s how fast things are moving. Far
too
fast, if you ask me.”

“You are worried?”

“When properties are turning over fourteen times before a single tenant moves in, I begin to get indigestion. Or maybe it is from all the truffles and caviar the developers feed me at their groundbreakings. If I were you, Sharaf, I would not buy a new house anytime soon, no matter what Amina wants. That goes double for your sons.”

“My sons,” Sharaf said, rolling his eyes, although he already felt better now that the matter of Sam Keller was resolved. He had been preoccupied by worry all morning, especially after what he and Keller had learned the night before.

They had returned home from the Burjuman to huddle in Sharaf’s sanctum, where they pored over the information from Charlie Hatcher’s datebook. The enigmatic scribbles below the underlined reference to “Monday, 4/14!” had intrigued Sharaf the most, although neither Keller nor he had any idea what they meant.

“He talked about the fourteenth like it was some kind of deadline,” Sam said. “He said he was canceling his flight to Hong Kong and was going to stay in Dubai.”

“Maybe one of these people will know,” Sharaf said, gesturing toward the three names. “Let’s give it a try.”

Sharaf quickly discovered why two of the phone numbers seemed familiar. The first one connected him to the front desk of the Palace Hotel at the Royal Mirage resort. Sharaf had visited there twice on police business—a jewel theft, and a robbery on the hotel’s private beach. He asked for the name Charlie had written.

“Rajpal Patel, please.”

The cordial male voice at the other end turned officious. “Who is calling?”

“Does it matter? I’m a friend.”

“Then maybe you can tell me why Rajpal hasn’t bothered to show up for the past three nights, or why he won’t answer his phone.”

“Three nights?”

“Three very inconvenient nights, yes. Who is this?”

Sharaf hung up and turned to Keller.

“Did you and Charlie Hatcher visit the Palace Hotel at the Royal Mirage?”

Keller told Sharaf the story of the hotel staffer in the garish uniform who had met Charlie in the lobby.

“If he was dressed like that, then he was probably one of the bouncers at their exclusive little club, the Kasbar. It is a known gathering place for people like the ones we were observing tonight. Did you mention this meeting to Lieutenant Assad?”

“Yes. He seemed pretty interested.”

“In that case, my Bedouin friend Daoud will probably find Rajpal before we do.”

“You mean—?”

“That was the front desk at the Palace just now. Rajpal Patel has been missing for three days. Just like the woman from the York who Daoud found, who I am guessing is Tatiana Tereshkova, the second name on the list. It’s a mobile number. I’m betting there won’t be an answer.”

He tried it anyway. On the third ring a recording announced that the number was no longer in service. Whoever paid Tatiana’s phone bill had been very efficient about closing her account.

The third number was the other one that had looked familiar, although the listed name—“Basma,” but nothing more—hadn’t.

A woman answered. “Beacon of Light.”

“Of course,” Sharaf said.

“Pardon?”

“I’m sorry. This is Detective Sharaf with Dubai Police. I would like to speak with Basma, please.”

The woman seemed to gasp. Then she paused just long enough to arouse his suspicion before saying, “There is no one here by that name.”

“Not even for a policeman to speak to?”

“No.”

“Then is your director, Mrs. Halami, in?”

“Not this evening.”

“Please have her call me, then. On my mobile. And give her a message. Ask if she is familiar with an American named Charles Hatcher, of the Pfluger Klaxon company. I need to know if he has made contact with Basma or anyone else at the shelter.”

“I will tell her.” The woman’s tone was stiff, tense. Sharaf couldn’t tell if Charlie’s name had made an additional impression. It was the mention of Basma that had set her off. “And your mobile number, please?”

“She has it.”

“Thank you. She will be back tomorrow, probably around midday.”

“You know them?” Sam asked after Sharaf hung up.

“It is a shelter for abused women. Housewives, mostly, although it has also become a place of refuge for prostitutes who manage to escape their pimps. So it is not very well liked by the people we were observing this evening. Some of my police colleagues are not crazy about the place, either.”

“Why not?”

“They believe disagreements between husbands and wives are personal matters, not issues for law enforcement.”

“Even if he beats her? Do
you
believe that?”

“I do not beat my wife, so it is irrelevant what I believe. Please, you are beginning to sounding like Laleh, who has already spent far too much time among those women. That is why I recognized the number. She donates her money, handles their PR account for free, that kind of thing. She is quite the friend to them. I probably would have gotten further by mentioning her name instead of mine.”

“Maybe Charlie was a donor, too. Out of guilt, considering his track record. He did say something about atonement.”

“Or maybe this Basma was a favorite of his from a past visit, and he was tracking her down. The Tatiana woman could have been his contact. I can see how that might have upset the wrong people, especially if he was helping Basma stay free. Sending her money or something.”

“You really think that’s what happened?”

“That, or a hundred other possibilities. Whores are not the only women who end up at the Beacon of Light, or even wives. They take in housekeepers, maids, nannies. Which in Dubai are just milder forms of prostitution. Shady companies import them by the thousands on
hali-wali
visas.”

“What’s
‘hali-wali’
?”

“A ‘who cares’ visa. Obtained from some dupe in a government office.”

“You mean like those fake ownership papers for Punjabi shopkeepers?”

Sharaf supposed the remark was intended to get a rise out of him.

“I’m guessing Laleh told you about that. But at least you are beginning to grasp the way things work here. Now if you could just tell me what these other scribbles in the datebook mean, you’d actually be contributing something worthy. Otherwise, all we have learned this evening is that, of the three names he listed, one is missing, one is dead, and one may or may not be staying at a place where women sometimes hide from their Mafia pimps. And the message of all that would seem to be pretty clear: If you are a friend of Charlie Hatcher’s, Dubai is not a very safe place.”

That was the thought Sharaf took to bed with him, and the one he awakened with as well. It was why he was now so relieved by Ali’s assurances of Sam Keller’s safety, which left him free to enjoy his coffee and their game of dominoes, while venting about his wayward sons.

“My sons,” he continued to Ali, “wouldn’t know how to handle a real estate transaction unless I did it for them. To them it’s a major crisis if their iPods crash. When those Internet service cables were severed on the ocean floor last summer I thought they were going to cry. You would have thought a ten-day sandstorm had just blown into town, followed by a plague of locusts.”

“Locusts,” Ali said. “Now there’s a memory. Remember that old man in the souk who used to fry them in a big kettle whenever a bunch of them blew in from the desert?”

“Yes. Very tasty. Until that year the British sprayed them all with poison, then went round the neighborhood with a bullhorn, telling us they were unsafe to eat.”

“The visitors always end up ruining things,” Ali said. “And if this speculation market ever comes to ruin, well, at least this time they’ll be burned even more than the locals. Because we will still have our salaries and our homes, while all their precious new buildings stand empty, collecting nothing but desert dust. By the way, Sharaf, did you happen to invite some of your police colleagues to come and visit us here this morning?”

Ali was looking toward the door, and Sharaf realized that the place had suddenly gone quiet. Old faces all around them were looking up from their card games toward the entrance. Sharaf turned to see what was happening as his last swallow of coffee settled into a muddy lump at the base of his stomach.

Three rank-and-file policemen stood just inside the doorway, led by a Sudanese sergeant in lettuce green—the very fellow who had handled a favor for Ali a few years back, even though he was known to have a steep asking price. The moment they spotted Sharaf they began moving in his direction, not even bothering to remove their shoes. A low murmur went up from the regulars. The scurrying waiters halted in their tracks.

Sharaf sat still, but his mind moved quickly. By now, Keller would be alone in the house, assuming the police hadn’t already picked him up. Laleh was at her office. Amina was visiting friends, and probably wouldn’t turn on her mobile phone until after lunch. He could tell Ali to phone the house, but Sam Keller might not have the nerve to answer.

“Call Laleh at her office,” he said under his breath. “Tell her what has happened. Find any way you can to get Keller out of the house immediately. And you’d better take him to one of those tougher locations you had in mind.”

“What about you?”

“Contact the Minister,” Sharaf said. “But unless you want to get me into even bigger trouble, don’t mention the American.”

The policemen arrived at his side. One gripped Sharaf’s right arm, another took his left, and they raised him to his feet. The sergeant spoke loudly enough for all to hear.

“You will hand over your phone, your keys, and your wallet and come with us, Lieutenant Sharaf. You are under arrest.”

“On what charge? Under whose orders?”

They said nothing in reply. Sharaf didn’t resist as they escorted him to the door.

A police car was outside, with a detention van idling behind it. Already a crowd was forming. A show of force like this was for more than just an arrest. It was designed to humiliate him. Even Lieutenant Assad probably couldn’t have rigged up this big of a display, and that suggested involvement at a higher level. This train of thought led Sharaf to the most chilling possibility of all—that the Minister himself, for whatever reason, was behind this.

An officer shoved Sharaf toward the van. He looked back toward the majlis and saw Ali standing at the entrance, grim faced.

“I’ll do what I can,” Ali called out.

Normally, such words from Ali meant the deed was as good as done. This time, to judge from his deepening frown, they both realized that the odds were against them.

As if to drive home the point, the officer produced a blindfold and roughly tied it into place. He then gripped Sharaf by the shoulders and shoved him through the van’s open panel doors, barking Sharaf’s shins on the rear bumper in the process. The doors slammed shut, and the agonized Sharaf was in darkness. The driver revved the engine once, then they careened away in a clatter of spraying gravel. Sharaf took a deep breath and held it until the pain in his shins subsided.

Between that and the darkness, it reminded him a little of diving for pearls in deep waters. Stay calm, he told himself. Relax and keep your eyes open. If further dangers arise, revel in them. Embrace them. But he had better keep holding his breath. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be coming up for air for quite a while.