Layover in Dubai (6 page)

“Sir, I need to bag that.”

A technician stood behind him. Sharaf rose, knees creaking, and tilted his pen to let the shell slide into the fellow’s gloved hand.

“They eject to the right, so make sure to note the location,” Sharaf said, knowing it would piss him off. “What more can you tell me about the two men in black sport jackets?”

The technician turned toward his supervisor, a Yemeni named al-Tayer, who shook his head with an expression of warning.

“You will have to ask the detective in charge,” al-Tayer said.

“And that would be Lieutenant Assad?”

“If you already knew, then why did you—”

“Thanks for your help.”

Sharaf eased into the corridor. He had shaken this hornet’s nest enough, but was weighing the value of an additional poke when the door across the hall opened.

“Sharaf. Why are you here?”

As always, Lieutenant Assad was impeccably creased and starched. He was one of the few officers who actually made their uniforms look dignified. Or maybe it was that the lettuce green color complimented the chestnut brown of his eyes. Assad’s reputation was exalted, especially among those who mattered. Prominent tribal family, well spoken. In recent years he had helped whip the waterfront customs police force into shape at the port of Jebel Ali as part of a crackdown on smuggling. Now he was making a name for himself as a detective specializing in vice and homicide. His clearance rate was the department’s highest. Which meant he was either very good or very efficient—they weren’t necessarily the same. He was one of those up-and-comers who, like Sharaf’s sons, believed his natural calling was supervising dozens of others from behind a vast desk in a well-appointed office, dues paying be damned. He probably resented being called here at this hour, and would therefore be more prickly than usual.

“Same reason as you, I suppose,” Sharaf answered. “Responding to a late-night summons. Obviously someone got his wires crossed and got the wrong man.”

“A reference to yourself, I hope.”

“Of course. But as long as I was here, I figured why not take a look? I should have realized you would have matters well in hand.”

“Very well in hand, yes.”

Sharaf peeked behind Assad at the second American, who had stood up and was edging forward for a better view. Definitely another specimen of the business breed, but younger, and minus the customary vulpine cast that made so many of them seem acquisitive and lurking. Or was the fellow simply in shock, having so recently discovered his colleague dead on a whorehouse floor? Except this wasn’t really the whorehouse part of the operation. It was an office, a place where records were kept and deals were cut. To Sharaf that suggested complicity, involvement, in a way that a mere sexual tryst never would have. Innocent victim? Perhaps not.

The young man seemed on edge. His right hand kept straying protectively toward his wallet. Given what Sharaf knew of some of his police colleagues, maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.

“Hello, sir. I am Lieutenant Anwar Sharaf. And your name is?”

“Sam Keller.”

Lieutenant Assad’s features darkened at this further intrusion.

“A pleasure to meet you. I only wish it could have been under better circumstances. The deceased was your friend?”

Assad tried to steer Keller back to the chair, but the young man held his ground.

“Yes. And a business colleague. We were traveling together.”

“And he was showing you a good time?”

Keller’s mouth dropped. He seemed affronted. Fine with Sharaf, who had hoped to make an impression, even if one of callousness. Lieutenant Assad again intervened. This time Keller let himself be herded back to the chair.

“I hope the rest of your stay in Dubai is not so unfortunate,” Sharaf said.

The door shut in his face.

Any sort of run-in with Assad was potentially troublesome. But Sharaf supposed it was inevitable, because he was already thinking he wanted to pursue this case further. Unofficially, of course, just the way the Minister wanted it. This might well be the opening they had been seeking—a suitable spot for diving deeper, so to speak, to see if there was anything worth retrieving from the seabed. A few oysters, perhaps. Maybe even a pearl or two. And the Minister wouldn’t exactly be sorry if Assad was involved, seeing as how they were from rival clans. That was an aspect of Dubai that outsiders never quite fathomed. They might all dress the same, and draw wealth from the same pools of oil and real estate, but deeper loyalties were still sometimes determined by long ago battles in the dunes.

Sharaf’s only reservation had to do with whether he had the guts to take the plunge. Not only were the waters potentially deep but he already sensed fins breaking the surface, mostly due to the personalities involved. For every minister in his corner, surely there would be at least two on the other side. Perhaps he should simply embrace the danger, as Ali had once counseled. But that was not so easy for a man who had come to value contentment above all else.

Whatever was down there, Sharaf felt certain that the best secrets would be hiding in the trickiest locations, right there with the eel in his cave. Make a move now, and he might have to hold his breath for a very long time. He only hoped the Minister would remain steadfast up at the gunwale as the seas turned rough, prepared to haul Sharaf to safety at a moment’s notice. Anything less, and he might never resurface.

Just thinking about it made him a little short of breath. Or maybe he was just tired. He sighed deeply, shut his notebook, and headed for the exit.

“Who the hell was that?” Sam asked after Lieutenant Assad shut the door.

“A nuisance. One you needn’t worry about.”

“Callous jerk is more like it.”

Sam hadn’t liked the look of him. Another officer in green, but his uniform had sagged like the skin of a toad, or a balloon losing its air. Hot air, at that.

“Will he be wanting to talk to me?”

“No,” the lieutenant said. “It is not his case. If he tries to contact you, I want to know immediately.”

Just what Sam needed, to get caught in a turf war between rival cops. For the moment at least, he seemed to have landed on the right side.

“Should I refuse to speak with him?”

“Yes. And you will be perfectly within your rights.”

“I’ll tell him you said so. I’d like to keep this as uncomplicated as possible, at least until our chief of corporate security arrives. She’s due later today.”

“She has already phoned.” Assad consulted his notes. “Miss Weaver?”

Nanette had moved fast, and Sam was grateful for her efficiency. He supposed he should have expected no less.

“Where were we, then?” Assad asked.

Sam hoped to avoid revisiting the awkward subject of why he had searched through Charlie’s pockets.

“I, uh, believe we were talking about how long we’d been in the country.”

“Thirty-six hours, you said. Meaning you arrived Friday afternoon.”

Assad flipped back a few pages in the notebook. Sam cleared his throat and wiped his palms on his trousers. Charlie’s datebook was burning a hole in his pocket.

“What I’d like you to do now, Mr. Keller, is to take me back through everything you two have done since your arrival. People you met, things you saw, particularly with regard to Mr. Hatcher, even on occasions when you might not know a name. Physical descriptions, whatever you can tell us. I know you are tired, and much of this may seem trivial. But there are people in Dubai who prey on wealthy businessmen who come to places like the York. Someone may have been following you all evening, or even from yesterday. The sooner I have any sort of lead, the sooner I can find who is responsible.”

Where to begin? Sam had seen quite a lot in a short time, and most of it had left a vivid impression, beginning with Charlie himself. Sam had been nervous about how the old boy would greet him. But when they met at JFK Charlie bounded forward with the easy warmth of a shaggy retriever, a little overweight and a little untrimmed, his eyebrows arching readily in good humor. It was as if the Brussels job they’d cooperated on had ended only the week before, and they were picking up where they’d left off. Sam spent a few minutes feeling guilty about the role he was about to play, then decided to relax and let Charlie set the tone.

It made for an easy passage, despite all the long hours on the plane, and from the moment they landed, Charlie had offered a running commentary on all things Dubai, beginning with the modernesque airport, which to Sam looked like a spaceport with palm trees and Armani billboards.

“Take a good look,” Charlie said as they stood in the passport line. “But reserve final judgment ’til departure, when we run the gauntlet of Duty Free. Gold, caviar, Cuban cigars, shoppers in a frenzy. Last time I came through, a single planeload of Poles packed away sixty DVRs and eighty cases of Johnnie Walker Red. I just wish you could’ve been here for the arrival of one of those all-girl Aeroflot flights. Five a day, sometimes.”

“All-girl?”

“Whores. Flew ’em in a hundred at a time, like mail-order brides on the Wells Fargo. But that was before the government started paying attention. Not so easy anymore, alas.”

Good to hear, Sam thought. Maybe that meant Charlie would be keeping his nose clean. The old boy kept up his patter in the taxi through some of the worst traffic Sam had ever seen. They wound up on a clogged ten-lane thoroughfare, Sheikh Zayed Road, that led to their hotel.

“And you said you’re staying at the Shangri-La?” Lieutenant Assad asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you meet anyone there, you or Mr. Hatcher?”

“I was supposed to meet the head of our new regional office, Arnie Bettman. But he canceled. Otherwise, nobody, unless you count the bellhops and doormen. We pretty much kept to ourselves.”

“Nice place, the Shangri-La.”

An understatement. Even the lobby was a palace, with a ceiling four stories high.

“Eight hundred a night,” Charlie had boasted as they stepped from the cab. “But if you let me handle the check-in, they might knock it down. I’m a regular. Give me your passport.”

Someone whisked away their bags on a gilded cart. Still dazed from the flight, Sam wandered past the front desk toward the lobby bar, where a chef in a high hat was building an abstract tower of gourmet breads, cheeses, and swirled oil, none of it ever to be eaten. It looked like a place where you could spend a week’s salary in ten minutes.

Sam wandered out the entrance facing onto Sheikh Zayed Road. A liveried Filipino doorman bowed as he approached.

“Good afternoon, sir!”

An Asian woman was waiting in the foyer to open the second set of doors. She, too, bowed and offered her regards. Sam stepped into a wall of heat and traffic noise. Maybe it was the jet lag, or the alien climate, but he again experienced the sensation of having arrived at a spaceport. He gazed upward, half expecting to see a glass bubble protecting the atmosphere. In every direction, tall, gleaming buildings were topped by spires, globes, and bizarre structures that resembled regal turbans and papal miters. It was as if the world’s most playful architects had been lured here by blank checks and a huge box of toys.

At a glance he counted more than twenty towers under construction. The largest, off to the right, was the Burj Dubai, already the world’s tallest at 160 stories and climbing. Two giant cranes swiveled atop it. From the ground they were tiny, like antennae on a gleaming cockroach that had reared up on its hind legs, begging for crumbs.

Directly across the way, a quadruple-width billboard advertised the next project: PENTOMINIUM: THE DEFINED HEIGHT OF LUXURY. 120 FLOORS OF ALL-PENTHOUSE LIVING. Good luck making it to your apartment in a power outage. Sam decided this was how the Emerald City must have looked after the Wizard flew off in his balloon, taking all the rules with him.

But he already noticed one problem with this Oz—a gritty breeze that stung his eyes. Sand was the source of the haze. Not pollution or exhaust, but the desert itself, airborne and hovering. It was piling up against the curbing and along the sidewalks. A hotel worker vacuumed the excess from the marble porch. It reminded Sam that somewhere beneath all this grandeur was still the sandy bed of past encampments and barest survival. The moment man let his guard down, the desert would reclaim it all.

A flurry of “Good afternoon, sirs” announced Charlie’s arrival from behind.

“What do you think, old son?” He was grinning like a mischievous wolf.

“I was just wondering how you’d ever cross the street. Look at it. Ten lanes, four Jersey walls, a bunch of guardrails, and a fence. Plus the traffic.”

“You’d need a commando team. Even then you’d take heavy casualties. See that restaurant, just across the highway? Ten-minute cab ride. But stop staring at the traffic—you’re making the doorman nervous. Few months ago they had a rash of suicides. Desperate men throwing themselves in front of speeding cars, hoping to earn blood money for their families from whoever mowed ’em down. For whatever reason, this was their favorite spot, right here at the Shangri-La. Got so bad they posted a cop.”

It was Lieutenant Assad, snapping Sam out of his daydream. Or night dream. It was now 4 a.m., and the York Club had gone silent.

“Continue, please. So you arrived at the Shangri-La in late afternoon. Did you or Mr. Hatcher go anywhere that first evening?”

“Emirates Mall. To the ski slope.”

“Ah, yes. Very popular with the tourists.”

Pretty much what Charlie had said—but with gentle tolerance—when Sam suggested going.

“We could do that. We could do that, Sam. Of course the way I see it, if you want to ski, then go to goddamn Aspen.” He laughed aloud. “But I can see the novelty appeal. Big hill of snow inside a shopping mall, smack in the middle of blazing Arabia. So, by God, let’s buckle ’em on. Who knows, maybe with a little exercise we’ll sleep better. More energy for the real action tomorrow.”