Dan Fesperman - Layover in Dubai

“And after that?”

“We will figure something out.”

Keller’s silence told him the American wasn’t sold on the idea. Sharaf wasn’t either. Amina certainly wouldn’t be. Only Laleh would like it, if only because she would have someone roughly her own age to talk to. Not that Sharaf would let that happen. In fact, the whole idea of it almost made him change his mind. But there was no alternative, short of driving Keller back out into the desert to hide him among the Bedouin.

He continued driving in contemplative silence until they ran into the usual nightmarish traffic. Finally, with a weary sigh, Sharaf turned in at the open gate to the family compound and coasted into the shaded carport.

“Okay,” he said, setting the hand brake. “I suppose it is safe to issue the all clear.”

Before Sam could answer, Sharaf looked in his rearview mirror and reacted immediately.

“Shit!” he said. “Exactly what I didn’t need.”

“What?” Keller asked, as he struggled to sit up. “The police?” If so, he was doomed.

“Worse,” Sharaf said. “My son Salim. And it’s obvious that he wants something.”

Sam, still catching his breath after the false alarm, stood in the foyer of Sharaf’s house while the detective rushed back outside to deal with his son. A family crisis, by the sound of it. The two men were shouting in Arabic, each interrupting the other.

A young woman appeared suddenly from the next room.

“What’s all the commotion? And who are you?”

She was roughly his age, and quite attractive-Sharaf’s daughter? Her intense brown eyes threw him off balance. So did her clothes, a smart and sexy skirt-and-blouse ensemble that she might have picked up yesterday in Manhattan. Hardly what he would have guessed an Emirati female to be wearing.

He also hadn’t expected Sharaf, a mere police lieutenant, to be living in this kind of style and comfort. What he had already seen of the house was well maintained and tastefully appointed. And part of a family compound, no less, a prosperous-looking assemblage of four manicured lots behind a high stucco wall. Salim’s house, if anything, had looked grander than this one.

“Well, what are you staring at?”

“Sorry. I didn’t know anyone was home.”

“Who are you? Did my father bring you?”

“He did. I’m Sam. Sam Keller.”

“I am Laleh.”

He held out his hand for a shake and immediately realized it was probably taboo for her to touch him. Unfazed, she took his hand anyway, a warm, fleeting grip. Her eyes conveyed the rest of the greeting. They were full of questions, and his inclination was to answer them all, come what may.

She had emerged from just around the corner, as if she had been waiting there since hearing the arrival of her father’s car. She’d probably heard the door shut when he went back out, and Sam’s impression was of a careful-even sneaky-listener, someone accustomed to operating on the edges of propriety. Already she had glanced twice toward the door, as if prepared to vanish the moment Sharaf reappeared.

Sam wondered what she must make of him in his current disheveled state-sweaty and unshaven, shirttail out, suit coat slung over his shoulder. His clothes were dusty from his long spell on the floor of the Camry. She probably thought he was some disreputable source from the world of crime.

“Come have a seat,” she said. “There’s no telling how long they’ll go on like that. And my father isn’t much for social graces. Or are you not a social caller?”

He wasn’t sure what Sharaf would want him to say.

“Strictly business, I guess. But your dad is putting me up for the night.”

“Here?”

She seemed astonished. She even backed away a bit, as if he had said something unbalanced.

“You should ask your father. It’s complicated.”

“His work usually is.”

She led him into a sort of parlor, where he sat on a long, deep couch while she remained standing. There was an awkward lull before an idea occurred to him.

“Would you mind if I used the telephone?”

“Until I know what my father has in mind for you, it’s probably best if you didn’t.”

So she was loyal, too, in her way, even though her initial manner had seemed dismissive of household authority. Or perhaps, being the daughter of a policeman, she was instinctively wary of seemingly innocent requests. He wondered if she actually lived here. Surely at her age she was only visiting.

“But I know he wouldn’t mind if I got you something to eat and drink,” she continued. “Would you care for tea? Coffee? What’s your preference?”

“Water would be fine.”

“Very well.” She turned toward the kitchen.

“Actually-”

“Yes?”

“Coffee would be great. I haven’t had a cup all day, and I’m getting a headache.”

She nodded and disappeared. Sam heard a cabinet open, then water rushing from the tap. Outside, the shouting continued, although the volume had dropped and there were fewer interruptions. A few moments later a coffeemaker began to hiss. He called out to Laleh from the parlor.

“Do they always go on like that?”

“My father and Salim? Oh, yes. Except when my mother is here. Then my father doesn’t feel quite as free to let go. That was Salim’s first mistake. Not waiting for ground support. He’s never known the right way to deal with my father.”

“And what is the right way?”

“Obviously I haven’t discovered it, or I wouldn’t still be living at home at the age of twenty-four. I run my own company, you know. Did my father tell you that?”

“He hasn’t told me much of anything.”

“He can be like that. Is filter coffee okay?”

“Sure. So who else lives here?” He realized it was a nosy question. “Sorry. That was a little, well…”

“Blunt? Intrusive?” She appeared at the doorway, tray in hand.

“Yes.”

She set the tray on a small table and sat across from him, then watched as he took a sip. The coffee was strong, exactly what he needed. A moment ago he had been exhausted and out of sorts. Now he felt tuned to a perfect pitch, alert to every word and gesture. Her graceful movements were like a tonic.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I am accustomed to blunt. Everyone I work with is blunt. Englishmen mostly. Or Europeans. Media and public relations types who still act like boys and want to get rich in a hurry. Blunt is the only way they know how to be.”

“Oh.”

It was chastening to be lumped with a bunch of cads, but he was disarmed by her ease with his way of speaking. It wasn’t just that her English was good. She had the right mannerisms and cadences, too, even the offhand tone. Her father, for all the breadth of his vocabulary and flawless grammar, didn’t have that facility.

“Do you want milk? Sugar?”

“Black is fine.”

“My business is in Media City. Have you been there?”

“No. I’m in pharmaceuticals. Pfluger Klaxon. What kind of company do you own?”

“A marketing firm, specializing in visuals. Graphic design and so on. Although we’re capable of handling the copy end as well. I still live with my parents because my mother and father wouldn’t allow it any other way. Even in the business world, women here must do things the old way. If you are not married, you must live with your parents.”

He wasn’t sure how to react to all that. He was charmed, but he also found himself thinking of her as a bit of a spoiled rich girl. She was smart and bored, so Daddy put up the money for a business start-up, which helped get her out of the house. Strange, he supposed, but hardly the strangest thing he’d seen in Dubai. It reminded him anew of how little he knew about most of the places he visited; all those doings that percolated just beneath the surface.