Dan Fesperman - Layover in Dubai

The phone rang again.

His cell phone, he realized, clear across the room on the bureau. Amina, right on cue, grumbled about the terrible demands of his job and rolled onto her side.

He stood, walked slowly to the bureau, and answered in businesslike fashion.

“Sharaf.”

It was the Minister. Not even Amina was privy to this new arrangement, and up to now Sharaf had always taken these calls from a room of his own at the center of the house, a windowless sanctum where he conducted family business and the affairs of his business investments. But the Minister sounded impatient. Sharaf would have to guard his language.

Amina folded her pillow around her ears, but still couldn’t block out the sound. This was the one-way conversation she heard from her side of the bed:

“The York Club? Yes, of course. Nationality?”

Pause.

“If true, that will complicate things. Who’s the attending officer?”

Pause.

“Yes, I am familiar with him.”

Pause.

“He won’t like it. But certainly, I’ll do what’s necessary.”

Pause.

“Yes, I am on my way.”

The phone snapped shut.

Twenty years earlier, Sharaf would have been off and running, forsaking coffee to hop immediately into his car. He would have buttoned his shirt as he drove, not bothering to even loop his belt or lace his boots until he reached the scene.

Nowadays he knew better. He dressed deliberately and marshalled his energy, standing by the bed for a moment to let gravity ease his sleepy joints back into place. The arches of his feet ached as he detoured to the toilet for a pee, a reluctant stream. Amina, despite her misgivings about his work, belted her robe and shuffled loyally to the kitchen to brew coffee. He lingered over his cup, chewing a wedge of bread to soak up the acid.

The Minister had expressed urgency, of course, but Sharaf was better acquainted with how these things worked. A dead body couldn’t flee the scene, and in any event he would have to tread lightly, because another detective had already laid claim to the territory. It would be best to let the players get comfortable in their roles before he arrived. Of course, he would have to concoct an excuse for being there at all, one that didn’t involve the Minister.

“Anwar, what is it?” Amina stood by the stove, frowning. “What’s happening with your job? Something’s changed, hasn’t it? Who was on the phone just now?”

“No one you need to know about. Trust me. It should all be over in a few weeks.”

“Well, don’t wait too late to ask for help. Even if I’m the only one left to ask.”

“Thank you.”

She lingered in case there was more, and for a moment Sharaf considered telling her everything. It would have been a relief. But it would also have been a hazard, mostly for her, so he said nothing. She turned toward the bedroom, resigned to his secrecy. He swallowed the last of his coffee, grabbed his keys, and went out into the cool darkness of the wee hours.

Sharaf drove a Camry, same model as every taxi in town. Cheap and unassuming, but you could hit a hundred if necessary. Practical, like the old ways. Incredibly, after only a few miles he ran into a backup at an underpass, due to yet another cataclysmic accident. The previous week, twenty-one people had been killed on the roads in a span of only three days. This time a Ferrari F430 was wrapped in a fatal embrace with a concrete abutment. A crumpled Jaguar XKR, spun sideways, smoldered next to it. More than a million dirhams worth of rubble. Sharaf crept past with the window down. The traffic police were supervising, an all-Syrian crew as far as he could tell from their accents. From his familiarity with the courthouse schedule, he knew that any survivors would be arraigned later that morning before a Palestinian judge. Oh, well. Someone had to keep the damn country running.

When he arrived at the York, a nervous barmaid with circles under her eyes directed him to the corridor where all the action was. Sharaf looked through an open door and saw a sprawled pair of legs in dark trousers and black Italian loafers jutting from beneath a cluster of white-smocked evidence technicians. The opposite doorway was shut, but he heard voices behind it. One was unmistakably that of Lieutenant Hamad Assad, asking questions in his Exeter College English. The answers were barely audible, but from the accent Sharaf guessed it was an American with some polish and education, not a backpacker or some vagabond kid. And in the York, of all places. If the dead man across the hall met the same profile, then this case could be rife with complications, just as the Minister had guessed.

He entered the open door and shouldered past a technician. A flutter went through the group. They sensed immediately that he wasn’t supposed to be there. Sharaf ignored them. The room smelled of blood and vomit, but he was focusing on the body, because he could already see that the Minister’s suspicions had been realized. The cut of the suit and the make of the watch said this was a businessman, and a prosperous one. Some high-paying position that required him to sit in boardrooms and scurry through airports.

Just behind the man’s head, arranged as neatly as a burial offering, was a pile containing his wallet and a stack of credit cards. An American driver’s license from the state of New York was perched on top. No cell phone, smart phone, or BlackBerry. Curious omissions, unless Assad had already confiscated them.

Sharaf stooped forward and nimbly plucked a business card from the middle of the pile, like a magician whipping a tablecloth from beneath a crystal setting. The name, embossed in black ink, matched the one on the driver’s license:

Charles R. Hatcher

Quality Control

It sounded familiar. Wasn’t this the fellow who had made such a fuss at the Cyclone a few months back? A humorous story, if true, but nothing to suggest this sort of fate. Above the name, embossed in bloodred, was the well-known corporate logo of Pfluger Klaxon. That would also get the Minister’s attention. Pfluger Klaxon meant lots of clout at the palace, and lots of backup from home. They’d be sending their own people, and soon.

He paused a moment to watch the forensics team do its work, while paying special attention to the chatter. Already he had picked up useful information, especially considering that Assad probably wouldn’t share his report.

Scanning the room, Sharaf spotted something on the carpeted floor near the far wall, just to the left of the doorway. Stepping closer, he took a pen from his lapel pocket, leaned down and used the nib to pick up a 9-millimeter shell casing. Based on what he had already heard, he was guessing it had been ejected by a Makarov semiautomatic, a model favored by dubiously employed Russians with military backgrounds. A second casing lay nearby.

“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.