Layover in Dubai

4

“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.”

“Mr. Keller? Mr. Keller?”

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.”

It turned out to be like the rest of Dubai—surreal, an artful con, worthy successor to the mirages that must have once fooled thirsty caravans. Super-strength air-conditioning kept the temperature at 29 degrees Fahrenheit beneath a sky blue ceiling. You rented parkas and snow pants along with the skis and poles, and caught the lift straight for the top. Not exactly Aspen, but still fun in a discombobulating sort of way.

Sam, who slalomed down with an easy grace, waited for Charlie at the bottom. The older man descended like Laurel and Hardy, a slapstick of tumbles and splayed legs that ended with an ignoble roll at the bottom. But when he stood, snow in his stubble, his cigarette was still clamped in his lips and he wasn’t at all embarrassed.

“Haven’t done this in a while,” he said. “I think I’ll watch from the bar.”

He nodded toward a big plate-glass window up high in the back. Everyone on the other side looked cozy, steaming drinks in hand, video fireplaces ablaze. A little like the Alps, as long as you didn’t glance to the right, where another big window faced out from the mall’s main concourse. A line of shoppers peered in, all in a row with their sunburns, their bags, and their ice cream cones.

“Did Mr. Hatcher meet anyone in the bar while you were skiing?” Assad asked. “Did anyone approach either of you?”

“No.”

Sam’s only conversation had been with Charlie, afterward in the Alpine bar:

“So how’d we end up traveling together, anyway, young Mr. Keller? Any insights you’d care to share?”

Obviously Charlie hadn’t bought Nanette’s rationale—the idea that Sam needed a chaperone. She had given him a cover story in case this subject came up—a lame one, but it was all he had.

“The travel office thought it would be a good way to save money.”

“Some sort of package deal, you mean?” Charlie snorted. “They obviously don’t know the way things work at the Shangri-La. But tell me something. You weren’t summoned to meet with the lovely Nanette by any chance, were you?”

He had a story for this, too.

“I was. She wanted to update my security status, seeing as how I might be stopping in Pakistan on the way back from Hong Kong.”

Charlie nodded, but didn’t seem convinced.

“Tell me,” he said. “This earlier departure of yours, the one that put you in sync with my schedule. Was that Nanette’s idea as well?”

“Uh, no.” He felt terrible lying. “The travel office handled everything.”

Charlie smiled.

“Whatever you say, boss. But I do kind of like the idea of making her squirm. And I don’t mean in the carnal sense.”

He must have noticed Sam redden, judging from what he said next.

“So even you think she’s kind of hot, huh?” He laughed. “Well, I guess we’re always doing it, aren’t we?”

“Doing what?”

“Sizing them up. Stripping them down in our heads, whether they’re our waitress, our boss, or our second cousin. Wondering what it would be like. Or, if they’re a little too old, what it might have been like ten years ago. Doesn’t take much to set us off, really. A curve of the hip. A certain look in the eye. But let me tell you something about our Nanette. Put together nicely, I’ll grant you, but she’s cut from solid granite. Cold, hard, and sharp at every edge. Probably a little bitter for her own good, but very effective at pretty much everything she does.”

“Why bitter?” Sam immediately wished he hadn’t asked. Better to have let the subject die a natural death.

“Passed over for bigger and better things one too many times, I suspect. That tends to happen when you blow the whistle and no one listens. And, yes, I know all about that poor veep for finance she busted in Africa. But he was an easy mark. The stronger ones with better protection always survive. And after that happens a few times maybe the inclination is to say, hey, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

Or maybe, Sam thought, the inclination was to take out your frustrations on smaller fry, like a quality control officer with a penchant for randy behavior. Assuming that what Charlie said was even true. Obviously there was no love lost between the two of them.

“Well, if you think she’s interested in me now,” Charlie said, “just wait ’til a week from Monday, on the fourteenth. She’ll get all of me she wants.”

“Monday? In Hong Kong?”

“That’s another thing. I won’t be going to Hong Kong. I’m staying here through the week. Go ahead and tell her if she happens to ask. But it’s strictly for business. Tell her that, too. The reckoning is coming, old son.”

Sam told none of this to Lieutenant Assad, of course. Too much to explain. Nor did he even consider revealing his role as Nanette’s spy, which would have raised unwarranted suspicion. But with Charlie now lying dead on the floor, the man’s earlier words took on a new significance. What was supposed to be happening on Monday the 14th, and what was Charlie’s “reckoning”? Or had he prematurely brought that on himself, tonight at the York?

“So, then,” Assad asked, “where did you go next?”

Dinner, drinks in a few places he now barely remembered, followed by a fairly early bedtime. Sam then showered and crashed into a dreamless sleep, with the whine of the Emirates jet still roaring in his ears as he drifted off.

“And this was what time?”

“Maybe ten. No, later. I was pretty beat.”

“So for all you know, Mr. Hatcher could have met someone downstairs. Or gone back out on the town.”

“I suppose.” The idea had occurred to him as he showered, but he had been too tired to stay out longer, and he had counted on Charlie’s age to keep him grounded as well.

“What about the next day?”

“I was up pretty early. Caught a cab to the beach at Jumeirah to take a walk. Charlie slept in ’til noon.”

“Yes. He almost definitely went back out without you.”

Great, Sam thought. Just don’t put that in your report, in case Nanette reads it.

“We had brunch, then took it easy in the afternoon around the hotel pool. We both did some business by phone.”

“Local contacts?”

“Not for me. With Charlie, who knows?”

Assad scribbled a note.

“These calls. He would have been using a smart phone or BlackBerry, correct? Which you say you weren’t able to find?”

“Yes.”

It made Sam curious to see what was in the datebook. He wondered if he should hand it over. But that would be admitting he’d hidden it to begin with.

“And in the evening?”

“We had dinner at Al Mahara in the Burj Al Arab, the seafood place with the big aquarium.”

Assad smiled wryly.

“Did you happen to see a fat local gentleman in a very ugly brown pin-striped suit?”

“Not that I recall.”

“My boss, Brigadier Razzaq. He is there at least twice a week. His banker friends know it’s his favorite. He has been observed drinking alcohol there.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“And you dined alone, just the two of you?”

Was it Sam’s imagination, or was Assad beginning to leer, as if he suspected a homosexual relationship?

“Yes. Just the two of us.”

“Very cozy. And then?”

“Barhopping for the next few hours. Except for a stop at the Palace Hotel.” Sam realized he actually had an item of possible interest for Assad. “Charlie had an appointment there. Someone I didn’t know.”

Assad sat up straighter and flipped a page.

“The Palace Hotel at the Royal Mirage? The big resort?”

“Yes.”

“And you saw this person?”

“From across the room. I was waiting by the front desk.”

He remembered the cab ride up a curving driveway beneath under-lit palms, the spooky feel of arriving at an oasis by night. They crossed a bridge over a man-made creek to enter a massive stone gate flanked by flaming torches. Facing them from the courtyard was a life-size sculpture of eight Bedouin camel riders, galloping straight toward them, as if guarding the hotel’s marble entrance. The lobby featured a high domed ceiling painted in multicolored pastels, with enough room beneath it for a grand fountain and four towering palms.

Charlie made a call from the courtesy phone and crossed the room to wait by the elevators. Sam took a seat on the opposite side. A few minutes later a man came down. To Sam’s surprise, it was not a colleague in Western business attire or resort clothing, nor even a local in a flowing white kandoura. It was a member of the hotel staff, looking a bit ridiculous in a white silk turban and a red satin robe embroidered in gold. Hollywood’s idea of an Arab bellhop, or maybe a bouncer.

They stepped into a little alcove on the far side of lobby. The hotel man sat on an overstuffed couch, looking as if he wanted to hide beneath the cushions as he glanced this way and that. Charlie, for a change, seemed deadly earnest. He sat kitty-corner in a chair of carved wood and inlaid ivory. Sam was intrigued enough to stroll closer, hoping to catch the drift of their conversation. But the splashing fountain masked their words. Charlie spent most of the conversation nodding. He paused once to scribble briefly in a small black notebook. The datebook, Sam realized now. Maybe the fellow had been some sort of pimp, procuring women for later. He might even have phoned ahead to the woman in blue sequins. Sam must have voiced this thought, because Assad spoke up.

“A pimp? You may be right. Do you remember his name?”

“Charlie didn’t say. But he was pretty big, built like a wrestler. Full brown beard, neatly trimmed.”

“Yes. That will help. How long did they talk?”

“Maybe ten minutes.”

“Did anything pass between them? Papers? Money, perhaps?”

“Now that you mention it, I think Charlie slipped him something just before they finished. Probably cash, some folded bills.”

“You don’t know how much?”

“No. But when the guy left, Charlie was all smiles. Then he took me around the corner to the hotel’s private club. The Kasbar, it was called. There was a bouncer out front in the same kind of uniform. There was a guest book and a velvet rope, but when Charlie mentioned we were with Pfluger Klaxon he waved us through.”

“Did he say anything about his meeting?”

“No.” Sam hesitated. “But I asked.”

“And?”

“He said it was personal. ‘Personal business.’ Those were his words.”

“Anything else?”

“I didn’t press him for more.”

He hadn’t needed to. In truth, Charlie had talked awhile longer, although none of it was anything Sam felt comfortable sharing.

“Wonder where they got her from?” Charlie had said, staring as their waitress departed in a skirt cut to the tops of her thighs. “Whatever. We’ll be seeing plenty more of that later.”

He enjoyed a laugh at Sam’s expense.

“Don’t worry, Sam. I know you’ve been told I’m a bad boy.”

Sam looked down at his drink, tongue-tied. He was unwilling to lie anymore to maintain his cover.

“Well, Nanette’s right. I am a bad boy. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one. We’ve got some real predators at Pfluger Klaxon, old son.”

“You mean our pricing policies?”

“Oh, hell, don’t come at me with any of that Big Pharma crap. Yes, we’re profiteering bastards, but our products do save a few million lives. I made peace with all that ages ago. You either do business or you go out of business. What I’m talking about is personal. People who aren’t bothered by any sort of behavior, no matter who it hurts.”

Charlie made it sound like a confession, and then briefly lowered his head, as if seeking absolution. But when he looked back up he grinned widely.

“But why am I telling you, of all people? From what I hear you’ve got the opposite problem. Shortest leash in the building, and self-maintained. Saint Sam of Auditing.”

Sam shrugged, embarrassed.

“True enough, I guess. But I screwed up early on. Nearly blew a whole account.” He told Charlie about his debacle in Asia, and the ensuing crackdown from upstairs.

Charlie snorted.

“Hell, that’s nothing. And all those warnings? Take ’em with a grain of salt. Learn from it, sure. But always remember, you’re the one out in the field getting his boots muddy, so live like you want. Stretch yourself. Soak up a little atmosphere. They don’t own you, you know.”

The man had a point. There had to be a happy medium between running off the rails and chugging along in the same narrow-gauge track, around and around. Not that Charlie offered such a great example. Follow his path and someday maybe he, too, would be traveling with a correct little junior chaperone.

A similar thought must have occurred to Charlie, judging by his next remark.

“Just don’t overdo it, old son. No matter what some misbehaving old fart like me tells you. Because once you do, atonement is damned near impossible. Only extraordinary measures will suffice. And that’s what I’m all about these days, Sam. Atonement. You’ll see.”

For all his ogling and salacious remarks, Charlie was sounding more like a penitent than a whoremonger. What’s more, Sam liked him, just as he had when they had worked together before. Charlie wasn’t just fun, he was genuine. Flawed, yes, but he knew it, and even seemed determined to do something about it. That was one reason Sam decided then and there to turn off his cell phone, severing contact with Nanette. Anyone with this much need to make amends couldn’t possibly go astray, at least not that night.

Wrong again, as it turned out. And given Charlie’s statement, the murder now seemed like some sort of divine retribution for the old fellow’s fall from grace.

“How long did you stay at the Kasbar?” Assad asked.

“We bought drinks, but Charlie seemed kind of preoccupied. The place was pretty empty. The only time he really perked up was when the guy in the beard came in.”

“The same one? The employee Charlie talked to earlier?”

“Yes. He came to our table and whispered something in Charlie’s ear. Charlie nodded, like it was pretty much what he’d expected. Then we finished our drinks and left.”

“Did he say what the man had told him?”

“No. I figured it was none of my business.”

“What time did you leave?”

“Must have been about nine thirty.”

“Continue.”

From there Charlie had led them eastward down Sheikh Zayed Road, through a procession of joyless bars and discotheques with lots of chrome and black plastic, smoke machines and strobe lights, huge cover charges, strict dress codes, and glacial air-conditioning. The final such stop was only a few blocks down from the Shangri-La, a techno-rave dance club called Zinc in the Crowne Plaza, where an obnoxious deejay created his own tunes—if you could call them that—on a mixing board. The throbbing bass made Sam’s fillings ache. They left shortly after 2 a.m., and Sam figured Charlie was going to order the cab back to the Shangri-La. Instead he suddenly perked up, the liveliest he had been since dinner.

“Now for the main event,” Charlie said. “Our descent into the notorious fleshpots of Bur Dubai. Driver, take us to Bank Street. My young friend here needs an education.”

The cabbie nodded knowingly. Obviously it was a popular destination.

Bur Dubai was a revelation. Neither glitzy nor upscale, its sidewalks teemed with men, most of them dark faces from the Indian subcontinent, lit by neon and clouded by the greasy smoke of kebab shops. The cab reached a large and crowded traffic circle.

“So what’ll it be?” Charlie asked, gesturing in two directions. “The York Club or the Regal Plaza?”

Men stood in long lines outside both places. A banner near the York’s entrance advertised TV showings of English football, but Sam doubted everyone had come to watch Tottenham Hotspur play the Blackburn Rovers.

“How ’bout the Regal?” Sam said.

Charlie frowned.

“Sure. But if you want my advice …”

“All right, then. The York.”

Lieutenant Assad seized on this right away.

“So your friend, he chose the York?”

“I guess you could say that.”

The York Hotel’s check-in desk was along the back wall. As with every other hotel in the city, from the poshest to the seediest, the lobby displayed a trio of portraits depicting Dubai’s past and present ruling sheikhs, all in a row, as ubiquitous as Big Brother.

To the right was a small pub in which English football was indeed showing on a wide screen to a handful of customers. But the real action was just ahead on the left, where the crowd was lined up at a pay window by a stairwell.

“Spot me a C-note,” Charlie said. “I’m afraid the York doesn’t take plastic.”

“Fifty dirhams apiece for this dump?”

“It’s not the wrapping that’s important. You’ll see.”

They waited ten minutes to buy their tickets, stamped by the Ministry of Tourism. Then they joined a second long line of men waiting to pass through a metal detector.

“The place must be mobbed,” Sam said.

Charlie grinned widely.

“And to think, we have the end of the Cold War to thank for this fine commercial establishment.”

Sam frowned, trying to establish the connection.

“The Russkies, old son! The moment the Iron Curtain fell, loose women from Poland to Hungary started lining up along the roads leading from every border crossing out of the West. Putting their best foot forward, so to speak, and showing plenty of leg. It didn’t take long for a few enterprising old secret policemen and KGB types to figure out that this was their future, and within a year or two they’d franchised their operations worldwide. As a quality control officer I have to admit it’s impressive. Even an auditor can probably appreciate its amazing efficiency.”

“So this is a Mafia joint?”

“The York? Certainly not. I’m sure its ownership papers are in perfect order.”

“The clientele, then?”

“Let’s just say that your initial assessment—‘The place must be mobbed’—was right on the money.”

The line was moving faster now. A second bouncer had sprung into action with a security wand, doubling the intake of customers.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” Sam asked.

“You sound like one of those scolds who won’t shop in a Wal-Mart because they’re mean to their cashiers.” At this point Charlie had a manic gleam in his eye. Sam couldn’t tell if he was serious or was having a little fun at his expense. It might even have been anger. “They’re providing a service, Sam. In Dubai there are only two women for every three men, and heaven knows you’d certainly better not get caught slipping your hands up the veil of any Emirati woman. Let me put it this way. What’s more valuable in that kind of demographic—making a nifty little pill to help the menfolk get horny, the way we do at Pfluger Klaxon, or actually providing the means for those fellows to get their rocks off? Between us and them, I’d say we’ve got supply and demand pretty well covered, wouldn’t you?”

It was Sam’s turn at the metal detector. He noticed a security goon taking stubs from darker men and stamping their hands, so he held out his own hand but was summarily waved upstairs.

“How come …?”

“You’re white, old son. Just the sort of customer they want more of.”

“Tell me about the woman again,” Lieutenant Assad said. “Did he pick her, or did she approach him?”

“I didn’t see it happen. We got separated. He headed off into the crowd while I bought a Scotch. Next thing I knew he was coming back with her, hand in hand.”

“But he found her quickly?”

“Yes. A few minutes at the most.”

“Did he introduce you, or say her name?”

“No. Don’t you have her in custody?”

“And your impression is that she was Russian?”

“Slavic, anyway. From her face, the accent.”

“So she spoke to you?”

“Just said ‘Hello,’ or ‘How are you,’ something like that. Then they ran off.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t go with them?”

Sam frowned.

“I’m not into that.”

“I am not talking about sex, Mr. Keller, and I think you know it.”

“Then what are you talking about? And where’s the woman?”

“I suspect you know the answer to both those questions.”

What was happening? Why had Assad turned on him? Or had that been the lieutenant’s plan all along? Sam decided to say nothing.

“Tell me again about your earlier stop at the Palace Hotel. The one with the rendezvous with the member of the staff.”

“I told you what I know. Charlie met someone in the lobby.”

“Yes, but tell me what was said.”

“I didn’t hear it.”

“Have you always had such poor hearing, Mr. Keller?”

“I wasn’t privy to the conversation.”

“Of course you were.”

Sam shook his head. He was exhausted, upset, and now he was worried.

“Why are you doing this?”

“There are too many gaps in your story. Convenient lapses of hearing and memory.”

Sam had nothing to gain by speaking further. His nervousness gave way to anger. First, the fat cop had taunted him. Now the smart, smooth one was practically accusing him of complicity. And poor Charlie was still dead on the floor in the room across the hall.

Assad snapped his notebook shut and leaned forward.

“What I ought to do, Mr. Keller, is take you down to the jail and let you consider these matters further until I can question you after breakfast, or maybe lunch, or even dinner. Instead I am going to let you return to your hotel. But once you have had time to rest, I will want to speak with you again. And when I do, you had better give me the full version. Do you understand?”

Sam was about to protest, but figured that might prompt a trip to jail. Besides, in one sense Assad was right. Sam was holding out on him. He’d been spying on Charlie and had confiscated the man’s datebook. Not the sort of complicity Assad suspected, but complicity all the same. So he nodded and said nothing.

“Be ready after breakfast,” Assad said. “I will come to your hotel.”

As far as Sam was concerned, Nanette couldn’t get here soon enough.