Date with a Sheesha (23 page)

This type of thing obviously happened regularly here. But to me, it was extraordinary. Especially since nothing but dilemmas and quandaries had been forecast by Miss Hema, she of little faith.

Surprise, however, soon turned to bewilderment. Upon leaving the shipper’s office and heading back through the market to where Umar had left the car, we spied a woman sneaking off down the street opposite us. Normally, a woman running away down a street isn’t big news. But this woman was not wearing the traditional black
abeyya
worn by every other woman in sight. This woman was decidedly North American. This woman looked amazingly like Hema Gupta.

Back in the car, I gave Umar the name of yet a third souk. He got on the phone, talked to the same somebody in the same unfamiliar language, hung up, and we were on our way.

After cooling his amorous jets last night, I’d managed to grill Yash a little further. I asked him what Neil had said to him about the man named Fahd. Neil had mentioned someone named Fahd in his emails to Darrell Good, but I had no idea whether he was just another rug merchant, just another boyfriend, or someone who could tell me what saffron meant to Neil. Or, better yet, maybe Fahd could tell me why Neil had seemed so unhappy and worried about his safety when he’d last spoken with Aashiq.

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Possibilities abounded.

Yash told me he’d playfully accused Neil of having another boyfriend (other than Aashiq; I guess a
third
boyfriend was simply a no-no) in Fujairah, because he spent so much time there.

Neil told him about Fahd, a rug merchant at the souk we were now off to. He mysteriously referred to Fahd as someone important to him, but not for the same reasons. That’s all Yash knew. Or all he was willing to tell me.

Fahd was also a name on the list provided to me by Colin Cardinale. Hema had the same list but obviously didn’t think Fahd was worth visiting while we were here. Maybe he didn’t have the kind of carpets she was after. Also, Fahd is not an uncommon name. But if there was any chance that all the Fahds—

the one Darrell Good knew about, the one Colin Cardinale knew about, and the one Yash knew about—were the same guy, then he was definitely someone I wanted to meet.

On the way to meet the illustrious Fahd, I mulled over all the possible reasons why Hema would have been skulking around our marketplace. She was supposed to have been fifteen minutes away, doing her own carpet deals. Did she really trust me so little? I suppose she had reason. I knew she felt personally responsible for completing Neil’s carpet purchases here. To return home empty-handed would be a major failure to her and make her look bad in the eyes of both universities. She had no idea whether I, a detective and ex-cop, could actually pull off a successful rug buy on my own. (Neither had I, until I actually did it.) The traffic on the streets had gotten heavier, and the trip was taking longer than Umar had anticipated. I stressed safety over speed and sat back. I debated making some calls while I had the time. I really wanted to talk to Ethan. Just to hear his voice. And, I knew, I should talk to my client.

I’d been having an internal battle ever since Aashiq gave me the message meant for Neil’s father. Neil had said if he didn’t show up at the Burj Al Arab, it meant he was in danger. If that happened, Aashiq was to call his father for help. And ask him to find saffron.

These were Neil’s last words.

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They would be difficult to hear: words that communicated finality, fear, and uncertainty. A plea for help. A plea that would come much, much too late.

Pranav Gupta would have been gutted to hear these words.

Instead, I had gotten the message. I was Pranav’s representative.

I was here to help. Albeit too late to save Neil’s life, I would be the one to find this bloody saffron…or something, anything, to reveal the truth behind his death. Was that enough? Or, did Pranav deserve to hear his son’s last words himself?

When Umar pulled to a stop, I caught him checking the rear-view mirror.

“Are we being followed again?” I asked.

“Not that I can see at this point.”

“Is this the place?” I asked, reaching for the door handle.

“The shop you want is in there,” he pointed down an alley of shops of a type that was now becoming quite familiar to me. “But, please, you should be extra careful now.”

I pulled back from the door. This was unlike our usually jovial driver. “Is something wrong, Umar? Is this a dangerous part of town?”

He shook his head and tried a smile. “Not particularly so, no, not that I know. I just feel it is always wise to be cautious in these situations.”

What situations? Had he been spooked by the Jeep? By the unexpected sight of Hema running away from us in the last market?

“Umar, why don’t you stay with the car? I’ll find Fahd. If he can’t speak English, I’ll come back and get you.”

“Absolutely no. I am coming with you.”

And so he did. And although I didn’t say it, I was glad.

Fahd was a rug merchant who could speak less English than he thought he could. He was in his forties and ran his shop alongside two much older men who watched us very closely. All three wore light beige shirt-dresses. The elder men wore headscarves, Fahd a cap.

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“We were the bestess bestess,” Fahd told me when I showed him a picture and asked if he was a friend of Neil’s. “He goes here to Fujairah for all he wants, you understand?”

Not quite. I asked if he’d heard of Neil’s “mishap” in Dubai.

“No. No. You understand?”

I didn’t get the sense the man knew about Neil’s death. So I told him.

“I am happy happy to have you here now, you understand?”

Well, he got over that quickly.

“You want it too, mistress? I have it too. Gupta comes and gets soon. But no mores for now. Now you come. You understand?”

I turned to Umar and winced. Umar began speaking to Fahd with words that made no sense to me. I smiled and nodded and hoped for the best.

“He says he met with Gupta many times. Gupta was looking for something.”

“Saffron? Ask him about saffron.”

Umar did as told.

“No, he does not seem to know anything about saffron. He says Gupta was looking for a very special rug, which this man knew about.”

My hopes fell. This was just about rugs. “Do you think he knew Neil personally? Or was this just business?”

More exchange. “I think just business. Although he is trying hard to convince us they were best friends, I doubt this. He wants to sell you something.”

I thought for a while. I asked Umar to ask about Yash.

Nothing. Aashiq. Nothing. Finally, “Does he know anything about someone named Zinko?”

At the sound of the word, Fahd’s face nearly exploded with glee. He clapped a hand against my arm and pushed his face into mine. “Zinko, yes, we have Zinko for you right now. I am happy, happy to have you here now, you understand?”

Things were looking up. “Umar, see what he knows about Mr.

Zinko, please.”

The two men spoke for over a minute. Finally Umar moved back into English. “It seems this man first told Mr. Neil about 159

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Zinko…do you know who this Zinko is? This man is being rather mysterious about him.”

I shook my head no.

“Well, this man was trying to put Mr. Neil and Mr. Zinko together somehow. I must admit to you, I’m not exactly sure what he means by this. He speaks a dialect I’m not entirely familiar with. But he says you must now meet with Husain in Salalah.”

Salalah. Hope blazed through me like a shot of burning whisky on a cold winter’s night. It was the satisfying
click
of two pieces fitting together when you didn’t expect them to, telling me I just might be on the right track in this case.

I’d thought it was nothing more than a stroke of good luck last night when Yash had told me to seek out Fahd in Fujairah. For the very next day I was to be in Fujairah. Now, Fahd was telling me to go to Salalah, my exact destination for tomorrow. I had simply been following Neil’s intended itinerary for his last week in the Middle East. My hope was that I would stumble across something, anything, that would give me a clue as to why he’d died.

Now these men were giving me Neil’s
secret
itinerary, meetings with men in places he planned to be. None of which were in his PDA. But maybe they’d been in the missing “Z” file. Z for Zinko, perhaps?

Click. Click. Click.

Pranav thought his son’s killing had something to do with his life here as a gay man. Certainly it was the gay men in Neil’s life who’d put me onto Fahd and ultimately Husain. Ironically, instead of being the cause of Neil’s death, the gay connection might be what led me to solving the mystery behind Neil’s death.

But was I getting closer? Or further away? What about saffron? And Zinko? I still knew little about either. Were they red herrings?

As we made our way back to the car, I was worried. With each new contact and clue, I was being led farther and farther away from the actual scene of Neil’s murder. In most cases, this wouldn’t make sense. Should I have stayed in Dubai to figure out more about Neil’s life there? Or was it his plans for what would have been his last week in Arabia that would lead to an answer? Aashiq claimed 160

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Neil had been worried in the last few days before his death. Neil himself had talked about saffron and Zinko to his friends during that same time. In his email to his ex, Darrell Good, Neil said he was anxious to get to Saudi Arabia. I currently had nothing more to go on in Dubai. The best idea for now, I concluded, was to see where the trail these men were laying would take me.

The Port of Fujairah, on the Gulf of Oman, is simply unattractive.

Dirty. Industrial. Generally yucky. This was where Umar was to drop me off to meet Hema.

“Are you sure this is it?” I asked Umar when he pulled up alongside an unexceptional looking craft. Calling it a ship was being very generous.

“Yes, of course. There is Miss Hema now.”

And indeed, in all her scowling glory, Hema was standing near the dock, technology in hand. We got out of the car and waved. She checked her watch in silent reproof. As if that would make me move faster.

“You’ll be careful now?” Umar said, as he pulled my luggage from the back of the car and handed it to me.

“I promise, Umar. I wish you could come with us.”

“Oh, not me. I travel by land. Not water.”

“Would you get on that thing?” I asked, eyeing up the boat, checking for telltale signs of leaks, rust, or runaway rats.

“Oh, of course,” he said confidently. “This boat looks very safe to me.”

I winced. He nodded enthusiastically. He had the same kind of look on his face that mothers, trying to feed their toddlers, have as they aim a teaspoon of gruel towards their baby’s mouth.

The things I do for a paycheque.

Waving goodbye to Umar, I joined Hema, feeling like I’d just been picked to play for the wrong team in a game of shinny.

“Are you sure we can’t just drive to Salalah?” I asked, again giving the ship a cursory once-over. Where were the lifeboats? I didn’t see any lifeboats.

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want no sleep at all. We get on this boat tonight. Tomorrow morning we’re in Oman. I don’t know about you, but I need my sleep.”

Or else what? You get grumpy? Too late, sister.

“God, it is so good to hear your voice,” I exclaimed into my cellphone.

“Oh man, you too, hon. I really miss you. Where are you exactly?” Ethan asked. “You sound like you’re next door. The reception is great.”

“I’m on the upper deck of this old tugboat thingy. I think it might be the ark. I’m pretty sure Noah just walked by with a worried look on his face. It’s supposed to be seaworthy enough to make it all the way down the Arabian coast to Oman. I have my doubts.”

“Oman? Isn’t that the place famous for frankincense, gold, and myrrh?”

“Uh huh. All of which I hear make excellent gifts.”

He chuckled. I loved making him chuckle. Suddenly I felt very homesick. “I’d give anything to be there with you right now.”

“Oh, you’re just feeling a bit nervous about the ship. I know you, Russell. You’re loving every second of being out there amongst the sand dunes and all the weird smells and foods. Face it, you’re an adventurer at heart. You’re my very own Sinbad.”

“Uh, is that a good thing?”

“Well,” Ethan said, “as everyone knows, Sinbad was an extraordinarily dashing figure of a man, not to mention quite the charmer and a prodigious lover.”

“Awwww, you’re sweet. Even if you are making that up.”

“Not a chance, hon.”

I pulled in a deep breath. I wanted him with me.

“You sure everything is going okay?” he asked, sensing in my voice a trepidation I was trying to hide.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” I said. “The beginning of a case is always the toughest. I know so little. Sometimes it feels like I’m a blind man looking for a light switch. And every time I find it and finally switch it on, I realize I still can’t see anything.”

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