Secret Skin (12 page)

‘Sure,’ I said, ‘no problem, seeing as I didn’t do anything wrong,’ I called after her.

More police. Damn. Did I do anything wrong? I didn’t think so. Two traffic cops took a moment to find the concealed door handle and then pushed their way in.

‘Mr. David?’ they began in unison.

‘Yes, of course, please come in,’ I gestured for the comfortable arm chairs on the other side of the room. They sat down, obviously feeling uncomfortable and out of place in their crumpled green uniforms and distinctive white sleeves.

Dubai’s traffic cops had a rough time. When the emirate’s main arteries became clogged with mechanized death these men were the unfortunate cleanup crew.

‘Listen guys, before you begin, please, please, tell me something. Just who is paying for this room?’

***

‘I’ve brought whisky!’ he said after the police had left.

‘Martin, how the hell can you afford this place? If you’re expecting me to get down all fours after this sort of treatment, think again.’

‘David, David, David,’ he said sleazing his way into the room. ‘Why so defensive? Would I do that to you?’

‘In a heartbeat, so come on, what’s going on? So far I’ve had an unpleasant evening with pimps, whores and gangsters, night time fun and frolics in the cells of Dubai’s finest, and a near death experience with my least favorite editor. I’m tired, I’m bruised, I’m in pain and I haven’t had any decent sleep or food in about two days. So just tell me.’

‘Dodge are paying. After you passed out I rang their PR people and told them to send a photographer down pronto. Just think about it. Their car survived a pile up on Sheikh Zayed Road at nearly 300kph. The driver and passenger are left virtually unscathed. Now there’s a marketing opportunity. How Dodge saved My Life by Martin Newman, they loved it, or at least they’re going to. We got some great pics. The car looked pretty good considering what it had been through. We can syndicate the arse out of this story.’

My mouth was open again, ‘We?’

‘Well, me.’

‘You can’t be serious,’ I said.

‘Deadly. After bailing you out of jail David I have some profits to claw back. This should do it.’

‘How much for my freedom?’

‘20,000 dirham, just over three grand. You bloody well owe me,’ he said jabbing a finger in my direction.

‘Like hell. I was on a job for you in the first place. Did they say what they had arrested me for?’

‘No they said that you had been held for questioning after soliciting prostitutes. They were threatening to arrest you for quite a few things. I didn’t so much bail you out as buy you out.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Don’t take the lord’s name in vain David,’ he said gasping with feigned horror.

‘Jesus fucking Christos Martin, I think I upset lots of people last night.’

‘Oh good,’ he said brightly, ‘you have been doing your job then.’

‘Do you think those guys were trying to kill us today or were they just really, really bad drivers?’ I said.

‘Difficult to say,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think they were after me, do you?’

‘What did you tell the police?’

‘Nothing. That if they weren’t trying to kill us they did a good impression of someone trying to.’

‘That’s what I told them. But why didn’t they slow down and save themselves?’

‘A healthy protestant work ethic perhaps? Maybe they did slow down, just not enough.’

‘True. We only stopped because someone drove into the side of us,’ I said.

‘Well my boy, we’re not going anywhere tonight until we figure this out,’ he said patting the bottle of whisky. ‘Let’s order some mixers and get them to send up a laptop. First we’ll see who’s trying to make a smear out of you and then we can put your prostitute story to bed.’

‘Martin, I’m exhausted, and you have got to be kidding?’

‘Course not, if someone does kill you who’s going to finish my article?

Martin cracked open the whisky and demanded I tell him what I’d done to cause so much trouble.

I explained how the day before I’d used Yasmin’s list to find my way around Dubai’s sex industry sweat shops and store fronts. The list had been exhaustive, during Yasmin’s six year career I could have found her in any one of the following places: Shopping malls (all of them).

Convention and exhibition centers.

Yacht clubs, members only clubs, sports clubs of every kind, and the gym.

In the background of every five-star restaurant, bar and night club.

In the rooms, foyers and bars of every hotel and apartment in the Bur Dubai and Deira areas of ‘old’ Dubai.

On the streets of those same areas, especially around the souks, bus station and transient money areas such as Al Nasr Square and Yousef Baker Road.

These were just the places where you could have found her touting for business. If you had one of the numbers of the various pimps operating in Dubai you could have had her anywhere you wanted.

Bile burned my throat when I read the list for the first time imagining what she had to do in all those places. The familiar surge of doubt overwhelmed me. Yes, she was intoxicating and gorgeous. Yes, I felt like I was floating on air whenever I was with her but just look…so many men. Could I ever get past that?

‘Please do,’ Martin said and demanded the details.

***

I had procrastinated all morning, putting off the inevitable unpleasantness of the task. Action always generated inspiration I told myself, not the other way around. I just needed a place to start.

What was my story?

An expose on prostitution, painted with broad strokes.

Another wonderfully vague brief from Martin Newman.

A long-term expat, an investment banker, once told me that prostitution had originally kick-started tourism in Dubai. It had been a quiet place to run a business with little restriction, a few stalls, a busy creek, and enough prostitutes to service the needs of sailors and locals. As more and more people came to do business there from around the region, especially from ultra-conservative countries like Saudi Arabia, the demand increased. Visitors soon came just for the women. What did I think all those endless conferences were about he asked? Business? No. Sex? Abso-fucking-lutely. Dubai was a city built on its back, legs open to receive the world and regularly screwed over by its richer neighbors. Things had changed though he told me. Dubai now gave as good as it got. But the prostitutes hadn’t gone anywhere.

I decided to start where it all began, the streets of old Dubai on the Deira side of the creek, close to the border of Sharjah the neighboring emirate to the north. I planned to work my way down to the more marketable and modern end of town.

Broad strokes.

For some that meant: loosely based on things you could quickly find online and disguise as your own. For me it meant research and the bigger picture.

I expected it to be easy. The last time I had written anything on prostitution was at home, where it rained a lot. Which meant most of the research was done inside over a pint or a mug of hot coffee.

It rarely rained on the Arabian Peninsula and the thermometer in my car measured an outside temperature of 490 centigrade.

I parked in the free spot outside the British embassy on the creek’s left bank. A convenient place to avoid the fines and bumper kissing congestion of Deira that began when day turned to night.

To compensate for the heat I wore pale colors tailored from lightweight breathable fabrics and shoes comfortable enough to walk in but conservative enough to get me past bouncers or security guards.

In my shoulder bag I carried hack essentials: notepad, pens, phone, a pocket street map – for when I inevitably got lost – a compact digital camera for unmissable photo opportunities and a pencil thin mp3 voice recorder. A back up to my written notes and those times when sources changed their stories after publication, threatened lawsuits and claimed they had never said what they actually said.

A five minute walk around the grand mosque to the abra station and my shirt already clung to my chest as if I’d been running in the rain. Despite sun block my skin prickled with the first signs of burning.

The short abra ride across the creek created a false sense of comfort with its motorized breeze. My fellow passengers, all men, came from everywhere but there. I recognized the national dress styles and genetic features of some, Somalians, Sudanese, Indians, and many that I didn’t. There were no white, salmon or bronzed faces, a marked contrast to my usual working environment of western suits and corporate lifestylers. It actually felt like a different country.

The rubber soles of my shoes began to bond with the tarmac as soon as I hit the street. I drained one bottle of water and instantly needed another. The prospect of a walk across Deira to the police station and the whore filled lanes behind it seemed like a pilgrimage to a distant land. I understood for the first time why you could always get free parking between one and four in the afternoon – sensible people stayed inside.

I tried to flag a taxi, but even thirty seconds spent baking on the kerb drained the will to live. I turned and headed for the narrow shaded lanes and covered walkways of the spice and gold souks. I had no idea how construction workers survived 12 hour days in that heat. If the stories were true many of them didn’t.

I knew roughly which direction I needed to go. Like most westerners I had wandered the main drag of the gold souk looking for a deal. I avoided the central route where the touts hung out and lumbered through the backstreets and ad-hoc mini malls piled high with multi-colored, multi-purpose produce.

Along alleyways filled with hole in the wall shops, gangs of men embroidered luxurious fabrics and shaped ornate jewellery for high-priced women. They worked hunched over in spaces not big enough for a man to stand in. Two floors of men crammed into one.

On every corner idling workmen packed small cafés, drank sweet tea from plastic cups and joked loudly with their friends. The hostile glares of some of the men unsettled me but I was too dehydrated to care.

The heat increased with each step into unfamiliar territory. I came to a main street expecting to know my way, but the broken pavements swarmed with sinister smiles, curious frowns, and chatter in unknown tongues.

I ditched my growing paranoia on the main street and headed back to the small gaps between buildings, learning to relax with the meandering kinks and curves in my path.

In one alleyway the walls on either side bulged so far outwards they leaned across the narrow space to support one another. Butcher’s shops lined the walls beneath, men hard at work in each one, hacking, chopping and cleaning the gaping carcasses of beefy flesh that hung in every window.

I gave in to the heat and dove into an alley built more like a cave than a small street. I took a seat at a table of unsmiling men and ordered a tea and a bottle of water from the Indian man at the kitchen door. He wore a pink short sleeved shirt and grey trousers and welcomed me with a broad smile.

Across the alley a window opened onto the back room of a butcher’s shop. On the other side of the glass a smart middle aged man stood in a badly lit room wearing a white pinny. His bare arms gleamed with sweat and a cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth. His hand moved quickly across the neck of a goat hanging upside down. Blood spurted from the vicious tear his knife left behind. I couldn’t stop ogling the wretched creature as its life emptied onto the tiled floor.

The waiter placed a bottle of water on the table. He saw what caught my eye. No big deal his shrug said.

The men lounging around me hadn’t noticed the goat’s sharp exit. They sat entranced by WWE wrestling on a small TV over the door. Hulk Hogan was making yet another come back in the public theatre of our day. The men winced and then laughed with surprise when Hogan smashed a folding chair around the head of his opponent. I wondered what narrative Shakespeare would have found to make a cage fight plausible. Love, betrayal, conflict: it was all there in the Lycra clad bear pit.

My tea arrived, intensely sweet. I sipped and watched the men transfixed by the bogus violence and pale men in leotards. Those crazy foreigners.

The pile of cleaned carcasses on the butcher’s floor grew higher and although I didn’t attempt conversation with anyone it felt comfortable there. The stares I’d thought of as unfriendly earlier were of interest rather than animosity.

High on sugar and caffeine I wandered over to the still and empty lanes behind the police station. Everyone sensible hid in air conditioned rooms or the shade of cars and cafes, moving as little as possible.

I took out Yasmin’s list and looked for one of the cheap hotels she had marked on my map. I headed for The Bola Bola which stood one street back from Al Nasr Square, a wannabe times square.

A slender blonde smoked a cigarette with her arms folded outside an open red doorway just yards from the hotel, ready to pick up any passing trade. From a distance she looked beautiful, long legs, pert breasts, scarlet lips and big eyes, the all-American schoolgirl fantasy.

Close up, she was worn out. Yellow skin, bloodshot eyes. The edges of her lips jagged with the sticky, clumped red of lip stick applied using tired, careless hands. Her legs were skinny rather than slender and her breasts less than pert, the excessive padding in her bra made her imaginary bust stand separate from her small chest. A service industry uniform worn without enthusiasm, a caricature of a real woman, a pantomime outfit.

Her shoulders tensed at my approach.

‘Fuck?’ she said simply.

‘How much?’ I said.

‘Fifty dirhams, straight.’

‘How much?’ I couldn’t believe she sold herself so cheaply. Less than a tenner.

‘Thirty?’ she said with hopeful eyes. Less than a fiver.

‘Where you from?’ I said.

‘Moscow.’

‘Where you really from?’ I knew that girls from certain regions commanded a higher price, the myth being that Russian girls were best and girls from Moscow even better. She didn’t answer, so I said, ‘Best price?’ The same phrase I used to negotiate a stuffed camel in a tourist shop where the mark-up could be as much as 80%.