Sam Keller, still jet-lagged and still keeping a hand on his wallet, wondered how anyone could actually think of sex in a dump like this. There were at least three hundred people here, crammed beneath a low ceiling on a floor no bigger than a tennis court—slippery bodies wedged as tightly as the day’s catch in the hold of a trawler. They stank of sweat, cigarettes, cheap whiskey, and spilled beer. Amber lights made every face queasy, and you had to shout to be heard over the din of a talentless rock band.
All in all, about as erotic as rush hour on the Jersey Turnpike. Pay the toll, roll up your window, and keep moving.
On the other hand, seeing as how everyone here was either a prostitute or a potential customer, how could you not think of sex, especially when each passing female rubbed against you like a cat on a trouser leg. It was enough to get the juice flowing in almost any male, and Sam, being twenty-eight, still had plenty of juice.
This chamber of squalors on the rim of the Persian Gulf was a brothel bar called the York Club. Sam still wasn’t quite sure what he was doing there, other than gamely trying to enjoy the second and final night of what his business colleague, Charlie Hatcher, had billed as a free-spirited layover in Dubai. Ten hours from now he would be on his way to Hong Kong, but for the moment Sam was woozily laboring to make sense of this bizarre place seven thousand miles from home and eight hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time.
His head for numbers told him that the cover charge of fifty dirhams—nearly fourteen dollars—was outrageous. His eye for documentation was amused by the entry ticket, with its official stamp from the Dubai Ministry of Tourism. Maybe it would pass muster for reimbursement.
The women’s looks didn’t wow him, but their variety was stunning. They were from India, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Thailand, Iraq, and seemingly each of the former Soviet republics, although their relentless sales pitch was always in English:
“You want nice time?”
“You want friendly date?”
“You like we go somewhere, have fun?”
Sam found it all a bit glum, sensing that for each of them the York Club was the last lonely bus stop on a long ride of despair. Yet onward they came, even more persistent than the merchants Sam had encountered that afternoon in Dubai’s fabled Gold Souk, where brusque young Punjabi males had kept accosting him to ask: “You want fake Rolex? Nice copy watch? I give you good deal!”
Here it was the smiles that were fakes and copies, and as the 3 a.m. closing time approached, the salesmanship was turning desperate, with customers taking full advantage. Sam watched, appalled, as a drunken Brit in a smudged polo negotiated down the cost of a blow job to less than what he had paid for dinner that night at the Burj Al Arab, the famous hotel that looked like a giant blue sail. At this rate you’d soon be able to get laid for the cost of a crème brûlée and an espresso, tip not included.
Flesh was about the only bargain to be found in this eerie insta-city. Of the many places Sam had visited in his corporate travels for Pfluger Klaxon, none had been as well attuned to the quick-buck rhythms of runaway commerce as Dubai. Everything between the desert and the deep blue sea was for sale, and all of it was either going fast or being paved over to make way for more. The city’s drumbeat was like the precision throb of an artificial heart, clicking and insistent, yet cool to the touch. Expats partied until dawn, and by the time they crawled out of bed the worth of their real estate portfolios had doubled. Sam couldn’t help but wonder what would become of all the giddiness if the market ever collapsed beneath the weight of speculation. Suicide and depression, or more revelry? He was betting on some outlandish, oversized combination of the two, with a steep cover charge and a two-drink minimum.
Strange how a city so full of sun and sensation could leave him so cold. But that was Sam all over—the soul of a bohemian caged by the mind of an auditor. He yearned for new experiences, but couldn’t resist the urge to analyze them as he went along. The sort of fellow, in other words, who while being lured onto a nude beach by a daring girlfriend