"You're asking me to do you a favor," the man said. His English was American, the sound of it jarring. I hadn't heard an American accent outside of my own, it seemed, for a long time.
"Six hundred."
"For the night?" He shook his head. "Xia, you're asking me for a favor. Four hundred."
"Five hundred."
"Dirham?"
The older woman, Xia, nodded. Seated beside her, the younger one didn't move, didn't speak. The smile on her face looked like it had been injection-molded in a factory, and about as sincere.
"All right, done," the man decided.
Xia turned to the woman beside her, speaking quickly in Mandarin, or Cantonese, I couldn't tell. The younger woman perked up immediately at whatever was said, however, and the plastic smile turned to something approaching genuine. She rose, moving around the table, and the man got to his feet, and they headed off together.
"This is your friend?" Xia asked Kekela.
"Danil," Kekela said. "He's from Georgia, too."
Xia turned the palm of her right hand, sweeping it at the empty seats.
"Xia was the first girl I met when I got here," Kekela told me. "She's been here for ten years. She knows everything."
"She's being generous."
Kekela shook her head. "No, no. If it wasn't for you, I'd have been in a lot of trouble."
"You're very sweet, Kekela."
Kekela smiled at the other woman fondly. Now that we were closer, I could see the beginnings of lines on Xia's face, found myself revising my estimate of her age upward, into the mid-forties. Unlike the other women I'd been seeing, even Kekela, Xia's outfit was more subdued, speaking less of sex than experience.
"Kekela is my friend," Xia said to me. "And if you are hers, then I would be happy to help you."
I glanced at Kekela, and she nodded. From inside my jacket, I took the photo of Tiasa I'd printed from the security system back in Kobuleti. I unfolded it, then handed it to Xia, checking to see if anyone was watching. Nobody was paying us the slightest attention.
Xia studied the picture for several seconds. "Who is she?"
"The daughter of someone I know," I answered. "She'd have arrived a week, maybe five days ago, from Turkey."
"She looks young."
"She's fourteen."
Carefully, she folded the paper closed and set it on the table, between us. "You say 'arrived.'"
"'Shipped' might be better."
"I understand."
"Can you help me?"
Xia lifted her gaze from where she'd been watching the paper, looking first to Kekela, then to me. "I don't know."
"Xia," Kekela said, "please, he's a friend."
"I didn't say I wouldn't. I don't know if I can."
"I don't understand," I said.
"If she came here like you say, she could have been sold as a domestic anywhere in the Emirates. She could be in someone's house in Abu Dhabi, working as their servant."
"Working as their slave," I corrected. "Servants get paid."
Xia stared at me for a moment. Then she nodded. "It would make her impossible to find."
What Alena had said when I'd called her from the airport in Istanbul came back to me, the questions. It might take never, she'd said. And Xia was telling me the same thing, but this time without the qualification.
"There's another possibility," Xia said. "She could have been sold to a brothel. There are many here in Dubai, places that service the skilled laborers and other clients."
"How many specialty places?"
"Very many."
"You know who to ask," Kekela said. "You could help us."
Xia frowned, then reached out for the paper, unfolding it once more. She studied the face, small crow's-feet visible at her eyes. Then, with a sigh, she looked up at me. "May I keep this?"
I nodded. As it was, I had a second picture of Tiasa, taken off Vladek's BlackBerry. It wasn't my favorite, but I had it.
"I will ask around," Xia said. "It may take a few days."
"I'll pay for your time," I said.
"Then I will keep track of it. Kekela has my number, and I have hers. I will call if I learn anything."
"Thank you, Xia," Kekela said.
Xia gave her a small, almost maternal smile. Then she wished us both a good night.
"I have to get back to work," Xia told us.
CHAPTER
Thirteen The UAE and Georgia share the same time zone, each of them at GMT +4. It made the math easy for me when the time came to call Alena the next day. According to our rolling schedule, she would be expecting her phone to start ringing at seventeen minutes to nine.
I'd been up for a couple hours already, having found it difficult to sleep. Rattlesnake had left a bitter taste in my mouth, and I couldn't put my finger on why, exactly. I was in no position to pass judgment on the men and women I'd seen. Any battle fought for the moral high ground I was guaranteed to lose, anyway; in the pantheon of sins one could commit, I was confident I had prostitution beat hands down.
The women I'd seen had appeared to be doing what they were doing of their own volition, but I had to wonder at the circumstances that made such a choice a viable one for them. It wasn't, as Kekela suspected, that I had an aversion to sex. I was quite fond of sex, though admittedly not as desperate for it as I'd been when I was younger. I was also a big fan of allowing consenting adults to do whatever they damn well pleased with other consenting adults. It wasn't the sex, per se.
Poverty was the engine, and against the backdrop of Dubai, with its man-made islands formed to look like a map of the Earth or giant palm fronds or even, as was currently under development, the entire galaxy, it seemed all the more obscene. Like Kekela, most of the working girls sent whatever money they could afford home, back to Bangladesh and Beijing, Moscow and Moldova. I knew from Kekela that the money was, in many cases, the only thing allowing their families back home to survive.
"Xia is married, has two kids," Kekela had told me. "They're back in China. She's supporting them."
"When was the last time she saw them?"
"I don't know. Years." She'd paused, then added, "I don't think she'll ever go home."
We'd returned to the room, and I'd taken a shower, trying to wash the layer of smoke and sweat from my skin. I had purchased new clothes the day before, and I changed into a pair of shorts, then made up my bed on the couch. Kekela watched me from the edge of the bedroom, leaning against the doorframe, but she didn't comment.
"Sleep well," I told her.
"Yes," she said. "You too."
She'd left the door open when she'd gone to bed, and I'd climbed onto the couch and stared at the ceiling, managed to doze off only to come awake an hour or so later, feeling that I hadn't slept at all. After that, it'd been impossible for me to settle. I'd spent the rest of the night looking out at the Gulf, the lights of the dhows and the yachts, listening to the air conditioner and Kekela's occasional rustle beneath the sheets. When dawn began to show itself, I stowed my blankets and pillows back in the closet and got dressed in fresh clothes. I looked in on Kekela, and she was sound asleep, curled small in the middle of the very big bed. She was sleeping naked. I carefully closed the door.
The BlackBerry had been recharged off the USB cable to the computer. I swapped out the SIM, switched it on. There were no messages, no voicemails, which meant that Alena hadn't tried to reach me, not on that number, at least. I checked the alternate SIM, and it was the same thing. I checked the clock on the BlackBerry, and dialed.
There was no answer.
After six rings, I was shunted to voicemail.
I hung up and rechecked my math. I found no flaw in it. I dialed again.
There was obstinately no answer.
After six rings, I was again shunted to voicemail.
"This is Yeva. Leave a message."
"It's me," I said. "Checking in. Call me when you get this."
I hung up, looked at the smartphone in my hand, then tossed it onto the desk and went back to staring out the window. The sunlight was already rising bright, even behind the tint of the glass.