Walking Dead

by Greg Rucka

“We're still negotiating,” I lied.

  The brunette laughed. “You never pay in advance,” she advised. “Half, at most.”

  “We can beat her price.” The blonde returned her attention to me. “Two-for-one offer. Where are you staying?”

  I picked up my drinks and stepped away from the bar. “Nice talking to you.”

  They let it go, or at least I didn't hear it if either of them offered a comment as I left. The band fell silent, breaking between sets, and the noise level dropped appreciably, enough that I could make out voices. Most were in English, all were loud. I saw a youngish-looking Chinese woman dancing in the middle of a wolf pack, all of them ogling her, passed a tall African woman negotiating with an Indian, telling him that seven hundred would cover the night. He asked if she meant dirham or euros.

  I found a table, set down my drinks, and felt myself being sized up by almost every set of female eyes that fell upon me. The appraisals felt clinical and made me feel like a piece of meat. The way people lurked and lunged in the black light made us all look like zombies.

  Kekela emerged from the smoke. She picked up her drink and drained it in two gulps, then reached for my hand, to pull me to my feet.

  “I want you to meet someone,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “An old friend. Come on.”

  She dragged me after her, along the floor. A club mix had begun playing on the sound system, and more people were dancing to that than had done for the band. We skirted their edge, pushed through a clump of laughing men and women, reaching another table wedged near the back wall, by one of the stacks of speakers. Two women sat at the table, speaking to a Caucasian man. The women were both Chinese, one of them perhaps in her thirties, the other one younger, but it was hard to tell by how much. The man I put in his forties.

  “She's new,” the older one was telling the man. “She needs someone who can teach her.”

  “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.

  Alena knew when to expect my call. That she'd missed it wasn't, by itself, a cause for alarm. We had fallback protocols in place, alternates we were to use if the initial contact failed. In this case, the rule was to wait two hours after the primary attempt, and then to call again. If that, too, failed, there was a secondary number either of us could call to leave a message for the other, similar to the way I'd contacted Sargenti. Each of our go-bags had a prepaid mobile phone, as well, never used, entirely clean. If all else failed, that was the phone of last resort.

  I marked the time, began counting down the initial two-hour window, trying not to worry. It wasn't easy. Alena didn't make mistakes, not about things like this. If she hadn't been able to answer the phone at a quarter to nine in the morning, it was because she couldn't, either due to circumstance or misfortune.

  I was really hoping it was because of circumstance.

  Kekela woke at twenty past ten, and I heard her thumping around in the bedroom. When she came out, she was wearing one of the complimentary bathrobes, her hair a wild tangle. She yawned at me before asking if it was all right to order up some breakfast.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  My tone earned a somewhat confused look, and then she went back into the bedroom. I listened to her pick up the phone, order breakfast for two, which was polite of her, but then again, she wasn't paying for it. She hung up, and a few seconds later I heard the shower start. By the time she was out and dressed, the food had arrived. She'd ordered light, the continental breakfast, and when the knock came at the door I answered and signed for the meal, then went back to where I'd been sitting at the desk. Kekela poured coffee for herself, orange juice for me, offering me the glass. I took it and set it down untouched, still watching the clock.

  When it hit seventeen to eleven, I used the BlackBerry, dialed Alena's mobile again.

  Same result as before.

  I killed the connection, waited thirty seconds, hit redial. Six rings, and then to voicemail. I hung up and this time dialed into the service, cutting through the menus as fast as I could and punching up the mailbox to check for messages. There weren't any. I backed out of the box, reentered the code, waited for the tone.

  “Call me,” I said.

  I hung up, tossed the phone back onto the desk.

  “Something's wrong?” Kekela asked.

  “No.”

  The question was apparent in her expression, but she didn't cave to it immediately, instead sipping at more of her coffee. She took it sweet and light, with so much cream it looked more like milk than coffee. She'd found a croissant that she liked the looks of in the basket, was dipping one end into her cup. She munched, walking to the windows, looking out at the water.

  “She's your girlfriend?” Kekela asked.

  “No.”

  “But you have a girlfriend? A wife? Someone?”

  “Someone.”

  “I think you must love her very much.” She sighed. “She's very lucky.”

  “You don't know me,” I said.

  It came out colder than I'd intended, and it caught her by surprise. She put her back to the window, her brow creasing, wondering what it was she could have done to offend me.

  “I've seen enough,” Kekela said.

  “No, you haven't. I know what you want. I know what you're thinking, Kekela, I know what you've been hoping for. And I hope you find it, I really do, because I think you deserve it, I think you deserve better than hooking in Dubai. I hope the guy comes along someday with all the money, and that he falls in love with you because of who you are and not what you do, and he gives you your escape route.”

  She didn't move, staring at me, barely breathing. If I was hurting her with my words, I couldn't tell, but with my usual grace and style, I most likely was. I didn't want to, but I didn't want either of us deluding the other any longer.

  “I'm not that guy,” I told her. “I'm not Mr. Right. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

  There was a tremble starting in her chin. She fought to control it. When she spoke, it came out as a whisper.

  “You could be,” Kekela said.

  “Maybe once,” I said. “Not anymore.”

  She might've had a counter, might've tried again to convince me otherwise. I'll never know.

  In the bedroom, her mobile phone began to ring, and she went to answer it, seizing the escape. I turned to the BlackBerry once more and confirmed that I hadn't missed a call, a text, or a voicemail. I swapped to my alternate SIM, had just started to check that, too, when Kekela called out to me.

  “It's Xia,” she said. “She thinks she's found your girl.”

  CHAPTER

  Fourteen

  The reason the ratio of men to women in Dubai was three to one was precisely the same reason I could walk into Rattlesnake and twenty minutes later walk out with a woman on each arm willing to do whatever I wanted. The reason was money, Dubai's raison d'être.

  Most of the men in the equation are what the expat community refers to euphemistically as “skilled laborers,” when, in truth, they are almost exactly the opposite. Like the women, they've come to work, they've come seeking respite from the desperate poverty of their homes. Like the women, many of these men have been tricked, either through willing self-delusion or honest ignorance. They have been recruited by construction suppliers, transported by traffickers, led under false pretense. Like many of the women, many of the men arrive to find their passports confiscated by their “employer.” Like the women, they are told about the enormous debt they have incurred, the cost required to bring them to this new land of opportunity. Like the women, they are told they must now work to pay that debt off.

  The similarities end there, and not only because the men work on their feet an
d not on their backs. As a group, they lack the broad diversity of the women, most hailing from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Philippines, with a few from Egypt, Jordan, and the like. They live in worker camps, which sounds marginally better than “labor camps,” but it's a syntactic distinction. Hundreds of them are packed into tents or prefab structures or nine-room homes. They sleep six, ten, twenty to a room. If they're lucky, they get an air conditioner or a window, but they never get both. A single bathroom serves thirty. There's room enough for only one or two meals to be prepared at a time. If they're industrious, they sometimes pool money together to buy a television. There are no phones allowed, but sometimes a supervised call is permitted once a week or a month, just to tell the folks back home that everything is fine.

  They rise at five, arrive on the work site by six. While the rest of Dubai hides in climate-controlled shopping malls, restaurants, and hotels, the men labor nonstop in the heat. During the summer, the mercury effortlessly breaks 40 Celsius. The humidity is oppressive. They get an hour for lunch, eaten out of doors, in whatever shade can be found in the middle of the day. Then work resumes until six, seven, eight at night. Back to the camps. Do it again. That many, if not most, of these laborers are Muslims in an Islamic country mitigates nothing; the hammers fall, the drills whine, the machines clank, the sounds of construction drowning out each and every one of the muezzin's calls.

  That's the day shift. Work goes on twenty-four hours. It's been estimated that work-site fatalities occur at the rate of two a day.

  The men earn, on average, the equivalent of a dollar an hour. In many cases, they go months without seeing a penny of it, their wages withheld to keep them from running away. As it is, it's against the law for a worker in Dubai to change his job without his employer's permission. When they do get paid, almost every man sends his wages back home, retaining only enough to survive. Some are never paid at all.

  By some estimates, there are over two million of these men.

  And they get lonely.

  We were in a cab, speeding south along Sheikh Zayed Road, which was more of a highway than a road. Outside our air-conditioned bubble the sun was high and merciless, glare flashing off the rising towers of glass and metal. The driver was a local, wearing wraparound sunglasses. He drove like he was trying to qualify for Le Mans, which was possibly my own fault. I should never have told him we were in a hurry.