Welcome to Dubai (The Traveler) Read online

  “Where are you staying?” the immigrations desk asked him at the front of the long lines.

  “The Hilton,” Gary lied. He still hadn’t made up his mind on a hotel yet, but he knew that the Hilton was in the middle of downtown. So was the International Suites. However, he shied away from getting a reservation there. The place catered to tourists, whereas the Hilton was more businesslike.

  “Which one?” the immigrations officer asked him.

  Gary shrugged. “I guess the biggest.”

  The Arabian man in a white-shirt uniform smiled at him. He stamped the American passport and said, “Welcome to Dubai.”

  “Thank you.”

  The man nodded. “Enjoy your stay.”

  “I plan to.”

  Once Gary walked out of the airport exit to catch a taxi to downtown Dubai, the diversity of the culture became immediately apparent. There were Arabs, Indians, Asians, Americans, French, Italians, Africans, Latinos, Canadians and Europeans all vying for taxis and rental cars. Instead of rushing his movements, Gary relaxed and took it all in. He watched the new sights of dusty foreign cars, listened to the sounds of different languages and sniffed the late-afternoon air.

  By the time they had arrived, it was after six o’clock in the evening. And eighty-five degrees … in October.

  “Amazing,” Gary mumbled to himself. “I’m here in the Middle East.” And he felt no fear at all, only curiosity.

  As he continued to stand there on a cement platform for passenger pick-up, Gary looked to his right and met the eyes of a Muslim woman covered in white garb from the ground up. There was a red veil over her shoulders adorned with red rubies. She was surrounded by a pair of shorter women, who were much older and wearing similar white garb without the red. They appeared to be assisting her with three small children, who climbed into the back of a black Mercedes SUV. A second Mercedes SUV pulled up behind it and gathered up the older women.

  Gary stood there hypnotized by the scene. They must be important, he assumed.

  “It’s the Emirati, the royal class of locals from Dubai,” a man told him from his left. “Although most of them live in the finished city of Abu Dhabi.”

  Gary turned to lock eyes with the man. He was young and tall himself, although not as tall as Gary. He was brown like a paper bag with thick dark-brown hair that was combed back like silk. He looked late twentyish and spoke with quick and clear English that was definitely British. And his clothes were well fitting and fashionable.

  “You never want to stare at the locals like that,” the Brit said. “They might think that you’re trying to kidnap them.” Then he chuckled.

  Gary grinned and kept his poise, taking another look at the pair of black Mercedes SUVs as they drove away in front of them. “You’re American?” the man asked.

  Gary continued not to speak as he thought things through. He hated that his nationality was so obvious. Maybe he should have worn something different from his usual blue jeans and T-shirt. But it was comfortable and unassuming. Or so he thought.

  He asked the man, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing here? Are you from London?”

  The man smiled and nodded. “Yeah, how did you know?”

  “You sound very British and your clothes are tight.”

  “Ahhh, and you sound very American,” the Brit responded, laughing. “And your clothes are too loose. Americans can all use a good tailor.” He reached out his hand in friendship. “My name is Johnny Napur. My family’s originally from Sri Lanka.”

  Gary took his hand and remained apprehensive.

  “I’m just a lonely traveler. I’m nobody from nowhere.”

  Johnny smiled. “Okay, Mr. Nobody From Nowhere, where are you going? Are you waiting for a ride or catching a taxi?”

  “I was. I’m headed downtown.”

  Johnny nodded. “I can take you there. Have you converted your money yet? One U.S. dollar is worth more than three and a half dirham. So for one hundred dirham, I can take you downtown.”

  Gary did his own translation. “That’s about thirty dollars.”

  “Roughly, yes. But if you had British pounds, they would be worth more than five and a half dirham, and I would only charge you twenty pounds for downtown.”

  Gary chuckled. “Sure, rub it right in. So where’s your car? It’s not a dump, is it? My luggage is sensitive.”

  Johnny laughed back and mocked him. “Sure, rub it right in. But no, it’s a Mercedes.” He paused and added, “It’s just an old one. But I have plenty of trunk space for one bag.”

  Gary chuckled again; he liked this guy. Johnny was dressed cool enough to hang out with, and he would be easy to kill. Gary had learned to think that way for years now. It was a basic survival measure. He constantly asked himself how easy or hard would it be to kill a man if he needed to … or a woman. And poor Johnny would offer him little resistance.

  Then again, I have no idea who he knows over here, Gary mused.

  “My car is right this way,” Johnny told him, and walked to the right. “So how long are you staying?”

  Gary pulled his wheeled luggage and carry bag behind him. He asked, “Can I see everything in a week?”

  Johnny laughed and said, “You have a very dry sense of humor, friend. But if you have the right tour guide, anything is possible.”

  He was obviously offering more services than just a ride.

  “Tour guide?” Gary questioned. “Is that your business here?”

  “It depends on who’s asking and what they want.”

  Gary nodded. Okay, this guy is into things, he mused. And maybe I don’t want to be that involved.

  “I’ll just take a ride downtown for now.”

  Johnny nodded and grinned. “Yeah, for now,” he hinted. “But you take my card for anything else you need.”

  Johnny continued, “You’re over here with no girlfriend or a family? Well, it gets lonely at nights.”

  “But not for you, right?” Gary hinted.

  Johnny grinned and turned to face him. “I know a lot of beautiful women here who would love to hang out with you. You’re an American rock star? What do you play, baseball or something?”

  He was sizing Gary up as Gary sized him up.

  “Not quite. I played some lacrosse in college and a little bit of basketball on the side.”

  “Oh yeah. I played some cricket.”

  Gary grinned and told him, “It’s not the same.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Americans are better at everything, right?”

  He sounded patronizing.

  “No, I wouldn’t say that. You guys still have soccer and polo.”

  “That’s fútbol,” Johnny corrected him.

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  When they reached his car at the temporary parking area, it was indeed an old black Mercedes, but it was very dusty on the outside.

  Gary joked, “I guess a car wash would make a ton of money over here.”

  Johnny frowned and snapped, “Not here. That’d be a waste of your money. With the dust and sandstorms, you’d have to wash your car every three hours. Only the Emirati does that. They have the money and water to waste.”

  Inside, the car was not bad. His black leather seats were nice and clean, and there was refreshing incense in the car.

  Gary nodded. “Okay, this is better than a taxi. So tell me, what’s the best hotel for me to stay at downtown?”

  “It all depends on how much you want to spend. The Hilton Dubai Creek is one price, Jumeirah Beach is another, and Burj Al Arab is only for true rock stars. You can’t even look inside unless you have serious money. They have a small bridge with security for you to even enter.”

  Gary smirked. “I heard about that one.”

  “Yeah, it’s one of the most famous hotels in the world.”

  “And what if you just wanted a cheap place to stay for the night?”

  As they hit the dirt roads on their way to downtown Dubai from the distant airport, Johnny eyed his no-name American
passenger and said, “There are plenty of hotels for that. But you wouldn’t come to Dubai just to stay in one of the other cities. Abu Dhabi is way too political and expensive, and Sharjah—that’s where I live—is just not the same as Dubai. That’s where everything is.”

  Gary grinned. “I get your point. I guess that would be like staying in New Jersey instead of New York.”

  “Yeah, or staying in Kensington instead of London. That would be a waste. But if you stayed at the Hilton, that’s right in the middle of everything,” Johnny said. “You would love it around there. It’s walking distance from many of the shops and downtown restaurants.”

  Gary nodded and was ready to commit. Johnny was only confirming what he already knew. “All right. That sounds like where I need to be then,” Gary agreed. He planned to try out the more expensive hotels as well, but Johnny didn’t need to know that. The man knew enough already.

  “So, what’s the big deal with the ah, family in the Mercedes jeeps?” Gary asked.

  “Oh yeah, if you ever see a Muslim woman dressed like that, with the red designs on their veil or on their shoulders, that probably means they’re local royalty, especially if you see a whole gang of them like that. And the older women without the red were probably maids and housekeepers.”

  “What’s up with the color red? I thought purple was the color of royalty.”

  Johnny shrugged. “Each country chooses its own color. And in Dubai, it’s red. So that family with Mercedes SUVs were definitely locals.”

  “Locals?” Gary questioned.

  Johnny continued to smile, enjoying his history lesson. “Locals are like the indigenous Arabs who were here before the massive immigration started. But some of them also come from the other Arabian countries: Saudi, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait … They’re all referred to as locals here. They are original descendants from the Middle East.”

  Gary nodded, taking it all in. He noticed how cracked and gnarled the roads looked. “These roads look like they cut them out of the desert last week.”

  “My friend, it’s the dust and the heat. Just like with the cars, it’s hard to keep any new roads looking fresh here. But in London, we have fog, rain and bitter cold to keep everything cooled down. I’m sure in America you have the same. But in countries like this, where it’s always hot and dusty, road construction is a waste of time and money. So they focus mainly on the downtown areas.”

  The downtown area, stuffed with tall hotel buildings and office towers, seemed to explode out of nowhere, with paved streets and elaborate walls to protect the residential housing from the dust storms.

  “They respect the locals here,” Johnny said. “They have no other choice. It’s similar to the respect that Americans have for Hollywood stars and superstar athletes, like you,” he teased with a grin. “Only in Dubai, that respect is for life.”

  Gary nodded, enjoying the information he was getting.

  “Nevertheless, thousands of immigrants come here each year to work and to earn money for their families back home,” Johnny continued. “Dubai is the new playground of the world, and I’m here to play too.”

  By then, they had entered the busy nighttime traffic of downtown Dubai, which looked very similar to the density of New York, Chicago and San Francisco. There were buildings, cars, sidewalks, shops, restaurants, bright lights and multicultural people everywhere. One of those buildings was the Hilton Dubai Creek, where Johnny pulled up in front of the busy parking attendants.

  He placed his car in park and handed the no-name American his card. “Again, anything that you need, you just call me. I know of some parties tonight, where you pick out a girl, and I’ll see if I can go get her for you. But if not, you just come out and enjoy yourself. No pressure.”

  Gary could imagine the smooth British playboy enticing the international women of the Middle East. He had the look and confidence to pull it off with ease. He even wore a few pieces of expensive gold jewelry.

  Gary was tempted to ask the precocious young man if he supplied recreational drugs. He suspected that he did—only he would make you ask him for them first. Maybe pushing women instead was much safer in Dubai, particularly for a young American stud. Johnny imagined that several women he knew would agree to hang out with Gary for free.

  To test his hunch, Gary asked, “Are exotic women all that you have to offer? I’ve been in too much trouble with women already,” he hinted and laughed. “I’m trying to stay loyal to my girl back at home. I just want to get in a mood to enjoy myself for a moment, you know.”

  Johnny kept his cool and nodded. “You tell me what you need … but it’ll cost you.”

  Gary grinned. “Sure, it will.” Then he took out a fifty dollar bill. He had separated it earlier. He handed the currency over to Johnny and said, “That’s about a hundred and seventy-five dirham, right? Is that a good tip?”

  Johnny laughed. “Yeah, that’s about right. It’s pretty good. So I’ll see you later on tonight then, or maybe tomorrow if you’re too tired. Those long airplane rides can take a lot out of you.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see,” Gary told him with no promises.

  “What’s your name again?” Johnny asked him on the sly.

  Gary grinned it off and said, “I told you, I don’t have a name. Just call me ‘The Traveler’ for now.”

  Johnny smiled back and conceded. “Okay, The American Traveler.”

  Gary didn’t like that idea either. He wanted to lose the “American” part. But for the moment, he left it alone and climbed out of the car as the hotel attendants grabbed his luggage from the trunk.

  “Welcome to the Hilton in Dubai.”

  Gary felt weird. It was his first trip overseas alone, and without his mother or his best friend around. He had not traveled outside of the U.S. since his mother was kidnapped and killed and his best friend murdered. He still missed them both, dearly.

  Gary took a deep breath as he headed toward the registration desk inside of the hotel.

  There’s no turning back now, he thought. It’s time for me to grow up.

  Chapter 5

  Ten days had passed since the tragic accident at the hotel construction site on the far west side of Dubai. The building inspectors had turned in their reports, the UAE police officers had turned in theirs, and the family of the deceased back home in Pune, India, had agreed to accept an offering of twelve years in wages for the loss of their productive husband and father. The rapid construction of Dubai continued.

  Abdul was in his office on the twenty-seventh floor of his building when he was paid a late-afternoon visit by the UAE building commissioner. The calm, experienced and gray-haired official sat across from Abdul’s ornate desk in a comfortable chair, wearing a fine-tailored suit. He spoke slow and deliberately, with his hands folded in front of his chin, right under his thick, gray mustache.

  “Abdul, we must all learn to reevaluate the speed and caution that it takes to complete these buildings. In our haste to finish them all so rapidly, we have put far too many men in unnecessary danger, particularly with so many inexperienced workers.”

  Abdul responded respectfully from across his desk, “We cannot prevent all accidents. There are a lot of people on a construction site and an accident can happen to anyone.”

  “Yes, but these accidents and rumblings from immigrant workers will only continue to increase if we do not proceed with more prudence,” the commissioner countered. “I fear that you younger developers, in your love for Western capitalism, have pushed construction to the point of breaking. But these are humans and not machines. So I have held on to this position, well past my time, so I can continue to negotiate better practices, not only for the commercial buildings of Dubai, but for all of the new construction of the United Arab Emirates, including new residential housing.”

  Abdul was well aware that there had been constant reports of faulty apartment buildings for low-income workers and families who lived in and around the poorer districts of their wealthy nation. He also realized that the
commissioner was approaching ninety years old, and that new and younger commissioners might not be as tactful or as responsible as he had been for more than thirty years.

  Abdul was not even born in the early era of Middle Eastern development, where the commissioner had first made his mark. He had learned much about building from Europeans and Westerners himself. So Abdul respected the man immensely. The commissioner held an expansive wealth of knowledge.

  Abdul nodded. “Yes, I understand.” And he thought again of his outspoken wife’s plea to slow down.

  The commissioner added, “En sha Allah, we will arrive where we ultimately want to go, as one of the greatest nations on earth. But we must understand, as great as the pyramids are in Egypt, none of them were built overnight.”

  There was nothing more that Abdul could argue. The commissioner had made himself perfectly clear, so all that was left to do was offer him an evening meal.

  Abdul bowed in his chair as a show of respect. “May Allah be Merciful of my bad judgment and hear my blessings for His forgiveness.”

  The commissioner smiled. “I’m sure He will. Allah is the Magnificent. We are able to do all through His blessings.”

  Abdul stood from his desk chair and asked, “Would you allow me to invite you to dinner this evening?”

  The commissioner stood gingerly from his own chair and extended his old hand. “I would love to, but my grandson has chosen his first wife, and we are going to eat with her family tonight.”

  “Ahhh, Merciful Allah!” Abdul cheered him. “How old is he?”

  “He is twenty-one, and far too young,” the commissioner joked and laughed.

  Abdul kissed his hand and showed him to the door, where the commissioner’s own security team awaited.

  “Give my blessings to your feisty wife,” the commissioner continued to joke to Abdul. It had become common knowledge that the young real estate developer had chosen an overzealous woman who loved to speak in any setting.

  Abdul laughed it off. “And you give my blessings to yours.”