He ran his hand over the massage table, confirmed there weren’t any residual body fluids on it, and then hoisted himself onto it.
“Lie down please. Clothes off.”
The masseuse picked up the bottle of citrus-scented oil. Her arms were slender, and her small breasts were partially visible through her negligee. About thirty years old, Mark guessed, although maybe that was the light — she could have been older. He caught a whiff of perfume.
“I prefer to talk first,” said Mark.
The woman had been about to unscrew the cap on the bottle of oil, but she stopped. “You paid for a massage.”
“Do you ever have any Saudi clients?”
Her eyes darted to his face. She looked confused, and suspicious.
Mark said, “Hold on.” He pulled a twenty-dinar note out of his front pants pocket, and placed it on the end table, next to the burning incense. “A tip. I’m searching for someone. Any help you can give me would be appreciated.”
“No Saudis, mostly Americans. Soldiers. Sailors.”
“Saudis never come here?”
“Not usually. Only with Americans, not alone.”
“Ever hear of a guy named Bandar bin Salman?”
A long pause, then, “No.”
“If I were from Saudi Arabia, where would I go for an extra-special massage? The kind where I could get anything I wanted?”
The masseuse waited a second, then said, “Hoora. But this is not a nice place.”
“Where in Hoora?”
“It is better to get an extra-special massage here.”
Mark pulled another twenty-dinar note out of his wallet. “Where in Hoora. Please, I’m searching for someone. Someone I want to help.”
“Exhibitions Avenue,” she said. “All the Saudis go here. For drink.” She paused. “For special massages.”
“Where on Exhibitions Avenue?”
“All over.”
“Where would you go?”
“I don’t go.”
“If you were from Saudi Arabia and wanted a special massage?” When she didn’t answer, Mark said, “Please. Your best guess.”
“Maybe Victory Towers. I hear many Saudis go there.”
“Is it a hotel?”
“Apartments. But you can rent them for one day. You rent them, someone gives you a phone number, then you can call someone for your extra-special massage.”
“Thank you.” He slid off the table and headed for the door.
“But you already paid,” said the masseuse.
“Your lucky day,” said Mark. “I forgot, I have to be somewhere sooner than I thought.”
49
Bahrain might have been on the verge of revolution, with nightly street battles being fought in the poor suburbs, but little of the tension that was gripping the country was visible on Exhibitions Avenue in downtown Manama. The sidewalks teemed with people who had come to patronize all the electronics shops, nightclubs, and bars. Police patrolled the traffic-clogged streets in SUVs with windows protected by metal grates. Young men, some wearing white robes, roamed the streets looking and sounding a little boozed up as they chattered away on their cell phones, occasionally laughing a bit too loud. When Mark passed a woman loitering on a street corner, decked out in a short skirt, sky-high heels, and a spangly top, he knew he must be getting close.
Victory Towers, a complex of relatively new seven-story sand-colored buildings, was located not far off the main strip. Mark entered the front lobby of the building nearest the street and was greeted by a pasty-faced receptionist with a pencil-thin mustache, pencil-thin sideburns, and slicked-back hair. He stood behind a granite-topped counter, in a clean and freshly painted — but unusually spare — lobby. No pictures hung on the beige walls. There was nowhere to sit.
When Mark said he wanted to rent a one-bedroom apartment for the night, the receptionist, smiling with an unctuous false deference and speaking with a Russian accent, indicated that the cost would be eighty dinars.
Probably Russian mafia, Mark guessed. He knew they controlled many of the prostitution rings in Dubai and guessed the same was true in Bahrain.
“Does that price include companionship?”
“No. You want escort, this cost you negotiate with escort service.”
“And you can provide me with the names of some suitable escort services?”
“Yes, of course.”
Mark paid cash and was given a form to fill out that asked for his name and address and passport number. He made everything up, figuring he could get away with it in a place like this — and he was right. The receptionist didn’t ask for any identification.
His room was on the fifth floor, and looked down on a busy roundabout below. There was a single bedroom, with a bed that had been made up with clean sheets. Across from the bed was a flat-screen TV and media center. A reasonably new-looking blue couch was the only object in the main room. Nothing else.
He pulled out the business card that the receptionist had given him. It read EXOTIC ENCOUNTERS and listed a phone number, which he called.
Another Russian answered. Mark explained that he needed a woman who was used to catering to Saudi tastes, but who spoke Russian or Turkish or English. He was alone, but some Saudi friends might be joining him soon. The woman had to be comfortable with that.
Not a problem, he was assured.
“Tonight I’m at the Victory Towers, but tomorrow I’ll be at the Sheraton Hotel. If I like her, would it be a problem for her to come there?”
That too was not a problem. Exotic Encounters serviced all of Manama.
When the woman knocked, Mark opened the door and gestured she should sit down on the couch. She did so without making eye contact with him. He’d left a hundred dinars — the agreed-upon price — on the center cushion. She picked up the money, rolled it up, and put it in a pocket inside her short skirt.
She was depressingly young. Around sixteen, Mark guessed. Her bare arms and legs were too thin, her cheekbones too pronounced. Because she was so young, she was still beautiful, but it was the fragile, waifish beauty of an anorexic, or an AIDS victim.
“What is your name?” he asked in English.
Mark didn’t have any problem with prostitution, at least not in theory, when both parties entered into the negotiation willingly, when both parties were adults and the woman — or man — was adequately compensated. The problem was that that was rarely the case.
She didn’t answer him, so he tried Russian. “What country do you come from?”
Hesitation, then in barely audible Russian, “Bulgaria.”
“What is your name?”
“Ivana.”
“Thank you for coming, Ivana.”
She still hadn’t looked him in the eye.
Mark said, “I want you to look at a picture.” But the moment he said it, her head dipped lower, and he knew he’d erred. “Not a bad kind of picture. Just a picture of a man’s face. I’m searching for someone. That’s why I’m here.” Just in case she didn’t get it, he added, “I’m not here for sex. You’re a beautiful girl, it’s just that I’m trying to help someone I care a lot about, and this man…”
Mark took out his iPod and pulled up the photo that Bowlan had sent him. “His name is Bandar bin Salman. He’s a Saudi.”
Ivana took the iPod reluctantly when Mark offered it to her. She glanced at it, then shook her head.
“He comes to Bahrain often. Maybe some of your… friends, maybe they would know where he stays, where I might find him. He might have come to a place like this, or he might have had a woman come to him.”