The invitation to after work business came through Shelly, delivered in a scratchy voice that bordered between sexy and emphysematous. “Jake, your father wants to know if you are interested in joining him for drinks after work? It is business related.”
“What’s today?”
“Thursday.”
“Yeah, I guess. I was supposed to have dinner with my girlfriend, but she stood me up to go out with some friends. Tell him I’ll go, but I don’t plan on staying out too late.”
“I’m sure he will be pleased.”
“Yeah, well, who cares?” Jake said with a snap, his mind elsewhere.
Shelly stopped her retreat long enough to look back at Jake, his hostile answer unappreciated. “Humph,” she said on her way back to her desk. ***
Hasad Bakar got out of the cab and slipped his way through the crowded doorway of Club Mombasa, a funky, semi-techno bar with a smattering of jungle motif thrown in for the happy hour animals. Jake and his father were seated on adjacent chrome stools, Peter slugging his way through his second whiskey and water.
“I’m sorry I am late,” Hasad said with a thick Turkish accent. He had a slightly high-pitched voice, as if his nuts were slowly being pinched. His voice was somewhere between a robot on speed and a Middle Eastern, New York taxi driver. “It is so good to see you again, Mr. Winthrop. So good.”
“Hasad, this is my son, Jake,” Peter said standing from his stool.
“Your son! Fabulous. Yes, he does look like you, now that you mention it.”
Hasad and Jake shook hands as Peter finished off his glass and pushed it away.
“Well. What do you think?”
“Of what?” Peter asked.
“The club—Club Mombasa.” Hasad spread his arms wide as he announced the name with a shrill. “My cousin is part-owner. He is doing very well. Very well. The club opened two months ago and already it is making good money. Very good money indeed. At the rate he is going, he should break even in the first six months. Very good for a restaurant.”
Peter smiled. Like the great businessmen of the world, the Turks love their numbers.
“That’s great,” Peter answered.
“What do you think, Jake?”
“It’s nice. A good place to hang out,” Jake answered with the authority of a twenty-four-year-old. He knew his father hated it.
“Shall we have something to eat?”
Peter was here on business and he wasn’t going to let some techno music, blue neon lights, and a plastic jungle on the patio stand in the way. “Sure, let’s get a table,” Peter said.
“Nothing but the best in the house,” Hasad responded with pride, disappearing in search of his cousin.
“He seems interesting,” Jake said, not searching for another adjective.
“He’s an idiot,” his father replied. “But he is a rich idiot, and the son of an even richer one.”
“What does his family do?”
“A little bit of everything. His father is Onur Bakar, a shipping mogul worth at least nine zeroes.”
“A billionaire. That’s a lot of money. What does Hasad want?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. The last time I did business with him he was looking for four identical Hummers, outfitted with the usual son-of-a-billionaire security features—bulletproof glass, grenade-proof undercarriage, run-flat tires and of course a one-thousand-watt stereo system.”
“Any money in exporting automobiles?” Jake asked out of earnest curiosity.
“There is money in everything, son. Generally I don’t get involved in onesy, twosy type deals. But when a billionaire’s son starts asking for upgraded Hummers, I tend to smell a profit.”
“How much did you make?”
“Enough to buy my Porsche, and ten more just like it. All it took was a couple of phone calls. Never even saw the vehicles in person.”
“Couldn’t he just buy them himself?”
“Hell, son, most of the people I deal with could do it themselves. But the rich like to pick up a phone, make a call, and let that be that. You know when I first realized how much money you could make in business?”
“No, I don’t think I have heard this one.”
“About twenty-five years ago someone heard through the grapevine that I could set up a meeting with the president of the Bank of Shanghai. These days, for those in the right circles, it isn’t that big of a deal. Twenty-five years ago, China was just opening its borders, just starting to allow businessmen and students to visit. Being able to reach out and touch the president of the Bank of Shanghai was not something to be taken lightly. Not knowing what I could charge, or should charge, I aimed for the stars. I told the client how difficult it would be, that it might take some time, etc. I asked for two hundred fifty thousand dollars. It took ten minutes to get the meeting. Ten minutes and two long distance calls to China. That is when I realized how easy it is to make money.”
Before Jake could ask another question, Hasad came back to the bar.
“This way, this way. The best seat in the house…” Hasad said, leading Peter by the shoulder. ***
The doormen and bouncers at Camelot’s, one of the city’s few mainstream strip clubs, were as large as they were ornery. Two beasts guarded the door with scrutinizing eyes, and both took an immediate disliking to Hasad, who was past the threshold of legally drunk and claiming to be in dire need of a little American entertainment.
Jake found the Turk to be annoying, and hoped the doormen would see it in their hearts to deny entry to Hasad and send them all home while it was still relatively early. A hundred dollars and a promise of good behavior from Peter paved the way down the stairs into the subterranean club. The three men followed a short skirt with an attached bunny tail to a table in the back, directly across from one of the three stages. Hasad pulled out a sizeable money roll, peeled off a few hundred dollars in various donations, and slapped the stack of greenbacks on the table. “The girls are on me,” he said proudly. “And later, if I am lucky, the girls will be on me.”
Jake was suppressing the growing urge to punch Hasad in the face in the name of peace. Peter calmly ordered drinks from the waitress, his hand gently caressing her bare shoulder as she bent over. She crouched down to whisper the order back, giving him a full shot of cleavage. He stared. She smiled. Two professionals, neither aware of the other’s skill level. A muscled bouncer teetered on a stool next to the stage, waiting for a patron to reach for an unguarded body part, an attempt to touch the untouchable. Tiny yellow track lights ringed the stage, highlighting the establishment’s moneymakers in flashing strobes.
The drinks arrived and Peter continued his flirtation with the waitress who batted her eyes shamelessly. She smiled as she placed a bourbon on the rocks, a shot of tequila, and a bottled beer on the glass tabletop. Peter handed the beer to his son and pushed the shot glass to Hasad.
“Tequila, my favorite,” Hasad said picking up his drink with two fingers and offering a toast. “To D.C., and Mr. Winthrop, the greatest tour guide in the city.” Hasad threw his head back with vigor and the tequila disappeared down the hatch. Jake sipped his beer while Peter took a polite swallow of his bourbon.
Over the next hour, Hasad downed three more drinks and shoved miscellaneous amounts of cash into the g-strings of each dancer who came on stage to grind with the pole. He booed when a girl came out hiding her good bits with tassels, and Peter had to calm the stage-side bouncer with a slight hand gesture and a crisp bill.
“Mr. Winthrop, my friends and I have recently taken up hunting.”