"Why don't we start?" Florence said. "Are we all right having this conversation here?"
Bobby nodded. "Only bugs in here are the crawly kind." George shuddered.
Bobby tapped at his laptop. A photograph of the emir projected onto the wall. He tapped another button, and up came a photograph of the emir's wife. Florence studied the image. The sheika was lovely, in her late thirties, fair-skinned, with intelligent eyes and a slightly disappointed expression.
Bobby lapped more buttons. Up on the wall came photograph after photograph of stunning women, which perhaps explained the sheika's look of disappointment.
"What's this, the Victoria's Secret catalog?" Rick said.
"A few of emir's special friends." Bobby said. "Mainly French and Italian. Lately, he seems to be inclinin' toward Russians. But he'll sc
rew anvthin', includin' the dog,
if there's nothing else handy."
"Shall we try to keep it respectful?" Florence said. "Just in case the room is bugged?"
Bobby continued his
brief. "His wife, the sheika Laila,
Matari mother. English father. He was an engineer, worked on the pipelines. Made a ton of money. Married up. dau
ghter of a well-to-do sharif. L
aila. she was educated at Swiss schools, Lausanne. Went to Oxford. Bright girl
. She had a nice TV career goin’
in London, anchor
in'—they call it presenting. H
ung out
with all the right people, incl
udin' the royals. She and Prince Charles dated once or twice, but nothin' happened sackwise."
Rick
said,
"H
ow do you know that?"
"I can't go into so
urces and methods. But hell. MI5,
they got a whole section, all they do is analyze who the pr
ince is bangin'. Movin' along—L
aila. she fell in love with the
then future emir. Gazzir Bin Haz,
when he was on a visit to Royal Ascot. That's their big horse race."
"We know." George said.
"Never been, myself. Anyhow, he sort of
swept
her oil her feet, literally
. Dashing sort, scrubs up good when you put him in a top hat and tails. She had the right credentials, and he brought her back to Xanadu-on-the-Gulf and made her an Arab wife." Bob
by looked over at Florence. "Happe
ns."
"Go on. Bobby."
"Well, everyt
hin' was Jake connubial bliss-wise, for a wh
ile. They had a son together, H
amdul. Then, well, you know how it is. a man doesn't wanna eat at the same restaurant night after night. So he built himself a fuck palace—pardon, ma'am—a place do
wn the coast, on the beach in U
m-beseir. Got pretty much eve
rything a man could ask for. Hell,
we thought we were livin' high if we had some outdoor carpeting in the back of the pickup."
"Thank you for the cross-cultural reference." Florence said.
"Got a helipad and a three-thousand
-fool
runway, in case he's in such a hurry for the ladies that a helicopter isn't fast enough." Bobby chuckled. "Man, it's good to be the emir.
"Anyhow, the sheika, she's
no idiot. She knows all about U
m-beseir. In the past, she's been willing to
do the thing a lot of wives do,
look the other way. boys-will-be-boy
s. Part of it w
as that when she married Gazzir,
knowin' he was gonna be emir once his old man croaked, she made him agree—in writing— that he wouldn't take any more wives. This didn
't play well with the local emi
rati and the moolahs. In this part of the world, you haven't amounted to much if you
haven't
left behind at least a hundred or so sons. That explains why they got forty thousand princes across
the border in Wasabia. Hell,
you can't spit in Wasabia without hittin' a crown prince.
Not that they encourage spittin’
on the royals. But he musta been in love, 'cause he we
nt along with Laila's demand. e
ven got the head moolah to issue a theological ruling on it, which concluded—
surprise
—that it was
wargat."
"What does that mean?" Renard asked.
"Kosher."
"Win did she insist on monogamy?"
"Because she wanted her son to sit on the throne. A harem full of wives doesn't make for a real relaxed atmosphere. Historically. Arab wives were always lookin' oxer each other's shoulder, poisoning each other, poisoning each other's kid so that their o
wn would succeed. Their son. Hamdul,
he's now ten years old. But the recent development that's of part
icular interest to us is that L
aila has put her foot down, finally, about all the bangin' and sere win' down at Um-beseir. She wants it to stop. Our information is that she's been makin' life quite difficult for Gazzir lately."
"Why
?" Florence asked.
"This is sensitive information."
"We can handle it."
"Ther
e appear to be two factors. One,
she's worried about gettin' a sexual disease from him. She's a very attractive woman, and every now and then the emir does get amorous with her. The second factor is that
young H
amdul's gettin' to the age when he might pick up palace gossip. She doesn't want him to hear from some flunky that his dad can't keep his scimitar in his pants. So there it is."
"Thank you, Bobby," Florence said. "Extremely useful."
"Shouldn't we study this further before we proceed?" George said. His lower lip was crusted pink from dried Pepto
-Bismol.
Bobby stared at him. "You mean spend six, seven months draw in' up a feasibility study? With lots of
tabs?"
"Well, if you'd rather just rush in pell
-mell
..."
matar
was
liberal
in the matter of women's dress; nonetheless, Florence took care to observe the formalities. She wore a matching pantsuit of turquoise and purple shantung silk, and over her hair an Hermes scarf. According to Bobby, the emir liked to give these scarves to his mistresses. "If they've been good—really good—there'll be a diamond bracelet inside. And if they've been really, really good, a red Ferrari outside."
Florence was ushered into t
he audience room. The door was fl
anked by two bodyguards in ceremonial dress and swords.
"Salaam alaikum."
Florence said without accent.
"Sherefina. somow ‘kum
."
The emir's eyes brightened, and not just at his guest's flawless Arabic. He took her hand and bent and chastely kissed it. Florence blushed at the attention. She continued in Arabic, remembering that in
Matar
, conversation with the emir required use of the third-person address, not altogether e
asy for Americans, who want t
o call everyone "pal" or "bub" or "honey" after five minutes.
They sat.
Florence noted that the Louis XVI chairs were a few
inches lower than the emir's Louis XIV chai
r. At not quite live foot six. Emir Gazzir Bin Haz—"G
azzy" to his family and intimates—was not a tall man. Exactly the height, i
t occurred to Florence, of T. E
. Lawrence. What large things small men have accomplished.
H
e was impeccably accoutred, in an immaculate white
thobe
garment, his head covered with
a
gut
ra.
the triangular folded cloth tied with the traditional gold-rope
agal
Four of his plump fingers, she observed, were adorned with rings. His goatee was perfectly trimmed, his lips oyster-moist from a lifetime's contact with the greatest delicacies t
he world had t
o offer, from caviar t
o Dom Perignon to foie gras. H
is face radiated contentedness; and why not? The Emir might just be the happiest camper on earth.
"Your Majesty is most welcoming." Florence said with a slight bow.
"It is a trait with us.
" he said, switching to English. He was, like most highborn Mataris, an Anglophile
—they sent their fut
ure emirs to Sandhurst—and enjoy
ed displaying his excell
ent command of the language. "Eve
n the humblest Matari will open his door to a stranger and shar
e what he has." H
e
smiled. "Not that you will find
many
humble Mataris, mind you. This, too, is a trait with us. I fear."
"Your country is truly blessed to have such abundance." "Our fig oil is second to none." "Justly famous throughout the world."
"It h
as many
, many applications. Perfume, industrial—do you know that it is used as a lubricant on Chinese rockets?"
"I was not aware of this fact. But how marvelous."
The emir leaned forward intently. "It lowers cholesterol. Rather, it increases the
good
cholesterol. In time, the medical studies will e
stablish this beyond question, G
od be praised."
"Matar is a river to the world."
They looked at
each other.
"Shall we c
ease with the bullshitting?" He smiled. "His Majesty is too gracious. I
was about to run out of conversation about fig oil."
"I've never used it myself," the emir said, taking a cigarette from a gold box in front of him. A servant dressed to match t
he drapery appeared like a swift
ghost. He lit the emir's cigarette and disappeared back into the folds with a soil rustle of silk. "Ghastly stuff. I prefer walnu
t oil, ground by four-hundred y
ear-old millstones in the Dordogne. I have it flown in. Anyway
, who cares about cholesterol. I
have my blood changed every month
by
Swiss doctors. I donate the old blood to the hospital. It is quite sought after, apparently. Now. Florence—and why don't I just call you that, since I am unable to wrap my tongue around all those pretty
Tuscan
vowels—you have
given me a nice and. I must say,
original present. I could show you an entire room filled with gifts I have received of the most
appalling
taste. The worst was a Monopoly game board done in twenty-four-karat gold, inlaid with rubies and diamonds and all manner of precious stones, with the little hotels and houses made of platinum, if you please
. What did they expect me to do,
melt it down? I know Arabs enjoy a reputation for vulgarity, but really. By the way. your Arabic i
s excellent. You are, I take it,
with the government? Surely. In some capacity? CIA? It would be audacious of
them to send a woman. Would they
have such imagination? 1 think not. In the past, when your country has wanted something—and my dear, they
always
want something—the gifts have been... I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but dear, dear, dear
. The sort of thing that God—praise be upon H
is name—would buy if he shopped at Wal-Mart. We are about to have a Wal-Mart here.
Such
excitement. Once I was offered a briefcase full of cash. Cash!" He giggled, waving a hand about the room, which looked as though everything in it had b
een dipped in gold, twice. "Do I look as though I
need
cash?
-
So"—his eyes narrowed a bit,
showing Florence a glimpse of the hard-eyed coastal trailer of yore—"who are you, lovely lady? And without seeming rude, what do you want?"
This bluntness was un-Arabic. Had she put a foot wrong?
"Your Majesty favors me with his directness. I have come to ask your
permission to approach the She
ika Laila with a business proposition."
The emir grimaced. H
is face, a caramel pudding in repose, suddenly looked quite fierce. "Business proposal? The
sheika?
You've not come to ask her to endorse some product?"
"No,
sootnoow el-amir."
"A cause? A children's disease? Let me guess. Land mines
. All the beautiful women, they
are against
land
m
ines.
We don't have any here. I
am happy to say. Tho
ugh there have been times when I
confess I would gladly plant them like flowers along my borders. But the gazelles might step on them. And we would rather shoot the gazelles, would we not? From our lovely new helicopter.
So
generous. Indeed, I wonder, what have we done to merit such ... generosity?"