“The man was strangling you so you would give him information about Lipton. But getting … horny … is an important part of the process.”
“For God’s sake, how could that be important?”
“Autoerotic asphyxiation.”
“Auto—what?”
“A form of sadomasochism in which a person uses breath control to get sexually aroused. Also known as breath play, space monkey, some other street names. They either have someone help them, by strangling them, or do it themselves, near to the point of passing out. At a certain point, the near-death sensation becomes a sexual stimulus. Like the hanged man with the erection. When a person does it to themselves, it’s called autoerotic.”
“I wasn’t doing it to myself; the man was strangling me.”
“With a type of slip noose sold as a sex toy. The hoop on the cord aids a person in strangling themselves to the point of eroticism.”
I finally got it. “He was going to kill me and make it look like I did it myself? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Exactly. The police would conclude that you either did it yourself or with a sex partner. Either way, it’s not a homicide to be investigated. The Bratva are very fond of suicides and accidents, anything to keep an investigation from being launched.”
I stood and grabbed the table as I swayed. Two double martinis on an empty stomach had gone directly to my head.
“Where are you going?”
“I need to get my cat.”
“Your cat?”
“I’m taking my cat to a hotel. I’m not going to stay in my apartment.”
“I told you it’s been—”
“Cleaned. I know, I saw the rug. I have no doubt by the time your people got through, CSI wouldn’t have found a single iota of DNA or whatever they look for. But I have no intention of staying in an apartment where I was nearly murdered and a man was killed, even if he deserved it.”
I started to walk away and turned back. “Come on, I’m not going back in alone. Morty’s in the closet. My cat carrier is in there, too. I need to find a hotel where they’ll take a pet.”
“You’ll accept our arrangement to—”
“God. Is that unbelievable?” I swayed, dangerously. “Death by orgasm. I’d rather do it by chocolate.”
CDC Warns of Deaths from “Choking Game”
Government health officials warned Thursday that a dangerous choking game killed at least 82 thrill-seeking youngsters in the past dozen years …
Known also as “the blackout game,” “the scarf game,” and “space monkey,” the self-induced strangulation claimed mostly pre-teen and teenage boys who used their hands, or, more often, belts, bungee cords, or dog leashes to achieve a woozy high technically known as cerebral hypoxia …
The unexplained presence of ropes, scarves, dog leashes, choke collars, and bungee cords should also raise alarms.
—JONEL ALECCIA, HEALTH WRITER, MSNBC, FEBRUARY 14, 2008
PART TWO
People think Las Vegas is growing fast?
Dubai is Vegas on steroids.
—JIM CAPLE, ESPN.COM
12
40,000 ft. over the Arabian Desert
Ah … flying first class again. And on my way to a superluxurious hotel in a city from The Arabian Nights. With my rent paid back home. And cash in my refrigerator freezer to keep it from the hands of the IRS and other thieves—I’m a guilt-free tax cheater because IRS gestapo tax collectors hounded me about taxes owed after my career took a nosedive. The IRS doesn’t understand how a person’s life can get kicked out from under them and they end up spending their tax money on things like food, shelter, and fire.
I sipped a glass of champagne while I nibbled on wild Iranian caviar, then had a red Bordeaux to accompany my aubergine lasagna—layers of spinach pasta and grilled eggplant with a creamy mozzarella sauce.
Life would be even better, of course, if I weren’t on my way to meet a dead man while running from the Russian equivalent of Murder Inc. and being blackmailed by a secret police organization so brutal its members seeking a career change end up becoming mafia enforcers.
I spotted Russian agent Yuri Karskoff waiting to board coach class as I went aboard with the priority seating. He pretended he didn’t know me and I did the same to him. I just wish it were true. In other circumstances, I would have found him attractive. My taste in men, unfortunately, isn’t as refined as my preferences for antiquities.
One of my downfalls in the romance department is that I find myself attracted to men who are more interested in life and love than money. I consider it a genetic defect but I don’t fight it because I learned early that you don’t choose who you love. My last lovers all turned out to be less than honest when it came to their work in art—art thieves, to be precise, though I like to think that I reformed them. Or at least I got them to steal in ways that didn’t damage antiquities. What I didn’t manage, though, was keeping them in my life.
The first-class accommodations had interesting sleeper seats with a partial barrier for privacy. I was going to need the sleeper seat—the thirteen-hour flight and eight-hour time difference amounted to twenty-one hours. The plane took off midmorning and arrived the next morning.
After the bizarre attempt on my life, I had gotten up early, getting little sleep in a hotel, and gone back to my apartment. I entered only after standing at the door and peeking in until I was sure it was empty. The bags with the rum and cat food were on the table. Leaving the door open behind me, I grabbed them and went upstairs with Morty and woke up the man who was to care for him.
I had no intention of living in the apartment when I returned. Not even for a night. My sanctuary had been violated. It gave me the creeps just to step inside.
The first-class ticket cost my mysterious benefactor more than $13,000. I had thought about cashing it in—I could have bought a cramped, knees-against-the-chin, claustrophobic coach seat for a tenth of that price—but decided against it. The first-class seat was evidence that I was on my way back up. Besides, I didn’t think the airline would refund the excess to me …
According to the itinerary in my mailbox, the prepaid Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai cost another $3,000 a night. I was going to enjoy every cent of it. Room service, breakfast in bed, more caviar and champagne … I was tired of penny-pinching and enjoying a “night out” with takeout food.
Thinking about the name “Dubai” ignited recollections of news stories—a playground for oil-rich sheiks and other superrich types, it had fantastic hotels and gold-plated shopping centers.
The man sitting next to me on the plane—who said he was a real sheik himself, though I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant because there were probably sheiks who had camels and sheiks who had oil wells—was praising Sheik Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, who apparently had everything, and had had an island built for the Burj al-Arab hotel.
An island in the Persian Gulf just to put a hotel on … that had to be a hard act to follow.
“Not just an island for the hotel,” Feisal the sheik said. “Many islands for hotels, businesses, and very expensive homes are being built.” He leaned over and said in a confidential tone as if he were revealing a state secret, “One set of islands is in the shape of the world, with all the continents. Is that incredible?”
“Incredible. Walt Disney must be turning over in his grave in envy.”
He didn’t understand my crack and I didn’t brother explaining it. It probably didn’t express the right sort of awe about island-building.
Feisal said he was from Saudi Arabia. He wore a diamond ring about the size of a golf ball and a gold Rolex as thick as a slave’s chain.
“Dubai was once a sleepy port town trading in pearls taken from the Persian Gulf, as well as the home of renowned gold and spice souks,” he said. “A souk is an Arab marketplace. Naturally, the port was also famous as a haven for smugglers and pirates.”
So was Disneyland, but I didn’t mention that.
He leaned close
r and whispered, “There are more than three hundred shops in Dubai’s gold marketplace. Besides gold, many precious stones are sold there. But some would call it a thieves’ market, also. A foreigner must be especially careful in dealing with the souk merchants. Bandits,” he leaned forward and whispered. “I would be honored to assist you in selecting a gem that would be fitting for a woman of your beauty.”
Nothing warmed the cockles of my heart more than being told I was beautiful, but assisting me to “select” a piece—which I interpreted to mean he would pay for it—no doubt came with a price tag, one that said I would be expected to express my gratitude in ways of the flesh.
In my present financial situation, the proverbial casting-room couch was looking more like salvation than immorality. As broke as I was, my moral fiber was definitely tattered and frayed and on the breaking point.
However … Sheik Feisal had a belly the size of the Arabian Peninsula, which wouldn’t matter to some women if his bank account was the same size. But he wasn’t my type, no matter how broke I happened to be.
Plus, the fact that two of his wives were flying coach told me that this sheik definitely had more camels than oil wells …
The contrast and clash between East and West became apparent when the “landing in thirty minutes” announcement was made. My sheik got up, along with some other Arabic men, and pulled a traditional Arab robe over his clothes. He topped it off with a red checkered headdress that had a black braided band around it.
Women in first class wearing spiked heels and high-fashion dresses likewise put on appropriate robes and headscarves, one of them even putting on a veil.
The sheik chuckled when he saw me looking at the veiled women.
“Under Islam, hijab, the covering, protects women. It isn’t used to demean, but to liberate them and free them from the lust of men.”
“I’m glad you told me that.” I gave him a brilliant smile. “All this time I thought it was because men wanted to make sure their wives remained household servants and sex slaves.”
The sheik shook his index finger at me. “The clash between East and West isn’t about religion but the medieval world conflicting with the modern one. Some of us have learned to adjust to both. You Americans have never learned to adjust to the new realities.”
* * *
ANY NOTION I had about bargaining in a “native” marketplace evaporated as soon as I saw Dubai. From the air, Dubai City looked like a spaceport city on Mars rather than the casbah of Ali Baba.
The airport was definitely not an oasis despite the palm trees lit up like Christmas trees—it was shiny and ostentatious, again, with a spaceport feel.
I flowed toward baggage claim with a group of blond, blue-eyed women, ten or twelve of them.
My sheik, followed by his two wives completely encased in “the covering,” grinned and nodded at the women. “Businesswomen from Eastern Europe.”
Uh-huh.
As I came out of the baggage claim area, I smiled at a greeter holding a placard with my name on it. He led me to a Rolls-Royce limo waiting in front of a long line of beige-colored taxis queued outside. Lipton’s collector spared no expense, which was fine with me.
Flowing through the city with bumper-to-bumper traffic shouldered by gleaming high-rises took more of the edge off my Arabian Nights fantasies. Dubai looked a little like a Manhattan in the making.
I was caught by surprise when instead of the Burj al-Arab Hotel, which I knew was on an island and shaped like a sail, the limo pulled up in front of a strange-looking complex that housed a hotel and other businesses. The strange part was an enormous tunnel-like contraption on top.
My door opened and a grinning young man motioned me out.
“Mr. Lipton is waiting.”
“What is this place?”
“Ski run.”
He wasn’t kidding.
You could fry eggs on the hot sidewalk.
He handed me a ski jacket.
13
I met Lipton on the bottom of a ski run … a real ski run with a lift, snow, and skiers in the latest slope fashions.
The Arabian Desert’s version of a mountain in Aspen—a mountain with a roof on it—sent my awe of Dubai up another notch. Man-made islands didn’t hold a candle to a ski run in sun-scorched Arabia. What money, imagination, and unbridled control by a ruler could accomplish was amazing.
The snow was real. The skiing was real. The cold temperature was real.
What was even stranger than the imaginative ski complex was that I was meeting with a dead man on a ski slope in the Arabian Desert.
Lipton had on a ski jacket. It didn’t go well with his hat, a panama fedora. Neither did the fluffy earmuffs that looked like they came out of a children’s store. What he wasn’t wearing were skis.
He didn’t bother with a preamble, a few words to make up for lost time. Not a “Did you have a good flight?” or “How’s your life been since I ruined it and nearly got you murdered?”
Again.
If I were a man I would have punched his lights out … or at the very least clawed out his eyes … but I buried my homicidal feelings and recriminations and gave him a small smile. I was here to listen—before I boarded a flight back home.
He got right down to business.
“Not only isn’t this a difficult assignment, the potential recovery can solve the financial problems both of us face.”
Sure. Some rich person was just dying to give away money.
He was much thinner than I remembered him, grayer and graver. His cheeks were no longer full and there was a redness to his face that I didn’t remember. I didn’t know if the blush was from the cold in the ski dome … or from the fire that had almost consumed him in London.
I had a question to ask before we got down to basics. “Why are we meeting at a ski slope?”
He shuddered. “I hate the desert. The burning sun, the dry heat. It makes me wrinkled, drying me up like a prune.”
He gestured at the roof far above us. “They do things like this here because the sheik who rules Dubai is in complete charge. No building codes, no permits needed, no mountains of paperwork to satisfy environmental impact laws. He just says do it and they do.”
He gave me a look. “The temperature is not only comfortable, it’s very private here on the slope. You’ll find there are ears and eyes everywhere—your hotel room, your phone, the car you ride in. Our collector is a very powerful man. And he likes to know what’s going on.”
“So do I. Who’s this mystery man?”
“Boris Alexandrovich Nevsky.”
He said the name as if he expected me to recognize it. Of course, I did, but I had to pretend otherwise. I fell back on the reaction that I had when Yuri spoke the name. “I hate to expose my ignorance, but he sounds more like a character in a Russian novel than an antiquities collector.”
“Close. He’s both Russian and a dramatic character for one of those agonized soul novels the Russkies like. He’s the patriarch of a Russian Orthodox denomination with several million members.”
“Ah … I’ve seen him on the news. He doesn’t get along with the Russian government, that sort of thing?” I didn’t want to act completely ignorant.
“He’s both a nationalist fanatic and religious fanatic. His ambition is to restore the Russian people and empire back to the glory days when they held sway over a couple dozen other nationalities. Some people say he’s a neo-Nazi type. Like Hitler, he tells his followers that they should be ruling the world … with him giving the orders, of course. His critics say he’s a megalomaniac with a private force of storm troopers who keeps church dissenters in line.”
“I expected the client to be a rich Arab prince.”
“You’re right about the rich. The church has billions and Nevsky is the church. And he has another characteristic that Hitler had—a fascination with magical religious objects and the occult. It’s not just movie fiction that the Nazis made a search for the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covena
nt. They sent out teams all over the world in search of legendary things that possessed the power to destroy armies.
“I don’t know what all these crazies found back then, but one thing for certain was a blood-tipped lance kept in a Vienna museum. It’s supposed to be the spear used by a Roman soldier to pierce the side of Christ on the cross. The Nazis called it the Spear of Destiny. Hitler had it seized because he expected possession of it to bring victory.”
Nazis? Spear of Destiny? A real search for the Holy Grail? I was suddenly very happy that my up-front fee was safely ensconced in my refrigerator. If Yuri hadn’t already told me a little about Nevsky, I would have thought that Lipton got his brain fried when his London gallery blew up.
“Don’t concern yourself about his religious zeal,” Lipton said. “One thing can be said about fanatics—they’re usually so passionate about getting what they want, they don’t haggle over the price.”
Uh-huh. Fanatics are also usually so passionate—and desperate—to get what they want, they don’t care how they get it, either. Or what happens to the people who get in their way.
“Henri … what exactly does this man want us to do?”
“Are you familiar with the Image of Edessa?”
“No. Should I be?”
“You would be if you were raised Eastern Orthodox. Religious paintings called icons play a significant role in Orthodox religion, more than in the Catholic, Protestant, or other Christian sects. The Image of Edessa is the most important icon of all. It’s called the Mandylion by the Orthodox groups.”
“What exactly is it?”
“A portrait of Christ.”
“I thought there were no pictures of Christ.”
“Again, that has to do with your upbringing with a Western European heritage. Eastern Orthodoxy is the second largest Christian communion and its traditions are as old or older than the ones of Rome. Christianity in its earliest days spread mostly from the Palestine to the Greek cities in what is now Turkey. I’m sure you know that Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire about three hundred years after the death of Christ—in the East.”
The Shroud Page 8