Date with a Sheesha (4 page)

“Homosexual practices are illegal in all the Peninsula countries, including the United Arab Emirates. In some, under sharia law, it is even punishable by death.”

“Is that what you believe, Mr. Gupta? Do you believe your son was killed for being gay?”

He nodded. “That is exactly what I believe.”

Although I was aware of the stance on homosexuality in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, if this were true, it was shocking beyond belief. I’d heard of punishment ranging from flogging and imprisonment to deportation. Those were bad enough. But was it possible that someone would be killed for being gay?

Especially in Dubai, the glitziest, most over-the-top, over-exposed, most modern, most western emirate of the UAE. The very idea raised my ire.

“Now you understand,” Gupta said to me, moving a little closer on the couch. “You understand why I need your help.”

But I didn’t. Not really. “What do you want me to do for you, Mr. Gupta?”

“I want you to go to Dubai. I want you to find out if I am right in my suspicion. I want you to find out why my son died—the real reason. I deserve to know. My family deserves to know. Until we do, we cannot find peace.”

I heard the door to the office swing open, and with it an unexpected accusation: “Do not believe what he says, Mr. Quant,” the voice said. “My husband is lying to you.”

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Chapter 2

“Unnati!” Pranav Gupta howled. He stood to confront his wife.

I stood too. Unnati Gupta approached us, her dark eyes sparkling like coal left out in the rain.

“He wants vengeance, Mr. Quant, not peace.”

“Unnati, please,” Gupta pleaded.

“Isn’t it the truth, Pranav?”

We both looked at the man. His gaze jumped from me to his wife, then back to me.

“I cannot deny this. I’m sorry, but it’s true. I do experience moments of wanting revenge against my son’s killer. Can you blame me, Mr. Quant?”

I couldn’t. But that still didn’t make vengeance a good reason to hire a private detective. “Mr. Gupta, I am not a thug, nor a mer-cenary. I do not hire myself out to be an instrument of revenge.” I was feeling rather virtuous about this.

He nodded wildly. “I completely understand this. As
you
must understand that my wife is perhaps being overly theatrical. Of 26

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course I am vengeful. Another man took my son’s life. It is only natural. But what I said before is still important, still true. I need justice. I need truth. If these…these bastards have stolen my son from me, just because he is gay, I deserve to know it. And they deserve to suffer.”

“And if the truth is just as the police reported?” Unnati asked her husband.

Once again, his head bobbed up and down, his face sad. “I will accept that.”

“You trust this man can find this out for you? And you will believe what he tells you?”

I suddenly felt as if I was in the room only as a topic of conversation. It was rather disconcerting.

“I will. He is a gay man too, Unnati, like Nayan. He will be able to investigate our son’s life better than anyone else because of this.”

Ah, the old gay detective thing again. I didn’t mind actually.

In this market, I could use any leg up over the competition I could get. Not that Saskatoon was crawling with gumshoes ready to take my place, but a competitive edge never hurts.

“How exactly do you see this working?” I asked the husband and wife.

“These were to be his final two weeks in the East. Although Neil had some last responsibilities at the University, most of his time was to be spent finalizing the details of major purchases for our collection. This was to include arranging for their transport back to Saskatoon in time for the symposium,” Unnati told me in an officious voice. “Despite Neil’s death, both the University of Dubai and the University of Saskatchewan still expect these duties to be fulfilled. Time is of the essence. Opening night of the symposium is in less than two weeks. They are insisting a replacement be found immediately.”

“As the head of the Department of Antiquities at the U of S,”

Gupta said, “my wife will make the final decision. And my…our choice, is you.”

To say the idea was both daunting and outrageous was an understatement. I’m a smart guy, and a pretty quick study. But 27

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there was no way I could learn enough about old carpets in a few hours to bluff my way through the next two weeks as Neil’s substitute. My only qualification to be an antique carpet expert is my propensity toward carpet burn when on a date. I didn’t say as much, but the Guptas could see the uncertainty on my face.

“We don’t expect you to actually perform any of Neil’s duties,” Unnati told me. “Most of his scheduled lectures have already been delivered. The remaining ones were cancelled after his death.”

“But what about this carpet buying business? Do I just get a credit card and go to town?” Although that could be fun, I doubted the answer would be yes.

“Wait here for a moment,” Pranav Gupta said with a reassuring tap on my arm.

With that he left the room, leaving Mrs. Gupta and me eye to eye.

“You don’t agree with your husband’s decision to hire a private investigator to dig into your stepson’s death, do you?” This was perhaps stating the obvious. But it was far preferable to the uncomfortable silence I knew was coming.

“What I think doesn’t matter, Mr. Quant. My husband has lost his only son. I understand how he cannot let this pass. He must be fully convinced that he has done all things possible to determine the cause of this horrible event. I love my husband. And so, I support his decision.”

This was surprising. Although her words said one thing, very little in her manner since I’d first met Unnati Gupta hinted that she approved of her husband’s plan. I had to wonder myself: was this just the foolish whim of a grieving father who simply could not accept his son’s tragic death? Or was he onto something? Did a father’s intuition count for anything?

“Mr. Quant,” Gupta said as he re-entered the room, a slight young woman at his side. “I’d like you to meet Hema. She is my brother’s daughter. Neil’s cousin.”

I held out my hand, which the girl took with hesitation. I noticed her hands were extra soft, with petite fingers and slender wrists. She wore several rings, one with a rather sizeable, sharp-28

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cut diamond (not on her I-thee-wed finger.) She was pretty in her traditional sari, with eyes, large as saucers, staring out at me from her fine-featured face like two chocolate yolks. “Nice to meet you, Hema.”

She only nodded, and then looked quickly away at her aunt.

“Hema will accompany you to the Middle East,” Unnati Gupta said. “She is just as accomplished as her cousin. Had she not been a woman, she would likely have taken the position in Dubai instead of Neil.”

“Oh,” I said. The statement raised countless questions in my head. I asked the foremost: “So what makes it possible for Hema to come with me now?”

“Desperation, Mr. Quant. The same reason they will accept you without too many questions, without wondering too loudly about why the ‘esteemed’ Russell Quant seems to have published nothing in his own discipline. Hema has more than enough qualifications for both of you. You see, the universities have a vested interest in having Neil’s duties successfully completed in time for the symposium here in Saskatoon. They know time is running out.” She gave me an assessing gaze. Something told me I’d only
just
passed muster. “I can make it appear that you are not who you truly are, at least in their eyes. For the next two weeks, you will cease to be Russell Quant, private detective. Instead you will be known as Russell Quant, respected authority on carpet antiquities. With my commendation, and because they want it to be so, they will easily accept you as an expert in these matters.

And with so much to do in so little time, they cannot reasonably deny you an assistant.”

“What they won’t know,” Mr. Gupta added helpfully, “is that Hema will be the one making all the decisions in terms of the necessary carpet acquisitions. While you will be busy looking into the death of my son.”

Could it really be as easy as it sounded?

I doubted it.

The last thing I needed was to travel to the Middle East and have someone discover that Russell Quant, esteemed authority on carpet antiquities, was actually Russell Quant,
gay
private detec-29

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tive. If Pranav Gupta’s suspicions about the cause of his son’s death were even close to being accurate, I could knowingly be placing my own head on the same chopping block. Why would I do that?

“My dear,” Gupta, somehow sensing my hesitation, addressed his wife while gently urging the two women toward the office door. “Perhaps you and Hema could give Mr. Quant and me a few minutes alone.”

I was about to learn the answer to my question.

“He offered you how much?” This from Anthony, in a rare moment of near speechlessness. When it came to anything having to do with large sums of money, my friend was apt to be verbose.

But when I revealed to him the amount of the retainer and final sum, promised to me by Pranav Gupta, for travelling to Dubai and points beyond to investigate his son’s death, he was left to pick up his chiselled jaw off the floor.

Our visit that afternoon was supposed to be over coffee. I should have known better. In Anthony’s world, coffee is best served hot, first thing in the morning. Any time after noon was an occasion appropriate for liquids of a more entertaining nature.

Today we hadn’t even gotten as far as the front door of his high-end menswear boutique,
gatt
, when a better idea struck him.

“Oh, just look at it out there,” he’d said, Rupert Everett at his most petulant, as he searched the sales racks for a suitable overcoat to wear outdoors. “Why must January always be so bloody awful in this country?”

Although I love the vivid change in seasons and theatrical weather patterns we enjoy in Saskatchewan, I must agree that January and February can be a challenge. Despite the cold, it is often overwhelmingly sunny, but on days without that cheery orb in the sky, Prairie mid-winter can be a bit of a downer. Like today.

“Tell you what, Puppy, what say we stay in? I’ve the perfect spot and the perfect libation to make it all bearable.”

And that was how we found ourselves in
gatt
’s second storey window display—per Anthony: Out of sight and out of mind of 30

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local liquor licence enforcers—overlooking downtown’s 2nd Avenue and its parade of shops and warmly dressed shoppers. As luck would have it,
gatt
was promoting cruise wear and resort casuals for the ongoing winter vacation season. The window bay was handily outfitted with a bistro table set for two, in front of a faux Tuscany-inspired mural, next to three rather sexy-looking mannequins who appeared to be having more fun than inanimate, plastic, manmade men have a right to be having.

After instructing the staff—a crew of broad-shouldered, slim-waisted sales clones whose names were always Derek—to watch the floor, Anthony had led me to the glassed-in holiday spot.

From somewhere—I don’t know how he does it—he produced a bottle of Nipozzano Marchesi de Frescobaldi Chianti.

“Italian. A two thousand and five,” he uttered as he did the stick-your-nose-deep-in-the-glass-sip-swirl-make-a-face thing.

He gave me one of his trademark one-eyebrow-up-with-quirky-smile looks, and asked, “Shall I tell you?”

That’s one of the many things I like about Anthony. Although he sounds posher than the Queen, looks like Robert Redford, and has sophistication oozing from every pore, every so often he remembers not to take himself too seriously.

I nodded my approval.

“Red fruit,” he happily announced with another luxurious whiff of the wine. “Spicy. A little violet on the nose.”

“What? No geranium?”

He ignored that, instead choosing to take another assessing sip from the wine glass with its impressively rotund circumfer-ence. “Bitter cherry. Nutty at the mid, chocolate on the finish. Not quite up to the previous vintage, but it’ll do. I think you’ll like it.”

“I better,” I warned as I downed my first sip.

My gosh.

I actually
could
smell violet. I really could. Maybe years of quaffing from my friend’s private cellar was actually teaching me a thing or two.

Anthony sat back in his chair, his slim-fit, V-neck, eggplant cashmere sweater revealing an admirably taut belly for a fifty-nine-year-old. “You must tell me,” he began, “what is it like to be 31

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for sale?”

“Oh, ha ha,” I responded with little true jocularity.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” he asked. “You said so yourself. You were thinking of turning down this assignment until you heard the gold coins jingling in Mr. Gupta’s purse. What he is willing to pay to send you to Dubai is a king’s ransom.” He hesitated, thought better of it, then adjusted his comment: “Or at least a minor European princess’s lady-in-waiting’s cousin’s ransom.”

“I was unsure to begin with,” I admitted, wishing that instead of having this conversation, I could simply sit back, enjoy my fake vacation, the classical music wafting through the store’s high-tech sound system, the expensive-cologne-scented air, and a glass or two of this very good wine with its chocolate finish. I love me some chocolate.