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So where’s your car? It’s not a dump, is it? My luggage is sensitive.”
    Johnny laughed back and mocked him. “Sure, rub it right in. But no, it’s a Mercedes.” He paused and added, “It’s just an
old
one. But I have plenty of trunk space for one bag.”
    Gary chuckled again; he liked this guy. Johnny was dressed cool enough to hang out with, and he would be easy to kill. Gary had learned to think that way for years now. It was a basic survival measure. He constantly asked himself how easy or hard would it be to kill a man if he needed to … or a woman. And poor Johnny would offer him little resistance.
    Then again, I have no idea who he knows over here,
Gary mused.
    “My car is right this way,” Johnny told him, and walked to the right. “So how long are you staying?”
    Gary pulled his wheeled luggage and carry bag behind him. He asked, “Can I see everything in a week?”
    Johnny laughed and said, “You have a very dry sense of humor, friend. But if you have the right tour guide, anything is possible.”
    He was obviously offering more services than just a ride.
    “Tour guide?” Gary questioned. “Is that your business here?”
    “It depends on who’s asking and what they want.”
    Gary nodded.
Okay, this guy is into things,
he mused.
And maybe I don’t want to be that involved.
    “I’ll just take a ride downtown for now.”
    Johnny nodded and grinned. “Yeah, for now,” he hinted. “But you take my card for anything else you need.”
    Johnny continued, “You’re over here with no girlfriend or a family? Well, it gets lonely at nights.”
    “But not for you, right?” Gary hinted.
    Johnny grinned and turned to face him. “I know a lot of beautiful women here who would love to hang out with you. You’re an American rock star? What do you play, baseball or something?”
    He was sizing Gary up as Gary sized him up.
    “Not quite. I played some lacrosse in college and a little bit of basketball on the side.”
    “Oh yeah. I played some cricket.”
    Gary grinned and told him, “It’s not the same.”
    “Yeah, yeah, I know. Americans are better at everything, right?”
    He sounded patronizing.
    “No, I wouldn’t say that. You guys still have soccer and polo.”
    “That’s fútbol,” Johnny corrected him.
    “Yeah, whatever.”
    When they reached his car at the temporary parking area, it was indeed an old black Mercedes, but it was very dusty on the outside.
    Gary joked, “I guess a car wash would make a ton of money over here.”
    Johnny frowned and snapped, “Not here. That’d be a waste of your money. With the dust and sandstorms, you’d have to wash your car every three hours. Only the
Emirati
does that. They have the money and water to waste.”
    Inside, the car was not bad. His black leather seats were nice and clean, and there was refreshing incense in the car.
    Gary nodded. “Okay, this is better than a taxi. So tell me, what’s the best hotel for me to stay at downtown?”
    “It all depends on how much you want to spend. The Hilton Dubai Creek is one price, Jumeirah Beach is another, and Burj Al Arab is only for true rock stars. You can’t even look inside unless you have serious money. They have a small bridge with security for you to even enter.”
    Gary smirked. “I heard about that one.”
    “Yeah, it’s one of the most famous hotels in the world.”
    “And what if you just wanted a cheap place to stay for the night?”
    As they hit the dirt roads on their way to downtown Dubai from the distant airport, Johnny eyed his no-name American passenger and said, “There are plenty of hotels for that. But you wouldn’t come to Dubai just to stay in one of the other cities. Abu Dhabi is way too political and expensive, and Sharjah—that’s where I live—is just not the same as Dubai. That’s where everything is.”
    Gary grinned. “I get your point. I guess that would be like staying in New Jersey instead of New York.”
    “Yeah, or staying in Kensington instead of