Chapter Fifteen #2
It does not look humble in any way, shape, or form, but of course, that’s the point.
The Bugatti skyscraper looks more like modern sculpture than a residential tower.
Everything is dynamic curves and fluid lines, sensual even, as though the building can’t quite stay still.
It’s wrapped in a shiny metal facade, and with the desert sun reflecting off it just so, it’s as though the high-rise were both a crashing wave and a rolling sand dune.
“Hang on,” Bob says.
Bob rips up the drive. She expects a valet or maybe just parking in the front.
But that’s not what happens. He veers the car down an entry bay into an underground garage.
The parking spot, she notices, has glass walls on three sides.
Odd. When Bob turns off the engine, Maggie reaches for the door handle, but Bob reaches across her and shakes his head.
“Not yet.”
The car, with them inside of it, starts to rise.
“It’s an elevator,” Bob tells her.
“An elevator for your car?”
He shrugs. “A Bugatti should live in the Bugatti. Every penthouse has a parking spot.”
“For your car?”
“Yes.”
“In the actual apartment?”
“Yep. It’s perfect symmetry. Integrating automotive passion with French Riviera luxury. Merging Bugatti’s automotive-inspired aesthetics with the highest standards of living.”
“You didn’t just make that up,” Maggie says.
“No, you sit around a lot in this job. There’s a brochure.”
Maggie can’t help but shake her head. The sports car rises above the city, floor upon floor, the view outside the windshield and glass door jaw-dropping, until they stop, yes, in the middle of a spectacular apartment.
After Bob nods that it’s okay now, they both slide out of the Bugatti and enter the heart of the penthouse.
The décor is a bit like the car—sleek, aerodynamic, stunning—but the space is all about the windows: floor-to-ceiling, very high, glass so clear you could easily walk into them.
You don’t feel as though you are in a high-rise with a spectacular view.
You feel at one with the view, the unassuming marble floor vanishing, as though you were floating.
Maggie stands there and flashes back to Charles’s final instruction: “You’re going to want to call your family and tell them you’re all right.
Don’t. They still think you’re on your original job, so it’s not like they are unduly worried.
The last thing you want to do is pull them into this by making an errant call. ”
She’d promised that she wouldn’t call.
But that is a promise she has no intention of keeping.
The penthouse is silent.
“Is anyone else here?” Maggie asks.
“The family owns three floors.”
“Of course.”
“You’ll be the only one on this one.”
“Of course.”
Bob leads them to her room, which is minimalist and off-white and unassumingly decorated because again it is all about the cityscape.
Every wall is done in gentle curves with no corners or harsh edges.
It makes you feel as though you’re on a boat in the middle of calm seas.
There is a kidney-shaped swimming pool on the expansive deck outside her window.
“The full patient medical records will be here within the hour,” Bob says. “They should provide you with all the information you need. Surgery will be scheduled for tomorrow unless there’s an issue.”
She wonders whether she will need to make up an issue to stall for time, so she can stay longer.
Probably not. Charles or whoever had already informed the “retail magnate” that Maggie’s strict patient protocol was to stay at least four days post-op—and if you wanted the best, which Maggie is, you understood, accepted, and paid for that.
“Impressive, no?” Bob says.
She nods. The view reminds her of that skyline shot of Oz from the original Wizard of Oz movie.
It looks enchanted, magical, make-believe—a place where fantasies come true.
But if you take a second look, it also looks artificial, futuristic, slightly nightmarish.
The skyscrapers sparkle and glitter and they’re all glass, almost fragile looking, so that you could imagine hurling a giant stone and watching it all crash down in shards.
“Is there a bar nearby?” she asks.
“A bar?”
“Yes.”
“As in a pub?”
“Sure.”
Bob frowns. “You want to go out for a drink?”
“Yes.”
“The day before you perform surgery?”
“I need to move around,” Maggie says. “I get antsy before a surgery.”
“You probably won’t be surprised to hear this,” Bob says, “but this tower has some pretty spectacular amenities.”
“Gasp oh gasp, label me surprised.”
Viking Bob smiles. “The penthouse has two private pools. You could get a massage or a holistic healing session or something like that. There’s a fitness center, a gym, a spa, a wellness retreat—”
“What’s the difference between a fitness center and a gym?”
“Damned if I know.”
“How about between a spa and wellness center?”
“Same answer.”
She smiles at him. “How did you get this job, Bob?”
“Served in the military. Same as you. In fact, I think we were both at Camp Arifjan.”
“And then?”
“And then I got offered a boatload of money to work here. It’s not a complicated story.”
“You like it?”
Bob shrugs. “We can make fun of the overindulgence,” he says, “but my wife and I like luxury. It’s safe, no violent crime, tax-free, good health care, high standard of living. The kids seem happy. Why? You looking to move?”
“Hard pass,” she says. “With all those amenities, I assume there’s a bar downstairs.”
“They’d never use the word ‘bar’ here. There is however a wood-paneled exclusive club that offers an upscale social setting for elite and like-minded individuals to mingle.”
“You really memorized that brochure.”
“It looks bad to be scrolling on your phone.”
“Can I go to this club?”
Bob shrugs. “Suit yourself. This isn’t a prison.”
“Kinda feels like one.”
“It does, doesn’t it? Third floor.”
He leads her to a glass elevator. There are no buttons inside. She steps in, and he says “Private club” out loud. The elevator doors close and it whisks her down. It moves fast, silently; Maggie feels a little pressure in the ears.
The private club is varnished wood and low lights.
The barkeep is tall and female and looks as though she just came off a Paris runway.
The premium liquor bottles behind her are lit from below, which makes them appear even more premium.
The men strewn about are a variety pack, but they all look middle-aged or older.
The women are, no surprise, younger, far younger, and probably use social media euphemisms like “influencer” or “fitness model.” They are, no question, hot, but extremes—their hair is either jet-black or white blonde, their skin is either darkly tanned or completely pale, and—no judgment here—they’ve all been surgically enhanced or rejuvenated, which, come to think of it, are two more euphemisms.
Maggie gets it. Dubai is a playground for the rich and their most hedonistic urges.
It’s Disney World for grown-ups who don’t want to be grown-ups.
It wants to be salacious and gritty, but it is hard to blend that with the baser need to be safe and comfortable.
There is nothing wrong with having fun, as Charles Lockwood and Trace Packer had pointed out, as long as it’s victimless.
Is this? Victimless, that is. Maggie doesn’t know.
The other issue for Maggie is based on something very simple she’s observed over the years—no one looks happy the day after.
It all feels a tad desperate and sad. These people are rich and successful and powerful and have everything, but it isn’t enough.
That’s the problem. It is never enough. Human nature sees to that.
We get used to every luxury. Even the richest men in the world, we’ve seen over the past few years, can’t be satiated, no matter how much money or power or yachts or women or offspring or hero worship or attention or whatever they have.
Maggie’s parents had introduced her and Sharon to the music of Bruce Springsteen, constantly playing his vinyls on their old record player, and there was a line in the song “Badlands” that the poor man wants to be rich, the rich man wants to be king, and the king ain’t satisfied until he rules everything.
That.
At the bar—yes, it’s still a bar; dress it up, use premium liquors and crystal decanters and upscale glassware, it’s still a bar—Maggie is surprised to see more women than men.
Very few of the women appear to be building residents, though perhaps that’s sexism or ageism on her part.
She doesn’t know the deal, but what seems to be happening at first glance is that the young women sit at the bar.
Alone. There is at least one stool empty next to them.
A man approaches, chats them up for a few minutes, and then they move into a darkened booth.
Hmm, Maggie thinks. Change of plans.
She’d hoped to find a man seated alone and make her approach that way, but perhaps this is better.
As she heads to the bar, she notices three men against the walls in a triangular formation, all with, yep, the black suits and sunglasses, even in this low lighting.
Security. Even in here. Maggie takes a seat next to a too-young, coltish woman with a heavy foundation of makeup.
The young woman—okay, can we be honest and call her a girl?
—stares at her in surprise. Her fake eyelashes are oversize, like two tarantulas lying on their backs in the hot desert sun.
Maggie gives her a big smile and sticks out her hand. “Hi, I’m Maggie.”
The young woman looks suspicious but returns the shake. “Alena.”
“I need a favor, Alena.”
Alena waits, still giving off the wary.
“Can I borrow your phone?” Maggie asks.
Alena looks puzzled. Maggie wonders how fluent her English is. Then Alena says, “I don’t have one.”
“You don’t?”
“I mean, I have one, but… Are you a resident?”
“No. I’m visiting someone.”