pulled up and we piled out.
There were two more armed guys in front of the place, and they definitely recognized Mr. Buckminster Harris. In fact, they greeted him in Russian, and Buck replied in Russian with what must have been a joke, because the two guys laughed.
Ironic, I thought, that Buck Harris, who’d spent most of his professional life trying to screw the Russians, was now yucking it up with them in Yemen, where he’d spent part of the Cold War spying on the now-defunct Evil Empire. If you live long enough, you see things you could never have imagined.
We entered the Russia Club, and the maitre d’ saw me and shouted, “Ivan! It is you! Excellent. Tatiana is here tonight. She will be delirious with joy!”
Just kidding.
But the maitre d’, Sergei by name, did know Buck, though not Paul Brenner, which disappointed me. I would have liked to discover that Mr. Cool dropped his paycheck here every month, boozing and whoring. Kate, too, would find that interesting.
Anyway, the place looked a bit sleazy, which it was. There was a long bar to the right, a raised stage, and a ceramic-tile dance floor surrounded by tables, half of which were empty. A DJ was playing some god-awful seventies hard rock, and a few couples were on the dance floor, looking like they were having seizures.
The bar was crowded with casually dressed men and barely dressed women. I mean, I haven’t seen so much deep cleavage since I drove through the Grand Canyon. The men looked Western—Europeans and Americans—and most of the ladies appeared to be from Eastern Europe and Russia, though there were a few black ladies who, I’d once been told, were from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, which is not far from here if you cross the pirate-infested Red Sea. Also at the tables were a few Western-looking women accompanied by their gentlemen friends or husbands. I recognized two men and women from the embassy, but they didn’t wave.
If there were any Yemeni customers or service staff in the Russia Club, I didn’t see them. In fact, I’m sure one selling point of this place was the promise that you didn’t have to see a single Yemeni, unless you stayed until closing time and watched them mop the floor under the eye of armed Russians.
Kate broke into my thoughts and asked me, “Been here before?”
“They’ve named a cocktail after me.”
Anyway, Sergei escorted us to a table, though I’d have preferred the bar.
Buck ordered a bottle of Stolichnaya on ice, a plate of citrus fruit, and zakuskie—snacks.
My last case, involving The Lion, had taken me to a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, which is home to many Russian-Americans. The club, Svetlana by name, was a lot more opulent than this place, and the clientele were mostly immigrants from the motherland on a nostalgia trip. This place, named simply the Russia Club, was the Village of the Damned in the Country of the Lost.
Anyway, the vodka came quickly and we toasted, “Na Zdorov’e.”
Kate seemed comfortable enough in the proximity of horny guys and hookers, and her only complaint was the volume of the bad music.
Mr. Brenner asked her to dance, of course, and she accepted and walked unsteadily onto the slippery dance floor with Brenner holding her arm.
Buck said to me, “She’s a delightful woman.”
“She is,” I agreed. More so when she’s had a few. However, if it was me who’d suggested coming here, she might not be such delightful company.
Kate slipped on the tile floor, but Brenner caught her, and Kate kicked off her shoes and they danced to some horrid disco tune.
An attractive, scantily clad lady came over to the table carrying a tray suspended from a strap around her neck, and in the tray were two huge hooters and a selection of cigars and cigarettes. Take your pick.
Buck found three Cubans hiding under the lady’s left humidor, and gave her a twenty-dollar bill, which included tax, tip, and a light.
The lady said to Buck, in a heavy Russian accent, “I don’t see you for many weeks.”
Buck replied in Russian, and the lady laughed and tousled his thinning hair. Buck was apparently still fucking the Russians.
The lady checked me out and asked, “You are new in Sana’a?”
“I feel I’ve been here all my life.”
“Yes?” She further inquired, “Is that your wife or girlfriend? Or his?”
“My wife, his girlfriend.”
She thought that was really funny, then said to me, “Maybe I see you again.”
“Tomorrow night.”
So Buck and I sat