Devil May Care

of araq, a harsh aniseed liqueur to go with a bowl of cantaloupe and peach, served with honey and pistachio cakes. Coffee followed, sweet and thick, then Darius spoke quietly to the waitress.
    ‘Zohreh is happy to come with us, James,’ he said. ‘I told her we’d bring her back in two hours’ time.’
    ‘Zohreh?’
    ‘Yes, it’s a pretty name, isn’t it? It means Venus.’
    ‘The goddess of love?’
    ‘No, the planet, I suspect. But you never know your luck. Let’s go.’
    Farshad was standing by the car, finishing a plate of rice and kebabs that had been sent out to him. He put it down quickly and ran round to open the back door for Zohreh.
    When Farshad had started the car engine, Zohreh spoke to him in Farsi. He chuckled happily and slotted the gear lever into first.
    ‘She’s telling him where to go,’ said Darius. ‘Some special place she knows. It’s just opened. A kind of East meets West, I gather.’
    ‘In the New Town?’
    ‘Certainly not, James. South Tehran, maybe, but a classy place, I promise you. It’s just opened. It has a lot of gimmicks and a lot of Western money behind it.’
    As they moved off, Bond saw the lights of the black Oldsmobile come on behind them. He gestured with his thumb and Darius nodded.
    Farshad drove rapidly down narrow, tree-lined streets. There were fewer cars in this part of town and it was nearly midnight, so the roads had started to empty.
    ‘Hold tight, James,’ said Darius, then barked an order to Farshad, who swung the wheel and took them down a side alley. The wing of the big Mercedes clipped a dustbin and sent it clanging over the cobbles. Farshad stamped on the accelerator, took them blind through a junction, right with a tearing of rubber into an unlit back-street, then three more lurching turns until they emerged on to a wide boulevard, where he dropped his speed and sat back with an evil-sounding laugh.
    ‘Thank you, Farshad,’ said Darius, drily, in English. He put his hand on Zohreh’s to reassure her, but she seemed unperturbed. From what he’d seen in Tehran, Bond thought, it was possible that the girl thought this was normal driving.
    Eventually, they stopped beside what looked like a warehouse, set back in a fenced yard a short way from the street. There were no signs or coloured lights. It reminded Bond of some of the dingier back lots of Los Angeles.
    ‘It’s called the Paradise Club,’ said Darius.
    For Bond, the name stirred the faint memory of an exciting juvenile visit to the gaming tables. They went past the bouncer on the front door, into whose hand Darius pressedsome notes, then down a concrete-lined corridor to double wooden doors with iron studs. A young woman in traditional costume welcomed them and pressed a pedal with her foot. The doors parted silently, letting Bond, Darius and Zohreh into an enormous room, the size of an aircraft hangar, whose furthest wall contained a waterfall cascading over crimson-illuminated rocks into a pool of turquoise water in which a dozen naked women were swimming. Around the pool, arranged as though in a garden, the guests lay on imitation-grass carpets or reclined on loungers and padded chairs, where the chastely clad waitresses brought them drinks and sweetmeats. To one side of the huge area was a raised platform where people danced to Western pop records, but in the ‘garden’ there was a string quintet of traditional Persian musicians.
    Zohreh turned to Bond and smiled, her lips parting over dazzling white teeth. ‘You like it?’
    A young woman approached them and spoke to Darius in Farsi. She wore the same uniform as the doorkeeper – a cream-coloured robe held with a scarlet sash. Although it was quite demure, Bond could see from where the two halves of the material met between her breasts that she wore nothing beneath it. The candlelight and the coloured bulbs in the wall brackets gave a glow to her skin, the colour of rose under gold.
    ‘This is Salma,’ Darius explained. ‘She is here to make sure we enjoy ourselves. There are a number of options open to us. I suggest we look into the opium room first, then the famous hammam.’
    ‘I’m not sure I feel like a Turkish bath,’ said Bond.
    ‘You will,’ said Darius, ‘when you see this one. It’s a rather special kind, I understand.’
    They followed Salma to a raised platform on one side of the huge open area.
    ‘The name Salma, by the way,’ said Darius, into Bond’s ear, ‘means “sweetheart”.’
    ‘Her