The Ayatollah's Money

  Chapter 3 – At The Savoy

  The doorman at The Savoy looked down from the top of the marble entrance steps at the beautiful woman with dark hair and dark eyes. He liked what he saw in her face, but he didn’t like the scruffy duffel bag slung over her shoulder, or her black jeans and black sneakers. Being English, he of course thought of her shoes as trainers. But he had seen lots worse, what with all the rich rock stars that stayed at his hotel, and he had learned to be careful about pre-judging people based on their clothes. He had gotten a $500 tip from a skinny little junky once, who had a piece of wood protruding through her left cheek.

  Laleh looked up the steps at the doorman and smiled, which just about melted his cynical heart. Jesus, what a smile. During her stopover in Cairo she had not checked the status of the funds transfer on her tablet, but had done so after getting off the plane at Heathrow. Part of the motivation was curiosity and part was pragmatism. She had about thirty dollars in her wallet and needed to know if she was going to sleep on a London street that first night in town, or in a hotel. It didn’t take her long to navigate to the new account in the Caribbean bank, and check her balance. When the figure $100,000,000 was displayed on the tablet screen, she thought, well, I guess I can afford the hotel. And that is why she now smiled at the doorman of The Savoy, and hoped he would to let her in. She didn’t know much about English hotels, or about doormen, or about being rich. She knew a lot about computer programming, and about Iranian culture, in which she had been saturated her whole life, and that was all, never before having left her country. After checking her bank balance at the airport and seeing the substantial figure, she had asked at the information booth for the name of a hotel, and the wiseass young guy jokingly had told her, try The Savoy, and so here she was.

  The doorman would have opened the door to her based on her smile alone, even if she had been dressed in rags and pulling a shopping cart behind her. She climbed the steps, nodded to him, entered the glorious lobby, and looked around at all the people, twenty-five percent of whom worked there, The Savoy being big on personal service. Her scan showed the concierge desk, the gift shop that sold real diamond jewelry, a large arched doorway leading to a restaurant, and the registration desk. The clothes worn by the guests ranged from fancy to not so fancy, so she didn’t stand out too much, though one of the three house detectives present decided he would watch her for a while. Part of this was professional interest and part was the beauty of her face, completely without makeup. Laleh walked to the registration desk, and said, “May I have a room please?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, what type of room would you prefer?” said the clerk.

  “Oh, a nice room, please.”

  “We have a one room suite with bedroom and living room, with a view of the river?”

  “Please.”

  “How many nights, Ma’am, and how will you be paying for that?”

  Laleh hadn’t planned this far ahead. She had spent ten years learning financial skills and planning the theft, and had decided that was all the preliminary work she was going to do. She had all the self-confidence in the world, and knew she could figure out the apre-theft stuff as she went along, but now, here, reality intruded. How long was she going to stay in London, and more importantly, how was she going to pay for the room? She didn’t even know how much the room cost. “How much is the room?”

  “820 pounds per day, Ma’am.”

  Laleh knew currencies, and instantly calculated the equivalent value in rials and dollars, thinking, ‘Wow.’ Then she thought, ‘That’s considerably more than the $30 I have in my pocket.’ She asked, “Does this hotel have a courtesy account system?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, but only the Manager can authorize that. May I get her for you?”

  Laleh nodded, went to a sofa upholstered in yellow satin, and sat down. Five minutes later a women dressed in a thousand dollar wool suit approached her, and said, “May I help you?”

  Laleh said, “I’d like to transfer some funds into your courtesy account, please.”

  The woman maintained a neutral look on her face while she evaluated the probability that the person in front of her was legitimate. Unable to decipher Laleh from her clothes and demeanor, she fell back on a standard ploy. “Of course, Ma’am. We do have a minimum required amount, and we do charge a substantial service fee.” Laleh raised her eyebrows in inquiry, and the woman said, “The minimum transfer amount is ten thousand pounds, and the fee is twenty percent.”

  Laleh said, “That’s fine.”

  Courtesy accounts are used by high end casinos and hotels that cater to the very wealthy, having found over the years that it's in their best interest to facilitate the transfer of large sums of money to their clients and guests, because some of it usually rubs off locally. The woman was a little surprised, but then smiled and asked Laleh to follow her to her office, where she prepared the paperwork. She asked Laleh if she would like coffee while she waited, and Laleh accepted, jetlag having appeared. Ten minutes later the Manager handed the paperwork to Laleh, who read and signed it. The Manager said, “The routing code is at the bottom. The service fee will be debited automatically, and the balance deposited in your personal Savoy account. We will have a debit card prepared for you. I’ll leave you in private.”

  Laleh said, “No need.” She pulled her tablet out of her duffel bag, powered it on, worked it for three minutes, powered it off, and looked expectantly at the Manager, who swiveled her chair around to her computer. In a minute she was looking at the courtesy account register, and was pleased to see 16,000 pounds in Laleh’s account. It always was a good sign when a guest doubled the minimum deposit. She swiveled away from the computer to a small machine next to it, and two minutes later handed Laleh a plastic card with the name of the hotel stenciled across the top and her name and account number on the bottom. She said, “Welcome to The Savoy. Please let me know if I can be of service to you.”

  Ten minutes later Laleh was in her suite, looking out the window at the river. She thought, so far, so good.