‘Are you a coward?’ Ahmad Ghori pointed an index finger at Yusup Baroyev.
‘You insult me.’
‘It is not an insult. It is a question. We can only help if we believe the person we are dealing with is worthy of our assistance. Are you worthy?’
‘To take on the Russians needs a firm plan,’ Baroyev retorted. ‘Not some ideological stand based on a deep-rooted hatred or some religious fervour.’
‘And now you insult us,’ said Ghori. ‘We are not obliged towards the Russians and believe me when I say that we do indeed hate them.’ He banged his fist on the table. ‘But, we are businessmen, not religious ideologues. We came here to help, to form an alliance and to see if you were worthy.’
‘What is your evaluation?’ Baroyev asked.
‘We know of your reputation.’
‘My reputation, good or bad?’
‘Confused would be the best description.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘We trust you, whereas we do not trust the Russians,’ said Ghori. ‘And that is nothing to do with hatred.’
‘You are right not to trust them,’ Baroyev replied. ‘Those you are dealing with are not the people that I have dealt with in the past.’
‘Then who are they?’ Ali Mowllah had listened intently, managed to pick up some of the conversation. He decided to enter into the discussion, as he found Baroyev’s accent to be clearer and more precise than Ghori’s. Tajik and Pashtun were related languages, the common words and sayings outweighed the unusual ones.
‘They are either a renegade offshoot of the Russian mafia, the Bratva, or they are aligned with the senior leadership in Russia.’ Baroyev was reasonably sure of the truth, but he chose not to reveal it at this time. The Afghans were unknown, and they had a fearsome reputation for treachery and double-dealing.
Until he was sure of the two sitting comfortably in his exquisite and expensive chairs, both original and antique, he would keep his own counsel.
He liked the look of Ali Mowllah, who he judged to be in his fifties; an open man, both in his nature and his religion. Yusup had laughed outrageously when told of his amateurish attempt at seduction of one of the housekeepers. Supplying them both with some women would not have concerned him, but Ahmad Ghori did not look the type of man who would accept.
He would endeavour to find out what their preferences were. There was one thing Yusup Baroyev had learnt in life: a man without vices is not a man to be trusted. Besides, he needed an edge that he could hold against them if they decided to cheat on him later on, and he knew an Afghan always would. They saw it as the natural condition of doing business.
‘How do we find out who we are dealing with?’ Ahmad Ghori returned to the reason they were in the country.
Baroyev could not help but smile inwardly when one of the housekeepers brought in some tea. He noticed Ghori glaring at the tight dress clinging to the woman, showing the prominence of her breasts and the curve of her thighs. Ali Mowllah, he had noticed, had crossed his legs to conceal a growing erection. He would come to Farrukh’s party, but how to get him away from Ghori? Maybe he would come if his presence was kept discreet.
‘I will conduct some investigations,’ said Baroyev. ‘It may take a few days, but please feel free to stay here and enjoy my hospitality. I will ensure the Bentley will be here at your convenience, with a driver on twenty-four-hour call. I am having a get-together at the main house to celebrate Farrukh’s return. You are both welcome.’
‘Will this be one of those parties we have heard about?’ Ahmad Ghori asked seriously, with no sign of any humour.
‘I am not sure what parties you have heard about,’ said Baroyev, ‘but it is a party as befits a senior businessman here in the capital. It serves many purposes: it is good for business, it is for entertainment and fun, and it cements my position as the leader of the drug trade here in Tajikistan.’
‘It did until the Russians elbowed in,’ Ghori responded sarcastically.
‘Yes, as you say, but we are in agreement. We will work together to ensure my position is restored. You will receive a more equitable financial deal with a fellow Muslim, instead of with the invader. We suffered under the Russians, although not to the same extent as you. We trust them no more than you do. Hopefully, we can formulate a plan whereby we rid ourselves of them and make more money for ourselves.’
‘Then we agree on that issue,’ Ghori said.
‘So do I,’ Ali Mowllah said, ‘and I will accept your invite. It will be a means of cementing our newfound friendship.’
‘It is not a friendship yet, but hopefully, we can come to some agreement,’ Ghori acknowledged.
‘Will you come as well? As a sign of friendship,’ Baroyev asked, noting that Ahmad Ghori had become increasingly more agreeable.
‘I will not associate with the women.’
‘That is fine. Not all wish to cavort in such a manner. It is a big house. There are plenty of places where you will not be disturbed.’
‘Then I will accept your hospitality as befits our newfound friendship, although I believe that Ali will not be keeping me company,’ said Ahmad Ghori, smiling.
Chapter 18
Oleg’s return to the capital of Tajikistan had given him great relief. There may have been guards to protect him in Afghanistan, but they would not have liked him any more than the general populace. It surprised him how deep the hatred remained after so many years since the Soviet military had exited their country. The people in Afghanistan were haters, and they hated him more than any other. The Americans had come after the Russians, but they did not hate them, only despised, and he had constantly seen reminders of their desire to emulate.
The televisions beaming CNN, or some dreary and inane soap opera, suitably subtitled, seemed to amuse them immensely, while the bazaars were stocked with cheap t-shirts emblazoned with ‘USA’ and ‘New York’. It was incongruous that the south of the country had fought them with a vengeance, yet, in the north, they endeavoured to copy.
He had even seen an old Chevrolet Camaro being driven around the city; the owner, a young man with a wisp of a beard, proudly showing off to his friends. He never saw anyone driving an old Russian car other than the ubiquitous Volga, and they were left for taxi duties. The men in the car, the women in the boot.
He realised that, apart from Farhana ‒ the now dead prostitute – and the Chinese whore in Kabul, he had spoken to no other female from the time he had crossed the border into Afghanistan until he returned back across it.
Not encumbered with transporting two Afghan men as Farrukh had been, Oleg had sought out the services of a woman at the Tajik border town as soon as he had crossed over the bridge separating the two countries. It had been a two-minute affair, just a case of a darkened room around the back of a fabric shop, trousers around his ankles, skirt hitched up above her waist and both standing up with her voluminous arse banging against the side of the wooden walls. It had cost him the equivalent of twenty American dollars. If the urge had not been so great, he would have bargained the price down to ten.
He had left satisfied, hopefully disease-free, as he had not bothered with a condom – he did not have one, and neither did the woman, who was probably teeming with pubic lice. He promised to get himself checked out once he reached the capital, which he did; however, apart from a nasty rash, which some cream would deal with, he was fine.
His new bosses had organised accommodation for him, not as good as Yusup had provided, but it was adequate. He knew it would not be long before he would be living as well as before. It was two blocks from his old apartment and, in the weeks to come, he would often see Farrukh wafting around at the wheel of his Mercedes with one or another quality woman sitting in the passenger’s seat.
For him, there were women, not so many and not as beautiful as Farrukh’s, but then it was up to him to pay for them now, even seduce them if cost became an issue. After some weeks in Afghanistan, he had to admit he did not look as presentable as b
efore. The complexion of his skin was blotchy, no doubt due to a lack of the appropriate vitamins. The vegetables and fruit had not suited his palate, and he had avoided them as much as possible. The enforced diet of chicken and rice, adequate if basic, had kept him sustained, but it had not been a balanced diet.
He also noticed his previously firm physique was becoming flabby. It was clear that the wooing of any quality woman would require him to get in better physical shape. One thing the Russian mafia insisted on was a smartly-dressed individual, even for their killers, although he hoped his killing days were behind him. For Farrukh, he would make an exception, but that was personal.
***
It came as a surprise to Oleg when he saw Malika. It was on one of the days that he attended the gym. He had lost five kilos and was looking a lot better. She was coming in as he was going out. It was fortunate she was looking the other way.
He had to admit she looked well and fit and happy. Even the tattoos, so badly gouged into the skin of a pallid and dissolute whore in a drug smugglers’ village, as she had been, looked acceptable on her skin, now silky smooth and lightly tanned.
‘Who’s the classy-looking woman?’ Oleg asked the attendant at the exit door of the gym. He made it seem as though he was making idle conversation, whereas he was earnest in ascertaining all that he could.
He had not forgotten her, still regretted what he had done and hoped that, maybe, there was a chance of forgiveness; a patching up of an old friendship, maybe even the rekindling of a romance. Two lost souls down on their luck reborn. It seemed a clichéd movie theme, but perhaps for them, it could be true. His idle speculation did not last long.
The attendant, an effeminate-voiced man with bulging muscles and barely any neck, after numerous push-ups with weights too heavy and an unhealthy addiction for under-the-counter steroids, regarded gossip as more important than reality.
‘Her? The stunner?’ the attendant asked. Maybe the effeminate-voiced man still fancied women? Oleg thought. But then, the steroids would have shrunk his testicles. He was probably impotent, as well. Fancy them he may, but there would be nothing he could do about it.
‘Yes, the stunner,’ Oleg responded.
‘Keep away from her, unless you want to sing soprano.’
‘What do you mean?’ Oleg asked.
‘She’s Yusup Baroyev’s woman. You know who he is?’
Oleg was visibly shocked, which caused the attendant to ask more questions than he would otherwise have.
‘You know him?’ the attendant badgered, anxious to glean any information to gossip around the gym.
‘No, who’s he?’ replied Oleg.
The attendant could smell a lie. Everyone knew who Yusup Baroyev was, rich or poor, honest or dishonest. A denial was tantamount to hidden secrets; he would endeavour to pull them out of Oleg.
‘She’s his mistress. He’s screwing her and, from what I’ve heard, often. Apparently, his wife was raising complaints so he shipped her off to Europe. If his woman is here, he won’t be too far behind.’
‘What about his parties?’ Oleg realised that he had let slip that he knew of Yusup Baroyev. The attendant, who said his name was Tolib, had asked too many questions. He was bound to say something to Malika, perhaps even Baroyev if the opportunity arose.
‘Are you free for lunch?’ Oleg casually asked.
‘I was just about to go now. What do you have in mind?’ Tolib asked.
‘Somewhere local where we can talk. I’m interested to hear more about who’s who in this city.’ Oleg thought his response, suitably obtuse, suitably enticing for the attendant to agree. He was proven correct in his assumption.
‘There’s somewhere not far from here,’ said Tolib. ‘A small restaurant, it does an excellent line in home-cooked food. It’s a bit expensive for me, but if you’re paying…’
‘I’m paying,’ Oleg said.
***
The restaurant was indeed expensive, but Oleg regarded it as money well spent.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘what you know about the woman.’
‘Malika,’ replied Tolib. ‘She apparently had a rough time when she was younger but now very cosy with Baroyev.’
‘And what about Yusup Baroyev?’
‘What’s to tell? He’s a big man in the drug business, which makes him a big man in Dushanbe.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Oleg asked, suitably naïve.
‘Money,’ said Tolib. ‘It’s all to do with money, and he’s got more than anyone else.’
‘The parties, do they still happen?’
‘Oleg…’ It was the first time the attendant had ventured to address him by name. ‘What do you know about him and why did you pretend not to know him before?’
‘It’s sometime in the past. I did not want to be too open with you. Baroyev’s a dangerous man, and I need to meet up with him, but not before I’ve ascertained the lay of the land, so to speak.’
‘You can trust my discretion,’ the gym attendant said. Oleg knew he could not.
‘The parties, what about the parties?’ Oleg continued.
‘They still continue. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard they are something special. Plenty of naked women, best-quality whores that money can buy and as much drink and food as you can consume.’
‘Does the stunner go?’
‘I’m told she turns a blind eye and keeps well away when they’re on.’
At the end of the meal ‒ and with Tolib consuming the best part of a couple of bottles of wine and three, maybe four stiff shots of whisky, they left the restaurant, ostensibly heading back to the gym.
Not that the attendant was in any fit state to work. Once in the comfortable seat of Oleg’s car, with the heater turned up too warm, he drifted off into a deep sleep.
Oleg took a turn away from the direct route back to the gym and headed down a side track, hidden from the main road, not more than three hundred metres distant. A disused quarry, open-cut and flooded after years of abandonment, proved the ideal place.
The gym attendant, semi-conscious after the effects of the alcohol had lessened, did not see the thick handle of the wheel brace as it came crashing down on his head. Oleg then applied a firm lock on his head and around his neck and twisted with force, until an audible crack could be heard. Tolib’s neck was broken; he was dead.
A rope in the boot of the car allowed Oleg to attach the overly curious gym attendant’s body to some heavy metal parts lying around the area, evidently belonging to a crane’s infrastructure in the past when it had been an operating quarry. He then threw the body over the cliff, into the murky water below. The only witnesses, a couple of ducks, startled by the body hitting the water. They flew off to the other side of the lake.
Oleg had not wanted to kill, had vowed not to, but Malika with Baroyev presented a complication he had not foreseen. He had been discreet at the gym, careful to avoid the direct gaze of the waiters at the restaurant.
What to do about Malika, he was not sure, but he did not want to kill her. Quite the opposite, in fact, but there was Baroyev to consider. If she had told him about the incident at the smugglers’ village, his life would be in jeopardy, more than it already was, and his life was more precious than that of a whore.
Oleg’s day had not turned out as he had hoped and, that night, he took solace in a bottle of whisky. He saw that Dushanbe was not a place for him to remain for too long, and an immediate return to Russia was needed. However, there was still the issue of the KGB man, who was determined to avenge the death of his brother.
He did not understand why, as he had a brother and did not care whether he lived or died. The brother, Arkady, had been five years older than him, a bully as a boy and a thug as an adult. He was now resting between short periods of freedom in Kresty Prison in St. Petersburg – where, apparently, he had attained a position of authority due to his violent beating of anyone who got in his way.
Oleg had not seen him for ten years and had no intention of paying him a
brotherly visit, even if the chance arose.
***
Oleg’s primary contact, Gennady Denikin, had been more forthcoming on his return. Before his trip into Afghanistan, Denikin had been nameless. Oleg did not like him particularly. He was always accompanied by his protector, Viktor Gryzlov.
Denikin, the gentleman gangster, was how Oleg saw him. A precise little man who fidgeted excessively whenever he sat for more than five minutes. He had the mind of an accountant, which he had been before he had been struck off for fiddling the books of the government department he had worked for in Moscow. It had cost him five years of his life in a particularly unpleasant prison, doing hard labour.
Valentina Brezhnev, no relative to a previous President of Russia, had seduced him one night late after work when he was drunk, and she was in need of another benefactor. Her last paramour, a middle-ranking civil servant, was no longer able to keep her in the manner she required, which was expensive.
A shampoo for her beloved poodle cost the equivalent of two hundred American dollars. The apartment where she lived, and where she regularly serviced the middle-ranking civil servant, cost more than three thousand dollars a month in hard currency, cash on the table. And then there were the designer clothes and the trips to Paris during fashion week. Somebody had to pay.
The civil servant, his name was not important to her, only his ability to corrupt the money out of the department he worked for. He was adept at issuing lucrative contracts to companies which did not deserve them, but paid him plenty to ensure they did. Or payments for ignoring the shoddy work delivered afterwards and issuing them certificates of compliance.
The civil servant had been of a similar temperament to Denikin. An overactive mind, continually doing the figures in his head and a similar taste in women: voluptuous, with bouffant hairdos, overly red lipstick and bosoms that came through the door well in advance of the body they were attached to. Valentina Brezhnev satisfied on all counts.
Malika's Revenge: A Powerful Mix for a Complex Noir Novel. An Organized Crime Thriller - not for the faint-hearted Page 22