I looked down at the doorman, wondering why he looked familiar, then I placed him.
“Your name Lubashov?” I asked.
He looked up at me, wiping a string of vomit from his mouth.
“What’s it to you?” he snarled.
I pulled back my jacket to show I wasn’t in the mood for any shit.
“Your brother?” I said. “Who used to work here? Who got a free ride to the cemetery? Any more tough-guy nonsense from you and you’ll be joining him.”
I raised my hands to show that I wasn’t reaching for my gun, then stuck a finger in his face.
“We’re cool, right? It ends here.”
The doorman simply grunted, turned away to be sick again. Unimpressed by my bravado, Saltanat gestured at the doorway.
“After you.”
“No, no. Ladies first.”
“And what makes you think I’m a lady?” she replied.
I pointed at the doorman, wiping away the vomit on his jacket and almost succeeding.
“You’re not as far as he’s concerned, that’s for sure,” I said, and stepped inside.
The Kulturny might have acquired a new doorman, but otherwise the place remained depressingly unchanged. The dark stairwell leading down to a barely lit hovel. Half the lightbulbs either burned out or simply missing. Two prostitutes in a corner sucking on cigarettes with far more enthusiasm than they ever did for their clients. Boris, the barman, checking the glasses to make sure they were still dirty, and topping up the bottles labeled Stolichnaya with rotgut samogon. And of course, the overlying reek of piss, pivo, and pelmeni that gave the place its unique charm.
Saltanat looked around with her usual impassive glare, pointed to an overweight and balding man leaning against the bar.
“Your squealer?” I asked.
She nodded, and walked slowly toward him. The distance hadn’t given him enchantment, and it got worse as we drew closer. Beads of greasy sweat trickled down his forehead and over his acne-raddled cheeks. It wasn’t warm in the Kulturny—heating costs money and that means less profit—so I guessed he was dripping with fear. He had a thin, mean mouth, like a newly opened scar, and dark eyes that never stopped dancing around in case of trouble. He wore one of those threadbare cheap suits you find in the bazaar, the sort that look shapeless and worn from the moment you put them on, stretched shiny and tight across his shoulders. His bald patch was highlighted by the way his remaining hair was pulled back into a greasy ponytail. I’ve encountered a lot of lowlifes wearing ponytails, and there’s an asshole underneath every one.
I was willing to bet every som in my wallet he’d ask for money before he’d talk. I was equally certain Saltanat would beat any information out of him before a single bill changed hands.
“Kamchybek?” Saltanat asked, her voice surprisingly gentle.
The man nodded, took a long pull at the glass in front of him. A half-empty bottle of Vostok vodka announced it wasn’t his first drink. Rocket fuel to dampen down the fear, anesthetize the nerves. The way his hands shook, I was surprised he managed to drink without adding to the collection of stains on his lapels.
“Who’s this?” Kamchybek asked, his voice a surprisingly high falsetto in such a big man.
“He’s with me,” Saltanat replied, not answering the question. Finding out I was Murder Squad and on the run wouldn’t inspire him with confidence, I knew that. So I kept my mouth shut and my jacket closed to keep the gun from scaring him.
“I said only you,” Kamchybek whined, in a squeak so high I looked around for bats.
“Do I look that stupid?” Saltanat asked.
I thought she looked deadly, a warrior queen dressed in black, but saying so wouldn’t be helpful.
“He’s here to protect you,” she continued, her eyes never leaving his face.
“Protect me from what?” he asked, his eyes wide and terrified.
“From me beating you into a coma if you’ve wasted my time, if you lie to me about anything.”
“Hey, I called you, right? Why would I lie?”
“Let’s call it misdirection.” Saltanat’s mouth smiled, her eyes threatened.
Kamchybek took another blast of rocket fuel, pointed first at the bottle, then at us.
I shook my head. Saltanat merely looked pained.
“I’ll be honest with you, okay? I’m not saying I’ve never done anything wrong, who can? I sell a little travka to smoke from time to time, maybe a DVD player or a cell phone that’s a tiny bit toasty. But I have limits, principles. You understand?”
We both nodded: I knew where this conversation was taking us.
“I keep my ears open, always good to know what’s hot, what’s not, get a stride ahead of the competition. But I was in here the other night, a little bit of business, and there are two guys, hammered, talking some shit, real shit, you understand?”
Saltanat looked over at me, made a gesture of impatience. I held up my hand to stop her, nodded encouragement to him. Good cop, bad cop routine. I’ve done a lot of interrogations over the years; it’s always more productive to say as little as possible, let the truth fall through the silences in between the lies.
“They were boasting to each other about the sex they liked. Rough stuff. Kids. Said it didn’t matter, boy or girl. Long as the kids got hurt.”
Saltanat’s eyes narrowed, so I spoke before she could kick off.
“Two drunks talking in a bar. Spinning the usual lies about how often they get laid, and with whom. Nothing new there. Maybe all just fantasy,” I said.
Kamchybek shook his head, and looked across at the two street-meat women.
“That’s what I thought at first. This place doesn’t attract the best kind of crowd.”
He paused, demolished another vodka.
“Anyway, they finished their bottle, staggered off with a couple of working girls for an alleyway fuck. But one of them, the one with the beard, he left his phone behind. One of those fancy ones that connect to the Internet. Worth a few som. So I slipped it into my pocket, finished my shot, headed for home. I didn’t want them coming back and asking me if I’d seen a cell phone waiting to be stolen. They both looked pretty capable, not big, but muscular, and I’m in no shape to be running. Never was much of a fighter, either.”
“And?” I prompted.
“Got home. Switched it on, pressed a few buttons. And a film started playing.”
Saltanat and I waited as Kamchybek wiped his forehead with a handkerchief that had been clean around the turn of the century.
“Well, it was . . . well, I’d never seen anything like it. And I’ve been around. Even used to be a bit of a ladies’ man when I was younger.”
Now it was my turn to be impatient. The longer I stayed in the Kulturny, the more likely it was someone who knew me would put a call into Sverdlovsky station, and then I’d be dancing in the soundproofed basement room where we do the hard talking.
“Let’s speed it up, shall we? What made you decide to call my colleague here?” I asked.
“The two men, I got the feeling they were connected, protected. Just the way they didn’t seem to give a fuck whether anyone was listening. I’d heard a whisper about that porn mule being arrested in Tashkent, so I put in the call, got your colleague here. Didn’t want to risk talking to the wrong person.”
Kamchybek reached into his pocket and pulled out an iPhone. Still not speaking, he pressed a couple of buttons and the cell phone lit up. He handed it over to me as a film clip started playing.
The clip was shaky and slightly out of focus to begin with, then became clearer. It opened with a close-up of a wrist, wearing an identity band. The sight of it tugged at my guts, remembering the one I wore in the orphanage. I tilted the phone so that no one else in the bar could see the screen, and muted the sound. Saltanat moved closer to me so that she could also watch.
What we saw was horror.
The boy must have been about nine, but the look of terror in his eyes was ancient. His mouth was op
en, a silent scream, which stopped only when a man’s hand slapped him hard across the face.
I heard Saltanat gasp beside me, and felt her turn away.
“I’ve seen this,” she said, disgust overwhelming her voice. “In fact, I can’t stop seeing it.”
I watched on, the rape, the murder. The bar’s stink of pelmeni, sour beer, and stale piss smelled stronger, my stomach rising in nausea. The images swam before my eyes, as if I was watching from the bottom of Lake Issyk-Kul, and I wondered if I was going to faint.
Then I was bending forward, dry retching, the taste of bile sharp as razors in my throat.
That was when I felt a sting in my left shoulder, looked up to see Kamchybek’s eyes open wide, as a red poppy bloomed on his chest.
Blood. Not his blood. Mine.
Chapter 18
Ignoring the fire in my shoulder, I turned to see Lubashov, the doorman from outside, Makarov in hand, struggling with the magazine, his face twisted with rage and fear.
I reached across my waist to grab my gun with my right hand, but Saltanat already had her Makarov out, left hand gripping her right wrist, the gun pointed arm’s length at Lubashov’s head. I’ve always believed that center mass of the body is the best target to put someone down—it’s how I’d killed his brother—but there’s no doubt staring into a small black circle of death focuses the mind to a surprising degree.
“Down. Don’t think about it, do it. Gun down or I put you down,” Saltanat commanded, taking a step forward. I could see Lubashov calculating the odds on unjamming his gun, taking aim, and pulling the trigger. He didn’t stand a chance.
It was one of those moments when time freezes, cigarette smoke suspended against the ceiling lights, a moment of gray, where everything becomes electric and vivid. I looked over my shoulder. There was a scorch mark on my jacket as if someone had tapped me with a red-hot poker, and a certain amount of blood, but nothing I’d need a transfusion for. If I hadn’t bent down to gag though, it would have been very different. With no need for a blood transfusion.
Like a man doing a mime act in extreme slow motion, wading through particularly sticky glue, Lubashov lowered the gun down on the floor. It looked as if Mother Lubashova wouldn’t need to buy a second tombstone. But Saltanat didn’t take her eyes off his hands, her gun off his face.
“You’ve got a good explanation for trying to kill a police officer?” she said.
Lubashov looked about to burst into tears.
“My brother,” he mumbled, said something nonsensical about revenge. Over the years of what I laughingly call my career, I’ve learned that the weakness of all these wannabe gangsters is that they mistake violence for an instant solution instead of a last resort. But shooting a Murder Squad detective will bring a wealth of shit down on everyone, even if he’s wanted for questioning.
Saltanat moved forward, beckoning Lubashov back with her gun, until she could pass his gun back to me.
“How badly are you hurt?”
I shrugged, nonchalant, immediately wished I hadn’t.
“We can pick up some bandages once we leave. It’s just a graze; I’ve had worse shaving cuts.”
More bravado on my part that Saltanat chose to disregard.
“What do you want to do with this one?” she asked, nodding at Lubashov, who now knelt down and laced his fingers behind his neck.
“Not much I can do, is there? Can hardly ask for him to be taken down to the station, unless I want to share his cell.”
I looked at him, the usual cheap mix of arrogance and uncertainty clear in his face. Bullet fodder, if not now, in the future. I pondered for a moment, then drew my Yarygin, awkwardly, with my right hand.
“I could save us some trouble and kill him,” I suggested, sighting down the barrel in the general direction of Lubashov’s balls. Or where they would have been if Saltanat hadn’t drop-kicked them into his pelvis.
Lubashov’s face grew smudged with gray.
“Plenty of room for you next to your brother,” I added, “and then your dear old mama only needs one marshrutka bus ticket to visit the pair of you. Convenient, eh?”
I moved closer to Lubashov, never letting my eyes drop until my gun loomed large in his life. Despite what he might have thought, I wasn’t going to shoot him. In fact, I’ve never killed or wounded anyone except in self-defense. Maybe that makes me less of a detective. And it certainly doesn’t mean that the innocent dead don’t rise up before me at night. They all stare with accusing eyes, wondering why I hadn’t protected them from the monsters outside, why they’d had to pay such a price in order for me to catch the bad guys. And if they could talk, they’d all ask me the same question: “Why me?”
“If you’re going to do it, then just fucking do it,” Lubashov said, with an unexpected and rather admirable flash of spirit.
“Not my style,” I said, stroking his cheek with the gun barrel while Saltanat kept him covered with her Makarov. “I only shoot villains, not half-assed hopefuls who don’t even know how to put a clip in a gun.”
I gave him one of my special smiles, the one that never reaches my eyes.
“I’m a pretty forgiving kind of guy, but, my job being what it is, I can’t help wondering if there’s another reason you want me dead, other than your brother snoozing in the cemetery. So tell, who put you up to ruining my second-best jacket?”
“Inspector, we really don’t have time for this,” Saltanat said, impatience clear in her voice.
I sighed, knowing she was right. I holstered my piece and unloaded the clip from Lubashov’s gun. The metal felt cold, oily, like the name plaque on a tombstone, like death itself.
“You need to check the tension on the spring, rotate your bullets, keep everything clean, oiled and wiped. Or one day you’ll come up against someone who isn’t as considerate as me, and while you’re wrestling with a misfire, they won’t miss firing at you.”
I looked around at the rest of the bar, at the people frozen in front of me.
“Everyone keep their sticky little hands where I can see they’re not going to give me any trouble. Nice and calm, like taking a walk in Panfilov Park.”
I nodded toward Saltanat, gestured toward the stairs.
“Don’t forget our parrot; I don’t think we’ve heard all his amusing repertoire yet.”
Saltanat took hold of Kamchybek’s arm, and we started off back to the daylight and fresh air.
And that’s when the shooting started.
Chapter 19
One of the first rules of policing is to make sure you’ve cleared every room, not just the one you’re in. But I must have been feeling less than first-rate because I didn’t check out what laughingly passes as the Kulturny bathroom, a piece of guttering fixed to the wall on a slant, so that urine dribbles down into a pipe leading to the sewers.
A classic mistake. And a deadly one.
The man who burst through the door could barely squeeze through the frame. Two meters, easily, and almost as many wide. Hair down to his shoulders, dark glasses hiding his eyes, mouth stretched wide in a scream that echoed around the room. Almost as large, and just as frightening was the Glock 17 semiautomatic pistol he gripped in one meaty paw. He collided with the wall as he raised the gun, fired off two shots. In that confined space, the noise was deafening, an express train roaring through a tunnel.
I was off balance, unsighted, and that gave Lubashov the opportunity to pull at my leg and bring me down. I managed to keep hold of my Yarygin, slammed the butt against Lubashov’s nose. The bone shattered and I was drenched as his blood spurted across my face.
“Maxim!” Lubashov yelled. “Kill them!”
Maxim fired off another shot which shattered the mirror behind the bar and sent bottles cascading and splintering. That was all the time Saltanat needed to fire her own weapon twice, hitting Maxim in the shoulder and stomach, the shots knocking him back on his feet. Surprise turned to an expression of pain as he watched blood leaking out of his shirt. He looked puzzled, the
way people do when they suddenly realize they’ve lost a filling, or their apartment keys are missing. He put out an arm to steady himself, gain time, decide on his next target. I watched as his life struggled to hang on, a man dangling by his fingertips over a spring-swollen river. And then he staggered backward, dropping the gun as he fell.
Gunsmoke rose in a lazy spiral toward the ceiling. The room held its breath in shocked silence. Lubashov clutched the ruins of his face, whimpering to himself. I hauled myself up, holstered my gun.
“Akyl, we have to get out of here,” Saltanat murmured. “Before the law arrives.”
I nodded, looked round to see what Kamchybek was doing.
“We have a problem,” I said, pointing at our not-so-little songbird.
“Fuck,” Saltanat said, looking at the hole in Kamchybek’s face. His left cheek, torn away by one of the Glock’s bullets, revealed an uneven row of yellowing teeth. His face had the sullen cast of a particularly bitter sneer. One eyelid drooped lower than the other, giving him the look of a lecherous pimp who has just reeled in a live one.
I reached forward, picked up the iPhone, slid it into my pocket.
“Come on,” I said, stepping over Lubashov, pausing only to bring my boot heel down hard on his gun hand, before heading for the stairs. “Let’s hope it’s stopped raining.”
We pulled up once more outside Saltanat’s hotel. I saw the hotel’s name embossed on the high metal gates. Umai, after the Kyrgyz goddess of fertility and virginity. Umai is supposed to be the special protector of women and children, so I suppose she’s my boss in the long run. I didn’t think I could rely on any special favors from her. But I’m always willing to hope.
Saltanat tried the remote, but the gates remained shut. She hit the horn, and the gates finally swung open to let us enter. A burly, shaven-headed man in his fifties stood behind the wooden bar under the canopy, sheltering from the rain. Saltanat climbed out of the car, ran over and kissed him on the cheek. He greeted her warmly, looked at me as I joined them. While not openly hostile, he looked at me as if I’d be the cause of trouble for him, his hotel, and his friend.
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