Spring Betrayal

by Tom Callaghan

  “Maybe when all this is over,” I said, the words thick in my mouth, “we can get him some help. See he doesn’t have to go back to the orphanage.”

  I wondered if Saltanat guessed the thought in my mind; a ready-made family created out of terror and love. Regaining what I had once lost and never thought to get again.

  “You should shower,” she said, “and clean your shoulder before it gets infected.”

  I started to peel off my clothes, wincing as the dried blood on my shirt tore at my skin, and the wound started to bleed once more. I looked in the mirror, saw a face as worn and creased as my clothes. Stains like black eyes on my face matched the bruise on my forehead, weariness deep in the lines around my mouth. Maybe I was coming to my end, but right then I was too tired to care.

  The hot water in the shower did a little to wake me up; it’s never easy to feel good in clothes you’ve been wearing for three days. I was letting the water wash over my shoulder when I sensed movement behind me.

  Saltanat was naked, dark nipples erect, her hair pinned up to avoid getting wet. She took the soap from my hand and started to wash my back. I began to turn but she put her hand on my good shoulder, to stop me. She rinsed the soap off my back, sliding her hands across, down, and then around my waist. I could feel the weight of her breasts against my back, small and firm, her thighs against mine, and I felt my heart surge.

  “This is going to hurt, Akyl,” she said, washing my shoulder, fingers probing the wound. “You really need to get this stitched properly, but I suppose going to a hospital isn’t really very practical. How about your friend Usupov?”

  “Have you seen the stitches he puts in corpses?” I said, wincing as she cleaned my shoulder. “You’d swear he does it with his eyes shut. Mind you, they don’t ever complain.”

  I shut my eyes and gave myself up to the simple sensation of hot water, smooth skin, hands stroking my waist. Saltanat’s fingers barely grazed my hips, light as cobwebs, circling, moving down toward my thighs. I heard a groan, almost silent as if from a great distance, and wasn’t sure whether it came from her or me. And then, shockingly, I remembered a winter afternoon, in the apartment where Chinara and I lived when we were first married, a dismal studio down in the concrete depths of the tower blocks in Alamedin.

  The building’s heating had broken down, so we spent the entire day in bed, getting up only to run to make chai, our breath white in the bitter cold. Her long hair spread out on the pillow, her eyes closed, smiling with pleasure and contentment as we kissed. In our first bed, where we conceived the child that was never to be born, the center of our universe on that distant endless day. And I remembered another bed, the final one, where the morphine took her from me, piecemeal. Where Chinara had sometimes groaned in her sleep, waiting for nothing more than the ending of pain. An ending I gave her, with my hands and an embroidered cushion.

  I felt Saltanat’s hands take hold of me.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I lied, despite the evidence. I wondered what I could say. I could hear the hesitation in her voice, knew that even ice maidens have fears, insecurities. As do Murder Squad inspectors.

  “I’m just tired, I’ve got a shoulder that looks like it’s been chewed by wolves, an entire police force looking for me, and I’ve been to Jalalabad and back without any sleep.”

  I sensed her pull away from me, felt a wave of guilt mingled with irritation.

  “I’m also not twenty-one anymore,” I added, just to reinforce an already obvious conclusion.

  I looked around to see her already wrapped in a towel. Her face was set, stubborn.

  “I’m aware of that, Inspector,” Saltanat said, her words clipped and impersonal, spat out like bullets. “And I may not be twenty-one either, if you ever decide that you are.”

  She stalked out of the bathroom and shut the door, in the way a braver man than me might call angry. I turned off the water and tried to dry myself on the handkerchief-sized towel Saltanat had been kind enough to leave for me. For the ten thousandth time in my adult life, I realized I knew nothing about women.

  I waited until it was likely that Saltanat was dressed, aware no woman likes being seen half-naked while in the middle of a quarrel. I emerged to see her in yet another all-black outfit, reloading her Makarov.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and I was. “I’m confused, happy you’re here, worried I’m putting you in danger.”

  It wasn’t even close to the whole truth, but when has that ever helped explain things? Memories can betray the present just as easily as providing something to cling onto.

  Saltanat sat back on the bed, lit a cigarette, and watched as I pulled on my socks. I felt less than graceful, but at least she wasn’t pointing a gun at me. The way she cocked her head as she looked at me said I was partially forgiven, but she wasn’t going to say so right away.

  “Sit down and I’ll stitch that shoulder. Again,” she said. It didn’t hurt any less than the last time, which surprised me, since she’d already made the holes. Perhaps she took a little extra time to pull the thread tight. But I knew better than to complain.

  “You’ve got a plan, I hope,” she said, helping me button my shirt.

  “Let’s look at the situation,” I replied, meaning I didn’t. I went through the motions of lighting a cigarette to buy myself a little time.

  Saltanat raised an eyebrow, to show she was ready and waiting.

  “Our strength lies in what Graves doesn’t know. Right? If he knew there were just the two of us, a soon to be ex-cop and a member of the Uzbek security services, he’d just laugh. He can stomp us out whenever he wants; nobody is going to stop him or protect us. He puts the word on the street, and one spring morning, some govnosos we’ve never seen before walks up and puts three .22s in the back of our heads.”

  I drew deeply on the cigarette, feeling the nicotine hit me hard.

  “Nothing we can do about that. But if he thinks he’s up against a rival gang, then we have a chance. Are we trying to take over his heroin routes? Or muscle into the bars and clubs he owns? Or maybe we just want a nice healthy payoff? We’re using the snuff films as our leverage.”

  I paused, thinking I sounded quite plausible, even to myself.

  “The point is, he’s confused. He doesn’t know where the attack is coming from, or why. He’s on the defensive. Any of his allies might be his enemy, and he doesn’t know it. Who can he trust, who might betray him?”

  “That’s all very well,” Saltanat interrupted, “but what are we going to do?”

  “When you don’t know what to do next, you get a very big stick, whack it everywhere, see what emerges from the shit you’ve caused.”

  I reached for my bag, rummaged through it until I found what I wanted.

  “Time to give our friend a very big whack.”

  Saltanat looked scornful.

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “With one of these,” I said, then showed her the hand grenade nestled snugly in my hand.

  Chapter 34

  I’d pretty much passed out on the twin bed nearest the door, my Yarygin on the bedside table, a chair under the door handle. Saltanat took the other bed, and when I woke up, went into the bathroom to get dressed. Still not forgiven, then.

  Breakfast was hot meat samsi at the hotel bar, served by Rustam with his usual charm and conversation. Otabek was still upstairs, asleep. Ten minutes later, we were driving back into the center of the city, roads crowded with traffic, pavements dense with people on their way to work. A blue cloudless sky proclaimed everything was fine, harmless. Saltanat drove, while I cradled the grenade in my lap. A bottle of vodka weighed heavy and dangerous in my jacket pocket.

  “Where did you get the limonka?” she asked, using the nickname that comes from the grenade’s lemon shape.

  “Back when I was still a lowly uniformed police officer, I arrested a dealer with a weight of travka and a couple of these. The weed made it as far as the sta
tion evidence custody room, but I thought it might be dangerous to store explosives down there. And more dangerous once they found their way back onto the street. Custody officers don’t get paid a fortune. So I kept them.”

  “Do they work?”

  “Well, you can’t really do a test firing. I hope so. But it doesn’t have to make a big bang to let Graves know we’re serious. Like the Makarov bullet you once gave me. It’s the thought that counts.”

  “While you’re playing at being a hero of the Great Patriotic War, I’m going to take Otabek to my embassy. I have a colleague, Elmira, who’ll make sure he’s safe until we’ve got this sorted out, one way or another.”

  I nodded agreement. The kid deserved a lot better than life had dealt him so far. And I couldn’t help remembering the way he’d looked when we went back to Rustam’s hotel, any spirit beaten out of him, like a sheep to a ritual slaughter.

  We were close to the house, so we pulled over. It didn’t make sense for the Lexus to be spotted, and the number plate noted. We arranged to meet at the far side of Ala-Too Square, and Saltanat drove off. I pulled an ornate black-and-white felt kalpak hat over my ears, turned the collar of my jacket up, did my best to transform myself into one of the down-at-the-heels men with no job or purpose that wander around every city. It wasn’t hard.

  I wondered if I’d see Saltanat again, then stripped my mind of all irrelevancies and crossed the road. The concrete walls were just as high as I remembered, and the broken glass on top still as evil-looking. The metal gates were shut, and no sound of life from the house inside. There would be guards on the lookout, so I dawdled along, bottle of vodka in hand, faltering a little, just another alkash who drank his breakfast.

  I drew level with the gates, pulled the pin on the grenade, tossed it over the gates. Nothing fancy, no movie-style dramatics, the way you might throw an empty cigarette packet aside. I lurched forward as if I’d caught my shoe on the edge of an uneven pavement, caught my balance the way drunks do, walked on.

  One, two, three, four . . .

  The explosion wasn’t particularly loud and it didn’t blow open the gates. But it was noisy enough, and I heard shrapnel clatter and bang against the metal. A thin smudge of blue-black smoke trickled uncertainly over the gate, and I heard shouting and curses. From the sound of it, I’d managed to cause some major damage to the bodywork of the car, maybe even to a no-neck or two.

  I turned the corner, crossed over the street and up an unpaved alleyway, doubled back toward Chui Prospekt. I put the vodka down on the ground, a present for the next drunk who woke with a thirst and wondered where his next glass was waiting.

  “How did it go?” Saltanat asked, an hour later. I’d taken off the kalpak, adjusted my collar, but as I looked in the rearview mirror, a no-hoper still stared back out at me. I gave myself a jovial wink I was very far from feeling, grinned at her.

  “I imagine the car took the worst of the blast,” I said. “It’s a start, but we can’t sit here chattering. Places to go, people to fuck up.” And then I told her to drive east, toward the bus station.

  On the way, Saltanat explained she’d handed Otabek over to Elmira, a junior colleague at the embassy. She was right in thinking Otabek would probably be frightened of strange men.

  “Right now, he’s safe. Perhaps the best thing is if I organize an Uzbek passport, get him out of the country and away from Graves. What do you think?”

  I nodded; it was a plan, and I couldn’t think of a better one.

  After half an hour, the bus station loomed ahead, depressing in its ugliness. Most cities put their public transport in the less expensive parts of town, and Bishkek is no exception; our bus station is where lots of minivans and marshrutki congregate, as well as shipping containers, clustered together as if shipwrecked on the shore of a long-dried-up sea. Saltanat had made a couple of calls while waiting for me, bought some bits and pieces I’d asked her to get.

  We parked near a container with the initials MG stenciled in Cyrillic on the sides and doors. I took the five-liter can of gas Saltanat had bought, together with a couple of towels, and sauntered over toward the container. As I reached it, as I’d expected, a guard turned the corner and glared at me. Cheap sneakers, dirty jeans, and a greasy leather jacket straight out of Osh bazaar. But the Makarov in his hand was the real thing.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he asked, not unreasonably, I thought.

  “Message for Mr. Graves,” I said, holding my hands wide to show I posed no threat. “It’s about this can.”

  “Yes?” he said, and then recognition made his jaw drop. I’d last seen him watching us drive away from Jalalabad, and I was willing to bet his Makarov had already fired at us once before.

  He grunted as I swung the gas can in a wide arc into his face. The trick is to aim behind the person you want to hit, so the can is traveling with maximum impact when it hits. To say the blow caught him by surprise was an understatement. There was a sound like a meat hammer pulverizing a juicy steak, and the man’s jaw moved about fifteen degrees up and out of true. His eyes crossed, rolled up in his head, then he fell backward, giving himself a second concussion as he slammed against the side of the container. I liberated his Makarov, poured some of the gas onto one of the towels. I stuffed it under the container, near the bricks that supported it from the ground, poured the remainder of the gas into one of the ventilation grills. I threw the can away, lit a match to the corner of the remaining towel. Once it was fairly alight, I threw it to join its cousin under the container. The petrol caught, and I made my way back to the car.

  “What about him?” Saltanat asked, pointing to the unconscious guard, his jacket already beginning to smolder.

  “What about him?” I asked, giving her the hard stare. “He might be one of the guys in the videos. Maybe the one who fucks the little girls. Or truncheons the boys into a pulp. He’ll wake up. Or not. I don’t give a fuck about him.”

  She gave me a look I couldn’t fathom. Maybe impressed, maybe worried. She got out of the car, pulled the thug away from the side of the container.

  “I’ll tell you who he is,” I said. “And then maybe you’ll push him into the flames yourself.”

  “You know him?”

  “Knew him. At the orphanage when I was a kid. You remember I told you about Aleksey Zhenbekov? The bully who beat up the little ones?”

  “This is him?”

  “A lot older, a lot uglier, a whole lot more dangerous. He was the one who shot at us in Jalalabad.”

  Saltanat thought about it for a few seconds.

  “How did he know where we were?” she asked.

  “A leak in Tynaliev’s staff? Or maybe Tynaliev himself. The higher-ups will always fuck you one way or another. We’re little people, pawns, of no importance. But now it’s my turn to fuck someone up.”

  “So no more Mr. Nice Guy, Upholder of Law and Order?” Saltanat said, turning the ignition and steering the car back toward the market.

  “He’s on vacation. Maybe permanently,” I said, glaring out of the window. The sky had become jammed with rain clouds, black and oppressive.

  Chapter 35

  “Who are you? And what do you want?”

  The Voice. Snarling, filled with anger, incredulity that anyone should dare to challenge him.

  “You don’t need to know. What do we want? The folding stuff, of course.”

  “You’re not Circle, I know that. They’ve all filled their beaks from me.”

  I laughed, making the sneer evident. Nothing annoys a pakhan, a big man, more than thinking someone would have the temerity to fuck them over, think they could get away with it. The big man becomes angry, and that means reckless. Then you have him.

  “Times change. People get hungry, prices go up.”

  “Not when I make a deal.”

  “Who said you’d made a deal with us?” I asked.

  Silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Think about what you’ve got. Think about how much
you’re prepared to lose. Not just containers stuffed with questionable goods, but staff, bodyguards. Once they think you’re losing control, they’re out the door and you’re all alone. Keeping that has to be worth something, don’t you think? So think; we’ll be in touch.”

  Saltanat looked across at me as I switched off the phone. It was one of a dozen pay-as-you-go mobiles I’d bought at an Internet café near the railway station, onto which I’d copied Graves’s number. I didn’t know if Graves had the muscle to get them tracked, but I’ve never been one for unnecessary risks. I could see she wasn’t happy. The hotel room had never seemed more cramped.

  “So what exactly is your master plan?” she asked, her voice like a steel bar hitting a table. “I’m assuming—hoping—you’ve got one?”

  “This Graves; he’s got businesses, restaurants, shops, and not a big enough crew to protect them all. Gas bombs, drive-bys, we can keep him hopping from foot to foot, until he doesn’t have the muscle or money to keep himself protected.”

  I slapped my hands together, the way you do when you squash a fly.

  Saltanat shook her head in disbelief.

  “You want to start a war? A one-man war, I might add, because I’m not going to take part in it,” she said.

  I looked at her, shrugged as if to say it was no concern of mine.

  “I thought Gurminj was your friend. My mistake, I guess,” I said. “The identity band on the kid’s wrist links Gurminj’s killers with the rapes and murders. All we have to do is hunt them down.”

  “I know you can be a bastard, Akyl,” she said, and I heard both anger and pity in her voice, “but I never thought you’d be a stupid one.”

  She lit a cigarette, blew smoke at the ceiling.

  “This isn’t about revenge for Gurminj. Or justice for all those dead children. This is about you wanting to die, taking as many of the bad guys with you as you can.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” I said. “Why would I want to die?”

  She stubbed her half-smoked cigarette out, jabbed her finger at me.