A Spring Betrayal (16 page)

Saltanat disappeared to the toilets downstairs with Otabek, and I waited until they emerged, his face now clean but still scared and distrustful. A pretty Kyrgyz waitress with bleach-blond hair and a crop top showing her navel ring came over to serve us.

“What would you like to drink, Otabek?” Saltanat prompted. “Moloko? You like pizza?”

The boy said nothing, but nodded, never letting go of Saltanat’s hand. Saltanat ordered milk, a Baltika Nine, the strong stuff, for herself, and pizza. I asked for coffee. When it came, it was lukewarm. We’re really much better at making
chai
.

Otabek sipped at his milk, eyes wary, saying nothing.

“Close call,” I said, stirring my coffee, the spoon rattling against the cup as my hands shook. Saltanat said nothing, rummaging through her bag for a pack of cigarettes. She lit up, snorted smoke through her nose, watching as it dissolved into nothing. Her eyes looked across the bar, but I sensed she saw nothing but muzzle flashes, heard nothing but gunfire that clattered like pebbles on a tin roof. And beyond that, a vision of the Voice, sprawled on the gravel, executed with a bullet in the back of his head.

“You’ll need to stitch me up again,” I said. “Sorry.”

Saltanat nodded, showing as little surprise as if I’d asked her directions to the bus station. I reached into my jacket to find my own cigarettes, but instead found myself holding the papers I’d liberated from the house.

They were crumpled and spotted in places with blood I sincerely hoped was mine, but still legible. I spread them out and started to read. I pushed the top page toward Saltanat, but she ignored it, continuing to stare out at her recent brush with mortality.

It looked like a bank statement, but in English, so all I could understand were the figures. Pretty impressive numbers, almost four million in some unstated currency. Great if it’s in dollars, even better in pounds, not to be sniffed at even in
som
.

“You wouldn’t know what this means, would you?” I asked Saltanat. She broke away from her reverie just long enough to scan the top page.

“It’s a bank statement, Akyl, even you must have seen one before,” she said.

“Never with so many zeroes in it,” I replied. “Do you know what currency it’s in?”

“Euros, most likely, since it’s from a Spanish bank,” she said. “What does it matter? It’s not like you have the ATM card to go with it.”

“No,” I said, annoyed by the sarcasm, “but there’s a clue right there, at the top of the page.”

Saltanat looked at it, then over at me, and smiled.

“You must be a detective.”

“It’s a name. It’s just a shame I can’t read it, with it not being in Cyrillic. English was never my strong point at school, so I never learned the letters.”

“Did your mother never tell you to study hard?”

I gave a bitter smile, and lit another cigarette, stirred the lumps in my coffee into submission.

“Not when she was away working in Siberia. And no one at the orphanage gave me much encouragement either.”

Saltanat gave me an appraising look, sensing the pain, the resentment I carry with me like a hunchback with his bent spine. I’d like to
think I’m not bitter about some of the cards I’ve been handed out. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have the scars. Only one person ever gave me the support I’d wanted, needed, and she was dead and buried in a grave I’d helped dig. There’s no statute of limitations when it comes to mourning and missing someone you loved, and still love. And if there’s one thing I’ve discovered, it’s that sorrow never leaves you.

“I was a good girl, top of the class, I know my letters,” she said.

“And?”

“The name of the account holder?”

“Yes.”

Saltanat studied the letter again, taking her time, keen to make the most of my impatience.

“The very rich gentleman is called Graves. Mr. Morton Graves.”

I shrugged.

“Never heard of him,” I said.

Saltanat tapped the bank statement.

“I have,” she said, spacing her words for extra effect. “And he’s very rich. Very powerful. And very dangerous.”

I had no answer to that, and no idea what to do next.

Chapter 32

I looked over at Otabek, who was concentrating on his pizza.

“So?” I said, once again unsure if Saltanat shared everything she knew, or if I was just a useful sidekick. “You know about this all-powerful pervert?”

“Let me tell you about Morton Graves,” Saltanat said, “and then you’ll have some idea what we’re up against.”

She screwed up the bank statement and placed it in the ashtray in front of us, using her lighter to set fire to one corner. I watched as the paper started to char, smolder, then burn, the flame eating the numbers, until black ash remained. Otabek stared at the flames, drank the rest of his milk, taking huge gulps. The pizza had vanished, so I guessed feeding him hadn’t been a priority for Morton Graves.

Saltanat ground the ashes into powder and looked across at me.

“We don’t want to be caught with any evidence of breaking and entering, do we? And it’s not as if having a bank account is illegal.”

“Even a rich man’s bank account?”

“Especially one of those,” Saltanat replied.

“So who is this man?”

Saltanat sipped at her beer, lit another cigarette, offered me her pack. For the ten thousandth time, I decided I was going to give up and shook my head.

“Morton Graves is an American citizen, although he hasn’t lived in the States for over twenty years. He’s been here in Bishkek for the last ten years, and his visa application describes him as a ‘businessman and entrepreneur.’”

“And you know this, how?” I asked.

Saltanat looked at me with the pitying glance she saved for my more foolish questions.

“Telepathy? Astrology? Educated guesses? If your ministry had any more leaks, you’d run out of buckets. And we like to keep a friendly eye on our neighbors.”

I nodded. Central Asia isn’t noted for principles before payments, and most upright citizens would dip their beaks if it meant a few
som
in their pockets.

“He has businesses here?”

“And Almaty, Tashkent, even Dushanbe; he’s a big player in the region. He’s a major investor in telecoms, cotton in Kazakhstan, a private bank in Uzbekistan, hotels, supermarkets, a couple of restaurants, precious metals, anything that wets his palm.”

“Drugs? Heroin,
krokodil
?”

Saltanat shrugged, took another mouthful of Baltika, watching the bubbles simmer in the glass, tracing the condensation with a single scarlet-tipped finger.

“Rumors, but no one’s ever proved anything. And if he’s connected to the drug trade, then it would have to be with the consent of the Circle of Brothers. Payoffs, a quiet word in the right ear at the right time.”

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a lot of the criminal gangs in the former “stans” grouped together in a loose collective called the Brothers’ Circle. Each of the countries has their own crime boss sitting at the table with their foreign counterparts, doling out territories, alliances, joint operations in information, not just in Central Asia but in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East, the
UAE in particular. Drugs are the big money-spinner, but they branch out into robbery, prostitution, counterfeiting, smuggling, anything else that can make money and isn’t legal. Devotion is absolute: break the rules and the only question is just how long it will take you to die, and how painfully. Even the Russian gangs admit to being lightweight in comparison.

The Circle’s possible involvement wasn’t the best news I’d ever heard, especially since I’d been involved in the assassination of Maksat Aydaraliev, the local crime boss in Bishkek. If Graves was linked to the Circle, he probably wasn’t a very nice man.

I looked over at Saltanat, felt the weight of the iPhone in my pocket, the weight of its contents heavy on my conscience.

“I suppose Tynaliev knows who he is,” I said. “Maybe even does business with him?”

“You think you’re being set up by him?” Saltanat asked.

Now it was my turn to shrug. I thought about the films I’d seen, gaping mouths with screams torn out of their throats, the eyes filled with dread, knowing there was no help or hope left. I saw how the knives filleted slices of flesh, rivulets of blood spilling over the chains and leather straps that held the children down. The weeping, the pleading, and then, finally, resignation, eyes filming over as death approached.

“It doesn’t matter. Only one thing does.”

I wasn’t surprised at the anger in my voice. I could see the masked man smiling, enjoying the degradation, the terror, the despair. The glint of camera lights off the blade, and then the blood.

“I want the bastard who did all this. Not to send him to court so he can buy his way out. Not to a comfortable cell with three meals delivered a day.”

I paused, wondered about another cigarette, decided against it. I stood up, wincing at the pain in my shoulder. Somehow that didn’t seem important. In fact nothing seemed important, except for one thing.

“I want him under the ground. And I want to be the one who puts him there.”

“How are you going to do that?” Saltanat asked. “He’s got connections from here to Moscow, maybe even further.”

“First of all, I’m going to rattle some cages, give our Mr. Graves something to worry about. Push a few buttons, stir the shit, watch what happens.”

I took the iPhone out of my pocket, dialed a now-familiar number.

“He’ll kill you,” Saltanat warned.

“Not if I kill him first,” I said, rewarding her with a smile that stopped somewhere south of my cheekbones.

The phone rang and was answered.

“I imagine that so far this evening has cost you some time,” I said, “trouble, and perhaps even a little expense.”

There was only silence at the other end of the phone. The silence when the wolves are about to attack the sheep, when the farmer’s finger tenses on the trigger.

“We’ve both learned something tonight. You’ve learned I’m not in this for the money, and I’m not an amateur.”

“And what have you learned?” The Voice, dark, menacing, storm clouds looming over the Tien Shan mountains.

“I’ve learned who you are, Mr. Graves. Where you are.”

I paused for effect. Saltanat stared at me, perhaps wondering if I’d lost my senses.

“And most worrying for you, what you are.”

And I listened as the phone went dead.

Chapter 33

I held up the phone, then passed it to Saltanat.

“Can we leave this with your friend, Rustam?” I asked. “There isn’t anyone I can trust, not even Usupov.”

Saltanat thought about it, then nodded.

“Rustam doesn’t say much, but if he likes you, he’ll always be there for you. If he thought Graves had anything to do with the heroin that killed Anastasia, he’d go up there with one of his boning knives and gut the American himself.”

I wondered what it would be like to lose a daughter. All the hopes and ambitions you’d cherished for her, memories of those first staggering steps, the school prizes, the graduation ceremony. And the events you’d never see, the wedding, your first grandchild, the eternal circle starting again. Worse than losing your wife to cancer? Loss is loss, and it comes to live with us all.

Saltanat touched me on my arm and I came back from my reverie.

“Let’s get back to the hotel, and I can stitch your shoulder up again,” she said, and I was touched by a tenderness I heard in her voice.

I placed my hand on hers, the slender fingers warm and alive against mine. I wanted to tell her I cared for her. But the words wouldn’t come. So instead we each took one of Otabek’s hands, and with him secure between us, walked out into the night.

As before, we parked inside the hotel grounds, the high steel gates hiding us from view. Carrying our bags, Rustam led us through the kitchen and up a flight of narrow stairs to the first floor. Without saying a word, he nodded as Saltanat explained about Otabek. Rustam pocketed the iPhone, crouched down so as not to frighten the boy, said there was a special bedroom with lots of toys for brave boys. Otabek looked at Saltanat for reassurance, worry clear in his eyes. She nodded and took his hand. Rustam handed me a key to one of the rooms, and then the three of them climbed up the next flight of stairs.

The room was fairly basic, twin beds set against one wall, a small bathroom, a wardrobe big enough for one person’s clothes. I waited until Saltanat returned, closing the curtains, pushing the night away, a circle of light from the bedside lamp soft in the darkness.

“Poor child,” she said. “He was asleep in seconds. He must have been terrified.”

“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.