A Spring Betrayal (9 page)

“There are two police cars packed with
menti
outside my apartment block. Any idea why?”

There was a long silence before Usupov spoke, in little more than a whisper.

“There was a call last night. Anonymous. A tip-off. Saying you were involved in something pretty bad, that there was some illegal material stashed in your apartment. So Sverdlovsky sent a couple of men around. You weren’t there, otherwise they’d have arrested you. And given you a good kicking down every flight of stairs.”

There wasn’t anything in my apartment that could have been a problem. But anyone who knows how to pick a couple of locks can leave something incriminating and then call it in.

“What was it they found? Drugs? You know that’s not my thing.”

Usupov paused for even longer. When he spoke, there was a note of disgust in his voice.

“We go back a long way, Inspector. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. For the moment.”

My stomach tensed, and when I spoke, my voice was hoarse.

“Go on.”

“DVDs. Child porn, I heard on the grapevine. Stuff you couldn’t imagine, the sort that visits you in nightmares. Torture, rape. And murder.”

Saltanat watched as I failed to hide the disgust on my face.

“Kenesh, this is a setup, believe me, I know nothing about this. Maybe it’s because I’m investigating all the deaths in Karakol? Maybe linked to the fake death certificate you had to sign?”

There was a long pause before Usupov spoke.

“They know you’re not in Karakol. Orders are to stop and arrest you. Maximum force permitted, if necessary.”

I knew what that meant. Maximum force obligatory. Whatever it was someone high up thought I knew, they’d make sure I couldn’t spread the word. Relentless rain hammered against the car roof.

“Akyl, if I were you, I’d head for the border. Any border.”

Chapter 17

I explained the situation to Saltanat, saw concern cloud her face.

“I’m being stitched up,” I said. “Think about the timing. If I was involved in any of this—and I’m not—I’d know about you arresting the porn mule in Tashkent. The last thing I’d do is raise my head above the parapet.”

Saltanat nodded, seeing the logic of what I was saying.

“But why would someone go to all this trouble?” she asked. “They could simply put a bullet in the back of your head. Or a car accident. A fire in your apartment because of faulty wiring.”

“Kill me, and it doesn’t end there,” I explained. “The case is on file now, so it has to be investigated. And so does Gurminj’s death, now I’ve reported it as suspicious. Some other inspector takes over, and if they were close to uncovering the truth, then they’d have to be dealt with. But if I’m discredited as a notorious pornographer and child murderer it all dies with me. Case solved, the culprit’s shot resisting arrest, end of story, everyone’s happy.”

“So now what?”

“Right now, we need to put some distance between us and my apartment. They’re expecting me to show up. If they’d had any sense,
they’d have been waiting inside. Their carelessness gives us a few hours. Let’s head over to the Kulturny, see what your whisperer has to say.”

I slumped down lower in my seat, grateful for the tinted windows of the Lexus. Saltanat handed me a baseball cap from the glove compartment, and I completed my temporary disguise with sunglasses.

The scarred and battered steel door of the Kulturny looked as uninviting as ever when Saltanat parked outside. A steroid junkie disguised as a doorman in a cheap leather jacket slouched against the wall. He looked appreciatively at Saltanat as she climbed out of the car.

“No need to go in there, darling, not if you’re looking for a man. He’s right here in front of you,” he said, patting his crotch just in case Saltanat might have misunderstood him.

Saltanat smiled, walked up to him, pouted, blew a kiss, then kicked him in the balls. As he dropped to his knees, eyes bulging, gasping with shock and pain, she stepped around him and pushed at the steel door. The unlit stairs down to the basement bar looked horribly like a mouth, ready to devour us, and I remembered that there was no other way in. Or out.

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 open, 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.