Tom Callaghan - A Spring Betrayal

“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.

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.

“Inspector Akyl Borubaev, Bishkek Murder Squad.” Saltanat made the introductions.

“ Privyat ,” I said, held out my hand. He took it, nodded, his face thawing slightly.

“And you are?” I asked.

“Rustam,” he answered, his accent Uzbek. He gestured at the fridges behind the bar, stocked with bottles of pivo and vodka. “Help yourself. I’ll organize food,” and with that, he walked toward the hotel’s side entrance.