Greg Rucka - Walking dead

I checked my watch. "I've got other places to be."

"Won't take me long." He was already crossing the lobby, such as it was. "Just wait for me."

I watched him disappear up a set of stairs, turning out of sight. The hotel we were in was off the northeastern edge of Ataturk Alani, the kind of place that guidebooks charitably listed as "budget," except that the kind of guidebook that would list this place you'd never find in a bookstore. Like countless other similarly grimy lodgings around the world, the hotel doubled as a brothel.

A handful of seconds after Arzu disappeared, a young woman in a halter top and shorts that were too tight and too short came into view, descending the stairs. She saw me immediately, and started on a beeline. I gave her my don't-fuck-with-me face, and it stopped her in her tracks, but only for a second. Then she glanced over her shoulder, back the way she'd come and Arzu had gone, and resumed crossing to me. When she reached where I was sitting, she tried to sit in my lap.

"No," I told her, in Russian, pushing her gently away.

"Free," she said, and tried it again. "For a friend of Arzu Bey."

She was pale, her hair a filthy blonde, with a face hidden beneath heavy makeup. She might've been pretty once, before she'd come across the Black Sea from Russia or Ukraine or Moldova, the same way she'd had a name. Now she was just another natasha, like countless other girls who, one way or another, had been trafficked across the water expressly to be used for sex.

I let her sit in my lap, and when Vladek Karataev's BlackBerry began to vibrate in my pocket, I had a damn good idea who it was who was calling. The girl looked down, feeling the phone shivering against my thigh, then looked at me curiously. I smiled at her.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Natasha," she said. There was no irony in it, no humor, and no pause.

"I'm David." The BlackBerry in my pocket went still again. "I should check that."

She shifted off my lap so I could get the phone, and I pulled it free, slipped the back cover off and dropped the battery out, then replaced the cover and put both the phone and the battery in my pocket. She watched me with disinterested curiosity.

I'd let her back into my lap when Arzu appeared again, bounding down the stairs.

"Sorry, just had to take care of something," he said. "Let's go upstairs, we can talk somewhere more private. You like her, huh?"

"She's very nice," I said.

"Yeah, she's a good girl." He turned his attention to her, still on my lap. "Get off him."

She slipped off me, immediately moving to the opposite end of the couch. Arzu waited while I got to my feet, then led the way. He took the stairs as before, two, three at a time, full of energy. Another two women were in the hall when we came off the landing, smoking cigarettes, and both looked down when Arzu passed, followed me with their eyes when I did. They looked as wasted and tired as the girl who'd taken my lap, and I didn't want to guess how young they were, or how long they'd been here, and found that I couldn't help myself.

We went into one of the rooms, a small shoebox of a space that had been turned into a private lounge, with a television, a couch, a couple of chairs. The television was on, broadcasting local news that I didn't understand. Arzu indicated the couch, offering it to me, and I thanked him and sat. A Nokia phone was sitting on one of the chairs, and he picked it up, checking it, and I saw the frown flash across his face for an instant before he tucked it into a pocket of his own. Then he maneuvered the chair around to face me before taking a seat.

"You talked to Vladek?" I asked.

He grinned. "Don't worry about that. You wanted to talk about some girls. Two hundred euros."

"Two hundred for two girls. But that's not what I really want to talk about."

"No?"

"I'm looking to buy, to set something up further south."

"How far south?"

"Gulf region. Depends on what my partners come back with. Can you help me?"

"How many?"

"Four to start. More later if it goes well. But the girls have to be young, and I'll want to see them myself."

"Of course, sure. How young?"

"Sixteen. Maybe younger."

Arzu cracked his grin again. "That's more expensive."

"I know. That's why I need to see them. But we'll pay what they're worth."

"So you understand."

"Vladek made it clear," I said.

He did the teeth bit once more, then nodded. "Okay, you're staying in town?"

"At the Zorlu. I'm supposed to leave the day after tomorrow, but I can stretch it until the end of the week if I have to."

"You'll hear from me tomorrow. David Mercer, right?"

"That's right."

He got up, offering me his hand, and I got up and took it. The shake was firm and professional, as cleanly executed as any boardroom deal-closing. He walked me to the door, but paused after he opened it, his expression brightening.

"That natasha" he asked. "You liked her?"

The thought of what might happen to the woman if I said I didn't flashed in my mind's eye. "Sure."

"Take her with you, back to the Zorlu. Keep her all night, whatever you want to do to her, that's fine."

"That's very generous," I said to him, and Arzu's smile faltered, hinted at the offense he would take if I refused his gift. "But it's like with the drugs. I never use the product."

For a moment, I was sure I'd lost him. Then he got happy again and clapped me on the shoulder. "You're married?"

"Yeah."

"I'm the same! Why get this when you've got it at home, right?"

"Pretty much."

"I'll call you tomorrow, David," he said, ushering me out the door.

As soon as I was downstairs, I put the battery back in the BlackBerry. I wasn't halfway back to the Zorlu when the phone began vibrating again.

I let it go to voicemail. It had been just before nine the previous morning when I'd brought the Dnepr's engine to life, and by ten I'd been heading down the coast. Shortly after I'd left Batumi, heading south, I'd passed a billboard, stark and out of place, a PSA put together by the Interior Ministry, most likely with American funds. It showed a grayscale image of a woman, profile shot, framed from the mid-bicep of her right arm to the top of her head, cropped so that she was faceless, but clearly feminine. On the exposed bicep had been tattooed a barcode. The Georgian script, in bright red letters, translated to the phrase You are not for sale.

Like she didn't know that already.

It had done nothing for my mood. By the time I'd finished with my meager packing, Alena still hadn't come back into the house. I'd gone out after her, found her in the studio, music blaring, trying to dance. Her left calf had been badly injured several years ago, hit with a blast from a shotgun that destroyed the anterior cruciate ligament and severed tendons. While the ligament had been replaced by a prosthetic, nothing could be done for the rest, and though physical therapy had brought back much of the agility and balance she'd had before, she didn't have all of it, and was supposed to go easy on her left.

She was not, as far as I could see, going easy on her left.

Both Miata and I had watched for a while, and Alena had ignored us both. Finally I'd shut off the music, and that had forced her to stop. When I'd turned to face her again, she was already on me, and while the kiss was wonderful, it wasn't what I'd come looking for at all. When I tried to explain that to her, she'd told me to shut up, and then clothes had started coming off. She'd pulled me to the floor, and the sex we had reminded me of the first times we made love, when passion had made our hands tremble, and desire and need had been the same things.

After, we'd made our way to bed and slept, and in the morning there had been nothing, it seemed, she could say. That hadn't been the case for me.