Tom Callaghan - An Autumn Hunting

I looked at my mobile; ten minutes after noon. I’d never known Saltanat be late, but I told myself busy traffic, a foreign city, a cross street missed. After another five minutes, a sense of unease gnawed at me, and I glanced back in the direction I’d come through the park. Kurmanjan stared down at me, impassive, resigned to whatever was going to happen.

I saw the figure walking towards me, knew immediately it wasn’t Saltanat. The stride too masculine, the carriage of the body aggressive, not graceful. If Saltanat moved like a ballet dancer, this man lumbered like a bear, uncertain on its back legs. A little way further back in the distance, a black SUV coughed smoke, its windows tinted an impenetrable black, like a hearse with four-wheel drive.

The man arrived at the statue, a good head taller than me and twice as broad. His broken nose and misshapen ears told me he’d once been a boxer, but not a good one. He looked at me the way a mugger assesses his next victim, spat and jerked his thumb at the waiting car.

‘Boss wants to see you.’

‘Then Boss can get his arse out of his status symbol and walk over here,’ I replied. He gave me the hard eye, not knowing I’ve encountered villains who made him look like a toddler’s doll. He paused while his punch-drunk brain assimilated the new information.

‘He won’t like that,’ he finally said.

‘I think you’re mistaking me for someone who gives a fuck.’

He stared at me for a moment longer then walked back to the SUV. I lit another cigarette, making sure I could feel the weight of the Makarov I’d collected earlier. The smoke tasted acrid in my mouth; sweat dribbled down my back. The bear reached the car, opened the rear door, said his piece. After a moment, Aliyev stepped out, brushing the shoulders of his coat, dapper and fastidious as always. When he reached me, he didn’t offer the Kyrgyz double clasp handshake but kept his hands in his pockets. So did I, and maybe for the same reason.

Aliyev stared up at the statue, his gaze as unwavering as hers.

‘She knew when to cut her losses,’ he said. ‘She knew when she’d encountered a force she couldn’t beat. She was smart: you could do worse than learn from her.’

‘And where’s the Russian Empire now?’ I said. ‘Not much sign of it here in the Kyrgyz Republic, if you don’t count the monuments to Soviet realism.’

‘You’re a man of action and a philosopher,’ Aliyev said, nodding his head as if in realisation. ‘Hidden depths, Inspector, maybe I’ve misjudged you.’

I didn’t reply.

‘Just out for a morning stroll, were you, Inspector, taking the air? Or were you planning on meeting someone? A lady perhaps?’

I touched the cold metal of the gun with my fingertips, wondered which one of us could outdraw the other.

‘What have you done with her?’

Aliyev feigned a look of confusion.

‘Her?’

‘You know who I mean.’

‘Don’t worry, Akyl. I can call you that now we’re such close friends? She’s perfectly safe. Maybe a little bruised, but then she did kick one of my men so hard in the balls that he’s gone looking for them over in Kazakhstan.’

‘He may have to go a bit further afield for that,’ I said.

‘Well, the villages are full of stupid young men looking for a pocketful of som and the chance to look hard and impress the local sluts. Replacements are never hard to find. Keeping them alive? That’s another matter. But a minor one.’

He dusted off the shoulders of his still immaculate coat once more, dismissing the whole matter as hardly worth discussing.

‘Moving on to more important matters, perhaps you can explain what happened in Bangkok,’ he said.

I held out my hands, palms up, shrugged.

‘The Orient; it’s a delicate situation,’ I said. ‘Confusing, but we got the deal made.’

Aliyev looked directly at me, eyes probing my face for signs of weakness, traces of lies.

‘I heard what happened to Quang. Quite a coincidence that he got raided just as soon as you left. And after he’d paid so much for protection over the years as well.’

‘Nothing to do with me,’ I said.

‘And one of his men, found dead, the one who was taking you to the airport?’

‘Again, nothing to do with me. I suppose life is even cheaper there than it is here,’ I answered. ‘He must have had enemies. Or maybe someone sending a message to him.’

Aliyev took one hand out of his pockets, gave a maybe yes, maybe no gesture.

‘I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, Inspector,’ he said, ‘and then I become nervous, and I tend to get violent. So people suffer. Along with their families.’

He paused, not blinking, eyes never shifting from mine.

‘Of course, you don’t have a family,’ he continued, ‘which means in order to intimidate you, I have to hurt you even more than I would most people. Unless, of course, your girlfriend means more to you than you let on.’

I shrugged.

‘Uzbek, you know what they’re like.’

‘Good in bed though.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ I said.

‘Well, maybe tonight I’ll find out. I like a bitch with some fighting spirit.’

I nodded my head as if I agreed with him. I already knew I’d have to kill Aliyev at some point. The difference now? I wanted to.

‘So how did you get the girl?’

‘Simple,’ Aliyev said. ‘We feed a little bird back in Tashkent a few dollars every month. It wasn’t very difficult to hack your girlfriend’s mobile. So when you sent a text asking her to meet you by the statue?’

He shrugged at my folly.

‘Lots of statues in Bishkek. Leaving it vague like that was smart, except for one flaw. Knowing what a romantic idealist you are, we were pretty sure you’d meet here. You obviously have a thing for strong women.’

It was my turn to shrug.

‘We saw her walking down Chui Prospekt, obviously arriving early to scout the territory, check it wasn’t a trap. A smart woman, your girlfriend. We grabbed her, not without some collateral damage, and here we are.’

‘So she’s in the car?’

‘Bound and gagged, but otherwise unharmed. For the moment.’

I thought about our situation, knew what I had to do.

‘You know what one of the benefits of being left-handed is, Kanybek?’ I asked, in as sweet a voice as I could manage. ‘Everyone takes it for granted you’re right-handed. So they look at your jacket to see if you’ve got a knife or a gun, they watch the movement of your right hand. And that’s all very sensible. And very convenient for me.’

‘Explain.’

‘Well, while I’ve been telling you that, I’ve been aiming a gun about ten centimetres above your belt buckle. With my left hand. I don’t even need to draw my gun. This is an old jacket; a couple of bullet holes won’t make a difference. Right now I can blow your spine into toothpicks before you can get your gun out of your pocket.’

I watched him assess the situation.

‘I want you to take your hands out of your pockets, Kanybek, but slowly, as if your fingers were poisonous spiders you don’t want to frighten.’

I watched as he did what I’d ordered. His hands were steady, calm.

‘I think you’re bluffing,’ he said.

I shrugged. He could see the bulge of the gun barrel pointing towards him.

‘Very possibly. But then again… I’ll even contribute towards the cost of the wheelchair. A comfortable one so that you can spend the next thirty years being wheeled around.’

Aliyev’s expression didn’t change. I had no doubt he’d be a brilliant poker player. But I was holding the best cards. And his stake was his life.

‘How long do you think that crew of gopniki and myrki will stand to take orders from a cripple? A month? Two months? They don’t even need to shoot you. They’ll just wheel you outdoors one winter evening, jam the brakes on your wheelchair, go back indoors to smoke and drink. A pakhan freezing to death? Well, that would be a first.’