Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

So now I knew what the plan was. A walk down a quiet alley, one with no CCTV cameras or inquisitive neighbors, a punch in the stomach or maybe the face, then down on the ground, the boot going in, hands taking the wallet, and another idiot left to regret going into that particular bar.

And that’s exactly what happened.

Except it was my fist in Lev’s belly, my slap across Jamila’s face and my hand taking his wallet. Lev wailed as I punched so deep that my knuckles must have scraped his spine. I waited for him to fall to his knees and start retching. When he didn’t, I kicked him between his legs, and that’s when he began vomiting. I used my feet a couple more times, sideways shots that tore a rip in his ear. Maybe I broke his cheekbone as well. All the rage and frustration of the past few days powered my anger, but I knew I had to stop before I killed him.

Jamila knew what was good for her: she was off as fast as her heels would let her, hand pressed to her face, her cheek already swelling. I wondered if perhaps I’d broken one of her teeth, added a little blood to blend in with the lipstick. Probably bad for business.

Lev tried to push himself up, but another kick, this time to his elbow, put a stop to that nonsense.

“Lev,” I said, in the quiet, friendly voice I use when I want to scare people, “you really need to find a less obvious scam. You’ve used this one on too many people who didn’t know what was coming.”

Lev acknowledged my advice by rolling onto his side and vomiting. I squatted down beside him, for all the world like a concerned passer-by.

“Deep breaths, and just lie still for a couple of minutes. I want you rested and recovered before I hurt you some more. Properly this time.”

“Fuck off, you bastard,” Lev swore, all his apparent calm long gone. “You’ve broken something inside.”

“Probably just a rib or two, Lev. Painful but they mend easily enough. Mind you, I could hit you again, do some serious damage. Maybe life-threatening. Unless you tell me what I want to know.”

Lev muttered something about making me pay for this.

“It’s easy,” I said. “Tell me the truth, and I walk away, you limp away. The girl in the photo, do you know where she is?”

Lev shook his head, winced at the pain this caused.

“That bitch Jamila, she called me, said we’d a chicken ready to be plucked. Told me to come over, said you had plenty of money, that you’d be a pushover.”

“I wouldn’t count on her judgment,” I said and reached into his pocket. My hand came out with a nasty-looking lead sap, a spring-powered piece with a handle bound in leather.

“Not very nice, Lev. You might hurt someone with this.”

To prove my point, a flick of the wrist, and Lev screamed as I tapped his kneecap. I looked round, but no one seemed to have noticed.

“So you’ve no idea who the girl is, where she is? Right?”

“No idea. Just another tart.”

“That’s no way to speak about a lady,” I said, giving the other knee something to complain about. No one noticed that scream either. I stood up, threw the sap away.

“Time to find a new business, Lev,” I suggested and took a few notes out of my wallet, let them flutter down beside him. “Never let it be said I don’t pay for information. Let me treat you to a taxi home. Or the hospital. Tell them you had a nasty fall.”

A moment’s breeze blew the money away from his hand, and as he reached for it, I squatted down beside him again and broke the little finger on his right hand. It’s surprising how easily fingers snap if you twist them as you pull them back. The crunch and splinter sounded like a twig breaking underfoot during the autumn frosts in the Tien Shan mountains, and I realized how much I missed my country.

“I don’t want to see you again, Lev. Remember, you’ve still got seven fingers and two thumbs intact, and after them I can always start on your toes.”

I stood up, started to walk away, then turned back. Lev had managed to struggle to his knees, but sank back onto the ground, fear scarring his face.

“You might pass the message on to Jamila as well,” I said. “Tell her I’m pretty good at hurting women as well when I have to.”

Then I went in search of a taxi.

Back at the hotel I took a long cold shower. I was starting to feel some remorse at slapping Jamila. I really don’t like hitting women, unless I’m in danger of getting stabbed or sliced. I even rather regretted the beating I’d given Lev. Then again, his sap could have dug a finger-wide ditch in my skull.

I’d been pretty sure as soon as I met her that Jamila was running a scam, but I couldn’t risk not following up on a potential lead. So I knew I’d be back at the bar sooner rather than later, and I reminded myself to watch out for Lev suddenly looming out of a doorway. Maybe he’d think he’d have better luck next time. Or maybe he’d bring something deadlier than a sap with him.

I switched on the TV, wondering whether there would be any news coverage of the bookshop shoot-out or the fire at the Denver Hotel, but all I could find were black and white Egyptian movies with bad singing and worse acting. I thought I spotted an improbably young Omar Sharif in the obligatory shisha café scene. Finally I decided the authorities probably wouldn’t want tourists to worry that Dubai was anything other than wonderful and switched off the set.

I decided I had to contact Saltanat, although I wasn’t sure if we could work together. The last time we’d seen each other in Bishkek, when I’d been warmed off the Morton Graves case, she’d accused me of betraying everything I stood for. Then she’d taken Otabek, the small Kyrgyz boy we’d rescued from a glittering if short career in snuff movies, away with her to Uzbekistan.

I felt ashamed that I hadn’t asked Saltanat how the boy was doing, hadn’t even given him a moment’s thought in all the chaos and confusion. Sometimes you get so focused on an investigation that all the important things in life recede into obscurity. It’s a good trait for a Murder Squad inspector, but a pretty damning characteristic in everyone else.

I placed the call, got voicemail, suggested meeting up that evening. I didn’t want to reveal where I was staying, and I was pretty sure Saltanat wasn’t going to invite me to spend the night with her, so I suggested meeting at the Dôme for coffee; so far I hadn’t seen much of Dubai’s legendary nightlife, and I was running out of Tynaliev’s money.

That reminded me to check the wallet that I’d taken from the body of the boy I shot in the bookshop. A couple of fifty-dollar notes, which would help out with expenses, a travel card for the Metro and an ID card in the name of Khusun Todashev. It told me that he’d lived in Chechnya’s main city, Grozny, and that he’d died two weeks short of his nineteenth birthday. Tucked behind the ID card was a passport photo of a young woman—dark-haired, smiling, pretty. A girlfriend or perhaps a sister. I didn’t feel good about robbing her of a lover or a brother, wondered if she’d ever find out what happened, or whether she’d come to believe he’d abandoned her for someone else. But when it comes to you or him, it’s the one who doesn’t hesitate that comes out ahead.

I stared at my face in the lift mirror as I headed down to the lobby. I was starting to age, no doubt about that, a few more lines and crevices. Short black hair starting to silver at the sides, a few white hairs sprinkled in thick eyebrows. And the flat, unrevealing stare that I had inherited from my Uighur grandfather. Not a handsome face, but a determined one. But I was starting to tire of my self-appointed mission of bringing justice to the dead. After all, it didn’t bring any of them back.