Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

Kulayev shrugged, took a sip of his coffee. Taking a moral stance on someone else’s business obviously wasn’t his thing.

“Without his say-so, you’re going to find it difficult to get anyone to talk to you. He’d be the best place to start.”

He looked around, caught the eye of the waitress, summoned the bill with the universal squiggle of an invisible pen in the air.

“I’ll call him, tell him you’ll see him tonight. Why not take the afternoon off, have a look around Dubai?”

I nodded. Not because I’m interested in tourism, but it’s always best to familiarize yourself with new surroundings. You never know when you might need an escape route.

“There’s some equipment you’ll want. I’ll ask him to provide that for you as well.”

“Such as?” I asked.

He stared back at me, face expressionless as he handed some money to the waitress. “My dear Akyl,” he said, standing up and reaching over to shake my hand, “you might believe you can get by on Kyrgyz charm, if such a thing exists. But I think you’re going to need a gun.”

It was midnight when I got back to the Denver, but sleep was out of the question. I called Kulayev, and listened while his phone rang and rang. Finally, he answered, grumpy at being woken.

“Atanasov, that piece of shit you said I should go and see?”

“Yes?”

“Well, now he’s a dead piece of shit, and one missing a few essential pieces,” I said.

“Meet me where we met before. Thirty minutes,” Kulayev said and hung up.

He was already there when I reached the Dôme, with a few late-night caffeine addicts sitting at the metal tables outside. Once he saw me, Kulayev turned and crossed the road. Obviously I was meant to follow him. I felt the reassuring heft of the Makarov in my pocket. I wasn’t born last week, and I wasn’t born stupid either: Kulayev might be Tynaliev’s man, but I still didn’t trust either of them.

He led the way for about five minutes, weaving down alleyways and across streets, until he seemed satisfied we weren’t being followed. Suddenly he ducked into the side entrance of a hotel. I followed and turned a corner to see him walking into a bar. The air conditioning was just as fierce as everywhere else, and my shirt immediately turned cold and wet. I wandered into the bar, trying to make it look like I was one of the guests.

Kulayev was ordering a beer. He raised an eyebrow.

I shook my head. “Water.”

“You don’t drink?”

“Not today.”

Kulayev gave the shrug I was beginning to expect and dislike. We took our drinks and went over to an empty table on the far side of the room. I looked around as we sat down. International hotel vapidity, the sort of decor that offends no one and appeals to no one either. Fake carved English pub signs, 1920s posters for French cigarettes and Riviera holidays. Thirty seconds after leaving this place you wouldn’t remember a thing about it.

The place was virtually empty, apart from a table of men, each with a beer in front of him. All sitting engrossed in their smartphones, they looked almost cloned, a collection of photocopies.

Kulayev took a long swallow of his beer, and decided to lecture me about Dubai.

“If you’re a foreigner, Dubai is about money. Nobody cares where it comes from, how it’s spent, as long as it’s here and stays in someone’s pocket.”

Kulayev smiled, then looked serious. Lowering his voice, he turned to make sure no one was listening. The furtive way in which he did this meant that, if nobody had been watching us, they would be now. If Kulayev had been any more obvious leading us here, he’d have dipped his shoes in luminous paint. I sometimes wonder if I’m the only one who ever learned any tradecraft.

“You said Atanasov is dead?”

“Butchered would be a better description, especially since someone scrawled ‘Pig’ on the wall in his own blood.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Kulayev muttered. “What about the equipment I ordered for you?”

“In my pocket.”

He nodded, relieved; he wouldn’t want to be tied into the discovery of a gun at a murder scene. I gave him details of the mutilations, asked him what he thought.

“There’s a lot of people will raise a glass on hearing he’s dead,” Kulayev said, “but it makes things a lot more difficult for you.”

“Could it have been one of his girls?” I asked. “Calling him a pig seems pretty personal to me, and who would know him better?”

“But the stuff with the ears, eyes and tongue?”

“You’re a Chechen,” I said. “You know what women can do.”

He nodded, lit a cigarette. “I saw stuff in the war,” he said, and his face grew taut with memory. “You wouldn’t think it was possible for a woman to walk into a shopping mall and detonate a bomb that killed everyone within twenty meters. The maternal instinct? Blood instinct, more like.” He stubbed out the cigarette. “Mind you, the Russian Spetsnaz were just as happy to shoot women prisoners as men. Only after raping them, naturally.” He rubbed at his eyes, as if the smoke from his cigarette had irritated them.

“Someone you knew?” I asked.

“My sister,” he said, took another mouthful of beer. We sat in silence for a couple of moments. Sometimes you learn things about people that may not make you like them but do help you understand them.

“History,” Kulayev said, “and you can’t change that.”

But you can rewrite it, I thought, remembering the lies and deceptions I’d gone along with on Tynaliev’s behalf in the past. The only things life guarantees are death and taxes. I don’t earn enough to pay tax, but death and I are acquainted all too well.

“We need to work out a change of plan for you,” Kulayev said, looked at his watch, an expensive one, maybe a Rolex. I wondered where the money came from.

“It’s one o’clock now,” he said, “so a lot of the bars will be winding down about now. They close at two thirty here. But I know somewhere we could try. By two o’clock the girls are wondering if they’re going to snare a customer, and the prices drop faster than a closing-down sale in Osh bazaar. Which also means they’re more likely to talk.”

I paid for his beer and my water, handing over note after note until the waitress nodded. She didn’t return with any change. In Bishkek I could have bought us both a meal and several drinks for the same money. Tynaliev’s three thousand dollars wasn’t going to go very far.

We walked back outside into the heat, the air hanging wet and heavy, shimmering and dancing in the streetlights. Everywhere was as brightly lit as a big evening match in the Spartak Stadium back home. Kulayev waved at a taxi slowly driving past. We got in and the driver switched on the meter. Twelve dirhams, about two hundred and thirty som . I could have traveled halfway across Bishkek for less than that.

Kulayev saw the look on my face and laughed.

“Don’t worry. If you run out of money, we’ll find more. I’ll even call Tynaliev and tell him to send a couple of thousand dollars.”

You’ll be lucky, I thought. And you’re not the one who’s going to have to explain where the money went.

I pictured Tynaliev receiving the request: it didn’t reassure me. We drove past Burjuman and back in the direction of my hotel.

“You’re married?” Kulayev asked.

“Not anymore,” I said, unwilling to talk about Chinara with a stranger.

“Girlfriend?”

“Sort of,” I said, thinking of Saltanat, wondering if I’d ever see her again.

“You’re the faithful type?” Kulayev smiled. “Shame. There are some real beauties where we’re going.”