Tom Callaghan - A Summer Revenge

“So Tynaliev told you to keep an eye on me?”

He shrugged. “More to act as a liaison while you’re here. But yes, there are things you don’t know about that don’t need disturbing. Important people back home have invested a lot of money in Dubai. That boat doesn’t need overturning. We’re not in a pedalo on Lake Issyk-Kul anymore.”

I slid the gun back into my pocket, felt its weight pull at the material. It’s not a good sign when the only reassurances you have come with copper hollow points.

“And the boy with the gun?”

“A mistake. Too young, too enthusiastic. And certainly too stupid. I told him I just wanted to know where you were staying.”

“Didn’t Tynaliev tell you?”

“It’s all need-to-know with him, and he must have decided I didn’t need.”

“But the boy told you?”

Kulayev nodded. “A shit hole, I suppose?”

“I’ve stayed in better.”

Kulayev relaxed a little now that the Makarov was not threatening to emasculate him. He sipped at the tea, frowned at it, added some jam, nodded approval.

“So what’s your plan, Inspector?”

“Any idea where we might track down the lovely Ms. Sulonbekova?” I asked.

“Your best bet is where we were last night, the bar off Bank Street. A lot of the Kyrgyz girls hang out there.”

I thought just how tough it must be to leave your family, probably your mother taking care of your children, a divorced husband who never sends money. You don’t have much in the way of education or work skills, but you need to eat, find shoes for your son, dresses for your daughter. And that’s when the vampires get you.

Maybe you meet them in the local narodni supermarket, where you’re hunting down the special offers, hoping to stretch out the som in your purse to put tonight’s meal on the table, maybe a piece of fruit for the children at breakfast. Maybe you’ve gone to a bar to drink Baltika pivo and forget your worries for a couple of hours. But sooner or later you meet them.

They tell you about their friend who sends home five thousand dollars a month, more than enough to pay for school, clothes, food. She’s going to work for one more year, come back rich and open a business, a florist or a hairdressing salon maybe.

Then the vampire tells you about Dubai, the luxury, the elegance, stores with beautiful designer clothes, smart restaurants. The bars full of rich foreigners looking for a wife or a girlfriend. She tells you how pretty you are, how the men will flock to you like moths around a candle. Of course there are expenses: the airfare, the visa, the rent for an apartment. But she likes you, knows you’ll do well there, get your life back on track after that bastard husband dumped you for that bitch with the bedroom smile. So she’ll lend you the money—no worries paying it back; you’ll earn it in a couple of weeks.

You’re not stupid; you know the kind of work she’s talking about. You don’t earn five thousand dollars a month anywhere in the world as a waitress or a cleaner in a hotel. But you spent years with that bastard husband hauling himself on and off you, usually in two minutes from start to snore. So why not get paid for it, rather than giving it away for free? And then you’re snared.

I stood up, stretched, told Kulayev that breakfast was his treat and set off back toward the narrow streets of Bur Dubai. I’d already decided to check out of the Denver and find somewhere that might give me a decent night’s sleep. After all, if Tynaliev was planning a planting party on my return, with me as the one going into the ground, I might as well enjoy spending his money while I could.

I let the day drag by in a series of giant shopping malls, looking in the windows of shops displaying clothes my annual salary as an inspector could never have afforded, getting thoroughly miserable in the process. I’d never paid a great deal more than lip service to communism, even in the workers’ paradise days of the USSR, but a world where a pair of shoes costs more than a babushka ’s yearly pension strikes me as a pretty mean and shallow place.

Finally I couldn’t stand the way everyone stared at my suit and the security guards following me at a less-than-discreet distance, so caught the Metro back toward the Denver. I stopped off in a souk to buy a cheap pair of cotton trousers and a couple of shirts to replace my sweat-sodden suit. Ten minutes back in the fleapit was enough. I put my new clothes in a plastic bag I found under the bed, then headed out into the heat. I wasn’t going to check out, in case Tynaliev got in touch, and if Kulayev thought I was still there, he’d maybe dispense with the tail.

I wondered about checking into the Vista Hotel, but decided against it; too easy for anyone to find me. A nearby hotel surrounded by alleys would allow me to ditch any unwanted interest, even if it meant running through more of Tynaliev’s green. After half an hour of wandering, I found a hotel near the museum catering mainly for Indian tourists, checked in, handed over a month’s salary and took an ice-cold shower. A three-hour nap, and I was ready to face the bar, the girls and the hunt for Natasha.

The room was just as crowded as the night before, reeking of desperation, cheap cigarettes, fake perfume and spilled beer. I spotted Lin over in the corner by the bar, working her well-worn charms on some hapless red-faced, balding, overweight expat. I pushed my way through to the alcove where Lin had told me that the Kyrgyz girls congregated. Four of them, instantly recognizable as Kyrgyz, wearing the standard uniform of ripped jeans, skin-tight T-shirts and shoes with improbable heels and too much glitter. They were all smoking those long thin cigarettes that young women think make them look sophisticated and aloof. The lipstick on their cigarettes was dark as bloodstains.

“ Privyet, kak dela? ”

They stared at me, as if hearing a Kyrgyz accent was a rarity in a bar like this. Given the price of drinks, it probably was. The girl with the tightest T-shirt and bleach-blonde hair with black roots put her hand on my arm. Perhaps it was her turn to land a fish.

The pounding dance music made it hard to hear, so I mimed drinking and she nodded.

“Red Bull.”

I managed to catch the eye of a waitress, who brought over a drink that smelled of old chewing gum.

“I’m looking for someone,” I said, giving her my most reassuring smile. She shrugged, pointed a finger at herself, raised a mascara-darkened eyebrow. The nails on her hand were painted black, which I found less than reassuring.

“You’re very beautiful,” I improvised, “but there’s one lady in particular I’m looking for. Maybe you know her? Natasha Sulonbekova?”

She stared at the photo I produced, shrugged once more with a disdain that suggested Natasha was maybe more successful in the bar than she was. I flashed the photo at the other girls, who pointedly ignored me. Natasha obviously hadn’t won any popularity contests or they really didn’t know her.

“Why do you want her? I’ll give you a better time, and not too much money.”

Suddenly I didn’t have the patience to sit through another sales pitch. I reached over and plucked the drink from her fingers, ignoring her look of outrage. She reached back for the glass, but I held it at arm’s length.

“You know her?” I repeated. Maybe she recognized the policeman’s stare, remembered nights being questioned at Sverdlovsky station after being picked up for loitering in Panfilov Park. Sometimes fear is a better aid to memory than persuasion. She squinted at me through a thin haze of smoke as the music grew louder and the disco lights on the ceiling began to spin.