“Is that you, Lin? What’s wrong? Where are you?”
Lin, terrified, weeping in despair. I knew she wouldn’t have called me unless it was bad. Very bad.
She sniffed, coughed, started to regain control. I listened to see if any background noises would give me a clue about her location. Nothing.
“It’s all right, Lin. Calm down, just tell me where you are,” I repeated.
“No,” she answered. “Where are you?”
I wondered if this was some kind of set-up from Lev and Jamila Mark Two, or even payback for their deaths. But there was no time to be cautious because I knew time was running out. Perhaps for Natasha it already had.
“I’m near the Mall of the Emirates, Lin. You? You want to meet?”
“Not the usual place, OK?”
Now she had me intrigued, suspicious. I couldn’t imagine that Lev and Jamila had been found so quickly, so it had to be something to do with Natasha.
“Where?” I asked.
“Goodfellas, sports bar, Regal Plaza Hotel,” she said through tears. “As soon as you can get here.”
And then she broke the connection, or maybe it was broken for her. I told the taxi driver to put his foot down, felt the weight of my Makarov in my pocket, wondered what fresh shit was coming my way.
The Regal Plaza Hotel sits next to Al Fahidi Metro, endless streams of people pouring in and out of the station’s four entrances. I walked down one, out of another, crossed the road, strode down the escalator and out again. If any of the amateurs had managed to follow me as far as here, my pushing through the crowds and up and down stairs would have lost them. Some people say tradecraft is overrated, but I’m not one of them. If it only saves your life once, it’s worth it.
I pushed my way into Goodfellas, a bar so dimly lit that it was hard to tell if there were any customers enjoying a mid-afternoon drink. The walls were covered with framed football strips from the major British clubs: Chelsea, Manchester United, Sunderland, West Ham. I’ve been in the same bar in a dozen countries and the only thing that changes is the team name on the jerseys.
A bartender looked up as I walked in, annoyed at being distracted, however briefly, from his mobile phone.
“Orange juice, fresh,” I said and watched him not serve me. I repeated my order, slightly louder this time, in case he was deaf rather than merely rude. He looked up, nodded, resumed texting. I waited another minute, then reached over the bar, took the phone out of his hand.
“I’m very thirsty,” I said in my most pleasant voice, “so thirsty my hands are shaking, and I might drop this phone on the floor. My legs are shaking too, and I might accidentally stand on your phone and break it. And neither of us wants that to happen, do we?”
The bartender scowled and tried to snatch his phone back. I held it just out of reach, dropped it, caught it with my other hand.
“Orange juice. Fresh. Now,” I said, followed by a smile. “Thank you.”
I didn’t have time to stand there and watch empires rise and fall while he made my drink, so I looked around for Lin. In the furthest, darkest corner, underneath a giant TV screen showing slow-motion replays of American football, I saw a huddled figure, face turned to the wall. I admit that’s where I’d be looking if I had to endure the fumblings of the Seattle Seahawks.
I walked over, gently placed my hand on the woman’s shoulder.
“Lin?” I said.
And she turned around.
Her face was hardly recognizable as her. The bruising covered most of the left side, with a furrow cutting a deep groove crusted with dried blood where a ringed fist had slashed down. The right eye was swollen shut, the eyelid a deep purple. An incisor in her lower right jaw was chipped, and her lips were swollen. The beating had been brutal, and not efficient. Someone had taken out his rage and frustration on a woman with no one to turn to, no one to protect her. But as soon as I saw the results of his anger, I knew she had someone to avenge her.
“Pretty, eh?” Lin said, her voice the rasp of a metal file on brickwork. “Any man would be glad to fuck me, as long as it was in the dark.”
I knew what a catastrophe this was for her. Looking like this, there would be no money to send home to the family, no money to repair the worst of the damage. No man would see beyond the bravado and the fake toughness and recognize her worth. As far as Lin was concerned, she would have been better off if they’d killed her.
I put my hand to her undamaged cheek, took her hand as she flinched from my touch. I couldn’t blame her after what another man had done to her.
I went to the bar, asked for some hot water and clean cloths, putting his mobile back on the bar. From my voice, the barman could tell I was in no mood to fuck around, and he obeyed straight away. I cleaned the cut, doing my best not to cause her any more pain, rinsing the cloths over and over again until the water was pink and the ragged edges of the cut looked like bite marks.
“Who?”
“Why does it matter to you?” Lin mumbled, the cut on her mouth distorting her words. “Some tart you’ll forget as soon as you walk out the door.”
“Tell me,” I said, as gently and calmly as I knew how. “Who?”
Lin looked at me, tears starting to fill her one undamaged eye. I could sense the courage that lay behind the fear, the refusal to be broken.
“Who?” she said, and her voice was a fingernail dragged across glass. “The man you’re looking for, that’s who.”
Chapter 43
We sat in silence as the barman brought over my orange juice, while I felt my anger grow stronger by the minute. Once we were alone again, I asked her to tell her story.
“I’d gone to the bar when it opened,” she said, wiping at her eyes. “Sometimes there are men who can’t spend an evening away from home, so they come to the bar at lunchtime, pick a girl and go to a cheap hotel for an hour.”
“And that’s OK?” I asked, as matter of fact as I could.
“It is what it is.” Lin shrugged. “They’re not drunk or aggressive; they don’t want to spend all evening boasting about how important they are, then all night explaining why they can’t get it up. Good money for quick, easy work.”
I’ve known enough working girls to debate just how easy the work is, and once the bills and the pimps have been paid, the money’s not that good either. But I’ve learned that telling other people what they should be doing doesn’t get you anywhere.
“So what happened this lunchtime?” I asked.
“I was sitting in my usual corner when he came in. I recognized him from talking to Natasha a couple of times. She didn’t go with him, but she didn’t blank him either, so I wondered if he knew where she was.”
I lit a cigarette, gusted blue smoke into the dim light. The nicotine hit me, gave me the sense that I was closing in on the trail.
“I caught his eye, smiled, did my usual routine—you know, looked at him from under my eyelashes, ran my tongue along my lower lip.”
To my distinct unease, she demonstrated, with all the subtlety of a dancing elephant.
“You men,” Lin said, and I could hear the contempt in her voice. “Sometimes it’s like spearing fish in a pool. As if most of the women in here would have anything to do with you and your cocks if you didn’t have cash in your hands.”
“Go on,” I said, keen to avoid the feminist rant, however legitimate.
“He came over, offered me a drink. I said Red Bull, but he came back with a Bullfrog, watched me take a sip, put his hand on my thigh.”
“I don’t need the foreplay, Lin,” I said. “Can you fast-forward to what happened.”
“I asked if he’d seen Natasha recently; he said not for a few days, asked if I was a close friend. I said not really, but I hadn’t seen her, wondered where she was.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You drank the Bullfrog, chatted a bit more—what’s your name, how long in Dubai—then the killer question: you want a lady?”
Lin nodded, impressed by my knowledge if no
thing else.
“I think you spend too much time in bars, talking to business ladies,” she said.
I shrugged, lit another cigarette, sipped at my juice. Too much time trying to find out who killed them, I thought, but there are some things you don’t share with other people. I deliberately hadn’t told Lin I was ex-Murder Squad; I’m sure she thought I was just one of Tynaliev’s thugs for hire. I knew that telling her my real job would close her lips faster than she’d close her legs if someone suggested sex without paying first.
“I told him my friend has a room we could use for an hour, only a hundred dirhams, two blocks away, quiet, discreet. But he said he wanted longer. Could we go to his apartment? In the daytime? Why not? So I said yes, we left, got in his car.”
“What sort of car was it?” I asked, casual my middle name. But not casual enough; I must have been out of practice.
“Why? What does that matter?” Lin asked, suddenly wary.
“If he’s a friend of Natasha’s, I might have met him. You know how you forget people’s names? I might recognize him by what he drives.”
It obviously sounded plausible enough, because Lin said, “One of those black four-wheel drive cars, tinted windows. I don’t know what sort.”
“That’s all right,” I lied. “I think I know the guy you mean.”
“He’s a bastard,” Lin swore. “We get to his car park, underground; he drives into the darkest corner and starts to beat me. Screaming, red-faced, I thought he was going to have a heart attack.”
She paused, touched her cheekbone, winced.
“If he’d had a heart attack, he’d have waited a long time for the kiss of life from me.”
“What had you done to make him angry?” I asked, hoping to provoke a response. Lin took the bait; angry people always reveal more than they intend, and I needed every scrap I could get.
“I’ve given blow jobs to punters in cars before now, as long as the coast is clear. Quick, easy, and they’re so worried about being caught, they don’t try and drag it out to get their money’s worth. But I hadn’t refused; he just started with the punches, not stopping even when he was questioning me.”
I plumed smoke into the air, stubbed out my cigarette. There comes a moment in any investigation when suddenly the world stops turning, when silence drowns everything else out, and the dice are about to land on double six. It’s the instant when the key is dangled before your eyes, and all you have to do is work out how to snatch it out of thin air before it disappears.
“Seems a strange way for a punter to behave,” I said, waving to the barman for another round of drinks. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d get a lot of sexual satisfaction from beating a girl up. I know I wouldn’t.”
Lin laughed with about as much humor as a coffin lid slamming shut. “You’d be surprised what gets some men off,” she said, venom filling her voice.
“What was he asking?”
Lin exhaled. “How long had I known Natasha? Were we very good friends? Had she ever given me something to look after for her? He went on about that, over and over again, and every time I said ‘Never’ he punched me again. And when he got bored with that, he fucked me.”
I paid for the drinks, raised my glass.
“A few days, you’ll look as good as new,” I said. “Better.”
“And who’s going to put noodles on the table while I look like this?”
I held up my hand, gave her a few more bills. Tynaliev could do someone a good turn for once, and it might even be me.
Lin took the money, no surprise there, tucked it into her cleavage and out of sight. She looked at me, suspicious as a pointed gun. “So what do you want?”
“I want to know where Natasha is,” I said.
“Cost you more than that,” Lin said, tucking the money further into her bra.
“I’m tapped out,” I said and started to get up.
Lin put a restraining hand on my arm. “Where’s the fire?” she said and threw a parody of a leer my way. “Maybe there’s more money if you find what you want.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, took out my mobile, hit speed dial. Lin watched me as if I was a wallet on legs trying to make a getaway.
“Who you calling?” she asked.
“My business partner,” I said as the dialing tone kicked in.
“Partner?”
“Don’t worry.” I smiled. “You won’t like her.”
Chapter 44
Saltanat arrived with her usual silent skill. One minute the rest of the bar was empty, the next, death walked through the door in a simple black blouse, black jeans, black biker boots. I admit to being prejudiced when it comes to finding Saltanat beautiful and desirable, but what most captivates people about her is her unerring poise, her perpetual living in the moment. There is never a sense that Saltanat is anything other than completely in control, of herself and of everyone around her.
I watched the barman stare at her, unsure whether to serve her or to drop down behind the counter, the way they do in movies just before the shooting starts. Saltanat accustomed her eyes to the gloom, let her all-encompassing gaze sweep the room like radar, spotted us and came over. As always, the grace with which she carried herself transfixed and terrified me. Every movement seemed considered yet natural. I sensed Lin beside me bristle, the way a cat’s fur rises at a hint of danger, as if she realized there could be no comparison, no competition, between the two women.
Saltanat rarely needed a weapon other than her presence, but just in case she always had a backup, either the twin-edged blade tucked into her boot or the single edge of her hands. There was also her willingness to take any fight all the way over the top into madness. Saltanat once told me that the secret of winning is not being willing to hurt someone, but not minding getting hurt while you do so.
She joined us, sitting as always with her back to the wall, watching the door, instinct tuned into survival. The barman moved with a speed and servility that he hadn’t bothered to show to lesser customers like myself. The iced water that she ordered arrived in seconds, then he scuttled back to his observation post, where he could stare at Saltanat in what he believed was safety.
The hostility Lin felt toward Saltanat was naked and honest, an attitude to which Saltanat only added with her seeming indifference. No woman likes to feel second best, and Lin was used to being the center of attention, if only for all the wrong reasons.
I made the introductions, and Lin immediately went on the offensive.
“You’re his partner? Really?”
Saltanat nodded, lit a cigarette, blew the smoke in a direction that Lin could choose to imagine was hers. Lin fanned the air, her face exaggerated disgust at such a filthy habit. Given the amount of time Lin spent in smoke-filled bars, it was a declaration of war.
“You’re Kyrgyz as well?”
“Uzbek.”
I figured this was as chatty as the two women were going to get, so cut to the chase. “The man we’re looking for, Boris, he’s the man that did this to Lin.”
“You refused to swallow?” Saltanat drawled.
I tried to bring order to the meeting.
“The important thing is to find Natasha. And Boris took Lin to the car park beneath a building, questioned her about Natasha, beat the shit out of her when she didn’t give any answers.”
Lin gave me one of those looks that don’t augur well for someone.
“Next time I’ll be ready for him,” she said and reached into her bag, took out a linoleum knife, honed to a point.
“The point is,” I said, “can you take us to the building where he took you?”
Lin thought about it, nodded. “For a price,” she said. “You must be making money out of this so, yes, I can show you. After I get the cash.”
I decided not to mention that I’d already handed over a bundle of dirhams; Saltanat would have seen agreeing to pay more as weakness, and her professional pride wouldn’t allow that. I could sense that she was keen to interrogate Lin herself
. Beside that Lin’s encounter with Boris would seem like foreplay. I stepped in before trouble kicked off.
“Two hundred dirhams for showing us the building. If we can confirm that’s where Boris is staying,” I added. Saltanat nodded. Lin could just take us to any building and point to the car park entrance, so it made sense to hold back the money until we were convinced Boris was there. Not to save cash, but to avoid wasting time.
We left our drinks unfinished, caught a taxi outside the hotel. We drove around Bur Dubai for half an hour, before Lin finally pointed to a nondescript apartment block and said, “That’s the one. I think.”
I paid off the driver while Saltanat checked out the lobby of the building. A security man behind a desk, two lifts, no CCTV cameras that we could see.
“This is the place, you’re sure?” I asked. Lin looked uncertain, then nodded. I was going to need a lot more proof before handing over the two hundred dirhams. Saltanat said nothing, but headed toward the barrier at the car park entrance. She ducked under it, turned, waited for us to follow. At that time of day most of the allocated spaces were empty, with the odd Toyota to break up the concrete monotony. It felt barren, practical and slightly sinister, the sort of place where ambushes lead to murder.
Lin led us toward the far corner and pointed at the floor. There, among the oil stains, tire scuffs and dirt, I saw a spattering of blood, a spray as if someone had been punched in the face.
“So?” Saltanat said, prodding at the dirt with the toe of her boot. “What does this prove?”
I crouched down, looked closer. Something white gleamed underneath a film of dirt and drying blood. I prodded at it, dislodged it, picked it up between thumb and forefinger. A tooth. I held it up for the others to see. Lin pulled down her lower lip, showed us the recent gap. Good enough proof for me, and even for Saltanat.
“I don’t suppose you want this back?” I asked Lin. “A souvenir of your time in Dubai. More personal than a plastic model of the Burj Khalifa, wouldn’t you say?”
Lin pulled a face of disgust, and Saltanat merely sighed. I’ll never make a comedian.
A Summer Revenge Page 18
