A Spring Betrayal

Chapter 18

Ignoring the fire in my shoulder, I turned to see Lubashov, the doorman from outside, Makarov in hand, struggling with the magazine, his face twisted with rage and fear.

I reached across my waist to grab my gun with my right hand, but Saltanat already had her Makarov out, left hand gripping her right wrist, the gun pointed arm’s length at Lubashov’s head. I’ve always believed that center mass of the body is the best target to put someone down—it’s how I’d killed his brother—but there’s no doubt staring into a small black circle of death focuses the mind to a surprising degree.

“Down. Don’t think about it, do it. Gun down or I put you down,” Saltanat commanded, taking a step forward. I could see Lubashov calculating the odds on unjamming his gun, taking aim, and pulling the trigger. He didn’t stand a chance.

It was one of those moments when time freezes, cigarette smoke suspended against the ceiling lights, a moment of gray, where everything becomes electric and vivid. I looked over my shoulder. There was a scorch mark on my jacket as if someone had tapped me with a red-hot poker, and a certain amount of blood, but nothing I’d need a transfusion for. If I hadn’t bent down to gag though, it would have been very different. With no need for a blood transfusion.

Like a man doing a mime act in extreme slow motion, wading through particularly sticky glue, Lubashov lowered the gun down on the floor. It looked as if Mother Lubashova wouldn’t need to buy a second tombstone. But Saltanat didn’t take her eyes off his hands, her gun off his face.

“You’ve got a good explanation for trying to kill a police officer?” she said.

Lubashov looked about to burst into tears.

“My brother,” he mumbled, said something nonsensical about revenge. Over the years of what I laughingly call my career, I’ve learned that the weakness of all these wannabe gangsters is that they mistake violence for an instant solution instead of a last resort. But shooting a Murder Squad detective will bring a wealth of shit down on everyone, even if he’s wanted for questioning.

Saltanat moved forward, beckoning Lubashov back with her gun, until she could pass his gun back to me.

“How badly are you hurt?”

I shrugged, nonchalant, immediately wished I hadn’t.

“We can pick up some bandages once we leave. It’s just a graze; I’ve had worse shaving cuts.”

More bravado on my part that Saltanat chose to disregard.

“What do you want to do with this one?” she asked, nodding at Lubashov, who now knelt down and laced his fingers behind his neck.

“Not much I can do, is there? Can hardly ask for him to be taken down to the station, unless I want to share his cell.”

I looked at him, the usual cheap mix of arrogance and uncertainty clear in his face. Bullet fodder, if not now, in the future. I pondered for a moment, then drew my Yarygin, awkwardly, with my right hand.

“I could save us some trouble and kill him,” I suggested, sighting down the barrel in the general direction of Lubashov’s balls. Or where they would have been if Saltanat hadn’t drop-kicked them into his pelvis.

Lubashov’s face grew smudged with gray.

“Plenty of room for you next to your brother,” I added, “and then your dear old mama only needs one marshrutka bus ticket to visit the pair of you. Convenient, eh?”

I moved closer to Lubashov, never letting my eyes drop until my gun loomed large in his life. Despite what he might have thought, I wasn’t going to shoot him. In fact, I’ve never killed or wounded anyone except in self-defense. Maybe that makes me less of a detective. And it certainly doesn’t mean that the innocent dead don’t rise up before me at night. They all stare with accusing eyes, wondering why I hadn’t protected them from the monsters outside, why they’d had to pay such a price in order for me to catch the bad guys. And if they could talk, they’d all ask me the same question: “Why me?”

“If you’re going to do it, then just fucking do it,” Lubashov said, with an unexpected and rather admirable flash of spirit.

“Not my style,” I said, stroking his cheek with the gun barrel while Saltanat kept him covered with her Makarov. “I only shoot villains, not half-assed hopefuls who don’t even know how to put a clip in a gun.”

I gave him one of my special smiles, the one that never reaches my eyes.

“I’m a pretty forgiving kind of guy, but, my job being what it is, I can’t help wondering if there’s another reason you want me dead, other than your brother snoozing in the cemetery. So tell, who put you up to ruining my second-best jacket?”

“Inspector, we really don’t have time for this,” Saltanat said, impatience clear in her voice.

I sighed, knowing she was right. I holstered my piece and unloaded the clip from Lubashov’s gun. The metal felt cold, oily, like the name plaque on a tombstone, like death itself.

“You need to check the tension on the spring, rotate your bullets, keep everything clean, oiled and wiped. Or one day you’ll come up against someone who isn’t as considerate as me, and while you’re wrestling with a misfire, they won’t miss firing at you.”

I looked around at the rest of the bar, at the people frozen in front of me.

“Everyone keep their sticky little hands where I can see they’re not going to give me any trouble. Nice and calm, like taking a walk in Panfilov Park.”

I nodded toward Saltanat, gestured toward the stairs.

“Don’t forget our parrot; I don’t think we’ve heard all his amusing repertoire yet.”

Saltanat took hold of Kamchybek’s arm, and we started off back to the daylight and fresh air.

And that’s when the shooting started.