A Spring Betrayal by Tom Callaghan

gun from scaring him.
    “I said only you,” Kamchybek whined, in a squeak so high I looked around for bats.
    “Do I look that stupid?” Saltanat asked.
    I thought she looked deadly, a warrior queen dressed in black, but saying so wouldn’t be helpful.
    “He’s here to protect you,” she continued, her eyes never leaving his face.
    “Protect me from what?” he asked, his eyes wide and terrified.
    “From me beating you into a coma if you’ve wasted my time, if you lie to me about anything.”
    “Hey, I called you, right? Why would I lie?”
    “Let’s call it misdirection.” Saltanat’s mouth smiled, her eyes threatened.
    Kamchybek took another blast of rocket fuel, pointed first at the bottle, then at us.
    I shook my head. Saltanat merely looked pained.
    “I’ll be honest with you, okay? I’m not saying I’ve never done anything wrong, who can? I sell a little travka to smoke from time to time, maybe a DVD player or a cell phone that’s a tiny bit toasty. But I have limits, principles. You understand?”
    We both nodded: I knew where this conversation was taking us.
    “I keep my ears open, always good to know what’s hot, what’s not, get a stride ahead of the competition. But I was in here the other night,a little bit of business, and there are two guys, hammered, talking some shit, real shit, you understand?”
    Saltanat looked over at me, made a gesture of impatience. I held up my hand to stop her, nodded encouragement to him. Good cop, bad cop routine. I’ve done a lot of interrogations over the years; it’s always more productive to say as little as possible, let the truth fall through the silences in between the lies.
    “They were boasting to each other about the sex they liked. Rough stuff. Kids. Said it didn’t matter, boy or girl. Long as the kids got hurt.”
    Saltanat’s eyes narrowed, so I spoke before she could kick off.
    “Two drunks talking in a bar. Spinning the usual lies about how often they get laid, and with whom. Nothing new there. Maybe all just fantasy,” I said.
    Kamchybek shook his head, and looked across at the two street-meat women.
    “That’s what I thought at first. This place doesn’t attract the best kind of crowd.”
    He paused, demolished another vodka.
    “Anyway, they finished their bottle, staggered off with a couple of working girls for an alleyway fuck. But one of them, the one with the beard, he left his phone behind. One of those fancy ones that connect to the Internet. Worth a few som . So I slipped it into my pocket, finished my shot, headed for home. I didn’t want them coming back and asking me if I’d seen a cell phone waiting to be stolen. They both looked pretty capable, not big, but muscular, and I’m in no shape to be running. Never was much of a fighter, either.”
    “And?” I prompted.
    “Got home. Switched it on, pressed a few buttons. And a film started playing.”
    Saltanat and I waited as Kamchybek wiped his forehead with a handkerchief that had been clean around the turn of the century.
    “Well, it was . . . well, I’d never seen anything like it. And I’ve been around. Even used to be a bit of a ladies’ man when I was younger.”
    Now it was my turn to be impatient. The longer I stayed in the Kulturny, the more likely it was someone who knew me would put a callinto Sverdlovsky station, and then I’d be dancing in the soundproofed basement room where we do the hard talking.
    “Let’s speed it up, shall we? What made you decide to call my colleague here?” I asked.
    “The two men, I got the feeling they were connected, protected. Just the way they didn’t seem to give a fuck whether anyone was listening. I’d heard a whisper about that porn mule being arrested in Tashkent, so I put in the call, got your colleague here. Didn’t want to risk talking to the wrong person.”
    Kamchybek reached into his pocket and pulled out an iPhone. Still not speaking, he pressed a couple of buttons and the cell phone lit up. He handed