Moscow Noir by Natalia Smirnova

his opened wallet, the dial seemed to offer itself as a reminder of something important and forgotten. He ran his hand hard across his head, looked up and from side to side, and couldn’t remember anything. Thinking he might yet find some hint, he rummaged through his coat pockets, took out his gun, ejected the magazine into his hand, and put it back in the grip. That after yesterday there were just three cartridges left, he already knew. “Bang bang,” he said to his emerging reflection, set the Beretta where he could easily reach it from the bathtub, and crawled into the shower.
    Lana maybe? it occurred to him as he was soaping up his groin.
    Standing stock-still, he looked up at the ceiling again, shrugged, and kept washing. Whether or not Lana was his woman he couldn’t yet say, of course. Just as he couldn’t say whether she’d been a virgin. On the other hand, as soon as he had washed off her blood, he realized something he hadn’t been able to put in words before: in his preferences he was guided less by the obvious pluses of his partners’ youth—if they couldn’t be his daughters, they were still a lot younger than he was—than by the fact that their age gave him—childless in deference to his profession—the illusion of a full-fledged family. His women were also his children. Not daring to acquire any real descendants, he acquired them in his imagination, which lent their bodily intimacy the characteristics of both conception and birth. His woman was like an improved Eve, not simply a resident but the guardian of paradise, holding the forbidden fruit in one hand and in the other the serpent tempter—by the throat.
    Veltsev moved his head out from under the shower stream and listened: through the wall he heard a rumbling, first soft, then louder. He’d been hearing this rumbling for a while and hadn’t paid it any mind, thinking it was the pipe rattling, but once he turned off the water he realized the din was coming from the apartment and it was a fight, not the plumbing. Muffled blows and shuffling were interspersed with Lana’s cries and a man’s voice choking from fury. While Veltsev was drying off and putting his clothes back on, the point of the tussle became clear to him in general outline. The man, who spoke with a strong Asian accent, was demanding information from Lana about Sharfik (doubtless the smiling guy in the photograph) and about some major debt. “If he doesn’t come up with it, I’m coming for him!” the man yelled hoarsely. “He’s a dead man! Understand? A dead man! And that guy in the bathroom—does he know? Ask him.”
    “Idiot!” Lana replied, sobbing. “That’s the renter. I told you.”
    Dressed now, Veltsev attached the silencer to his Beretta, slipped a cartridge into its chamber, carefully, held his thumb down on the safety, touched the trigger, stuck the gun in his holster, flung the door open, and came out of the bathroom.
    Lana, wrapped in her robe, was sitting on the bed holding her broken nose. Not only her face but her arms above her wrists and her neck as well were splattered with blood. The imprint of a slap burned on her cheek. Opposite her, his arms akimbo and legs spread, stood her attacker, a strapping, athletically built Uzbek wearing a sheepskin coat sprinkled with melting snow and a large Kalmyk fur cap, earflaps down. A small scar crossed the uninvited guest’s mouth on a slant from nose to chin, beads dangled from his fist, and the merest edge of his knife’s carved hilt stuck out of his fur-trimmed right boot top. Birds of a feather , Veltsev thought. Then: Who the hell let this guy in?
    “Who are you?” the Uzbek breathed out at Veltsev, turning toward him slowly, as if he were going to kick him.
    Veltsev peered at a very still Lana.
    “Go get washed, please,” he told her.
    She rose silently; splashing him with the scent of her floral cream, she proceeded to the bathroom. The bolt clicked in the door. Veltsev collected the photograph