The Thing Man

..

SOFIA

Zdravko Nestorov frowned at the garage television his father had sitting on the shelf. It had some thing on about whales. He leaned back on the workbench with a vice situated between himself and his sixty four year old father. Together they stared at the grey Toyota HiAce. EMAL METAL CONSTRUCTION it said on the door in black.
“What kind of clueless gunk walks out of Pazardjik Prison in full view of the guards, steps into a waiting car and disappears forever?” Zdravko quizzed in a soft growl.
Vasil didn’t answer.
“Without a shot being fired?”
“I did some work at Pazardjik once,” Vasil recalled.
“Oh yeah? They got me with Rusim. No one’s seen that guy in years.”
“Rusim. I remember him.” Vasil took a swig on his beer.
“Ten years, actually,” said Zdravko.
“That’s the one thing about prisons..” A call came from Elka on the upstairs balcony. “Lulululululululu.” It was like a farmer’s wife’s call, but in the middle of town, meaning: Will all geese please come home and be locked up safe and sound for the night.
Either that or dinner was ready.

Vasil finished his beer, turned off the TV, and shut up the garage.
“What about prisons?” Zdravko wanted to know.
“Shitload of steel.”

Zdravko and his father walked round the apartment block and up to the flat.

In the pale green kitchen Elka came over from the table and kissed her son on both cheeks. “How was your holiday?” she asked in a deep-as-a-man’s voice. “You should shave, my son.”
“Pretty good. Too short by about a decade. And yes, you’re right. I should, Maiko.”
“How’s your father?”
They walked back to the table and the steamy smell of garlic and herbs. Vasil had already taken his chair by the window.
“You mean this one?”
Elka stopped. Together they looked at Vasil. “Cabbage with pork,” she smiled. The six o’clock news was on.

*

Zdravko made his way through the third floor calmness of the Sofia Central Police Station and opened the door to Lieutenant Vladimir Gomenko’s office.
The clock above Gomenko said 8.48am. Rusim was standing by the wall to the left, next to a framed picture of the Lieutenant himself on holiday somewhere in the islands with a cocktail in hand. Zdravko walked straight for Rusim.
“You’re not really late,” said Gomenko in his Russian kind of way. Zdravko ignored that.
“Vladimir told me you’ve been on leave,” said Rusim after they’d given up hugging. “Some place down in Africa.”
Zdravko shrugged. “Virtually non-stop from Mozambique. I’m shattered. Good to see you,” he said.
“Maybe we should get to it,” suggested Rusim. Rusim was usually right. Or used to be. Maybe now he was just some alcoholic quarter-gypsy with hardly any hair except for a greying beard who lived with his wife and stepkids in Lower Malina. Now he was probably making gravestones in his spare time, or whatever it was people did in Lower Malina. Zdravko looked at Gomenko. Gomenko looked back benignly, a couple of folders in his hand. Zdravko took the files and handed one across to Rusim, taking the chance to sneak another look at his old friend.
“I thought it would be a good idea to put you two together. Organise a small reunion,” said Gomenko. “And here we are. It’s been ten whole years, I believe.” He looked at his sleeve. “So, gentlemen. Middle aged man escapes from Pazardjik Prison. One year into three for theft. Robert Gjoeb. Hungarian national, resident in Bulgaria. Walks straight through the pine trees. Disappears like a brilliant idea in America.” Gomenko placed both his hands on the desk and half stood up. “Come with me,” he said. Then he stood up properly.

*

Zdravko followed in last to the briefing room which was known as The Theatre. The Theatre was care of the communists. The communists liked to watch their videos big. Zdravko and Rusim sat down in their black theatre-style chairs across the aisle from Gomenko. The lights dimmed. The video started with a shot of some kids folk-dancing. Zdravko recognised the song. ‘Helena Girl.’
“Here’s our man clapping. The guy in the middle.” A quartet of men, including Gomenko, stood clapping in time to the side of the costumed dancers, who were in a circle.
“Which guy in the middle?” asked Zdravko.
“The other one, you idiot.”
They watched some more.
“Do you know when you know what you want, and can’t find it ever?” Gomenko said. “That’s the kind of thing my wife thinks about shoes.”
Rusim and Zdravko exchanged glances in the flickering communist dark.

The homemade video went on in the same vein for about three minutes, sometimes including footage of the four clappers, sometimes not. Then it finished.
“And?” was Rusim’s first question.
The lights slowly dimmed back up.
“You want baby photographs?”
“Where’s the rest?”
“There isn’t much.”
Silence.
“Where is it?” asked Rusim.
“Probably with my wife’s shoes,” said Gomenko as if he were somehow pleased.
“You’re telling me the court records, the police shots, identity card, his home holiday snaps are with your wife’s shoes?”
“Not exactly. Not everything is missing.”
“Where did this vid come from then?”
“From the wardrobe. That’s my own video. That’s my nephew dancing two years ago. I had the honour of being introduced to our Mr. Gjoeb. Chunky guy as you can see. Polite. Kind of neutral, but friendly enough. I remember his kind of smile. I remember his name and what he did for a living. I remember the accent, the kind of suit he wore. But of all things, I don’t recall why he was there. I assumed his son or daughter was a dancer too but it turns out he hasn’t got any kids.”
“Maybe his nephew,” said Zdravko.
“Maybe. But somewhat difficult for an only child.”
“Maybe a Leonardo?” thought Rusim aloud.
Gomenko turned to look directly at Rusim. “What the hell is a Leonardo?”
“Illegitimate child.”
“So that’s your job to find out then, isn’t it?”
“And what did he do for a crust, this guy?” asked Zdravko.
“Some kind of trust account. Lived up in the mountains. Back at the dance, he said he thought he might like to write a book. Like a person with nothing to do. I asked him what he was going to write about. He said he didn’t know.”
Rusim let out something halfway between a sigh and a whistle. “You give him any suggestions?”
“There’s one thing more,” Gomenko went on.
“What?” asked Zdravko.
“This Gjoeb got busted for stealing a horse.”
“Shit. Three years is a long time for stealing a horse.”
“The horse was worth three and a half million.”
“So, what happened to the horse?”
“Current thinking is it went to the meat works.”
Rusim did his whistle-sigh thing again. “Who’s horse?”
“Anna Sirakov. She’s in the file.”
“And what has this Sirakov lady got to do with Gjoeb?”
“Nothing, as far as we can tell.”
“A three and a half million lev horse in Bulgaria?” said Rusim amazed. He slowly shook his head. “What’s any kind of horse doing in Bulgaria? We don’t even like horses.”
“Maybe Hungarians do,” mused Zdravko.
“Well then, that’s some kind of perverse way to love horses.”
“Mmm..” Zdravko shifted on his seat. “Gjoeb must have been coming up for parole, even.” He looked over at Gomenko. “So chief. What is missing apart from the horse?”
Gomenko turned back to the screen and clicked the remote. “This guy. Petko Antonov, a guard at the prison. Take a look.” The lights dimmed back down.
Several still shots followed. Then prison-cam footage of two guards exiting what looked to be Pazardjik, one emerging several metres before the other and then turning back, appearing to say something, and then the other guard following. Grainy close-ups followed. Gjoeb was the straggler. The two men continued walking at normal pace across the compound and out the gate. After that was a long range video shot of a white sedan parked up in some street. Two men approached and got in either side. The car drove off at no great speed.
“Getting into that car is our last sighting,” said Gomenko.
“The car?” wondered Zdravko.
“The car?” repeated Gomenko. “Disappeared off the face of the earth.”
Again, the lights dimmed up.

“Shit. Anything else missing?” asked Rusim.
“There are two lines of inquiry here. Your man Gjoeb, and this Petko Antonov. Georgieva and Petrov are looking into that particular gentleman’s current whereabouts. Stay in touch with those two. What’s really missing is that this guy Gjoeb’s a nobody. A rich nobody. A recluse. He’s lived in the Sophia district at least a good part of his time, but it’s sketchy. No police record. No parking ticket. No record of travel. As I say, no wife, no kids. No siblings. Everything we’ve got is in the file.”
“Shit,” said Rusim.
“Keep me up to date. I need a result here. You got that?” said Gomenko standing. “I’ll see you two same time Friday. Hopefully earlier.” He turned to Zdravko. “That means three minutes earlier, Nestorov.”

*

An hour later, Zdravko and Rusim re-emerged on ul. Shesti Septemvri. People were walking by in the sunshine. It was the kind of day you waited a whole year for. Where the light smelled of hunger, and the hunger smelt of newly printed notes.
“You want something to eat?” Zdravko asked. But Rusim was already walking across the street.

They sat down at a table at Paulo’s halfway along the wall. The wall was white gypsum plaster, the marble table round with ornate iron legs. A waiter brought water and a menu and wine list.
“Bring us two sangrias,” said Rusim. “Hang up. Change that. Just one. I forgot. And what else?” He turned to Zdravko.
“Decaf.”
“Decaf?”
“Decaf.”
Rusim looked at the waiter. The waiter was looking at the water. “Decaf,” Rusim repeated, and the waiter walked away. Rusim turned back to Zdravko and began pouring two glasses of water.

“How are your kids?” Zdravko asked.
“Running round. Running round. They’re a handful.” Rusim stopped himself and looked over to the bar as if something had just occurred to him. Turning back, he said: “Shit. Hungarians have the weirdest names. I mean, how do they make up their names? It’s like: my name’s John but I’m gonna spell it backwards. Then I’m gonna stick in an extra G which is pronounced like a D.”
Zdravko shrugged and raised his eyebrows. “Hungarians are weird.”

“Gomenko hasn’t changed,” said Rusim cheerily.
“You’ve been away too long. He’s now got a full-size picture of himself on his screen saver. Flathead’s the asshole he always was,” Zdravko said.
Rusim sipped on his water. “We’ve both been away. And so, mister non-drinker. How long’s that been going on?”
“Two years, about.”
“And how is it?”
“I feel pretty good. A lot better than what I did a few years ago,” said Zdravko.
“What happened then?”
“I was depressed. I was a fictional character in someone else’s cesspit movie. Plus I was lying about my drinking, you know? I couldn’t sleep. My wife and kid left. That was pretty tough. I needed help so I went and got some. One day my counsellor said to me: You know you’re going to have to stop drinking? I thought, you know, why didn’t I think of that? Anyway, so I stopped. I took two months off and went on sleeping pills and whatever else they gave me. Valium. After a while, I went back to work.”
“How’s your kid? Ana. She’d be like twelve or something?”
Zdravko bobbed his head from side to side. “I don’t see her. First, they moved to Sandanski. Now, apparently, they live in Macedonia. If a woman is willing to ransom her own child, you’ve got to ask yourself some tough questions. One of which is: Is this father willing to pay the ransom? I hope Ana’s ok. I hope I get to see her one of these days. Maybe I will. But I’m not counting my chickens.”
Rusim was silent.

“So they’ve roped you back in? I thought you were done for good,” said Zdravko.
“Lower Malina.” Rusim looked up. “Lower Malina. It’s like a song.”
“Hey yeah. I got a headache already.”
For some reason, Rusim laughed, and for some reason that made Zdravko think of whales.

“I once met a guy who’d made a proper scientific study of assholes,” Rusim said in relation to nothing. “Lucky for this guy, his whole town was full of them. Some small town by the sea. He had them all categorised, folderised, like a university thesis. Every asshole got to get his photograph taken on the pretext of this so-called project he was doing. He showed it to me. Very impressive. This guy’s theory was that the isolation of the place, the abundance of stones, the clean rivers, the favourable climate, and an insufficient gene pool had combined to produce an entire town of fuckwits. It was uncanny. Either that, he said, or somewhere along the line, some asshole from outer space had come down and mated with the locals.”
Zdravko smiled. “Ten years is a long time, Rusim. It’s good to see you.”

The decaf and sangria arrived.
Rusim waited for the waiter to leave. “It’s good to see you too. Nazdrave,” he said, clinking the foot of his glass against the decaf sitting on the table. “So, where are we?”
“We were talking about jail breaks. A rich guy who steals horses,” said Zdravko raising his cup mid-air.
Rusim took a too big mouthful of sangria.
“And an alkie drinking decaf,” added Zdravko admiring his decaf.
Rusim too looked at the cup. It was a normal looking white coffee cup if you happened to be a decaf guy. “What we’ve got is not a lot,” he said.
“What we’ve got is a yellow wind,” said Zdravko.

BOJANA

Zdravko got in the passenger side of Rusim’s unmarked black Opel. Robert Gjoeb’s address was only an hour out of town. Forensics were already there.
Rusim took a heading south towards Bojana.
For a while, both men kept their silence and soaked up God’s afternoon through open windows. But once in faster moving traffic, the windows got wound up.

“So which kind of assholes lived in that guy’s town?” Zdravko wanted to know.
“I don’t know. Hundreds of them.”
“He obviously didn’t have the dumb and self-righteous asshole. The I’ve-got-a-tiny-piece-of-my-head-missing kind of asshole. Least not all in one person.”
“This guy had plenty of assholes. He probably had those ones.”
“But not all in the same person.”
“Flathead is unique,” said Rusim thoughtfully.
“He’s a world-first asshole.”
“I remember this guy did have the asshole unable to apologise for anything whatsoever.”
“Hmm.” Zdravko half smiled and half frowned. “What did he look like?”
“I forget. I think he was all skin and bones. Then there was this gas station attendant guy who would ring the cops if it looked like the customer, who would be someone he probably knew, was over the limit.”
“Shit, that’s low.”
“Though, amazingly, it turned out my friend did have three or four good mates there.”
“Yeah? And what were they like?”
“Salt of the earth. Kind of like the total opposite of assholes. Hard to know how those kind of friendly people survived. Must have been on asshole duty, I guess. But still, at ten past five on his way home from work, this guy reckoned it was entirely possible to witness a whole supermarket full of assholes.”
“I guess that place by the sea must have been beautiful,” Zdravko said looking out the window.
The traffic was just that tiny bit too slow. Rusim turned on the siren and planted boot. “Yeah,” he said. “And full of assholes.”

The Opel glid through the suburbs like they weren’t exactly the right ones, or the wrong ones either.

“Jesus, I’ve been having some funny dreams lately,” Zdravko said.
“Like what?”
“Like fighting. Like futuristic dreams of war.”
“Maybe that’s what happens if you stop drinking long enough,” proposed Rusim. “I hardly ever dream.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure dreams mean anything anyhow.”
“But you’re dreaming of war. Why not dream of girls with big tits then?”
“Well I couldn’t say all my dreams were like that. But the ones I remember are.”
“In that case there’s a double meaning. You dream of war, or then if you dream of something else, you forget it.”
“Right,” said Zdravko suspiciously.
“That’s not counting the fact that your dreams are set in the future.”
Zdravko gave up.

“So, what are the dreams then? I mean, give me an example,” continued Rusim.
Zdravko made a soft groaning sound. “Last night I had a dream that Petar Dunov was explaining to me that there are several classes of warrior. One class originated with this guy who discovered that, in battle, as soon as he gripped the hilt of his sword, the sun would shine.” Zdravko turned to see Rusim’s reaction, which wasn’t anything. “So next thing in the dream there’s four horsemen riding through town in their futuristic, stainless steel type armour, looking to hunt down and fight some evil birds.”
“Last night, huh? Four horsemen? Must be the week of the horse already. So, do they find them, the birds? In the bad weather?”
“I don’t remember the bad weather, but yeah.”
“And they fight them?”
“Yeah.”
“Dunov, huh?”
They were passing the Rakovski Stadium with its new trimming. On the other side of Bulevard Bulgaria was the Medicine Academy. Zdravko continued: “Come to think of it, I did have a dream about women the other day. In that dream, there were only women in the world. Men didn’t get past being boys. Some of the women were bad and some were good. The bad ones wanted to fight and the good ones not. Only thing is, they have to fight. But only on certain dates.”
“What were the women like?”
“Like women.”
“Actually, you can’t win a war with women,” said Rusim. “They’re masters of the genre.”
“Mistresses,” Zdravko corrected.
Rusim thought for a second. “Women couldn’t even win a war with women.”

Bojana turned up soon enough. Rusim cruised straight on through and wheeled up into the forested mountains.
“I bet you haven’t been up here in a while,” said Zdravko admiring the scenery.
“No.”
“You’d be just about a Plovdiv guy by now,” Zdravko persisted. “A real Maina.”
“Not anymore.”
“Ten whole years. And now you’re trying to get along amongst the Shopi.”
“My Dad’s getting old.”
“Old?”
“Actually, not too old. Just sick. Now, I kind of just be with him when I can.”

About where the last of Bojana’s plush mountain houses ran out, the road perched aside a ridge running in the same direction, Rusim slowed up. He took the right turn indicated by the GPS, and headed up a side road. The pine and fir trees loomed closer. Shards of light danced across the windscreen and escaped back into the shade. Bend followed bend.
“Hundred metres on your left,” advised Zdravko looking at the little orange marker on the GPS.
“I can see,” said Rusim.

Rusim eased the Opel into a driveway with no number or letterbox. The driveway led up and through the forest, curving to the right. At the top it opened out onto a flattish knob of a hill with an old stone cottage looking out above the tree line. A police car and van were parked close to the cottage.
Rusim pulled the Opel to a stop. “Look at that,” he said. Bathed in a golden haze, the view stretched across the endless apartment buildings and suburbs as far as the TV tower back in central Sofia.
“Rustic place for a rich guy,” observed Zdravko.
“Yeah.”
“I’d own a place like this if I was rich,” said Zdravko. “Just like this. Beautiful.”
Rusim was eyeing up the cottage. One of the forensics guys appeared and walked over to the van. Zdravko kept his eyes straight ahead.
“I suppose that guy in your dream is shit out of luck if the sun’s already shining,” said Rusim talking to the driver’s window.
“He probably stays home and waits it out.”
“He probably lives here.”
“Probably.”
“Except he’s on the run.”
“He’s on the run,” Zdravko agreed.
Rusim opened the door and was half way out when he said: “You coming?”
Zdravko’s head slowly wagged. “Let me know what you see.”
Rusim got the rest of the way out of the car, wandered over to the cottage and disappeared inside.

Zdravko got out and walked as far as the bush line where scattered hawthorn, raspberry, wild apple and briar were quickly re-colonising the grassed area around the house. He found an opening among the bushes and wandered through.

*

Zdravko woke at the sound of a car horn blaring, got to his feet and brushed himself off. “Over here,” he called, then turned to the tree he’d been leaning on with its sawed-off log for a seat. He thought of Robert Gjoeb sitting there in the cool, maybe not asleep but just thinking, the light angled above him and the smell of pine needles.
Maybe not even thinking.
“Zdravko,” said Rusim squeezing through the shrubs.
“Rusim,” said Zdravko turning around.
“You’re the begletz then, isn’t it? You find anything?”
“I found a seat in the forest,” said Zdravko in his usual growl.
“Forensics are still fluffing around. But that cottage is a shell.”
“Power on?”
“No power. What seat?”
“We need to check when it was turned off. You sure there’s nothing?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then all we’ve got is a log.”
“What log?”
“This one.”
Rusim leant to one side to look at what was behind Zdravko. “I’ll check the power,” he said.
“Good.”

There was only so much you could learn from a log seat. It was built for someone short. Or maybe for someone who didn’t like to share. Most likely a man, if you could gauge from the wear. But a man who knew how to get his hands on a chainsaw. And a plum property in Mafiaville.
Zdravko and Rusim walked back to the cottage.
“He was a smoker,” said Rusim.
“Seems so,” said Zdravko.

*

Rusim needed a drink so they stopped into a local bar. The Moreni was built out of stone and varnished wood in the style of a chalet and stood next to a carpark and bus stop on the main road. A handful of punters sat at their tables drinking, talking, or playing Four Square.
A giant of a man with a black moustache stood behind the counter.
Rusim ordered a vodka for himself and a lemon soda for Zdravko. “Ever seen this man?” He held out a photo of Gjoeb as the barman poured his drink.
“Not recently,” deadpanned the barman in a voice deeper than hell.
“Maybe a year or two ago?”
“Never seen him.”

Zdravko and Rusim sat at a table apart. Two men who looked like they might have owned the place sat talking in the corner. One thing for sure, one of them owned the Bentley parked outside.
“We’re missing something up here,” said Zdravko.
Rusim pulled the phone out of his breast pocket and took a call. “We’ll see,” he said, putting the phone in his other hand. “Go,” he told the phone. After that he just listened or mumbled assent. “Run a check of furniture removal outfits around the time the power was cut. We need a local cop up here doing the rounds of the neighbourhood, if he isn’t already. Whatever anyone might know. He must’ve had at least one friend. Or enemy. The crucial thing is the telephone or computer communications. And let me know how the ID check on the video’s going,” he said finally and clicked off. He looked at Zdravko and said: “The power was turned off two weeks before Gjoeb’s sentencing. Nothing from customs. Nothing serious from the bank yet.”
“I like this guy already,” said Zdravko.
Rusim knocked back his vodka and looked over at the bar. “Gjoeb’s made of money.”
“In which case he’s gone,” said Zdravko.
“In which case he had a double identity before he went inside,” said Rusim stroking his beard with the upside of his fingers. “Robert isn’t even a Hungarian name.”
“Hungarians are weird,” said Zdravko.
“I need a smoke,” said Rusim.

They got up and walked out to the smoking area, collecting Rusim’s new drink from the bar on the way.

Outside, the afternoon was engineering an even balmier version of itself. Zdravko walked up to the railing and stood looking at the mountains. “Pretty beautiful,” he said as Rusim finished lighting his cigarette. “Makes a man want to go to sleep.”
“You can drive,” said Rusim.

THE DANCE FLOOR

Zdravko leant one arm over the rail to scan the dance floor below. Rusim was never that hard to find. He danced so bad it was good, especially if he had a cigarette in his mouth. Not everyone could get the idea of dancing badly. They preferred to be young, dress sharp and have all their hair. And cigarettes probably weren’t allowed no more. Amidst that sea of bodies jumping in time, Rusim was with some girl who was looking pretty good. Zdravko returned to the conversation and Georgieva. “I fell asleep today,” he said. “In a forest.”
There was no obvious reaction. A cop with a bad mind wasn’t any more admirable than a cop with a good mind. Stojanka Georgieva had pinball eyes and a suit to match. Her tightly curled, black hair was the kind that was practically unmanageable. She must have looked at herself in the mirror every morning and thought: “OK. What the hell. I’ll just tie it up again.”
“You needed a rest,” Petrov said. “It’s understandable. You look all worn out from your holiday.” At the end of the table Petrov seemed in a particularly good mood. His get-up was straight out of mafia central: leather jacket, next generation T shirt, religious bling, and shoes made from the blood of halfway honest, in-debt citizens.
“You have something to tell me.” Zdravko kept his focus on Georgieva.
“We have a line on the guard.”
“Good.”
“Want to come along?”
“Why not?”
“Your Gjoeb must be one stupid mother,” put in Petrov.
“I hope so,” said Zdravko looking directly at Georgieva.
“The Grand Hotel,” Georgieva said.
Petrov stood up, peering over the dance floor.
“Sit down Trendafil,” said Georgieva.
Petrov sat down.
“We were lucky,” said Georgieva. “One of the other guards at Pazardjik had a few stories to tell. One thing led to another.” A fleeting wistfulness passed across her lips and eyes. Then it was gone.
“Hats off,” said Zdravko.

*

Every bit of ash has a life of its own. It gets brushed off. Flies along. Runs away. Joins an army somewhere.
Maybe Antonov knew where he was going.
And none of those folk-dancing kids were in any way related to Gjoeb, if you believed that kind of shit from above.
Maybe Gjoeb was the sound-guy slash chauffeur, researching adolescent folk-dance.
Maybe Gomenko wasn’t really an asshole.
And the log seat was awake and could remember the entire thoughts of a forest.
The barman knew nothing.
The Bentley was a fake.
And people were allowed to escape from prison.

One thing though, Georgieva was right to be a legalised sociopath. That way, she put the lie to reality.

*

Zdravko and Rusim waited in the Opel, parked up in ul. Gurko not fifty metres west of the Grand Hotel and facing away. It was near one o’clock in the morning, and so as not to attract attention, Rusim smoked a cigarette with the window down and the stereo on. Eighties Iranian club sounds.
“La Pulga,” said Rusim looking in the mirror. “Here he is.”
Zdravko checked his wing mirror but the hotel entrance was empty.
“Two girls and a cigar,” said Rusim.
“Let’s give him a second then.”
“I’m gonna take a look,” said Rusim. He got out of the car and flicked his cigarette into the night. Zdravko kept his eye on the side mirror. Antonov was walking into the Grand with a girl on either arm. He plucked at the microphone on the inside of his collar. “Antonov’s here,” he said. “Couple of girls.” Then he got out and ran.
For a phlegmatic forty two year old, his movements were surprisingly graceful and quick. Within a few seconds he was beside the hotel entrance. Rusim walked toward him from across the street.
The maroon-uniformed doorman stepped aside at the sight of two pistols pointed slightly forward of his shoes.

Inside the lobby, things were getting tense. Antonov and the two girls were motionless, close to and facing the lift. Georgieva was in the lobby, Petrov in front of reception. Both had their weapons trained on Antonov. The reception staff had vanished. One of the hookers had her face in her hands. Antonov and the other girl had their hands stuck behind their heads.
“Get out of here, ladies,” said Georgieva. Rusim, his Makarov still levelled at the floor, shifted in the direction of the lobby. Zdravko stayed at the entrance. For some reason, the two ladies stayed put.
“Don’t shoot,” said the girl who didn’t have her face in her hands.
“What’s your name, honey?” said Georgieva.
“Nadejda.”
“That’s a lovely name. Tell your friend it’s going to be alright. We need everyone just to be alive. Why don’t you reach over, take the..” The lift door opened with nobody in it. “Grab your friend and walk into that lift.”
The girl with the name reached over, took the other girl’s hand out of her face, and together they walked into the lift.
“Now press the button that says two. You’ll be okay. Just stay up there. We’ll only be a minute. Be right up.”
The lift door closed.
“Now turn around slowly,” said Georgieva to Antonov.
Antonov stood motionless.
“Turn around or I’ll put a bullet in your back.” Georgieva’s voice had taken on the tone of an automated, discarnate lift attendant.
Petrov raised his gun a fraction higher. “Turn around and on the floor, motherfucker,” he said.
Then Antonov did a strange thing. He lowered his arms to the horizontal. Like Jesus on the cross, except he was back to front and dressed in a tuxedo. 
And then he swivelled round so fast that Petrov got a fright and let off a round. Antonov crashed sideways onto the tiled floor.
Petrov glanced up to the ceiling, like there might be someone looking. Georgieva walked up to take a closer look. She gently prodded Antonov’s ribs with her boot, blood meanwhile pouring from his head like an expanding red speech bubble.
“Goddam idiot,” she said. But it wasn’t exactly clear who she was thinking of.

PIECES OF PAZARDJIK

“So, it’s two lean, hard years. And after all that, I’m writing again!” Gjoeb said. “Lucky huh?”
“A lot of people would say to be in Pazardjik Prison wasn’t so lucky,” observed Antonov. Antonov was the new guard.
“A lot of those kind of people don’t live here. What would they know?”
“That sure is some kind of story though.”
“Gypsies, huh?” Gjoeb shrugged and placed the last of the clothes in the washing machine.
“How many of them?” asked Antonov.
“There’s no telling numbers with gypsies. I only ever dealt with one guy and his family.”
Antonov slowly shook his head and said nothing.

They shifted to another machine. Gjoeb bent down, pulled out the newly washed clothes and placed them, handful by handful, in a green plastic basket.
“You’re a rightie,” said Antonov.
“A rightie what?”
“Your crown is on the right.”
“You mean my hair?”
“I do,” said Antonov.
“So?”
“You can tell a person by which way his hair is wired.”
“So how does that work then?”
Antonov leant forward, looking into the washing basket. “Modern astrology, being a misinterpretation of ancient Chaldean wisdom, divides the entire world population into twelve distinct types, most of them animals. I, on the other hand, divide the world in two. Lefties and righties, depending on which way your hair goes round. I imagine, from a lefty’s point of view, a crown on the right signifies some kind of squareness.”
“I see,” Gjoeb said. “What’s the rightie’s point of view then?”
“You guys would probably say that lefties are disorganised communist bludgers. But hey. I’ve met righties who weren’t square. I once met a leftie squarer than a dish cloth. Assan was his name. A gypsy. Square leftie gypsies are not that common.”
“Hoy. So, everything spins? Like atoms. Like the heavens,” Gjoeb said standing up.
Antonov too instinctively straightened. “Angels don’t have no sense of humour,” he declared. “They don’t even laugh.”

*

Antonov drove himself home. Ha! Fifty eight years old and he sends himself off behind bars. Purpose of which is what? An evil two year spell of writer’s block!? Seventeen novels down the line? And is there a nom de plume forthcoming? Hmm. No time soon. Complicates his case? What case? Stealing a horse? So, then he starts writing again on a toilet seat! The day before yesterday. Ha. A very definite kind of unlikely. Meanwhile, the best 24/7 research strategy ever! Ha! God bless gypsies and all of their kind. And just what do you want us to do with this horse once we’ve stolen it? Well frankly, Gjoeb doesn’t give a damn. How about trying to sell it for yourself? Ever think of that?

Antonov parked his yellow VW in 53 instead of 52. Usually 53 was taken up with a metallic blue Renault. He got out and stood in the middle of his usual parking space surveying the various cars and colours. The concrete directions. Free to come and go. 
That next book of Gjoeb’s would undoubtedly be a masterpiece of bad parking. Ha fucking ha!

*

Gjoeb took off most of his clothes and sat on the bunk, the heat being near incomprehensible. Nazim was in the bunk above.
“I need a cigarette,” said Nazim.
“I wish I had a Cuban cigar,” Gjoeb said.
“You got a cigarette?”
“Cigars are about a thousand million times better than cigarettes.”
“What cigars?”
“Cuban.”
There was only one way to shut people up. Bamboozle them with Cubans.

Silence. Long and perfect.
Gjoeb lay down on the bunk, stretching right out and looking up to the alien spaceship he couldn’t see. Come from god knows where, oblivious to any local gravitational laws, this spaceship was sailing straight on through the solar system, a cigar four football fields long disguised as a rock, if you believed week-old newspapers. Heading for some place else.
“All-seeing Zeus takes half the good out of a man the day he becomes a slave,” Gjoeb said for good measure.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
“That stuff you’re writing?”
Gjoeb said nothing.
After a while, Nazim fell asleep, if you could tell by his breathing.

*

Antonov stared at the giant framed poster of Stalin on the far wall. Stalin stared back. On the left was an equally giant Soviet flag. The right hand wall was empty. Polished concrete. A la mode, if you happened to be living in 1933. Fifteen candles populated a granite-topped table between. One for every republic.

One of the candles suddenly flickered.
“I did a crazy thing today.”
“And that was what, Comrade Antonov?”
“I got talking to a writer. Some supposed writer. I’m not supposed to be befriending people.”
“Au contraire, mon ami,” said Stalin. “Is it good or bad, his writing?”
“I don’t know. I could find out. Seems dodgy he won’t tell me the name he writes under.”
“And why is that?”
“Legal reasons. What kind of person has legal reasons?”
“But to more important questions: how are you, comrade?” asked Stalin.
“Lucky you know all this already.” Antonov’s body momentarily shook all over. “I’m fine.”
“Antonov. Do you want to learn something?”
“What? About my headache?”
“Did I forget?”
“No.” Antonov hung his head.
“No,” said Stalin. “I did not forget.”
Silence.
Stalin said: “Those who believe nothing much happens in prisons have no proper knowledge of the human being. With every new prison, a thousand opportunities. It would indeed be better if the entire world were a prison.” Stalin lowered his voice. “Which it is, Antonov. It’s not like we can easily wander the hell right out of here.” His voice changed. “I suggest we befriend our man. See what he’s thinking. Find out. Listen. He may yet be a person of interest.”

*

“There are some holes in my thinking,” said Antonov. Gjoeb was kicking a small stick around in the exercise yard.
“You’re meaning your logic?”
“No. I mean in my thinking.”
“Which kind of holes?” Gjoeb asked.
“Black kind. The kind with nothing in them.”
“The same kind as when I’m not writing?”
Antonov said nothing. Instead, he followed the little stick from one bit of paving to the next, as if it were some kind of insect flitting from stone to stone, knowing exactly where it would land before it got kicked.
“I need everyone to go to sleep before I can write,” Gjoeb said. “That’s when I really wake up.”
Antonov still said nothing.
Gjoeb kicked the stick some more. “Thoughts is music,” he said. “Bad music has no holes. That’s a wall. No way through. But holes are the main thing, just like in prison. Musical notes are merely here to frame and characterise the gaps.” He stopped kicking. “You ever heard of Jimi Hendrix?”
Antonov nodded.
“What that guy did was organise some kind of funked-up musical framework wherein he could semi-breathe, and then he’d just play along and wait until he found a mistake. It wouldn’t be his mistake, necessarily. Just a mistake. But he’s looking for it, our Jimi. For Jimi, a mistake is a door into the next universe. You turns the knob and you walks straight through. The other side of that door is where the shit is happening.”
“Well, my own particular door requires painkillers. What are you writing about?”
Gjoeb did a backtrack. “You mean you got headaches?”
“What are you writing about?” Antonov repeated.
“Trains. I’m imagining trains. Subways. The music of engines. Boats. Fast cars. Inter-island ferries.” Gjoeb toed the little stick over like it might be dead. “Sounds like you need a doc,” he said.

*

“I saw a dead ghost once,” said Nazim.
Gjoeb closed his eyes and drank in the scene. Nazim and Bogomil, two outlaws camped among the rocks. Too hot to sleep. Horses with nothing to eat but no-good scrub and cactus juice. Thirty miles further away from the day before. The smokeless fire. Leather. Sweat. Kit, guns, saddles scattered about in the shadows.
Bogomil threw a stick at the fire from which a small host of sparks flew crazily up, and quickly disappeared.
“I was sleeping with my wife,” Nazim was saying. “Except only she was asleep. Her name was Yaldiz. We were living in some shack above an orchard with a creek. So, I’m awake and she’s asleep. Next thing you know there’s a ghost hovering right in front of me, right on top of the bed. Big ugly fucker, ridges over his eyes like some Neanderthal gone wrong, looking me straight in the face.”
“What colour?” Bogomil wanted to know.
“Ghost colour, but scaly like a crocodile,” said Nazim. “Any proper colour and it would have been a fucking alien come down to ship me out and poke me up the ass!”
Bogomil took a swig of whiskey, passed the bottle over, then leant back and looked up to the stars. “So, what happens?”
“So I ask myself: Am I afraid of this crocodile? I say: No, I am not. So then, as soon as I say ‘not,’ what happens next? I start looking through the fucking crocodile’s eyes, looking right back at some not-so-afraid guy lying in bed next to the lovely Yaldiz.”
“Ho,” said Bogomil concentrating on the stars.
Nazim’s voice got strangely reflective. “This ghost got looking at me.. I mean, I got looking at me through that ghost’s eyes,” he said. “The way he saw me was like nothing you could imagine. That’s how come I know it was a real ghost.”
“What the fuck is a real ghost?” Bogomil thought to ask.
“A negative,” said Gjoeb without opening his eyes.
Nazim and Bogomil looked around in the firelight to the bottom bunk. “And who the fuck asked you to chime in?” they said at once. But Gjoeb was clearly asleep.
“Fuck. He’s sleep talking,” said Bogomil. “Shit.” Slowly, he and Nazim turned back to the fire. “That was freaky.”
Nazim passed the bottle back, reached down, found a stick himself and tossed it in the fire. “That ghost’s way of looking was unearthly,” he said. “Like, a human being’s eyes are constantly flitting this way and that. We’re as jerky as chooks compared to a ghost. I wouldn’t have had no idea myself until I saw through that ghost’s eyes. His way of looking was smoother than a UFO.” To illustrate his point, Nazim began rolling his head very slowly, eyes fixed to whatever his head was pointing at.
“Shit,” said Bogomil, still looking at the stars.
Gjoeb turned over in his bunk.
Nazim’s gaze returned to the fire.
Gjoeb let out a snore.
“These stars are crazy,” Bogomil said.
“Actually, I suppose that ghost was me,” said Nazim. “Checking me out from the other side with his slo-mo lizard eyes.”

*

The new prison dentist was an asshole. Stefan, son of Bruno. Bruno, the balding French-Italian who Gjoeb had seen when he first got to Pazardjik, was a genial guy who told jokes in French, never ceasing to marvel at Gjoeb’s full head of hair, staring him pretty much in the face as it did while he worked.
“Let’s have a look,” said Stefan. Without anyone’s say-so, Stefan began removing plaque from Gjoeb’s lower teeth, all the time complaining about the Turks or the gypsies or the Serbs in as insulting way as possible. The complaining made his plaque-removing technique rougher still. Why didn’t gypsies work? Why didn’t they speak Bulgarian? Why didn’t they ride to work on a motorcycle to save money like he did? But silly me. They don’t work, do they?!
Gjoeb’s precious teeth were in danger of getting ripped out, along with the plaque. “Ow aur arggher?” Gjoeb said, sensing imminent danger.
“How’s my father?” Stefan wrenched Gjoeb’s teeth about some more. “These teeth are loose,” he said.
Gjoeb put up his hands.
“My father is right now in a swimming pool eating potato dumplings,” said Stefan, retrieving his instruments from Gjoeb’s mouth. “My advice, Robert, is start saving. These teeth are on their way out. Then you’ll need plates.”
“I was hoping to stick with these ones.”
“You know, it’s funny. At the surgery in town I get to see a good number of patients with plates. Like all sorts of people.. beautiful women, you know? At least, they think they’re beautiful. They’re swanning around town, living the good life, but in the surgery I get to see them how they really are. Not really pretty at all. You want to save your teeth? These top ones, well.. once you lose the bottom ones you’ll need a special kind of plate with suction grips to keep it in place. This kind of suction plate is fifteen hundred lev and upwards. Otherwise, the plate needs to be fixed into your jaw with screws, which is quite a lot more. How much do you guys make in prison these days?”

*

In the space of a few short weeks, Gjoeb discovered that Antonov had an inoperable brain tumour and soon would no longer be able to work. Not too long after that, according to the doc, he would no longer be able to breathe.
Antonov himself had come to the realisation that Gjoeb was a musician and not a writer, but still without a name.
In the end, it made sense that the guard and the inmate found themselves looking for worm-holes, like Jimi. Gaps in the system. That is, they began hatching a plan to bust themselves out of Pazardjik.
A pass. A uniform. Easy enough, if you know what you’re doing. You turns the key and you waltzes straight through.
Antonov might have been a little off-beat, but he wasn’t stupid. Gjoeb would officially become a guard at his own prison.
The deal was conditional upon two things: Enough money that Antonov might enjoy a year or two on the high life, even if that overshot the prognosis by quite a way. According to Stalin, as Antonov had it, it paid to be optimistic.
And Gjoeb would tell him his stage name. That was only fair.

THE BRIDGE

Nadejda was the kind of woman resistible only to those who refused to fight, kill, or die for anything. How she ended up a prostitute was not truly comprehensible. She should have been living on the top floor. A made woman. But some people are as cranky as goats. They turn up at the crossroads and take the least likely path.
At least she wasn’t poor. Her apartment was not too far away on ul. Uzunjovska. Not a poor person in sight. Least not at 4am. She got out of the car, turned around and leant back in. “Take me up,” she said.
She could have carried on. She could’ve said she was too scared. She could have made something up.
“Why not?” was the only thing Zdravko could think to say.

The apartment door was like any other. Once you went in, you’d never be the same. Nadejda smiled. But it wasn’t really a smile. It was a challenge. Zdravko stood his ground. “I gotta go.”
“Come on in,” she said. “You probably want to take a look around. I can’t promise anything.”
“What’s to see?”
Nadejda opened the door and went in. “I might be hiding some vital clue,” she said over her shoulder.

Inside the apartment, everything was tasteful and where it should have been. The stereo was on the shelf. Couches were on the floor. The cream and blue patterned curtains had somehow attached themselves to runners. Wine and beer were in the fridge. Rakia was in the cupboard, above and to the left. Coffee was on the bench.
“Pretty nice spot,” said Zdravko once he’d got as far as the window. He resisted the temptation to peer through the curtains.
“I gotta take a shower,” Nadejda said.
“I should go.”
“Stay a while.”

Zdravko made himself tea while Nadejda took a shower. He didn’t rightly know what he was doing in her apartment so he sat down on the dark grey sofa and put his tea on the glass table. The couch had a pull-out footrest so he pulled it out and rested his feet.

Nadejda came back into the living room wearing a kimono style dressing gown. She stopped. She could hear Zdravko breathing. A policeman asleep on her sofa. She could almost reach over and touch his dreams. He looked like a good man for a slouch. A good, tired guy at home in a bad, busy world. With a shrug of a sigh, she walked into the kitchen and made herself a coffee.

*

Zdravko woke up with the phone ringing. It was Rusim. Zdravko listened while eyeing up the darkened, daytime apartment. Curtains were still drawn, the bedroom door shut. Silence but for a vaguely ill-sounding city. The cup of tea was missing. A lightweight blue blanket lay flopped over him.
“The bridge at twelve,” Zdravko confirmed and hung up. Time was 9.14am.

As he made himself another tea, Nadejda arrived back from shopping, a full bag of groceries in her arm. She was dressed in a turquoise T shirt, jeans and espadrilles, not one piece of jewellery on her.
“Good morning, detective Nestorov.” She dropped the bag on the kitchen bench. “Breakfast,” she said. “Time to pull the blinds.”

They sat down at the table, Zdravko with his mint tea, and Nadejda a coffee. Fresh pastries sat in the middle. Nadejda looked even more beautiful under daylight. Less make-up. As they talked, Zdravko got to meet her green eyes more often than was good for a sleep-deprived policeman. “Me too,” he was saying. “Death makes me nervous.”
“It’s not really funny. I had to go to a funeral recently and I was shaking like a leaf. I had a speech to make. I just couldn’t stop shaking.”
“Whose funeral?”
“My big brother’s.”
“I’m sorry.”
Nadejda said nothing.
“What did he die of?”
Nadejda’s eyes focussed on some far away shirt button. Or some ruffled head of hair right in front of her that no one else could see. “They say his heart just exploded. He was twenty nine,” she said.
“That’s too young.”
“He was autistic. Borislav never had a good outlook for a long life.”
Zdravko stared at his plate full of pastry crumbs, pushing them round with a teaspoon as if he could change the future. “Sometimes it’s like life’s a joke,” he said. “And we can never get ready for these things.” He pushed the crumbs round some more without looking. “And that was very sad about Antonov last night. We needed him alive.”
“From what I heard, sounds like he wanted to be dead.”
Zdravko raised his eyebrows. “Antonov didn’t have a good prognosis either. Tumour. Maybe you knew that already. You tell me. Probably, he didn’t have long to live. But we didn’t know that last night.”
“Well you know it now,” said Nadejda. She finished her coffee. “I don’t know about life being a joke. I got taught to think of life like it was a bowl of cherries. Not even someone dying changes that. Not even sadness.”
“I guess we all got a lot of different upbringings.”
“You’ll need a shower,” she said.
“I’ve only got these clothes. I can take a shower at work.”
“Don’t be silly. I have some clothes that will fit.”
“And how will it be with me walking around in a twenty-something-year-old woman’s clothes?”
“Zdravko! Men’s clothes. I have all.. I have a whole drawer full of men’s clothes. And brand new underwear.”
“Wow,” said Zdravko.
“They were Bobi’s,” she reproved him. “He was about your size. Only better looking. Somehow, I just can’t manage to throw them out.”
Zdravko put down the teaspoon. “You are very beautiful,” he said. The words just appeared on their own account. Tumbled out the gate without any kind of anybody’s say-so.
Nadejda gazed back at him across the table for a few seconds. Then she said: “You can kiss me if you like.”
The crumbs had fallen. Serious cherry shape.
“It’s a long way to kiss,” said Zdravko. “Maybe we could meet at the end of the table.”

*

Rusim stopped halfway along the bridge crossing the Slatina. He was dressed in a white patterned shirt, fading grey trousers and worn-out brown boots.
The Slatina was a slut, he told himself. A bite on the arm with false teeth and no comeback.
Zdravko was late.
He crossed to the other side of the bridge and stood looking upstream smoking a cigarette.
A concrete river trapped in its reverse direction.
Pedestrians. Cyclists. The scrabble of lunchtime.
Things cooked themselves, as the Shopi say.
Work was a drug, and every other fluffhead wanted to get out of it.
Which included getting the fuck outta here.
And someone coming around the corner soon.
But hell.
Here’s what we’re gonna do.
Some other gypsy’ll be sleeping in.
He’ll be rosy.
I’ll be standing here on this bridge just for fun.
Upstream is a stash of secret reasons not to eat.
Else why would a Shop be on the edge of a bridge looking at people with nothing to do?

“You’re the busy squirrel, isn’t it?”
“Most of the morning on the phone and at the office,” Rusim admitted without looking around. He threw away his cigarette, turned and looked Zdravko up and down. “Don’t ever think I’ve seen you in a suit before,” he said.
“Me neither,” said Zdravko.
Rusim shook his head.
“I feel just like Sonny Crockett.” Zdravko had his jacket slung over his shoulder. “So where are we going?”
“Who is Sonny Crockett?”

Off the bridge, Rusim turned towards town. “Some people think you can demean a man for long enough and he’ll run away and die,” he said.
“Where the fuck did that come from?”
“Just thinking to myself. I didn’t know you were following me.”
“Guess we’re all gonna crawl off and die then?”
“I’m weighing it up.”
“I can see you’re in a good mood,” said Zdravko.
“I don’t like waiting. Don’t like too much of anything this morning.”
“Well it’s not morning any more. And I’m not some skapanyak on a pristine beach who can never say sorry. I’m perfectly sorry. That’s twice in a row. Three minutes late each time. Six minutes in total.”
“You just remember I got a camera in my pocket. I’ll put you in my book.”
“Actually, that’d be the other guy’s book.”

Somehow, Zdravko and Rusim just kept walking. There was nothing to stop for. Without too much thinking, they walked right past a Chinese place selling every kind of fruit and vegetable. Factory shops selling whiteware, T shirts, auto parts. A takeaway joint. A random gas station.
No shop selling leads. Shops selling leads were all out.

“I don’t even know how I could be late.” Zdravko stopped at a pedestrian crossing. “I’m never late.”
“Maybe jet lag?”
“I’ve never had jet lag.”
“Maybe too much banging?”
Zdravko gave Rusim a look. “I don’t think so.”
“That must’ve been pretty good, down there in Africa?”
“More than good,” mumbled Zdravko.
“That good?”
Zdravko twisted his face. “I’ve got this cheap hotel in Maputo. First night in town, I get to meet some people. Next day, I’m hanging out in a fishing village up the coast.” He stepped onto the street. “I’m in heaven. Every day. Fishing for kinds of fish no one’s ever eaten before!”
Rusim took a turn into a service lane housing the back end to a row of shops. “This whole Gjoeb story smells like crap,” he said.
Zdravko said nothing.
Rusim gave him a look. “There is no Gjoeb,” he said. “He’s a made-up name in a figment Hungarian universe. He escaped from the only halfway decent sitcom in Bulgaria, abetted by a dead guard.”
“And this is a set up for the purpose of what?”
“Something that don’t smell too good for us.”
Zdravko walked into the delivery entrance of a restaurant. “Apart from being late, what else could I do to really piss you off?”
“What could you do to really piss me off? What, you gonna try something new? Turn up four minutes late?”
“Rusim,” said Zdravko calmly. “Gjoeb’s a real fuck who’s got more brain cells than Julius Caesar.”
“Well, it’s not looking good. This whole morning’s been a lot of dead rats. Barring a trip to Budapest or England, I got nothing except Gjoeb’s money comes from the British Virgin Islands. CJLL Trust, run through a legal firm out of London, England. Brewer Thain. Looks pretty stand up. Sole payee is one seriously wealthy R. Gjoeb. Gjoeb’s own bank transactions seem fairly run of the mill. Miserly even, except for the odd Maserati. The actual source of the money is the next question. Meanwhile, his mother remains in a rest home outside of Budapest with Alzheimers. Dad’s dead. No siblings. No kids. But this you know. A Leonardo? Haven’t got that far yet. But unlikely, judging from a reclusive miser’s bank records. Other than that, no telephone, no computer, no contacts, no chattels. No motive for stealing a horse. Hardly a cigarette butt. But we still gotta check in on the folk dance lady.”
“Let’s do that.”
The kitchen was in full swing. Somewhere very close, people were eating.
“We’re gonna find this guy,” said Zdravko.

THE WRONG TREE

Fifty metres up the street, Rado finally saw the BMW i8. The same kind of white and blue. He crossed over ul. Solunska.
“Hey Radi! You forgot to keep in touch!”
Rado turned to see Nadejda on the other side of the street walking towards Bulevard Vitosha. She was dressed in jeans and a T shirt.
“Nadejda!” he called back.
“Rado!”
“What you up to?”
“Nothing.”
“Meet you round the corner in twenty minutes.”

Walking up to the next car along from the i8, Rado checked the plates, then pulled a phone from his pocket and stood awhile, punching and scrolling. Eventually, the i8’s wing doors clicked open. He walked over, got in and, after a couple of minutes, cranked up the engine.
Every engine had its own sound. This one was brilliant and mournful at the same time. It wasn’t every car had a speaker system amplifying its puny 1.5 litre sound. He pulled out and drove off, heading west. 

Sure enough, half an hour later, Nadejda was sitting at her seat drinking god knows what. It wasn’t even possible to know what Nadejda was drinking. They kissed either cheek and Rado pulled up a stool, grumbling as if it were an effort.
“Heard you got pulled in,” he said.
“Since when did you hear that?”
“Since this morning.”
“Shit. You got ears.”
“I got eagle ears,” Rado agreed. A ginger haired barman ventured close enough for Rado to wave him away. Although not overly tall, Rado was built like he could squash a waiter in one hand.
“Guess you’re not drinking then,” said Nadejda.
“I got a couple of Porsches to go. But why am I telling you this?”
Nadejda said nothing.
“Oh yeah,” Rado half sighed to himself. “I remember.”
“So what else do you know, Radi? I mean about my comings and goings.”
“Cops shot some guy. They killed some guy at The Grand.”
“That was me. I was there.”
“That’s what I heard. Crap.”
“He was a nice enough guy. A little quirky.”
“Too bad.”
“Today’s my day off.”
“I should hope so.”
“And now I know so many cops.”
“What does that mean?”
“I got friendly with some cops.”
“Speak in the Irish.”
“I kissed a cop, ok?”
Rado went silent for about two seconds. “I suppose, one day, we might have to thank you for that.”

After a while, Valentina turned up and Rado had two more cars to steal.

For a madame, Valentina had a singular calmness and tidiness to her manner that said all was well. Fret not, my dear. Policemen are human beings. Some of the best. Just doing their job. I once knew a very bad man who got locked up. He was a pimp. Ha ha ha!
Valentina had the laugh of a trooper. A laugh like that only half covered the truth. It wasn’t seemly to punish the whole truth. Even the very cold hard truth needed the odd slant of sunlight and a breath of fresh air. A walk around the exercise yard.
“Poor Maria,” she said. “There’s a first for everything. I feel for her. She’ll be right as rain. I told her so myself.”
“Maria’s a foosball.”
“Nadejda! That girl has talent, don’t mistake. Native talent. Exactly so, I believe. Give her time. Dortmund. Liverpool. A year. Maybe two.”
“Oklahoma Thunder.”
“Now there’s a very good name.”
“Shall we eat?”
“Let’s go outside.”

Outside was a small courtyard with umbrellas. Under an umbrella Valentina looked like another person.
Nadejda pulled out a cigarette. “You are so beautiful,” she said.
Valentina smiled.

*

Zdravko knocked on the door that said ‘Principal.’ The rest of the doors were less direct and said things like ‘Compost’ or ‘Room 55.’ Everything was in code.

Mrs Brenner was a middle-aged woman with tousled brown hair and dressed in clothes that seemed to have come from a bygone era. A vegetarian if you tell by the odourless tone of her skin.
“This is detective Pavlov,” said Zdravko introducing Rusim.
At the principal’s invitation, everyone sat down.
The principal’s office was a disconcerting pink. But her desk said ‘practical’. On the wall were photographic portraits of dead Russian novelists.
“Thank you for seeing us,” said Zdravko.
“What can I do for you two gentlemen?”
“We’re here about the dance.”
“Of course. The dance.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“You’re meaning the dance of midsummer, two years ago? I remember it perfectly.”
“There was a man who attended, as I mentioned on the phone. A Robert Gjoeb.” Zdravko handed over a photo.
Mrs Brenner briefly studied the photograph and handed it back. “Yes. I know him well.”
“Know him?”
“Knew him. Of course, he’s been away.”
“Ah yes. Gone away, in more senses than one. I’m sure he will have informed you he was going away?”
“Yes, he did. He said he was going to prison.”
Zdravko raised his eyebrows. “Did he say why?”
“He said he’d had a problem. Someone’s very expensive horse got stolen.”
“Did he tell you anything more about the circumstances regarding that crime?”
“He said it was complicated.”
“And?”
“That’s all I got. It was complicated.”
“Were you surprised when I told you he’d escaped from prison?”
“To be frank with you, no.”
“Why not, if I may ask?”
“As far as I’m concerned, Robert Gjoeb can do whatever he wants. That may seem strange to a person like you.”
Zdravko looked around the desk. There was a small pile of papers to the principal’s left, and a tiny hammer, the sort a picture framer might own. On the other side was a Mac computer.
“But you have no knowledge of his current whereabouts?”
“Not at all.”
“And what was his connection? I mean, why was he there at that dance?”
“Well of course, he was the benefactor.”
“A benefactor of what exactly?”
“Of course, the dance. Many dances, in fact.”
“You mean he paid for theses dances.”
“Oh yes. The folk dances at least. About one every so many months, according to the season.”
“What do you mean by season?”
“I mean spring, autumn, winter. Summer. That’s when we have our folk dances.”
“How did he pay?”
“Bank transfer, I’m sure.”
“Some kind of guy,” said Rusim without looking up from his pad.
“Do you have any idea why he would sponsor a dance?” Zdravko went on.
“Children, detectives. Some people still believe in children. And culture. And small things like that.” 
“Would you have a record of the donations?” asked Zdravko.
“I’m sure we would. I’ll arrange to have them sent to you.”
“Do you remember when he first began sponsoring your dances? How did he get in touch in the first instance.”
“By telephone, if I understand you. It was some few years ago. He said he would like to help our school. I mentioned to him that there was a dance coming up.”
“How many years ago?”
“Perhaps five.”
“Had you ever met him before that first telephone call?”
“No, I had not.”
“Again, have you had any contact with Robert Gjoeb since he went to prison?”
“None.”
“Or since he escaped?”
“No.”
“What else did you talk about when he told you he was going to prison?”
“I thanked him. I thanked him for what he’d done. Maybe it seemed to him like a small thing. But small things count a lot.”
“You thanked him.”
“I wished him well.”
“You may have wished to visit him?”
“I told him specifically that I would not be visiting.”
“Why not?”
“Because I did not wish to.”
“Did he ever discuss his circumstances with you? What he did for a living, for example? Where he lived?”
“He did say he had received some money from a trust fund. He was single. He wanted to do something useful for children. I believe he lived in the country near Bojana, in the mountains. It seems odd but I don’t really know much more about him that that, to tell the truth, but that he drove a very nice car. And that he was always well dressed and polite. He had a slight accent. He was from Hungary, did you know?”
“What kind of car?”
“The latest kind. A grey sports car the last time I saw him. It looked brand new. I’m sorry. I’m not really a car person.”
“You’re saying, over the years, he changed cars?”
“Yes he did.”
Zdravko took a breath. “And so I imagine he turned up to all these folk dances he was sponsoring?”
“Not all, no. Some. Most maybe.”
“What kind of expenses are involved in such a dance?”
“Nothing huge. Prizes. Food and drinks. Help with the costumes. I think that’s about it. Sometimes transport. Oh, and musicians. Instruments.”
“Instruments,” said Zdravko in a whisper.
The headmistress seemed satisfied.
“Prizes,” Rusim said gazing at his notebook. He looked up, as though waiting for the next line.
“What kind of prizes?” continued Zdravko.
“What kind of prizes?” Mrs Brenner repeated. “Well, the first would be flowers. Or a bouquet of leaves from the forest. A handkerchief. A book.”
“Do you remember the prizes of that night?”
“I’m not sure. We have a dance of some kind every so many.. we have a lot of dances.”
“Try to think back.”
“I think it was flowers. After that.. there were always a lot of prizes. Something for everyone. It could have been anything. A pot of honey.”
“Do you have a record of those who won prizes?”
“I believe not. Gentlemen. Jars of honey. Books. Handkerchiefs. Is there something more you wish to know?”
“These dances were always held here at the school?” said Zdravko as if rounding things off.
“Yes. No. Sometimes we hold them in the country.”
“The country,” Zdravko repeated.
“Yes, this one, detective. In the country.”
“As in a camping trip?”
“You’ve got it in one.”
“Where exactly?”
“It’s different. It’s not often. We have a good number of people and parents who direct us here and there. There is a rigorous process as to where we might take a camping trip. But usually we need a small hall of some kind. And preferably a river.”
“Not up in the mountains near Bojana, by any chance?”
“No, detective, if I take your meaning.”
“And how old are the children attending, usually?”
“You know that yourself, detective.”
“Principal Brenner. You have been of great help.”
“Mr Gjoeb was.. Robert Gjoeb is a good man,” said Mrs Brenner standing. “You are looking for the wrong.. I don’t know how to say it. Good luck, gentlemen. Better to find a good man if a ratbag is who you’re after.”
“Good men don’t usually go to jail,” said Zdravko, standing himself. “Just one last thing, Principal Brenner. Did Robert Gjoeb have any friends or acquaintances that you were aware of? I mean, someone not from the school? Anyone at all?”
“No one I’ve ever met.”
“Have you ever met Gjoeb any place outside the school functions?”
“No. Never. Only on the telephone.”
“The telephone,” Zdravko repeated. “Did he ever give you to know where he was calling from?”
“I assume from his home or office.”
“But he never said?”
“No. I never asked.”
“Principal Brenner, I realise this may be going a little too far but I have to be sure. Were there background noises of any kind that you could hear when you were on the phone to Mr. Gjoeb?”
“I don’t think so, no. I couldn’t say I remember anything like that.”

Principal Brenner showed Zdravko and Rusim to the door and the two detectives walked back the way they’d come through the coded corridors.
“You forgot to ask about the photographs on the wall,” said Rusim.

*

Lieutenant Gomenko’s mobile rang. He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at it, then juggled it to his ear.
He swivelled around in his chair.
“I am,” he said, looking out the office window.
He listened some more.
“We’re not looking the best,” he said.
Outside, pigeons had stopped on the stonework and were looking around like they were lost.
“That didn’t help,” Gomenko said.
One pigeon flew off.
“That would be putting it mildly,” he said.
Then the whole flock took off.
“And what offer would that be?”
Gomenko’s eyes followed some back-to-front scene inside his head until they could follow no more.
“Understood,” he said, and pushed End Call.

*

Brushing back his blond hair, Mikhail Gruyev replaced the phone on the large antique table beside the bed. His black mood subsided as quick as it had come. Four hours making love to Hristiana had left him with a movie-style benevolence, which included the will to kill Russian cops.

Emerging half naked from the bathroom, Hristiana began dressing by the window. Mikhail’s eye lingered for a moment in her direction. Her adolescent movements. The shape of her legs. Hristiana was in the middle of threading her arms into a lightweight purple pullover.
Normally, she should’ve started clothing herself with something else.
But that’s the way it was with genius.
“Misho?” she said, the pullover covering her head.
“Krisi?”
Hristiana’s head emerged from the pullover. Then she started gathering her hair.
“Krisi?”
“Nothing.”

The pot plant by the French doors looked nearly dead. But that was the kind of plant it was. The nearly dead kind.

*

Outside the shade of Ravi’s Indian restaurant the sun was contemplating killing off some upstart cloud. Slowly.
Outside was only half a street. The one side was walking in shade. The other side didn’t have a footpath. Georgieva and Petrov wandered off to find their car. Zdravko and Rusim stayed put on the sidewalk looking around like they were already in the wrong place.
“This weather is really stuffing up my plants,” said Rusim.
“What plants?”
“Some plants what need to be watered.”
“Like which plants?”
Rusim turned to Zdravko. “Like the ones that need watering.”
“Like grapes.”
“Grapes don’t need watering.”
“What then?”
“Don’t you know nothing about plants?”
“No.”
“You must be about to starve then.”

Zdravko figured they’d walk on the side of the road with sun and no footpath.

On another street, the sun disappeared behind the buildings.
“We need to let Gomenko know what’s going on,” said Rusim.
“We need to think a little bit carefully before we do that.”
“About what?”
“Our prospects,” said Zdravko.
“You mean Gomenko wants rid of us? I told you that already.”
“We got till Friday. Shit Rusim! We’ve been here for twenty years! How’s he gonna get rid of us?”
“Yeah. Like who else is gonna fight off them evil birds?” said Rusim meekly waving his fist in the air. “What’s he got apart from two knights in aluminium?”
“It was stainless steel.”
“Stainless steel. Whatever.”

They walked into an even dimmer street.
“If we don’t find this Gjoeb I’m gonna kill Petrov,” said Rusim.
“Maybe I’ll come along to watch.”
“Skapanyak killed the only guy who knew anything.”
“I doubt Antonov knew too much.”
“Maybe something.”
“Don’t worry about Petrov. He’s so stupid he’ll get himself shot one day. For the moment, we’ll find Gjoeb. I can’t wait to meet him.”
“You want to meet him?”
“Yeah. I want to know why. Why he needs someone’s perfect sixteen hand horse to go to the pet factory. Why he wants to go to prison. Why he wants to get out of prison. Why he’s not scared of people he ought to be scared of. And then, why they do nothing and let him off the hook. That’s the puzzling thing. I mean, the court documents and Georgieva’s report from the prison tell us nothing. I just want to know.”

Another street. The sun was back again. The upstart cloud had gone.
“Where would you be now if you were Gjoeb?” asked Zdravko.
“I dunno. South America or somewhere, given that horse story.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“Well I’m not no powers that be.”
“Me neither.”

They kept walking.
“Anyway, if they really wanted to find him in South America, you know, they probably would,” Rusim said.
“Maybe not for a horse.”
“Maybe not. Depends.”
Zdravko’s feet came to a stop. He looked across the street. Across the street was a shop selling god knows what. A big sign clung to the front of the building, the kind of sign so crass it could’ve run for parliament. THE THING MAN.
“That’s it,” said Zdravko.
“What’s it?”
“That sign up there. That’s our only lead. The Thing Man.”
“You are kidding me.”
“That I am not.”
“So, how’re you gonna follow this lead?”
“I guess we’ll need to know everything there is to know about The Thing Man.”
“Now I know I really am back in Sofia.”
“You got some better idea?” said Zdravko walking off.
“No. Just say it all over again.”
“Second hand junk’s the only lead we got.”

JET LAG

Robert Gjoeb woke up on the couch, threw off the blanket and shuffled to the doorway in the dark. He flicked on the dining room light and looked at the time. 3:06am.
Pencil and paper in hand, he headed for the toilet.
Then he returned to make a cup of coffee.
After that he sat on the deck and smoked a cigarette.
The estuary was a mystery buried in motorway lights. A midpoint between mud and heaven.
Auckland. Third windiest city in the world, if Marco was right. Marco was a yachtie. He should know.
A cat sidled up to Gjoeb’s feet.
“Ah-ow,” it said.
The other side of the world.
Where the light switches were upside down.
Cats said hello.
And the fabled wind had died.

Not too long after communism fell in 1990, burger joints started popping up in Sofia. At first, one by one. Then everywhere, like mushrooms. It was burger season. Americana was some kind of fungus. You couldn’t stop it. Fast food was the craze and people queued up for its quickness.
Apart from burger joints and a name, the fall of communism changed nothing. Before was the mafia. After was a mafia with burgers and chicken nibbles.

Gjoeb lit another cigarette and sat looking up in the direction of the moon. Cigarettes too were bound to come up somewhere in the conversation, especially as they were an American idea. There was only one place to grow tobacco. Red India. Native, smooth and brave. But tobacco was a subject all by itself. Two days in Auckland and not one single outlet for American-made cigarettes. The entire industry had been farmed out to climates and soils to which the tobacco plant was not exactly suited. All smokers would have to put up with second best. That would then become the only thing they knew. Next on the program was third best. And so forth.
Take German cigarettes. German cigarettes were like French corn; edible only in case you happened to be a horse. And yet French people presumably ate that crap. And the French are known for their cooking! Likewise, you’d have thought the Germans would have the top-notchest cigarettes in the whole fucking world. But no.

Marco’s house, built in 1908, was in a colonial style. With colonial, you could not really have much of an argument. A certain amount of intelligence and style prevailed. Conversely, the house next door, in daylight, seemed like a cheap but serviceable beach house. Cream coloured with a green roof. In fact, from the little Gjoeb had seen of Auckland, a lot of the houses looked like cheap-but-serviceable beach houses, except that there weren’t any rules on colour. In New Zealand, apparently, holiday houses at the beach were called baches. Probably, the whole country was full of random-coloured baches while someone figured out how to build a real house outside of colonial, and decided on a colour scheme. Or else everyone really was on holiday and had sacked the architect.

Four lemons sat on the deck table in the dark. In front of Gjoeb was a notebook. A pencil. A coffee cup. An ashtray. The near full moon had shifted behind a large, naked tree in the yard. Gliding headlights from across the water reflected in the neighbour’s window. The skylight in the barn-type building across from the neighbour and belonging to a beekeeping company switched off its light.
For the middle of winter, it wasn’t too cold. Gjoeb thought of Pazardjik and her many stainless steel sinks. Her freezingness. Lights turning off and on. Her unapologetic smells. Prisoners being punished. For something. Long as everyone got what he wanted. Working the laundry. Redistributing wealth. A cell within a cell. Within another cell.
The skylight turned itself back on.
Gjoeb’s hand felt for the notebook.
Full of chirping criminals.
A near moonlit table.
Every criminal thinking he’s the good guy.
Windows full of motorways.
Nocturnal beekeepers.
Punished for something.

Gjoeb stubbed his cigarette out, got up and took all his stuff inside.
“Everything is illegal,” he thought.

KONSTANTIN

“We’re gonna learn a lot, or nothing,” muttered Rusim as he pushed through the shop door. Inside was a neatly set out array of unrelated items. On the one side was musical gear, with instruments hanging on the wall. Amplifiers. On the far wall was whiteware, TV’s and stereos. Computers. Down the back was furniture. In between were antique cups and spoons. Appliances. Gismos. Tools. The whole place smelt like dead gardenia. Zdravko wandered up and started talking to a big, long haired guy at the counter who appeared wary. A lot of people had a nose for a cop. What looked to be another salesman was talking to some customer down the back. Rusim stayed in the gismo section.

The next time he looked up, the longhair at the counter seemed relaxed. Rusim found his way to the counter. The longhair had evidently modelled himself on d’Artagnan, including moustache and pointy bottom-lip beard. Pretty smooth for a yokel. He was talking to Zdravko about cars.
“I bet you don’t have one single stolen item in here,” ventured Rusim.
“I don’t run the place. You’d better ask the owner,” said the longhair, his huge hands resting on a piece of glass under which was a whole heap of stolen gear. The jewellery section. His voice, like his hair and his hands, was big.
“And where is this fabled owner right now?”
“I haven’t seen her in a while.”
Rusim and Zdravko exchanged a look and pulled out their Makarovs.
“Listen, we’re running out of time here and we really need to speak to your boss. I forget her name,” said Rusim in an even tone, with one eye on the two guys down the back.
“You guys not big on homework, are you?”
“And you’re not too big on who’s holding the bazookas. And as they say, vain people are hard to miss.”
“Look. What d’you guys want?”
“Good. That’s better. Now, where were we?”
“We were talking about steering fluid pumps,” said Zdravko. Zdravko and Rusim lowered their weapons.
“Her name’s Vila,” said the longhair.
“She sounds like a nice person.”
“I can’t remember where she lives.”
“Why should we care where she lives?” said Rusim. “We’ve already eaten.”
“Sounds like you guys are really in the shit.”
“You got any rakia in this place?”
The longhair looked over to the other salesman and motioned with his head. “Come upstairs,” he said.

*

“Sit down.” A woman of about fifty with dyed brown hair and dressed in a dark suit raised a silver pen and motioned her guests to a couple of chairs. “My name is Vila,” she said.
“Detective Zdravko Nestorov,” said Zdravko holding out his ID. “This is Detective Pavlov.”
“And what can I do for you two?”
“Rusim needs a drink,” said Zdravko.
“And what do you need, Mister Mouthpiece?”
Zdravko smiled. He was a sucker for shoot-from-the-hip women. “I need a lead.”
Vila looked over at the longhair. “Get these two guys a drink.” She looked back. “What’ll you be drinking?”
“Rakia,” the longhair suggested.
Vila eyed up Zdravko and Rusim. “Rakia all round, then.”
“Zdravko doesn’t drink,” said Rusim.
“Good. Perfect. More for us. What kind of lead?” Vila spoke with an accent Zdravko couldn’t quite place.
“We’re looking for a man named Robert Gjoeb,” said Zdravko.
“I don’t know anyone called Robert Gjoeb. What kind of a name is that?”
“Hungarian.”
“Maybe you should try looking in Hungary. Can’t say I’ve heard of him. What’s he got to do with this place?”
“Nothing,” said Zdravko. “We came in here because we’re shit out of good ideas and Rusim needed a drink. And there you were, right across the street staring us in the face.”

The longhair came back with handful of shot glasses and a bottle of rakia.
“We’re just about closing up,” said Vila. “Doncho. You ever come across a Robert Gjoeb?”
Doncho took his time, racking his yokel brains. “Gjoeb,” he mumbled to himself. “Robert.. Gjoeb..” like it pleased him to be racking his brains and pouring the drinks. “Can’t say I have,” he said.
Doncho handed round the glasses.
“Nazdrave, gentlemen!” said Vila.
“Nazdrave,” said Rusim.
“Nazdrave,” said Doncho. “To Robert Gjoeb!”
Sometimes low-lifes made more sense than anyone. Rusim drained his glass in one go.

“Who owns this business?” asked Zdravko.
“It’s complicated,” said Vila.
“How complicated?”
“Complicated like a tree.”
“Crime is like a tree,” said Rusim.
“And how does that work?”
“Beats me. Old Shopi proverb.”
“A Shop?” quizzed Vila.
“Son of a Shop.”
“Well, son of a Shop, we ain’t some business up a tree,” said Vila.
Doncho refilled Rusim’s glass.
“What happened to the other guy?” asked Zdravko nodding towards the window overlooking the shop.
“He’s locked up and gone,” said Vila. She turned back to her computer and typed something in.
“You got a glass of water in here?” asked Zdravko already out of his chair.
“Round the corner,” said Doncho pointing. “What’s that thing around your neck?” Zdravko’s pendant had somehow found its way outside his shirt.
“I don’t know. What’s that funny thing in your holster?”
“Russian police issue.”
Zdravko stopped. “This,” he said holding the pendant up to his chin, “is the seven pointed star. Ancient Thracian symbol of unknown meaning.”
“Thracian,” repeated Doncho.
“Thracians.”
“What are Thracians?”
“No one knows,” said Zdravko and went off to look for a glass of water.

While Zdravko was out another round got poured.
“You idiot. What are Thracians?” Vila turned back from the computer. “Everyone knows who the Thracians were. They lived here before the Romans and Christianity and Muslims and mobile phones.”
“I’m a Thracian in my own shop probably,” said Doncho. “Drinking with a Shop. A Shop and a cop.”
“There’s a fine line between knowledge and dizziness,” said Vila.

Zdravko looked in the fridge for anything other than tap water. Bubbles? Ice? Both of those were likely fluoridated anyway. He took out a bottle of mineral water, studied the label, and poured himself a glass. It was possible mineral water was fluoridated these days as well, but it didn’t say so.
He looked around the kitchen. Two sinks. A bench virtually spotless. An oven. A dishwashing machine. A tray with salt and pepper and other assorted condiments. Another bench with coffee, tea, sugar, cocoa and cookies. He leant over to take a closer look at the cookies. Beneath was a rubbish bin. On the far wall were some inane health and safety notices. A photograph of a luxury pleasure boat hung above the fridge. “Balkus,” read the caption. Sleek and white, the yacht looked to be at least thirty metres long, moored up three storeys high in some harbour.
The fridge door started beeping to be closed.
“Nice boat,” mumbled Zdravko to himself.

*

Rado pulled into a gas station on Simeonovsko shose. Some hood was filling up an orange 70’s Camaro at the adjacent pump. The hood eyed up Rado’s nondescript-looking Peugeot. “So, what do you put in that thing?” he asked.
“Diesel,” said Rado.
The hood raised his eyebrows and gave a slight nod, then clunked his nozzle back into the pump, screwed the fuel cap on, and walked off to pay. After a couple of steps, he suddenly turned, walked hurriedly back to the Camaro and got in. The engine roared into life and he tore off at high speed. Another engine started up loudly behind Rado but with another kind of roar. Rado glanced around. A grey Lamborghini Estoque. The Camaro was going so fast up the road it got the speed wobbles. Meanwhile, the Lamborghini was reversing out of the station chasing the Camaro up the hill at full throttle backwards. Approaching the bend in the road the Camaro lost control and smashed through a street sign, coming to an abrupt halt against a grassy, weed infested bank. Steam poured from the bonnet. Rado pulled out his phone. The Lamborghini screeched to a reverse halt next to the crashed Camaro. The hood was already out of his car waving his arms about. The Lamborghini guy got out, opened the boot and pulled out a slender, aluminium-type case. Calmly, the case got unpacked. The hood seemed to be wanting to go and stay at the same time. By the time he’d figured he was leaving, the Lamborghini guy had got his billiards cue in one piece and walked after the hood who was scrambling up the bank on the side of the road.

First was the feet. Rado zoomed in on his camera. The hood rolled over on his back, complaining. The Lamborghini guy strolled round to get a better look. Next was the legs. A couple of shots, the hood rolling around in obvious pain.
They say a bit of pain never hurts. But it does.

Everyone else at the gas station had somehow disappeared. Rado zeroed in on the two cars, making sure of the number plates. He panned back. The Lamborhini guy was making a closer inspection of the hood’s head. Then he stepped back, stood astride the hood’s broken legs and raised the cue over his head. He stood like that for a couple of seconds. The cue came down. Again, the Lamborghini guy stood for a couple of seconds. Then he walked back and had a good look at the Camaro. He put away his stick, got back in the Lamborghini, and drove back down the hill frontwards. By the time he passed, Rado had put his phone in his pocket and had wandered away from the pumps.

You would’ve thought a hood had a gun. When he woke up in the next world, he would start out on the simple task of thinking about the future. By then it would be too late. He’d have to re-hood himself all over again. With a gun. First thing every morning.

*

Up at Mikhail’s, nothing had changed. Meals got eaten. Girls got entertained. Calls got made.
Mikhail took Rado into the study and went over to the desk. The house was old. Every room had its own style. The study itself was an exercise in wood and whiteness with a large, solitary window. Rado wandered over to the wooden bookshelves covering one whole wall.
“You must have the easiest job in the world,” said Mikhail. “You can hardly even call it stealing.”
Rado studied the titles. Some of the books looked so brown and fat and old, his fingers itched just to pull one out. “I ran into Nadejda today,” he said.
“So?”
“She’s fucking a cop.” Rado turned. From the other side of the room, Mikhail held up a fat, shiny envelope. Rado walked over. “At least you could say, she kissed a cop. That’s about as far as I got.” He took the envelope and placed his phone on the desk.
“Who’s the cop?” Mikhail was staring quizzically at the phone.
“Don’t know. But then I ran into this guy.” Rado reached over and pressed play.
Mikhail studied the phone in silence. “Find out,” he said eventually, as if in a dream.
“You got a billiard table up here?” ventured Rado.
“Ha ha,” said Mikhail without a trace of humour. He stayed looking at the phone. “You been quite the busybody.”
“So hard it’s easy.

*

Nadejda wanted to talk to Rusim so Zdravko put her on speaker.
“So, you’re the other guy,” she said.
“You already know that,” said Rusim.
“How’s it going?”
“I’m driving home. What you up to?”
“Nothing much. Cooking dinner.”
“What’s for dinner?”
“Couscous.”
“Couscous what?”
“Lamb.”
“And how do you do that?”
“Follow the recipe. One small brown onion chopped.”
“Simple.”
“That’s just the beginning. After that is one garlic clove halved.”
Rusim got a call of his own. “Put her off speaker a minute,” he said pulling up outside some house in the middle of nowhere.
“Hey,” said Zdravko putting the phone back to his ear.
“It’s you,” said Nadejda.
“Rusim got a call. I’ll ring you back,” said Zdravko and hung up.

Rusim took the call. “No,” he answered after a few seconds. “He’s here.” Rusim listened some more. “Hang on one second.” He muffled his phone against his shirt. “Gomenko wants to know where we’re at.”
“So then, tell Gomenko we got a lead. Super yacht. Konstantin. Moored at Fenerbahçe Marina, Istanbul. So far, all we have is a name and a place. We’ll know more tomorrow. Also, we need to run a check on every departure from Ataturk and Sabiha Gökçen airports, or anywhere in the area since Sunday morning.”

“Konstantin huh?” said Rusim once he’d hung up.
“Yeah,” said Zdravko. “I figured it all by myself.”

*

Freedom was an all-night road trip wheeling ever closer to forgetting who you were. Knowing and forgetting were roughly the same thing, given the right kind of morning showed up. Some mornings smelt better than others. Zdravko stared close to the window, leaning into the dark. Maybe the Opel knew where this was going. Maybe Rusim. It was a seven hour drive to Istanbul.

At Plovdiv, Zdravko took over the wheel. There were only so many vodkas a man could drink. Rusim let it go at that and snored all the way to the border.

*

At the border, Zdravko and Rusim were met by Cow Hands and some other cop. Zdravko and Gulbie shook hands and stood looking at each other for a moment.
“How are you?” asked Gulbie.
“A bit shot,” said Zdravko. “Thanks Gulbie. As I said on the phone, we’re on holiday. We’re wanting to take a look at that yacht.”
“Zdravko. No problem. My pleasure. We’ll go and have a wander round.”

Zdravko had no idea why Gulbie was called Cow Hands. For some reason, he had never thought to ask. It didn’t matter. She just was.
He introduced Rusim. In turn, Gulbie introduced Redjeb. Redjeb had the cherubic look of an assassin.

From the border they drove in convoy to Fenerbahçe. The day looked like any other perfect day, only Turkish.

*

The Konstantin was indeed a beautiful sight. To say she took up a berth was like saying the Vatican was just another arms factory. She was easily the largest boat in the place.

To get in wasn’t hard. Gangplank style. Front door. Upstairs to the middle of a dance floor. All tasteful in a super yacht kind of way. More stairs. Somewhere would be the guy or girl in charge of going nowhere.
“Tell me what you see,” said Gulbie. Redgeb was poking his nose round the door to the bridge.
“Nothing.”
“Good.”
“It’s not really that good. There’s no one up here.”
“Upward then.”
Redgeb duly walked onto the bridge. Gulbie, Zdravko and Rusim followed.

Three storeys up was where the DJ used to be, twiddling his four thousand thumbs. Spinning the wheels. Steering the dance floor to open sea.
But surely that wasn’t right? A fridge with a whole boat to itself? Rusim wandered round, admiring the gismos. Gulbie checked the windows, stalking the views one by one. Redjeb studied everyone else from the doorway.
“Let’s take this thing for a spin,” said Rusim.

A YELLOW WIND

Marius Beck was a short but well-proportioned man with blue eyes, thinning hair, and a grey Lamborghini Estoque. Heading the wrong way west out of Sofia, he ditched the still bloodied, brain-spattered billiards cue and case in a dumpster. Then he about-faced and kept going the right way. The Lamborghini too required to be ditched. But not in a dumpster.

Beck learnt his trade young, in the country outside of Neustadt, Austria. Axed some boy. Chased him right around the field and caught him at the top of the barn, hiding among some sacks of chaff. At the first, it was just for fun, running around with an axe, scaring the shit out of the little guy. But when it came down to it, there was no choice. Chopped one arm nearly clean off. That eight year old boy was probably lucky to live. A lot of blood spurting everywhere. Well, not everywhere, actually. It’s in the nature of blood to know where it’s going. A jabbing, life-giving kind of beauty. Marius calmly took off his shirt, made a tourniquet, and rescued the situation.
God knows what happened to that kid. No one kept in touch anymore.

Marius’ parents were good people, but they couldn’t get to grips with their eleven year old boy hacking off the neighbour’s son’s arm with an axe.
After five years of schooling in various state institutions, Marius escaped. Let himself loose. He supposed he could’ve escaped sooner, but timing was everything.
Next school was football. And a car shop. Plus white-supreme. Dealing with scum. How could they survive that long? They needed to die. Or get bashed one how or another.
Then along came the army knocking: A kind of compulsory Jesuitism minus the Jesu, but with a complimentary conscription leaflet full of ‘itisms’. “Learn how to kill.” “Graduate with a degree in logistics.” “Make friends for life.” “Serve your ancestors.” 

After eight years in the army, including five in the Jagdkommando, Marius exited with a degree in computer science and a mechanic’s ticket.

Twenty years later and where else would an immaculately dressed fix-it guy go on holiday but to Bosphorus Bridge, across which a stream of stolen cars travelled every day, most of them brand new?
Marius Beck pulled up at the Turkish border, handed over a fake German passport and looked at his watch. 3.34am, adjusted for local time. He could have easier looked at the dash clock on his newly acquired Toyota, but why have the Rolls Royce of wristwatches if you didn’t look at it once in a while?

*

Cow Hands tracked down the entire crew of the Konstantin on a single phone call, fifty metres away eating breakfast. Four more local cops turned up. Everyone got marched back to the yacht. After three hours of travel logs, manifests, dustings, phone confiscations, tantrums, rooms turned upside-down, laptop confiscations and interrogations, the Konstantin was headed for a dead duck.

Some way in, the top dog appeared. “This better be good,” he said, stopping for a moment at where Cow Hands and Rusim were standing quayside. The top dog reminded Zdravko, from a short distance, of Rusim’s idyllic town full of assholes. For a rough guess, he was the mayor.

*

Zun Cafe. The same café where the Konstantin crew had gone for breakfast. Cow Hands ended up ordering for everyone.

The Konstantin had arrived from Sozopol on the Bulgarian coast two days before. The sweep would take at least a day or so to make sense of. That was good enough. A day. Time.

Redjeb wanted to know about The Thing Man.
“Two brothers,” said Rusim in his not so perfect Turkish. “A Max Jelicich and the Pavao. Two rectangular guys from Split. They got one thievery business above. So many Thing Man outlets into the Balkans. Only two in Bulgaria. Zero in Turkey.”
“No such thing as a regular guy from Split,” said Redjeb.
“How so?” asked Zdravko.
“Splicani women may be the best thing since sliced anchovies but the men are all oafs.”
“How come you know so much about Split then?” Zdravko asked.
“I am married to a Splicani.”
“Hmmm,” said Rusim. “Maybe we’re looking at trafficking, as you can see with this yacht. Human also. Not forget the human. That was a step piece of good luck without Zdravko. Back in tomorrow, Zdravko was some crazy crime-solving genius.”
Redjeb said nothing. What could you say? Bulgarian genius was about the same as a rectangular guy from Split.

After lunch, Redjeb and Cow Hands walked back to the yacht.

*

“I might just disappear myself,” Zdravko was saying. “Hell. Let’s all disappear. Preferably to Mozambique.”
“I need a drink like yesterday,” said Rusim looking into his coffee. Amen smelling coffee straight from the first day of paradise with a harbour view on top. “And moving to Mozambique is not disappearing. It’s just moving to Mozambique,” he said. “Anyway, it’s not like we’ve committed any crime.” He drained his coffee. “But I could be wrong about that.”
“We commit the crime of not being who we are,” said Zdravko. 
“Oh. Deep and meaningful.” Rusim looked up from his empty cup. “Crime is like a tree,” he said.
“So, tell me mister deep-and-meaningful, why is crime like a tree?” asked Zdravko.
“Shopi proverbs don’t mean nothing. They just sound like they mean something.”

“I know a guy here who can get us passports,” said Zdravko.
Rusim raised his eyebrows and blew an imaginary puff of smoke. “Welcome to the edge of the great abyss,” he said.
“I guess Gjoeb probably needed a passport himself at some point. You got any other passport guys in Istanbul?”
“Shit. I forgot. Gjoeb’s money comes in from ASCAP.”
“What the hell is ASCAP?”
“Music publishing.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“A musician. That makes a lot of sense. In which case, Robert Gjoeb may not be the guy we’re looking for.”
“I told you that already.”
“Nothing yet on the airport story?”
“Not yet.”
“They don’t muck around, do they?”
“Hey. They got three hundred thousand passengers a day between the two airports and a couple of photographs to go on.”
“But only half of those are leaving.”
“Like I say, I need a drink.”

Zdravko and Rusim wandered back to the car.
At 3pm, the air was crazily warm. Windless. Charmed with itself. The oily turquoise sea spoke in barely audible clucky sounds. The kerfuffle of birds and cars, insects, coffee cups; the million thoughts of people sitting or standing in their crony bazaars melted into the background of the speechless air. Super yachts lolled on their chains.

“Let’s say you’re actually gonna disappear. You got anything you’d want to come back for?” asked Rusim.
“Not really.”
“I gotta look after my dad. What about your folks?”
“Rusim, I got people I miss who I haven’t even met yet. And I got people I miss who I haven’t seen in twenty years. You for example.”
“I’m here now.” Rusim lit a cigarette.
“So, I don’t miss you anymore. Now you’re kind of like the opposite of missing.”

In the middle of opening the doors either side of the Opel, Zdravko and Rusim stood looking at each other above the roofline. 
“Another Shopi proverb,” said Rusim. “If someone says ‘I don’t know if I want to belong to this world anymore,’ tell him: Don’t worry, there are worse ones around the corner.” He took a drag on his cigarette.
“Meaningless Shopi proverbs can be very long,” said Zdravko.

Immediately the Opel’s air conditioning kicked in, the whole fuss of human activity came rushing back.
“You still want to find this Gjoeb, or whatever his name is?” asked Rusim.
“Right now, he’s my only reason to live.”

*

Mikhail Gruyev looked Nadejda up and down, at her man-trousers, her new haircut. No doubt about it, Nadejda was a work of art.
Nadejda looked back from across the concrete park table. They sat down. Gruyev, sweating after his run, was dressed in a silver tracksuit with red trimmings.
Some kid screamed in the playground. Nadejda looked round at the commotion. “What are you interested in Zdravko for?”
“He’s a clean cop.”
“Right. I see. Scientific,” she said, looking back.
“It’s been a long day, Nadejda. I will not patronise you. Although it is sometimes true that the meanest crooks have a hankering after honest people. After all, where would we be without them?”
“Tell me what you want.”
“I’m not sure if Zdravko knows what he’s into at the moment. I don’t know what he thinks.”
“Maybe he doesn’t think. He’s a cop.”
“Zdravko is a pretty clever cop, in case you didn’t know. He’s looking for a guy called Robert Gjoeb. You might learn something.”
“Useful for what?” 
Gruyev looked over in the direction of the kid’s swimming pool. “If I doubted myself even for one single second, Nadejda, I’d be dead.”
“I kinda like him,” said Nadejda as if to herself.
“Shit. I won’t hurt him,” said Gruyev turning back. “He’s an antique. Someone should build a statue.”
“Antique?”
“My dear Nadejda. Do you have any idea how many clean cops there are in Sofia?”

The sun was getting lower in the sky. Birds were starting to pipe up.
“Life is a dead-end street,” continued Gruyev. “Nearing fifty you start thinking different. Start wondering about all sorts of things.”
“Like what?”
Gruyev didn’t answer.
“Who’s this guy he’s after?”
“Some nobody who escaped from Pazardjik. Your guy at the Grand Hotel was the prison guard that got him out.”
“Shit. An important nobody. And then what?”
“We’ll see.”

REINCARNATION

“You still believe in reincarnation?” asked Rusim. There were still a lot of flights of stairs to go.
“No.”
“Now you’re the seven-pointed star guy, huh?”
“I ain’t Jewish, far as I know.”
“What does that mean?”
“I got one more point,” said Zdravko.
“Thracian.”
“If forwards is going backwards then backwards is going forwards.”
“I believe in reincarnation,” said Rusim.
“I thought you were a Christian.”
“I am.”
“So how come you believe in reincarnation?”
“Cos it’s logical.”
“Christianity is 10% truth & 90% Hollywood,” said Zdravko.
“Zdravko, it makes no difference if it’s true or not. It makes a difference if it’s a good story. But then, if it really is a good story, it’s good enough true. What made you give up on it then?”
“Give up on what?”
“Reincarnation.”
“I don’t know. Boredom maybe.”

They climbed some more in silence. The walls were all sorts of versions of off white, like whoever the decorator was couldn’t quite make up his mind. Or maybe what you had was several different generations over a period of years hoping to match the original, wherever that was.

“So, what about your resurrection story then?” mused Zdravko.
“What about it?”
“I’m just saying.”
“I dunno. You’re telling the story.”
“Ok. So, Jesus is in the act of rising from the dead in the early morning. Mary Magdalena mistakes him for the gardener. His burial clothes are in still the tomb. What is Jesus then? Naked?”
Rusim pictured the situation. “Theoretically.”
“Far as I can see, there can only be three schools of thought here,” Zdravko went on.
Rusim did his sigh-whistle. “I’m guessing I’m about to be enlightened.”
“One: The newly risen Jesus ditches his garb, folds everything up neatly and exits the tomb. Pushes the button and the rock slides open. It’s still half dark. Early morning. The so-called Naked Theory. In which case it’s possible Mary may not have recognised Jesus without his clothes on. Maybe Mary is staring at his dong and gets all confused. And maybe, in that era, early rising naked gardeners are not that uncommon.”
“That’s pretty good. You should write this shit down.”
“Two: It’s possible that clothes themselves are raised from the dead along with the body and Jesus is simply waiting around for him and his clothes to get properly risen. Unless he has stashed spares somewhere or has robbed the gardener, this still leaves him for the moment naked. And why would he ditch his clothes? They’re going with him to heaven. They won’t ever need washing or mending. Who knows, maybe clothes just happen to take a little bit longer to rise than human beings? Meanwhile, they can’t be touched and the clock’s ticking. He figures no one’s around. He turns and runs slap-bang into Mary Magdalena. He’s like: Hey. I’m just waiting for my clothes.” Zdravko paused. “I haven’t yet thought of a name for this theory.”
“Shit almighty,” muttered Rusim.
“Of course, I discount the idea that Jesus simply died like any other man. That would entail an earthquake shifting the stone, rolling him off his perch while simultaneously undressing him, opening up a hole in the ground, folding his clothes, and the hole in the ground then swallowing the body whole and closing back over. And most puzzling of all, the enigmatic gardener.”
“You know quite a lot of bible stuff for a pagan.”

They climbed the stairs some more.
“What’s three?” asked Rusim.
“Three is, when you die, if you make the grade, you get to choose new clothes. Clean and simple. The second we die, we go straight to the heavenly tailor. Three and a half days getting suited up by the best tailor in the universe. This, I call the White Garment Theory.”

Zdravko and Rusim got to the door they were looking for. Room 714. Zdravko knocked. “Maybe there’s a four. Who knows?” he said.
“Maybe we should’ve taken the lift,” said Rusim.
“Merhaba?” came a voice from inside.
“You gotta drink in there?” Zdravko asked in Turkish.
“Water?”
“Whatever.”
With this, the door, on a safety chain, opened a fraction.
“Selyahtin,” said Zdravko.
“Zdravko.”
“This is my old friend Rusim. He’s thirsty.”
The door opened. A man in his early thirties with curly black hair and dressed in an ankle length plain white shirt blocked the way. He and Zdravko shook hands.
“This is Rusim.”
Selyahtin shook hands with Rusim. “Get in here,” he said.

The apartment wasn’t unlike the next one, or the one after that, except that its owner looked like Jesus with sandals, and the kitchen had a top shelf. Selyahtin pulled down a near full litre bottle of firewater. “Wanna beer?”
“No,” said Zdaravko on Rusim’s behalf.
Selyahtin found five glasses, two small and three middle-size.
“Zdravko has just been speaking the rebirth of clothes,” Rusim explained.

*

Zdravko excused himself, shut the balcony door behind him and put in a call to Nadejda. 
“Zed,” she answered. No one had ever called him Zed before.
“Nadejda. You got a car?”
“You know I don’t have a car. I have friends.”
“Even better. How are you?”
“Swimming.”
“When was the last time you went on holiday?”
“I don’t know. Six months ago. Why?”
“For how long?”
“Two weeks. Two weeks in the mountains.”
“Wanna come with me on a holiday? Maybe a little longer than two weeks?”
“Zed, I gotta work.”
“I mean like for a few months?”
There was silence at the other end.
“Nadejda?”
“Zdravko.”
“What are you thinking?”
“How many months?”
“Well, it all depends. I’m only forty two. Maybe I’ll live to be a hundred.”
There was another silence.
“Nadejda?”
“Shit Zdravko. That’s a lot for a girl to take in. You don’t mess around, do you?”

*

Selyahtin and Rusim remained talking at the table.
“So that makes one really good coffee?” Rusim wanted to know.
Aside from counterfeiting passports, Selyahtin owned a café in the neighbouring Pendik area. He ran a hand along the table like he was considering if such a question ought to be answered. “Water,” he said finally. “For my café, we get ours straight out of the ground from a tap in the old part of town near the Law Society. A hundred litres a day. Pretty much like stealing but it’s free. The best water ever. Better than rain water. The same as what you got in front of you right here, Rusim. You haven’t tried it yet. Try some. I found that tap on google.”
“That’s like Zdravko. Supposedly, he wasn’t believed on the fluoride.”
“Hmm. Does he not? And yet water too can be the enemy of coffee,” Selyahtin continued.
“Water, he is also the enemy of alcohol” said Rusim.

Somewhere, the sun was going down. Selyahtin poured himself and Rusim another raki. “How is the water?”
“Good. But I wasn’t the water forward. It’s harder for me to taste the smelliness of anything beyond rakia.”
Selyahtin nodded.
“And the criminals,” Rusim added.

The two sat like that for a while, thinking it over.

“Obviously, you need what a bunch of good beans, right?” Rusim piped up.
“Sure. The best Arabica. A touch of robusta. Robusta is frowned upon in certain quarters, but what are you going to do? You need fat. Coffee without fat is like..” Selyahtin looked down to the table. The he looked up again. “My cafe? We buy only Tanzanian. Obviously, you need the best roasting machine. Roasting a bean is an art form. Over-roasting too can be the enemy.”
“Coffee is what like fat without?”
“I was going to say like a nanny goat with no tits. But you gotta be careful who you insult.” Selyahtin poked out his tongue. “Nanny goats are easily offended.”
Rusim smiled.
Selyahtin took a sip on his raki. “Did you know that coffee was discovered by goats?”
Rusim slowly shook his head.
“Yes. Prancing about in the mountains like Sufis. In the end, the prehistoric goatherds aren’t that stupid and need to find out what the goats have been eating, making them all frisky like that. Of course, goats will eat anything. Anything at all except for meat. As you know, goats scoff at meat. For that, you need a pig. A pig will eat everything, including its own piglets if it’s in the wrong frame of mind. Hence, we Turks don’t touch them. And yet, these same filthy pigs discover truffles, which is pretty clever. But you can’t put truffles in coffee.”
“Says who?” said Rusim.
“Says I,” said Selyahtin. “For one thing, that coffee would cost about three thousand lira. For another, they just don’t go. I’ve tried it.”
“Whoa,” said Rusim. “What does it taste?”
“Like eating your own piglets.”

Zdravko came back from the balcony.

“What else?” Rusim wanted to know.
Selyahtin took a moment to consider the question. “A good cezve, of course made of the right metal, on the right heat,” he said. “It is impossible to make coffee without the right machine. Mine are the best. The most elegant, and the most simple.”
“Which left milk and the coffee-maker,” said Rusim.
“Milk in coffee must have been invented by Christians,” said Selyahtin, not quite smiling. “But sure, you need a proper guy on the machine. People are under-rated. And don’t forget,” Selyahtin held his finger up, “the right person to drink it, at the right time, in the right cup, and in the right place. But quite soon, I’ll make you one. You’ll see.”

Rusim got a call. It was Gomenko. He and Zdravko made their apologies and took their leave.

*

“How come he calls me? I thought you’re the one who’s meant to be in charge.”
“Maybe Gomenko can see who the real brains of the operation is,” said Zdravko. “Some assholes can be quite perceptive.”
Across town was the Wyndham Grand, some high-rise hotel over the strait. On the way, Rusim studied the life and times of one Marius Beck on the Opel’s computer, breaking it down bullet-point fashion for Zdravko.
“Did I say murder? Make that suspected murder. Lots of suspected murder, in fact. This guy obviously doesn’t piss around with suspected common assault.”
Zdravko stopped at some lights. “Your friend in that town by the sea studying assholes.. he ever come up with the nutshell definition?”
“Of an asshole? Actually, he did.”
“Which was?”
“Uh oh. Fraud. That’s different.”
“And?”
“It was like, you know, some person who thinks they’re more important than what they really are.”
Zdravko kept driving.
“And what do you know? Austrian special forces. But?! Never done a day in jail. Never even stolen a horse.”
“So, everything just follows from that?”
“Follows from what? Hello Jesus. Nine different countries.”
“From believing that certain people are beneath you.”
Rusim looked up from the computer. “Assholes operate in a higher moral sphere. They’re pretty much like angels.”

*

Marius Beck took the lift to the seventh floor. Room 714. He knocked.
“Who is it? It’s late.”
“I need a drink.”
“So?”
“You got a drink in there?”
“I only got water.”
“Whatever.”
The door opened as far as the chain would let it. In the same second, a metal pipe smashed through the chain. Selyahtin recoiled from the door. Beck pushed open the door with the pipe and, before the appearance of any kind of weapon Selyahtin might have hidden, punched him in the face, left hand. The force and precision execution of the punch meant Selyahtin would be a soup-only guy for at least a month.
With his broken jaw, Selyahtin appeared momentarily stunned. Beck smacked the pipe into his left ankle and Selyahtin fell to the floor, writhing in agony.
Beck padded him down, stood up and looked around the room. “Bouge pas,” he said.
Average looking apartment. An ancient framed poster of some black singer on a wall. The smell of cooking. Lahana, if Beck was not mistaken. Coffee and a faint whiff of hashish. Flowers in a vase on a side table in the living room.
Selyahtin made noises, as if he wanted to live. Beck walked back and kicked him hard in the ribs. “Tais toi.” At the same time, ignoring the groans, he noticed the camera mounted on the wall. He walked over, turned around to where it was pointed, and turned back again. He retrieved the camera from its mounting and put it in his jacket pocket. He studied the stuff on the kitchen bench. Some basket of condiments. A candle. A strange pumpkin-like vegetable looking like an overblown lemon.
Beck turned back to Selyahtin. He knelt down close. “N’as pas peur,” he said. Cradling Selyahtin’s head in both hands but then looking away towards the balcony, Beck swiftly broke his neck.

Technically, Selyahtin lived another two minutes. Broken bones were one thing. Pain was one thing. A broken neck was another. Still crouching, Beck studied Selyahtin’s dying panic, the disbelieving eyes, the face periodically convulsed by unknown inspirations flashing through the brain.
After about half a minute, Selyahtin relaxed. He knew he was about to die. He became calm. His unhinged heart still fluttered, but without wisdom. Unable to breathe, he could move his lips but not speak. He could move his eyes but not his head. He could hear, but felt nothing from the neck down. The taste of a Tanzanian heaven lingered in his mouth.
“I only ever speak French to myself,” said Beck. “Gut sein heißt freundlich sein.” He stood up, pirouetted on one foot like some kind of dancer, and walked out.

HI. I’M A DOOR

Nadejda had been proposed to a few of times before, but such aberrations were easily dismissed. Lust did funny things to people.
She rang up Valentina on her cell.
With the situation spelt out, including Gruyev being on the case, Valentina said nothing for a few moments. After ten years, this was a first with Nadejda. Valentina was truly surprised, although not by the Gruyev story.
“Valentina?”
“Well isn’t this the strange day!”
“It is.”
“I could say, in the first place, that honest men do not propose to a girl,” said Valentina. “They have their way and they go home. But I won’t say this.”
Now was Nadejda’s turn to stay silent.
“I could say: A woman’s heart is a treasure of secrets, or some other such bullshit,” said Valentina. “And men, most times, are pansies.”
More silence.
“Every now and then, you know.. is this guy a pussy? I imagine not, Nadejda. I don’t know this cop from a bar of soap. Who knows? Maybe you might like to get to know him a little better. You’ve met him once, right? A few weeks and you’ll change your mind. Meanwhile, no harm done. An old fashioned idea, I know. There must be something you see in this cop already?”
“I don’t know what I see. He’s different. I don’t have a word for it. He escorts me home from that shooting match at the Grand and falls asleep on my couch.”
“Well, that’s one good thing. He’s not a customer. I’m sure you’ll make the right call, honey. Was life ever made to make sense?”
“I thought you might be a little angry,” said Nadejda.
“Nadejda. Life is a bowl of cherries. Remember?”
“Gruyev says he won’t hurt him.”
“Gruyev loves you, honey. We got to trust each other, isn’t it? But you know what? I’ll have a word.”

*

“Your passport guy’s a goner.” Cow Hands was sitting on her side of the bed, phone glowing in the dark. 
“Selyahtin?”
“That’s him.”
“Goner?”
“Dead.”
“Holy..” Zdravko cut himself short. “How?”
“Broken neck.”
Zdravko went silent.
Cow Hands let the news sink in. “Any thoughts?” she said finally.
“There was a camera mounted on the wall close to the front door, like a mugshot camera,” said Zdravko.
“I’ll see to it. Meantime, let me run this past the famous Zdravko Nestorov. You and Rusim turn up in Istanbul on the case of some nobody, followed a short time later by one Marius Beck. Among other things, you and Rusim pay a visit to a low level fraudster but get called away by Sofia. Then, while the supposed Beck’s virgin hotel room is being looked into by two off-duty Bulgarian cops, Selyahtin gets his neck broken along with some other bones. Sad yes. But kind of interesting, don’t you think?”
“You could put it like that.”
“Zdravko. My advice to you is this. Change your phone. Change the car. Change sunglasses. Change everything and change it now.”
“Thanks for the advice, Gulbie. I might just do that.”
“Another thing,” Cow Hands went on. “The Konstantin is looking somewhat clean.”
“Describe somewhat.”
“Cocaine. Somewhat like that. Goodnight Zdravko.”

Zdravko liked Cow Hands. He liked her style. And it didn’t take too much brains to see she was right. He got out of bed and knocked on Rusim’s door. It was open.
Rusim was lying on his bed, reading.
“What are you reading?”
Rusim looked up.
Zdravko remained standing at the door. “You got a drink in here?” 
“What?”
“Selyahtin’s dead.”
Zdravko recounted Gulbie’s call. Rusim mostly stayed staring at his book. Every so often, he fractionally shook his head. “Fuck,” he said in the end.
“Yeah,” agreed Zdravko. “Looks like either Gomenko has been played, or he and Beck are bosom buddies.”
“Now there’s a calming thought.”
“You got that drink?”
Rusim looked up. “You sure?”
Zdravko took his time. “No,” he said quizzically and sat down on the garish yellow couch facing the end of Rusim’s bed.
Rusim reached for a cigarette. “I sometimes wonder why I drink so much,” he said. “Best I can say is I’m opposed to growing up.” He looked at his cigarette and put it in his mouth. “Funny thing is, every time I look up, the glass is empty.” The unlit cigarette wiggled around between his lips like some sort of sign language. “Must be I’m scared of what I’d have to be if I wasn’t this way.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Maybe stand on my own two feet.”
“Sociophobia. That’s what my counsellor called it.”
“Huh?”
“Fear of life.” Zdravko cleared his throat.
“Otherwise known as cowardice,” said Rusim.
“Fear, actually.”

“I’ve finally figured out how to feed my cats,” said Rusim.
“How’s that?”
“Sachet food for cats must be the worst piece of packaging ever invented. Now I use a pair of scissors and a spoon.”
“I don’t have a cat.”
“Only took me fifteen years to work it out.”

“Do you know how many phobias there are in Wikipedia?” asked Zdravko.
Rusim made no answer.
“Five hundred and forty nine. My favourite is hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. The fear of long words.”
Rusim made out like he was reading his book. “How long did it take you to memorise that one?”
“A few days, I guess.”
Rusim stuck out his bottom lip and the unlit cigarette went erect. Slowly, reluctantly, the cigarette resumed its original position. It’s possible, what that cigarette was saying was: “this cocaine story just about gets us off the hook.”

Finally, Rusim lit his smoke. Which wasn’t normally allowed. But the world’s axis had just shifted. He reached over, poured himself another drink, sat back on the bed and held up the book. “Fyodor Dostoyevsky,” he said.
“Which one?”
Rusim returned the book to his lap. “How much cocaine?”

*

Cow Hands had a point. Flush the mobiles down the toilet. Stash the guns in the freezer. Leave everything and take a taxi to another hotel wrapped in a stolen hotel sheet. None of that was going to get you killed. At least not right away. But then, to check in to your new hotel, you’d need your bugged passport.
Broken bones? War? Now was as good a time as any.

Zdravko decided he could sleep on Rusim’s couch. Rusim decided he’d shift all his stuff apart from his gun into Zdravko’s room. A bugged gun? Anyone bugging a gun deserved to get shot for his trouble.
Zdravko went down and shifted the car. He eventually came back, but dressed only in a towel.

Rusim clicked out the last light and pulled the sheet up over his shoulder. “We should’ve rigged the door handle,” he said.
“It’s already locked,” said Zdravko softly. “Doesn’t appear like we’re in some cheap crime novel, last time I looked.”
“I mean the other door.”
Zdravko took his time to answer. “How you gonna do that then?”
“In the movies they usually balance a cup or something on top of the door handle.”
“We wouldn’t hear it. It’s carpet. And how you gonna do that from the outside?”
“I don’t know.”
“A cup won’t even balance on that door handle.”
Rusim went silent.

“Actually, you’ve got a point,” Zdravko said eventually.
“That’s what I thought.”
“So how are we going to work that then?”
“Fuck knows.”
“I guess at most you could balance a bullet. Or a dish cloth. But not from the outside,” said Zdravko.
“And?”
“I’m gonna think about that.”

“Beck or no Beck, seems like someone is sending a message,” said Rusim.
“To who?”
Rusim pondered for a moment. “To somebody else.”
“So? We’re being tracked,” said Zdravko. “In that case, good.”
“Or else, bad,” countered Rusim.

“What you’d want is a proper explosion,” ventured Rusim.
“For what?”
“For that door handle.”
“Hmm. We’d probably hear that.”

“You got the keys to your room?”
“It’s unlocked,” said Zdravko.
“Unlocked?”
“A little reverse psychology, if you will.”
Rusim shook his head, got up out of bed and walked out the door. A while later he came back. “Let’s go to sleep,” he said.
“What was that?”
“Fixed the door handle.”

A few minutes went by.

“You still awake?”
“No,” said Zdravko.
“What were you doing out there on the balcony at Selyahtin’s?”
“Proposing to Nadejda.”
“Hmm.”
“Ya,” said Zdravko.
“That quick, huh?”
“When you think about it, I probably shouldn’t have made that call.”
Rusim winced. “You get an answer?”
“I got a lot of silence.”
“In my experience, that’s normal.”

“And if the Beck doesn’t show up?” wondered Rusim.
“That problem can wait another day.”

*

“I’M NOT GOOD,” says the spirit Kiko in an ominous baritone. Zdravko looks up to where the voice is coming from but there is nothing but an immense square of darkness.
No good? What does that mean?
One thing for sure, away in the world below, Kiko’s sandy haired human countenance is busy surfing. Stitching shit up. A swivel here, a drop there. The drop might be one thing but it still needs pairing with an unknown. The right moment, the right manoeuvre.. invisible as a square of darkness.

In his sleep, Zdravko opened his eyes. A second later he shut them.

Clunk. Kiko gone dead like a phone call from Moscow.
Darkness in the age of stitches. Before flies were invented.
Meanwhile, roaming the early morning streets, Zdravko is with a bunch of nineteen-year-olds drugged up on acid.
From the kerb, the immense vertical wall of a high-rise.
Somewhere around here is a door.
A lobby. 
A lift in a high-rise made of fear.
A hallway full of prehistoric phone numbers.

Clunk clunk.
Rusim’s door opens and immediately shuts again.
Some wannabe lawyer with coarse black hair.
Drug music in the background.
Where is Rusim?!
Rusim is asleep in his room.
That guy needs waking up!
The door eases open.
The coarse-haired drug-music lawyer leads Zdravko as far as Rusim’s room.
Together they open the door and peer into the gloom.
A man with a phone is standing over the sleeping Rusim.

*

Zdravko opened his eyes. He kept them open. Instinctively, his hand inched toward the Makarov stashed in the crease of the couch. He scanned the darkness of the hotel room. He listened. Nothing except for Rusim’s remote breathing.
He raised his head, looking first to the corner of the room beyond his feet and then slowly all the way back to the door.
He sat up.
His body-clock said 3.30am. Traffic noise said about the same.
He shifted the pillow to the metal framework of the couch and slouched back.
“This story is going nowhere,” he thought. “Doesn’t have a plot. Beck should have showed up by now.”
He leaned forward.
“Calling all geese: Can you please come home to the familiar safety of your cage. You’re not equipped to live on the outside.”

Meanwhile, snoring was a thing of the past. Rusim’s breathing had been taken over by some benevolent alien.
“Hey Rusim,” Zdravko said.
Rusim stopped breathing.
“I had another dream.”
“Birds,” croaked Rusim.
“Surfies. Surfies with cameras.”
“Good.”
“Let’s take a walk.’
Rusim rolled over in his bed. He rolled over some more. He half buried his face in the pillow, then looked up. “What are we gonna wear?”

THE CHIRPING OF CRIMINALS

Out on the ragged frontier of the great white American empire, Zdravko lay coma’d on a gaudy yellow couch, blood pouring from his head. For his part, Rusim had a length of steel rod sticking out of his chest at a slightly skewed angle.
Beck, if that’s who he was, surely must’ve been aiming for something, even if in the dark. Maybe Rusim’s first shot threw him off and he missed everything by a couple of inches. Plain Shopi dumb luck. Where that second shot went was anyone’s guess.
Now, Beck lay slumped face down on Rusim’s bed, too close by far. If the roaring pain wasn’t enough, Beck’s apeman carry-on was getting to be nauseating. Rusim considered a third shot somewhere behind the ear. Instead, from under the sheet, he shuffled Beck’s legs off of the bed, then pushed him onto the floor. No one likes to be lain on top of by their own would-be killer.

Carefully, Rusim reached over and turned the light on.
Zdravko lay prostrate on his couch.
That Zdravko hadn’t seen Beck coming was a miracle straight out of the A-Z assassin’s handbook. Half-awake in the dark, Rusim had hardly seen it coming either. A ghost flying through the air. But the risk of going to sleep with gun in hand and somehow shooting your leg off was, in this case, mitigated by the upshot of not having a metal rod through the heart.
Without looking, Rusim felt for the damage to his chest. He slowly raised his hand before his face. It came up all red.
And the unknown threat from the floor, still breathing? Awkwardly, Rusim peered over the edge of the bed. Except for his eyes, which seemed to be studying the ceiling, Beck was curiously silent and still. Maybe that second shot ricocheted off the light bulb and got him straight through the neck. Rusim lay back on the bed.
After a while, he took another look. There were a number of factors to weigh up, and nothing like pain to clear the thinking.

Footsteps stopped in the hallway outside the room.
“Who’s in there? Mr Rusim?” a voice called out. A key artlessly violated the lock.
At the exact same moment Rusim got himself sitting on the side of the bed, the door swung open revealing a security guard. The sight of a naked man covered in blood with a length of pristine steel reinforcing rod protruding from his upper torso momentarily froze the guard on his feet. Before he could snap to, Rusim had the Makarov pointing in his direction. “Can’t you see that I’m bleeding?” Rusim wanted to know, and stood up supporting the offending rebar in his right hand. “Me and our friend over there on the couch could need one little help.”
The security guard put up his hands, but not too far.
“There is another. Come and see.”
The security guard remained stationary, as if the weighing up of everything had mysteriously passed over to him.
“Come within this room or I’ll shoot your Turkish head off!”
Carefully, the security guard stepped into the room. With his gun, Rusim motioned him to the other side of the bed where Beck was lying face up on the floor, looking pretty much like a frozen Ninja, black from head to toe, complete with a rectangular cut-out slit for his eyes.
“Frosk this piece of shit. Does he have any arms? Can he improve his weapons? Then we will tie him up. You got some sharply thing in your pocket?” Seeing a distinct look of fear in the security guard, Rusim added: “Don’t worry. If he is moving, I kill him.”
The security guard inched closer to the prone Beck. “He is bleeding,” he said.
“Good. You can talk. What’s your name? We must work together to rescue a very disaster time, isn’t it?”
The security guard said nothing but reluctantly knelt on the floor beside Beck and began feeling for unwanted lumps, as if he’d never frisked anyone. As far as they could, Beck’s weird sympathetic eyes followed him everywhere.

“Stand up and take the belt off,” ordered Rusim, gently waving his gun. Even more alarmed, the security guard got to his feet. Rusim lowered the gun to the guard’s crotch. “Tie the criminal’s hands.”
The security guard took off his belt.
“Tight.”

Beck’s hands tied, Rusim motioned the security guard toward the couch and took a look at Zdravko. Okay, a good crack on the head. Enough to send any upstanding Thracian into outer space.
Rusim waved his gun in the direction of the crumpled towel lying on the floor. “Cover this Zdravko’s head with a tool.”

*

The security guard opened the door to Zdravko’s room, stepped in, and turned on the light. With his piece aimed at the guard’s back, Rusim saw that his crude trip-wire system was still intact.
After an excruciating few minutes, they found Zdravko’s phone, not in the suitcase, or any other place, but laying all innocent-like on the kitchenette benchtop. Rusim cursed himself. He motioned the security guard to back off to the far wall, where he could see him.
One-handed, he found Gulbie’s number. It rang. He put the ringing on speaker.
He got through to Gulbie’s message and pressed End Call.
“Fuck,” he thought.
“Turkish police,” he said aloud, turning to the security guard. “All gone to sleep. What’s the ambulance number for here in Istanbul?” But the phone rang.
Again, he put it on speaker.
“Zdravko.”
“It’s Rusim.”
“Rusim.”
“I got the Zdravko and the Beck on my room, rightly smashed up.”
“What about you?”
“I have the smashes also.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know. Hotel Han.”
“Han?”
Rusim turned to the guard. The security guard without a name gave the barest of nods. “Yeah. Han, I think. Near to the Wyndham Grand. That must be it. Top floor. Room 32.”
“Ok. Han. Listen Rusim. Room 32. Wait for us. How bad are you?”
“I got a big chunk of steel proceeding from those ribs.”
“Alright. Hang up now. I’ll have someone there in a few minutes.”

*

The security guard pushed open the door back into Rusim’s room but then stood motionless. “What?” said Rusim, prodding the gun into his back. “Move.” The guard shifted to one side. Plain to see, Zdravko was gone but for a pile of blood on the couch. Rusim walked as far as the bed. Beck was gone the same. A small red smudge on the floor. Rusim cursed himself a third time, turned around and sat down on the end of the bed. Immediately, he stood up again and scanned the floor for which way the blood was heading. “We search this room,” he told the security guard. “This Beck is starting to piss me off.”