Moscow Noir by Natalia Smirnova

touched his shirt, and his pants down to the knees—all of it was wet and steaming with blood. The bullet had penetrated his waistband and entered his belly above his pelvis, a little lower and to the left of his navel; judging from the fact that his waist was still dry, it had landed in his abdominal cavity. “The Vul,” Veltsev whispered, and then closed his coat. “Nice and easy …”
    He used the sterile wipes from the car’s first aid kit to plug the wound, but he didn’t try to treat it with iodine for fear of passing out from the pain. He chewed a few painkillers and tried to calculate how much time had passed since he’d taken the bullet; in any event he was sure to go into shock soon and wasn’t going to last long on the capsule he’d just swallowed. He thought a moment and then dialed the Kalmyk’s number.
    “Hello!” Kirila shouted, turning down his loud music.
    “Where are you?” Veltsev asked.
    The music stopped. “Still here. Why?”
    “Do you have Promedol with you?”
    “As usual. Why?”
    “Wait. I’ll be right there.
    “ If you’re not a fool , Veltsev thought as he made his way through the deep snow to the alley, you’ll drive away. Or shoot first. If you are a fool … Actually, the human heart is always a mystery. Everyone saves himself in his own way.
    The Cayenne was parked in the same place by the business center fence. Using his gun to press the plug to his wound, Veltsev climbed into the backseat. Kirila half-turned and looked silently at his bloody clothes. When Veltsev held out his hand between the seats, Kirila quickly opened the army first aid kit in front of him.
    Removing the cap with his teeth, Veltsev jabbed a needle into his belly through his pants, slowly pressed on the plunger, and spat the cap on the floor.
    “Where’d you get that?” Kirila asked.
    Panting, Veltsev set the empty syringe aside. “It’s nothing. I’ll live to see my wedding day.”
    “The butcher’s going to weep over you.” Half-rising, Kirila picked up the syringe and put it back in the kit. The handle of a Walther flashed between the lapels of his jacket. “Let’s go, eh?”
    “Not just yet.” Veltsev shook his head. “I have something else … I thought you wanted to help.”
    “Yeah.” Kirila straightened up. “Sure. What?”
    “I shot a guy here on the Yauza. I have to go clean it up. Will you help?”
    “Let’s go, Batya. You should’ve said so first.”
    “Godspeed then.” Veltsev nodded.
    The current had not taken the Uzbek’s body far at all, a couple of meters, to a bend in the river where it must have caught on an underwater snag. Whistling, the Kalmyk stood on the bank and tested the ice with the tips of his boots. Veltsev pressed the plug over his coat with his left hand and cautiously freed his gun.
    “We need something to retrieve him with,” Kirila said without turning around.
    “No we don’t,” Veltsev answered, firing twice.
    The bullets struck the Kalmyk with a boff right below the shoulder blade. Shaking his sloping, bearlike shoulders as if chilled, and shifting from one foot to the other, Kirila calmly peered back at Veltsev, lowered himself without hurrying, reached toward the water, and then just as smoothly lay down in it head first, as if it were a bed. Through all this the water didn’t so much as splash. “The butcher did cry,” Veltsev said, breathing heavily, and then he spat. “Three hundred thousand cried.”
    Scooting behind the wheel of the Cayenne, he changed the sodden towels on his groin, wiped his fingers, and, looking at the dirty gun lying between the seats, remembered who he could go to for help. All his old working options connected with Mityai were obviously out. That left only two: head to the Sklif, or to the guy who was kicked out of the Sklif for drugs—Oksana’s classmate—who lived on Trubnaya. Let’s try the last first , Veltsev decided, and he started the engine. Trubnaya .
    On the ice-packed road, the powerful