Page 16 of Dark Duet: Platinum Edition
He turned around, leaning against the counter, the edge digging into his spine. One hand gripped the edge of the counter, the other holding the bottle, quickly cooling as veins of water cascaded down his arm. He drank. A lot rested on the girl, and in turn, him. Aside from his own vengeance, he could not fail Rafiq. Vladek Rostrovich had to die. In this, Rafiq and he had never disagreed. Upon how to execute each step, that was something else. He took another mouthful, rolling the liquid in his mouth before swallowing and feeling it fill him.
Destroying lives was something he was good at, this was no different, of course. Or was it? He drained the bottle, tasting little, but wanting more. He turned around and rinsed it out, watching the water rush out.
The girl was genuinely terrified of him, that much he was sure of. He had to use it to his advantage. Under his tutelage, she would become whatever she needed to be in order to survive. She would accept the hand she was dealt and make the best of things. She would find whatever good there was in the bad, for however long it’d last. She would fight him, that was a given, but he would convince her despite herself.
He finished his bottle, which had done nothing for him. He was still restless. He walked over to the fridge again, cracked open another. Repeat. Another taste, another gulp, the thirst just growing.
New thoughts distracted him. What would he do with the girl when this was all said and done? He stood still, listening to the house, listening for signs of the girl, but there was nothing, no clamor from behind the locked door. No desperate shrieking, just a girl, plotting her time. He walked to the table and noiselessly pulled out a chair. Another long pull of beer, his gaze passed around the room. He sat. What would he do with a girl who’d never trust him? Caleb drank, set his bottle down on the table then sat deeper in his seat, head back and breathing in through his nose, eyes closed.
Caleb knew nothing about caring for a woman long term. He’d heard a lot about love in the last twelve years, but he never felt the things people talked about. He ran his fingertips up and down the neck of the bottle absentmindedly. The only person he felt any type of affection for was Rafiq, but he doubted it could be called love. Caleb understood Rafiq, understood his anger and his need for revenge. He trusted Rafiq with his life. Without that man to give him purpose, Caleb would have been lost, and for that he respected him. Did understanding, trust and respect equate to love? Caleb didn’t know. Rafiq had taught him to read and write, to speak five languages, to seduce a woman, to hide in plain sight, and to kill, but never to love.
He leaned back again, drank, and then set the bottle in a different spot. He stared at the ring of water on the smooth lacquered surface of the table. Leaning forward, he dragged his other hand through it, creating two long translucent trails. They traveled along the surface of the table, slick and solitary, before colliding into one another when his fingers came together.
A few years ago, Rafiq met a woman. The woman was his wife now and had given Rafiq two sons. Caleb had never met them, nor would he and he’d never expected it. He fully understood his role with Rafiq. While afforded great respect and appropriate affection as someone Rafiq had risen into manhood, Caleb was not family. It was not a confusing situation for him, the boundaries clearly defined and consistent early on.
Perhaps there had been moments when Caleb had felt something akin to jealousy toward Rafiq’s family. However, he consoled himself with the knowledge that what Rafiq and he shared ran deeper. They shared a thirst for vengeance. They were equal partners in the settling of old scores. It suited him fine since he knew nothing of family. He could scarcely remember his.
There were a lot of things Caleb couldn’t remember: his birthday, his age, what his name used to be. It didn’t bother him to not remember, though he sometimes wished he knew where he’d grown up so he could avoid it. This small detail had the ability to put him on edge whenever he was forced to visit America for one reason or another. What if he had a mother who thought he was dead? It was his secret horror to fathom a mother elated at the sight of him. Because whoever her stolen boy had been, he was most certainly dead, and Caleb wanted him to stay that way.
The bottle, somehow drained again, rested in his hand, still cool to the touch. He got up as quietly as he’d sat, and silently moved through the kitchen. He rinsed the bottle, listening to the softglug-glugof the water going down the drain. Then took a soft towel and wiped away any evidence of his presence. It wasn’t the forgetting Caleb didn’t like, it was the remembering.
He needed a shower and a lot more beers. He’d miss beer when it was time to return to dry, spiritless, Pakistan. It was an excellent aid in the forgetting process. He just hoped the bar in this piece of shit town was still open.
Once inside his room, Caleb removed his clothes and walked into the bathroom to take a shower. Setting the temperature of the water, he let the room steam up before he finally stepped inside to put his face under the jets. The water washed over his nakedness, scalding him slightly, but Caleb welcomed the slight pain. He would never admit it, but from time to time, he needed to feel pain as much as he needed to dole it out.
Once again, Caleb envisioned the girl, face down on the mattress, welts crisscrossing the back of her body from shoulder to ankle. It was perverse the way this particular image affected him. It made him aroused instead of sick. It was ironic.
Unable to fight it, Caleb thought of the past and of Rafiq.
***
Vladek had not always been rich and powerful. Once upon a time, the seedy Russian had been a mercenary and a trafficker of anything that would sell—drugs, guns, people, it didn’t matter. He traveled throughout Russia, India, Poland, Ukraine, Turkey, Africa, Mongolia, Afghanistan, and one fateful day, Pakistan.
Muhammad Rafiq was a young man then, a captain in the Pakistan Army under the direction of a zealous Brigadier. The war against Saddam Hussein dubbed by the Americans asDesert Stormwas well under way and Rafiq had been called to assist the coalition forces on the ground.
Rafiq, whose father had just passed, preferred to remain close to home until he could make arrangements for his mother and sister, but it was not to be. The Brigadier was thirsty for rank, and nothing elevated rank like a war. Rafiq’s absence was unavoidable and ultimately disastrous, for it was during his two year absence that Vladek set his eyes on Rafiq’s sister, A’noud. By the time Rafiq returned with the happy news that he had earned the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, his mother had already been murdered six months earlier and his sister was missing.
Assuming responsibility, Rafiq devoted what resources were available to him to discovering the identity of his mother’s murderer. He followed every lead, chased every rumor trying to ascertain if his sister might still be alive.
It took Rafiq three years to hear the name Vladek Rostrovich. After murdering Rafiq’s mother, he’d taken A’noud, but apparently, he’d tired of her after a short while. He had retired her to a brothel, established by him in Tehran.
Rafiq went to Tehran, but like his mother, A’noud had been dead long before he had arrived to rescue her. With his hope of finding her alive scattered like ashes in the wind, his fervor for vengeance only grew. He was going to burn the brothel to the ground, kill every patron and save the proprietor for last. If he was later court-martialed and put to death, it was a risk he was willing to take.
But then, he heard a sound, so unspeakably horrible it gave voice to his own suffering. He followed the screaming to a door that would change everything: huddled in blood and filth, darkness pulled tight around his small, shaking, angry form, was a boy in desperate need of a doctor. A boy the proprietor calledKéleb—dog.
Pained, disgusted, and mourning his sister, Rafiq recognized the look in theKéleb’s eyes. They were eyes that knew the anguish of being unspeakably wronged. They longed for a death that could not come too soon. Rafiq offered to purchase the boy from the proprietor who warned him the boy was likely near death and he would not offer a refund. Rafiq accepted the terms and carefully wrapped the wounded, mewlingdogin linen so he could take him to the hospital.
Kélebhad been incredibly mistrusting at first, unconvinced that Rafiq did not desire from him all the things as the rest. He attacked Rafiq repeatedly, punching, scratching, and kicking wildly with no concern for how he injured himself in the process. Rafiq had felt for him, but he was also impatient and unwilling to suffer the repeated attacks of an angry teenager. Rafiq used force to calm him down, until he could be reasoned with.
It wasn’t until Rafiq offered him a taste of something he thirsted for thatKélebbecame something more than his fear. Under cover of darkness,Kélebhad learned to kill for the very first time. It was too easy, over too fast. While Rafiq stood guard at the door,Kélebshot and killed the man who had tormented him for most of his life. He had stood over the body, admiring the large hole that was once Narweh’s face. In his hand, he held the .44 Magnum Rafiq had let him borrow for the auspicious occasion.
The gun had been given to him by an American officer as a show of gratitude for Rafiq saving his life. Rafiq said it was “Dirty Harry’s” gun, butKélebdid not know this man. He only knew the damn thing had thrown him backward onto the ground when he fired it. He’d missed the spectacle of Narweh’s face exploding, only appreciated the damage afterward. Whoever Dirty Harry was,Kélebadmired his weaponry.
Later that evening, Rafiq had relinquished ownership of Dirty Harry’s gun toKéleband confided in him the story of how he’d come to find him that day in Tehran. Rafiq spoke about his mother and sister, of the futility of his search for Vladek, but mostly, his passion for revenge.
When he was finished, an alliance was formed, a pact so solid, it made everything else irrelevant. That night, after the boy confessed to having no recollection of any name butdog, Rafiq renamed the boyCaleb– the loyal disciple.
***
