Blood From A Shadow (2012)
Page 13
“Yeah, let’s do that sometime, Mehmet. I’ll show you around New York, plenty of Turkish guys there now, you know.”
He laughed.
“Many of those Turks would not be pleased to see me,” he said. “I would bring back bad memories to them!”
“I know how you feel. I guess there will be plenty of guys in Istanbul who won’t be too happy to see me, either. They tell me you found Ferdia’s body. What happened, who did it?”
I could feel him move in his seat.
“It was very sad, my friend, the worst thing I have ever had to do, simply the worst. I admit my guilt to you, Con. Our friend Ferdia was in a dangerous place, and I did not protect him. I should never have let it go so far, I should have removed him from all danger. But Ferdia, he was not an easy man to save. You know this, you were his friend. He turned away from us, his true friends, he laughed at danger, he would not listen.”
I could see all of that, Kaffa didn’t have to justify himself.
“Duffin told me Ferdia had sold out, Mehmet, said he had turned crooked. What do you think?” I asked.
“Ferdia was a good man. We both know the truth of this. But in that moment, he had excitement, there was glamor, a twisted romance. He was a man who needed thrills like I need bread. He thought he could control it, control all of us, but, I am afraid, my dear friend, once you make the bargain with the devil, you are lost. We lost him, and I will never forgive myself for that.”
A good man, addicted to excitement, glamour, romance, thrills. Lost to the devil. Yes, Kaffa had it right, that summed up Ferdia McErlane. That’s why we lost him, and I shared Kaffa’s guilt.
“Who did it, Mehmet, who killed him?” I said, my voice as neutral as I could force it to be. I couldn’t see from under my blanket, but I pictured him looking for me in his mirror.
“We all killed him, my friend. The job, the position we put him in. But now, we, his friends, must concentrate on our duty, not on hunting his killers. That will be his greatest revenge.”
“But you do know who it was, don’t you?” I said.
“Be very careful, my friend. Please do not start your duty from a wrong place. If you seek to avenge our friend, we will all fail. You know this is true, Con.”
“I haven’t come here to fail, Mehmet. But I’ll find who killed him and before I leave Istanbul, they will be dead. You could make it easier for me, just tell me who did it.”
“Not now, my friend, not yet,” he said. “Let us start our duty well, we will see what happens then. I do not wish to disagree with you, that is the last thing I want.”
I dropped it, but he knew it wasn’t finished. The Merc rolled over a rough surface, maybe cobblestones, a change of tyre noise. I changed the subject.
“How are your family, Mehmet, everyone doing well?”
“Everyone is healthy, thank you, Con. That is all we can ask for, everything else is a bonus. And Turkey has changed a lot since we last spoke, my family must all do our duty to keep progressing in the right direction.”
“It’s the same the world over, Mehmet. I nearly didn’t recognise New York when I got home the last time,” I said.
“Yes, my friend, many changes. But a country like Turkey must always be careful. Not all change is good, some would have us change in the wrong direction,” he said.
Kaffa was an educated man, he knew about politics and world affairs. I was just a soldier. All I needed to know was that the United States was under attack. I agreed with Duffin there, as far as that goes.
“Turkey stood with the United States when a lot of our European friends chickened out, that’s good enough for me,” I said.
“Yes, Turkey will always do its duty, but our friends do not always treat us with justice,” Kaffa said. “Many Europeans still hold the old prejudices. The Father of Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, showed us the way 80 years ago. The future of Turkey is as a modern society, and Europe itself will not be complete until it embraces us. But there are dark forces, my friend, east and west, which would shackle us to poverty and decline.”
He had lost me, but I was on his side.
“As long as the United States is your ally, the rest can go fuck themselves!” I said, and immediately regretted my profanity in his presence. He ignored it, would not embarrass me.
“The world is a small place today, even the great United States must have support,” he said.
I couldn’t see his expression, so couldn’t tell if that was a crack. No, he was too polite, it wouldn’t be.
“I am a military man, I was trained and educated to defend Turkey against all enemies,” he said. “You understand that, Con. But because we defend the constitution, we are abused by east and west. You know Turkey is a country of Islam, of course, almost 100%. Does the west ever consider why Turkey has not become like Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia? Ruled by Islamic extremists like these other countries? No, they don’t consider, but it is only the Turkish military which has prevented this. So what does Europe say? They say the Turkish military is an evil force, keeping human rights from its poor people! And who are these poor people? The religious extremists who are the enemies of the west! Sometimes, I feel very frustrated, my friend, they do not want to understand.”
Kaffa knew first hand of my experience of religious extremists, the bastards with the dripping ceremonial sword that was to hack my head off. Other than that, I hadn’t thought much about Islam. I knew most of the Muslims in our regiment were serious about it, practiced it properly, seemed to live clean lives. On the other hand, most of my old Catholic friends would have driven Monsignor Artie to despair. They might go to Mass for funerals or weddings, but that was it. The rest they made up as they went along.
“Do you think the extremists will take over some day, Mehmet?” I said.
“The Turkish military will never allow that, my friend, despite the insults our western friends offer to us. You know, we said “Fine, we will join the European Union, that will bring us closer to the west and pull the rug from the feet of the extremists”. What did the European Union say? They said, “No, you cannot join us until you relax your laws against the terrorists, give more human rights to the extremists!” So, fine, we give more space to the Islamists. Their people are even in government now. Does Europe welcome Turkey to the table? No, of course not, they only create more barriers! And every time we make concessions to the extremists, Turkey is weakened and so is Europe. Is that what the fools want, to weaken Turkey and strengthen the Islamic extremists on their doorstep? And what is behind it all, do you think? Because they fear their cultural memory of the Turk? They remember when the Ottoman Turks had the power to smash their Christian civilisation? I tell you, my friend, it is time they grew up, we are not fighting the Crusades anymore!”
I was completely lost now, it sounded like the Europeans were backing our enemies. And maybe I wasn’t picking this up right, but I guessed this was Kaffa’s end of an argument he practiced with Artie. I could see the two of them, standing in front of Corcoran’s monument, the combat of champions, their twin intellects clashing to the end, no mercy asked or given.
“Did you run that past Artie McCooey when you were in Ireland with him, Mehmet?”
Kaffa calmed down.
“Oh yes, Monsignor Arthur, a very wise and holy man, but a religious extremist too, my friend, believe me. We had many good debates, and he is a friend of Turkey and a good friend of mine, but he does not really understand, you see. Ask Monsignor Arthur about Franco in Spain, when you see him again. That fascist Franco died in 1975. Did the European Union create a maze of barriers to prevent fascist Spain from joining? Of course not! “Come and join us straight away, Spain, your European brothers will help you to modernise”, that is what they said. Do they extend the same welcome to Turkey? No, they spit in our faces and say you are not ready. Give more European rights to the terrorists, then you will be ready! Is that how they help the USA in the war against terrorism, while half of the European cowards shirk their own duty,
leaving Turkey to stand alone?”
We were off the freeway, bumping through the stop start city traffic. Less horn blowing than New York. I got a cramp in my left foot, had to flip over and stretch my legs, my feet pressed against the window. Kaffa didn’t notice, I hoped no-one trailing us would either.
“And Monsignor Arthur, what did his Church do when Franco smashed the fascist fist on the people of Spain?” Kaffa said. “They supported him of course, called on the world to give men and money to put Franco in power. And then kept him there for forty years. And these people dare to lecture Turkey on human rights? It is madness, my friend, all madness!”
Franco, there was a name from my early memory. A really old man lived on our block, when I was about 10 years old. He was crazy by then, probably shouldn’t have been allowed to live on his own, but he used to tell us about his war adventures in Spain in the 1930’s. He said he was in the Abe Lincoln Brigade, American volunteers, fighting against Franco’s fascists. He still had a limp because he lost four of his toes to frost-bite. If we plagued him long enough, or he was just crazy enough that day, he would take his shoes and socks off to show us. I was repulsed and thrilled at the same time. And he would tell the same stories time and time again, about the sacrifice of the young American volunteers, the brotherhood, the idealism, and the nobility of ordinary men. His old eyes would ignite with the passion and dignity of his youth. But we weren’t interested in any of that shit, we just wanted to hear about the battles, the weapons, the bombers, the deaths. In the end, he would always give up and tell us about all that too, but his eyes would be dead when he spoke, he was just an old man again. The rest soon got fed up, turned on him, made his life hell, called him a Commie Bastard, broke his windows. Only Ferdy and me kept coming back to sit quietly on his doorstep and restore his youth. I think it must have been Gallogly who hit him with a rock and set his cat on fire, one hot Sunday afternoon, when there was nothing else to do. But nobody ever labelled Gallogly a psycho. I remembered the cat’s name, Abe, but not the old man’s. I couldn’t call up the cat’s squeals of burning agony, but I could still get the smell of burning fur and flesh. And I remembered he never told us stories again and the light vanished from his eyes forever, just disappointment left, until he died a few months later, on his own.
But the old man was talking about the 1930’s, how could the Fascists still be in power in Spain in the 1970’s? My father was at war in Viet Nam by then. We had already landed on the moon, for fuck’s sake, and the fascists still ran part of Europe? I would check that with Artie later.
We slowed down, turned left, slower, then stopped. I waited for Kaffa to give me the all clear before coming out of hiding. He passed me an envelope, two grand in Turkish Lira.
“The people you will have to mix with will tell you terrible stories about the military, Con,” he said. “Perhaps even about me. Just remember, Turkey would already be under extremist control if our military did not defend the constitution. The extremists will never be good for Turkey or for America. That is why we must continue to do our duty, first and foremost. Personal matters are not important. You understand me, don’t you, Con? We must try to forget about our friend Ferdia for now, and concentrate on our duty. This will not be a problem for us, ok?”
I understood him fine, military man to military man, and I was there to do my duty, that would not be a problem. But I would find and kill McErlane’s killer, with or without Kaffa’s help.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Merc slinked out of the alleyway before Kaffa turned his lights on. I waited five minutes before coming out of the alley to lean around the corner. There was nobody there, I hadn’t been followed. The hotel door was 20 feet away, I skipped in, then looked again through the window. No movement, no cars. Kaffa said this hotel would be safe.
The receptionist was a friendly, long haired dude who should have been in LA. I shuffled around as he typed stuff in his computer, giving the hotel’s black Labrador time to sniff my crotch some before the mutt stretched out again on the red Turkish carpet in front of the homely fire. I lifted Frommer’s Guide to Istanbul and walked up three floors to my room. It was on the corner at the front, I could see the main entrance and the side street, would tag any casual surveillance.
I had expected Istanbul to remind me of the grim coarseness of Iraq, but this room was modern and sleek, very clean, very new. A curvaceous marble bath plinthed in the middle of the superior bathroom, high thread linen bedsheets, ultra thin TV miraculously suspended in mid-air. Luxurious but understated, a nice place for a holiday.
Metal stairs outside my door led to the rooftop terrace, a small bar with four or five tables. I activated the buzzer when I opened the terrace door, and five minutes later a gracious dark girl appeared behind the tiny bar counter. Yes, I would like a drink, gin and tonic, please. She was already shivering before she found the light switches, turned the till on, found the ice bucket.
I looked around, straight ahead was a Disneyland building, a wedding cake of layered domes, nested muslim dolls, the smaller ones peaked by a moon sized superbowl, all chaperoned by six Apollo scale minaret towers. Matrioshka eggheads for Islam and tourists. Frommers said it was the Blue Mosque, but it wasn’t hiding from the tourist dollar either, the Broadway footlights cranking up the vertigo. Other grand buildings stacked behind, but couldn’t see them so well. Over there, a train of cars linked the continents with their lights, arcing the bridge across black water. That was the east, Asia. Endless lights, more than the stars in the wide sky above.
To the north, the European city was hemmed in the far distance by the high office blocks of a business district. To the west, couldn’t see far. To the south, the sea was there, but couldn’t see it, just the navigation lights that guided tankers and traders to bear and bull through the intersection for the Middle East, North Africa, Europe. Standing here, I realised Artie had got it all wrong, his favourite Italian church only dealt part of the story, that’s what really frustrated Kaffa, what he truly treasured.
The bar girl was a student in daytime, studying a post graduate degree in something like “Whole Genome Sequencing”, whatever that was. Like most educated Europeans, she also had pretty good English. She politely refused my offer of a drink, and edged towards the warmth promised by the doorway to downstairs, but she was just too polite to snub me completely when I started asking tourist questions.
She pointed out the must-see places, the Blue Mosque, of course, Aya Sofia, Topkapi Palace, but I wanted to know where the rough neighbourhoods were, how would I get there? She was a very smart cookie, but was baffled. She started again, telling me where I should go, but I stopped her.
“No, wait, this place Tarlabasi, how do I get there, can you write it down for me, please?”
She surrendered, performed that exasperated shoulder shrug that all Europeans seem to reserve for Americans, and scribbled the street and neighborhood name down on the back of an Efes Beer mat. She scrutinized me as I took it from her, but didn’t care all that much, it was too cold up here, she needed to get back inside. She was probably down in reception, telling the dude about the crazy American when I tripped the buzzer again, as I left the terrace to jog down the stairs to the street. Less than a minute and I was in the long concourse of the Hippodrome. The Guidebook said they used to hold Ben Hur chariot races here, it would be easy to get a taxi.
* * *
Twenty minutes later I was cruising along the six lane freeway that made the Tarlabasi neighborhood a penitentiary for the lifers who lived there. To the north was the happening Beyoglu district, trendy bars and buzzing nightclubs full of cash rich tourists and Istanbullus. To the south was a crime-ridden sink hole, “No Turk people here, only whores and drug dealers, much danger for you” the taxi driver warned me, before dropping me off at the edge of the district.
Kaffa had told me to wait in the hotel until tomorrow, he would send me a briefing in the morning, then I could get started on my duty. I had already started.
A gang of teenage boys saw me coming down towards them, they were on the opposite side of the street from the bottom of the steps. They went quiet like the boys in Belfast, but I sensed they were more dangerous, more deprived, absolutely nothing to lose. I turned away from them at the bottom of the steps and hurried across the road, a huddle of men stood outside a bar. The boys shouted after me, I heard their steps behind me. I didn’t want their trouble, city punks that age don’t have the sense to be afraid, and that makes them a menace, like I was, long ago. A girl appeared in front of me, young, maybe 25, maybe younger. She spoke English to me, “You want business with nice girl?” She would have been incredibly beautiful if only her ancestors had been lucky enough to be trafficked to the United States. I dodged past her. “Fuck you, gay boy!” she spat after me. The men blocked my entry to the bar but moved just enough when they saw I wasn’t stopping. They had survived being reckless youths themselves, weren’t ready to dive at my size of trouble unless there was something in it for them. The teenagers stopped outside.
The dirty little bar was packed, but froze when I burst in. Twenty plus men sitting at tables, standing at the bar, all just stopped their chatter, their card games, their drinking, their TV watching. Nothing moved, except the billows of cigarette fog and the soccer players on TV. I took an empty space near the end of the bar. They just kept watching. In Ireland, I had noticed people pretended not to watch, they observed a social contract that allowed them to be nosy bastards as long as they hid it. Here, they stared open-mouthed and hungry, as if I was their dinner being served on a silver platter. I stood with my back to the counter and watched them watching me, analysed each one in turn, who would be trouble, who would be useful, who would I go for first. The stand off switched off when Besiktas scored a goal, the black and white tops in the bar could contain themselves no longer, surged towards the TV in the corner.