by Gerard Cappa
She contoured herself around me now, I pushed her off, but she snaked straight back all over me. Punka walked ahead, just the 1,000 Lira in his mind. Didar was thinking too, and I would give her space to work something out, see where it took us. It pleased me that I was able to read her, that I would be able to work her.
Punka was wrong. Istanbul was just like New York, in all the ways that mattered. That pleased me most.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Punka was in front with the driver. I sat in the back seat with Didar, my hands folded inside my jacket, the Rami in my right hand. Didar started to swoon over me when we got in the taxi, but felt the barrel and moved back to her own side. We were going to Aksaray neighbourhood, another place the guides ignored. Punka had worked his cellphone good, made about forty calls, speaking at least three languages, it sounded like. Didar had called no more than five, but had talked longer and took plenty of calls back. There were leading me to a house where addicts were sure of a fix, night or day. Punka said a dealer he knew saw an American in there one time with that crew’s boss, the Baba, in Turkish Mafya speak. Didar said she drew a blank, but I knew her well enough now. She was lying. Punka, I knew he must be tempted to pull something, so leant over and tapped his cheek with the gun, he turned his face to me and I put the pistol to his temple. “Boom!” I mouthed to him. The driver looked the other way. Nobody spoke as we swept through the dirty empty streets up here, but I started to wonder if these two were a team, had set me up from the start. Good luck to them. I must have been daydreaming when I stumbled into that lethal meeting with Swansea, but I was back in control now, and I knew I could always trust the Rami.
We left the main street at Metro-Aksaray, and disappeared into a maze of crowded streets and lanes, designed so the likes of me would never be there again. Punka found the place, ordered the driver to stop. I told Punka to pay the driver but tell him to stick around, we would be moving on soon. He relayed this to the driver, then all hell broke loose, both of them bawling nose to nose, fingers thrusting, arms waving.
I pulled Didar out to the sidewalk after me. She cracked up with her full, throaty laugh.
“The driver say we must not go in this place,” she said. “We all be dead, then police come and beat him for driving you here. He say we mad. Gypsy, Whore and Gavur will die in this place.”
“Gavur? What’s that mean?” I asked.
She laughed even more, doubled up, really pissing herself.
“Gavur, that mean you. This word mean you not a Muslim, but more. You are a dirty Westerner, live bad life, only bad thoughts, no religion,” she caught her breath. “Sorry I laugh. But funny thing that dirty whore tell you this thing, no?”
Yes, it was a funny thing, Artie would be reaching for his whiskey flask if he heard it, but I was about to give them all plenty to laugh at. I corralled both of them to the door, hard faces looked out the window at us, Punka stalled.
“I not permitted in here, Uncle, they not want Gypsy here.”
I pushed him in first.. The dump wasn’t unlike the place I had found him earlier, but instead of men drinking at tables, here about ten of them sat on cushions, blowing furiously on hubba bubba pipes. The smell rocked me for a second, they must have been gassing in that crucible all day, smoke and fumes choking me. Didar pushed past me, striking out her sultry slouch, back straight, head high, swayed them crazy. Even there, in the middle of this thing, I couldn’t help thinking that she was something, alright, she really should have been parading up Broadway.
The closest one to us jumped up to grab her. He was about fifty, small and round, but strong looking. Some sort of scarf loosely hung over his ears, two dirty yellow brown teeth in his mouth. He started to scream at her, but I rammed the pistol into his mouth, knocked him flying back, just the two twisted fangs left on the floor where he had stood. They all froze, but I knew what was happening to them. When your head gets a sudden jolt of shock, the brain scrambles around to work it out, and, in a crowd, looks for a lead to follow. I wasn’t giving anyone the chance to be the leader-hero. I took the closest one and put the barrel against his thigh. He just watched me doing it, didn’t even move. I blew a hole through his leg and the fucker still just watched, until he fell over. Bingo, the bullet went straight through, just flesh, but got another one in the knee. Tough luck, buddy, he would be damaged for longer.
They were at the second stage now, their brains had registered what was happening, it was do or die. I picked out the biggest one, still on his cushion, cross-legged, hooked up to his blow-pipe. I marched straight over and blew his right elbow apart. Any of them that had been close to a shooting recognised that smell of bullet scorched human flesh, nobody was going to move now. I turned to Punka.
“Tell them the next one gets it in the head. Tell them I want to know about the American with burns like this,” I bared my neck and shoulder. “Tell them I will finish the deal the other Gavur started. Tell them my hotel. Anybody wants to do business, I pay well, in dollars. Anybody fucks with me, I love it.”
I motioned Punka to speak, he hesitated, and Didar took the stage. She told them alright, and plenty more besides, by the looks on their faces, and the body language she whipped them with. She was really getting off on the power thing, and it suited her, I would have paid her the fifty dollars there and then, no problem.
I ushered Punka and Didar to move out the door, I covered them, walking backwards, but I didn’t see the prick outside, and the fucker planted a 4 inch blade in Punka’s chest before I got out there. Didar was grappling with the knifeman, held him up long enough for me to find his head and blow his skull open. I caught him as he fell, shoved him back in the door and dumped him on the floor. I dragged the one with no teeth out after me, he started spitting and shouting at Didar again. The taxi was long gone. I stood the toothless wonder in the street and stiffed him, right in front of another cab. The driver took my order to stop, got out and helped Didar lay Punka on the back seat.
“Nearest hospital!” I screamed in his ear. “You will be paid well.”
Didar was in front, I cradled Punka’s head on my lap. I had just met this lowlife loser, I should have disposed of him like an asswipe, but something about the guy demanded my respect, deserved my soldier’s “no man left behind” code.
“It isn’t bad Punka. We’re getting you to the hospital. You will be fine, I promise,” I said.
The blood was pumping out of him, bubbling through my fingers as I tried to dam it up with his shirt.
“Uncle, my family will not eat tomorrow. The Gypsies tell me keep away from Devil, but I try help you. Now your money is no good for me. But my family, Uncle, please?”
I didn’t know if the poor sap would make it or not, but there was no fear in his eyes. He was also the sort of guy who would just suck it all up. I was the sort who got him killed.
“Your family will be fine, Punka, I will find them and give them money, as much as they need, ok? I will look after them!”
Didar grabbed my wrist, banged on the steering wheel.
“Yes, yes, but now we must leave him!” she shouted. “Taxi will take Gypsy to doctor, but we must go away! Before police come! You will be free, but they will take only me!”
She was right. I had got carried away, took it too far, now had to adjust, take the tangent and work it as best I could.
“Ok driver, stop here! Here’s 200 Lira. You describe us to the police, you know your brains will be all over this taxi’s hood! Understand?”
Didar jumped out before we had stopped, Punka saw her go and pulled me closer to his mouth.
“Uncle, leave this Kurd whore. She is a Mullo, like your witch. She will suck your blood, your breath. Always bad things happen if she with you. We Roma know her. That is why she hate me. Only Turk and Gavur take her. Go to my family, they help you, Uncle. This Didar is devil woman, she kill me.”
She swung the door open and dived on me, pulling me out, pushing Punka back down on the seat.
“He
is Gypsy, he get stab with knife, this is normal for these people! We go now! Quick! Forget Gypsy! Police is coming, in this moment!” she screamed in my ear.
That’s what he said, the Devil Woman had killed him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I clamped her wrist in my fist, she scuttled down lanes and alleys, sliced through the old city towards the bridge. I couldn’t lose her now, needed her until I worked out my next move. Tarlabasai is across the Golden Horn water, a slice of the distilled cultures floating there between Europe and Asia, and I had to get over that bridge before the cops could get organised.
She skipped on a tram as it passed Sirceki, we trundled over the Galata bridge, and jumped off at Karakoy. We were home free now, this was her turf. We plunged through the night crowds, an urgent American being steered into Tarlabasai by a woman at this time of night was never going to attract attention. I knew what I was going to do with her, had to hold myself back until we got there.
Didar relaxed as we hit the dark streets, just me and her, she started to stroll, started to tantalise, amusing herself with me.
“Istanbul is finish for me now. They will get me when you go, cut my neck. I go with you,” she was entwined around me. “Go to America. I be no trouble, your woman will never know. You come to Didar any day, every night, no problem.”
I caught her by the hair and slammed her against the wire fence guarding the derelict building, slid Punka’s knife around the throbbing hollow at the base of her throat, spoke close to her ear.
“You saw him, I know you did. Your eyes told me that. No more lies. Where did you see him, who was he with?”
She threw her head back, exposing her throat, laughing in my face, “You better kill me quick now, Gavur, they will pain me for a long time before they finish with me. Because you found me.”
Fuck it, she wasn’t afraid of me. I took a step back, put the knife back in my belt, and stroked her hair back in place. She had too much pain and humiliation in her life already, more than I could muster. She took my hand again and led me down an alleyway. Her existence was scraping a life in this sewer, her beauty a vice, not a joy, so what more could I do to her, even if I had the appetite?
She pushed open the door to a cell-sized bar. The old man behind the counter was on his own, watching an old “ER” in Turkish, Doug Ross and Mark Greene shooting nets in green gowns. He was glad to see her, like an old uncle meeting his favourite niece on her way to school. She regained her zest, her sparkle, listened to his update on Chicago County General as if it was the most exciting thing she had heard all week. I sat between the cigarette and fruit machines, the antique public phone was above my head. I wouldn’t phone Rose now. Didar brought two large vodkas, used her own money, just vodka and ice.
“I never see your friend, this other Gavur. We hear things from other girls. We hear about this crazy American, with burnt neck. From the rich Russian whores, they work in the rich hotels, the clubs in Beyoglu and Ortakoy. Girls like me is not wanted there, we not have nice clothes, nice underwear, nice shoes, nice hair. Only if big party and not enough Russian girls, then maybe they come and take poor girls also. Only if they want young girls, young boys, like children, then they come to Tarlabasai.”
I felt guilty about that, for some reason, but had already squared blowing away two complete strangers less than an hour ago.
“What did you hear about him? What did the Russian girls say?” I asked. I needed to track down this gang, but I also wanted to know what the girls thought of him, what was he like in this different world he had created, without me.
“They say he always pay many dollars. Good customer. But they afraid, too. They call him ‘Rasputin’, like the evil one, you know? They all afraid, even these rich Russian whores.”
Well, that was definitely McErlane then. But somehow, in the end, they had got the better of him. Maybe he scared them all too much, they had to put him down, like Rasputin. Like I had tried to do myself, before he carried me out of the burning house.
“We will go there, to these clubs,” I said. “I need to find this gang. I need to take over his deal. I want to buy the heroin, take it to America, you understand?”
She tongued the ice around the edge of the glass, bathed her lips with the vodka, sat the glass down, threw her head back and ran her hands through her hair, where I had yanked it earlier.
“You lie to me, Gavur. You go to kill these peoples, no?”
“I’m sorry if I hurt you, Didar, it won’t happen again,” I said.
She laughed in her throat.
“Yes, all you Gavur men say this. ‘Please forgive me, Didar. I will not do it again’. Then they hurt me worse. They all like to hurt me. Why they like this hurting so much, these Gavur, hmmm? But you do lie. You want to hurt this gang, this Mafya.”
“We will go there, you will take me,” I said. “I’ll keep you safe, and no-one will hurt you again. I’ll pay you 5,000 Lira, Didar, and you will be safe.”
“I take you, but you pay me 6,000. The Gypsy’s 1,000 also, you pay it to me,” she said.
So there was history between them, her cruelty was too specific to be spread around all the Roma Gypsies.
“Punka said you hated him, Didar. Why? What did he do to you?” I said.
She shrug dismissed me and stood up to drop some coins into the gaming machine, pulled the lever and watched the fruit spin around. She played again, all her concentration on the whirling dials.
“He is liar,” she said. “He have no fucking babies. He marry Gypsy girl but she cannot give him son. Now she can be whore when he is dead, she not need this 1,000 Lira. See she fucking laugh now, hmmm?”
Final. End of story. And none of my business anyway, the Gypsy and the Whore were entitled to have history as much as the Gavur and his sometime wife. She went to the bar to change her winnings from coins to notes. The barman was pleased for her. She whispered in his ear and he immediately reached for his car keys, passed them to her, no payment accepted.
“I take you to Russian whores now. 6,000 Lira. Forget Gypsy,” she called down to me.
ER was over, the late news started. We washed the blood from our hands and faces at the scummy sink behind the counter, she subtitled for me. Shooting in Aksaray, two dead, more wounded. Drug dealers, too soon for details. The barman ignored the news, passed no comment about the blood draining down his sink. I wondered how far Kaffa could go to cover me, before it would offend his sense of duty and honor. The woundings would probably have been fine, but two executions might be too much for even Kaffa to rationalize. Why the fuck had I done that, anyway? Because they spat on her? Knifed him? So what? I needed to get back in harness, controlled aggression from now on, no more fucking Rambo.
“Let’s go to this club now. I have a job to finish,” I said.
Dimitri, the old man, kissed her hand, just as if she were a lady.
* * *
Didar couldn’t drive, but misdirected me through the tourist throng of Taksim Square and on to the brink of the western world, along Ciragan Caddesi, past the luxury Russian hotels with their heliports and private marinas looking east to Asia. She kept the intercontinental Bosphorus Bridge as her beacon, the arched statement on Turkey’s roadmap. She considered and dismissed a string of “A” list joints, and I still harboured some doubts about her story, but eventually she plucked one club out of the night, Kahverengi Boga Kulubu.
She waved me off the boulevard and past Japanese and French restaurants. The Kahverengi stomped at the end of the cul-de-sac. The Ottoman uniformed attendants queued to guide a Porsche and a Ferrari to a parking lot at the back, but I didn’t need the attention our veteran Tofas automobile would create, so I retreated, then pulled in beside the “Manhattan Fine Oriental Carpet Emporium”, the 50,000 Turkish Lira price tags justified the name.
“Why we not go in? Do I shame you, Gavur?”
I nodded at the two police cars parked across from the club entrance.
“This is normal, many rich people
make party here. Mafya, yes, but also pop stars, TV, many bosses. And police. Yes, government, law people, many police bosses, like this place. Istanbullu like party, not matter if you good or bad, this is the club for all these rich peoples.”
There was a restaurant on the rooftop terrace, but this wasn’t the season. The three floors below throbbed and pulsed with light and sound, shadows and echoes bounced into the night sky, and reached across the Bosphorus. From the second floor, suspended corridors at the far corners led to detached party pods, access for VIP’s exclusively. I was getting in there, but needed to think it through, couldn’t use the same tactics I had used earlier in Arkasay.
“They use these apartments later,” she said, pointing out a block to the side of the parking lot, “When party finish, bosses take Russian whores to this place, other girls tell me.”
A covered pathway led from the club to the apartment gateway, no obvious security presence, but a steel gate and high wall were obvious deterrents. Six balconies, eight apartments. I left Didar in the car and scouted around to the side of the club. Anybody expecting extra-curricular partying wouldn’t get in there without me seeing them. I went back and slid her out of the car, she would finger either Russian prostitutes or Mafya of interest.
It was late, there were no lights in the apartments yet, so I guessed we would just have to wait. She was cold again, but didn’t warm herself against me this time. Good, I had to get it right this time, needed focus.
My cellphone piped in a text message, I slapped at my pockets to find it, knock it off, silence it. The tiny screen lit Didar’s face up as she spiralled to read it. A message from Rose. “Where R U? Come Home”.
“This Rose, she is your woman in America, no?” she said.