The Serenity Murders

by Mehmet Murat Somer

He’d been married for a while but then got a divorce. It was an arranged marriage, he said. To keep his name clean. “You know how no one doubts married men, especially in small towns! Whenever my wife desired, please excuse me, sexual intercourse, I’d tell her I was tired, but the marriage didn’t last long.”

  I wondered what the grounds for divorce had been. They might have gotten their divorce in a single hearing, without his wife even having to go to court, just because he was a police officer.

  “I lived in Sinop before. I moved to Istanbul. I was free there. I’d walk around at home in a nightdress. I bought them in Samsun, at the Russian market. Thin straps, full lace front…Long…All the way down to the floor…The silky fabric. The feel of it on your skin is enough to give you the most delightful goose bumps.”

  I pictured a rough, synthetic, imitation Victoria’s Secret. Peach or pink? I wondered.

  My instincts were torn: to be or not to be a helpful, tolerant, loving, considerate person toward someone who was new, who was curious but hadn’t yet come out. But did I really have the patience?

  As if he could read what was going through my mind, he broke off his story and said, “If we manage to keep the fact that I’m a policeman a secret, if no one finds out, including everyone at the club, I can guarantee your safety. No one will trouble you…”

  He had only been in Istanbul for three months but he had fallen in step with the ways of the system here pretty quick.

  “We already pay people for that,” I told him. “But you’re welcome to come and go as you please.”

  “And our little secret will stay safe, right? No little birdie will go telling Selçuk Tayanç…”

  There it was, his little pinkie erect as he spoke.

  “We don’t know the profession of each and every customer that comes here. It’s none of our business,” I told him while grinning and adopting a professional tone befitting a partner of the establishment.

  Oh, those hands! Flapping around like butterfly wings.

  “Well, not exactly like a customer, though…”

  What? Did he want to jump straight to cross-dressing?

  “If I could keep some of my stuff here…”

  This was too much, even for me.

  “Let’s take this slow. Just have a look around tonight…And we’ll talk again.”

  “If you’d introduce me as Türkanş…”

  Whoa! Okay, everyone was free to choose their own idol, use whatever name their heart desired, but no matter how far one forced the art of makeup, square-face Hilmi would never make a Türkan Şoray, the legendary beauty of Turkish film. I bit my hand to keep myself from laughing out loud.

  He was already prancing jauntily as he descended the stairs. Following a whopping ten-minute-long confession and soul-baring session, the dull police chief from Homicide had disappeared, giving way to a coquettish gargoyle. It was annoying how he hysterically cried, “Ay! ay!” with every step. How could one be so mindless, trusting me like that and bursting out of the closet after hardly exchanging more than two words?

  “Before I forget,” I said, reminding him of his job and his real reason for being here, “I want a copy of that CD.”

  Since I was the one who had recorded it and didn’t remember, I was curious to find out what was on it. Could it have been the clue the psycho killer had mentioned and scolded me for not paying attention to?

  He stopped with the hysterical ay-ay’s immediately.

  I introduced Türkanş first to Hasan, and then to Hüseyin, who was waiting for me with panic-stricken eyes. After so many years of living cheek by jowl with the girls, Hasan had grown accustomed to their ways, and so he didn’t react to the name. Hüseyin, though, was a different story; he jumped at it.

  “Türkanş? What kind of a name is that? Bloody hell, never heard that one before…”

  Even though Türkanş was flirting and prancing, she was still in her dark suit and wearing a tie.

  Türkanş Hilmi stared at every man with ravenous passion and at every girl with envy. Despite Hüseyin’s silent objections and bafflement, I sat Türkanş next to him. Türkanş had already started wiggling his hips to the rhythm of the music.

  A giant exhalation of cigarette smoke attacked the nape of my neck. I turned around, infuriated.

  “Abla, who is this trashy queen?” Dump Truck Beyza asked, tapping my shoulder with her long cigarette holder.

  “Türkanş,” I said.

  The cigarette holder fell from her mouth. I had to repeat it again slowly to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood. She started kicking and stomping in a laughing fit and almost fell off the banquette.

  It seemed Officer Hilmi was going to find fame on his first night out, solely on account of his name.

  10.

  Hüseyin had stayed in the guest room, of course. He slept like a log thanks to the free drinks he’d downed one after the other all night. I cracked the door open to look at him. He was sleeping on his back like a baby, with his two arms stretched up beside his head. According to character analysis, those with inner peace slept in such comfortable positions. His cowardly behavior the previous evening was hardly a sign of inner peace, so I guessed he must have found it during the night.

  He could go on sleeping, or I could wake him up. I’d had a restless night, and for him to be sleeping so peacefully was simply annoying. I voted for the second option. I reminded him of the psycho killer so he’d come to his senses more quickly. He jumped out of bed.

  When one has lived alone for such a long time, the presence of a second person in the house can be a nuisance. And indeed Hüseyin, who kept getting in my way, was getting on my nerves.

  “Why don’t you join me…?” he shouted from the bathroom a couple of times as he showered. He’d gotten his sleep, overcome his fear, and was clearly horny again. I completely ignored him.

  I could hardly believe it but there were no messages on my answering machine. Not one person, not even our psycho, had called.

  After assigning Hüseyin the task of preparing a grand breakfast, I headed straight for the computer. There was nothing new there either. Cleaning up the mess the psycho had made on my Web site was on my to-do list. And I would, once I’d given the situation some thought. But it wasn’t something I could do right then.

  There were smells coming from the kitchen: toast and omelet. It seemed Hüseyin was toiling hard, showing off all his talents in a bid to curry favor.

  The phone rang.

  It was Ponpon. Her voice was completely devoid of its usual joyful chirp.

  “Ayolcuğum, how about canceling the call forwarding?…I didn’t sleep a wink all night because of all your calls.”

  I had completely forgotten I had forwarded my landline phone to Ponpon’s. If I missed or wasn’t able to take them, calls were automatically directed to her phone. Now I knew why there weren’t any messages on my answering machine.

  “Sorry, Ponpon, dear,” I said. “I totally forgot. I’m not used to using that service, it totally escaped me. I’ll fix it straightaway.”

  “You’ll never guess what happened to me,” she said, turning on the waterworks with the second word.

  If a threatening call had come through, Ponpon would be devastated. For Ponpon, who was inclined to perceive the most minute of matters as global disasters, a threat made directly to her person was the worst thing that could happen.

  “That witch Sofya called,” she said.

  It wasn’t such a great calamity after all. Okay, no one in our community really liked Sofya, but they sure did respect her. With her posh, luxurious lifestyle, founts of money that never ran dry, sordid connections, the parties she threw which everyone was always dying to be invited to, and her endless plastic surgery operations, Sofya was a true legend among us. The fact that she despised and constantly humiliated everyone was the reason why no one liked her.

  “I see,” I said, to prompt her.

  She continued, sobbing.

  “I thought she was calling me.
I kindly asked her how she was doing and everything. Well, of course, she didn’t know she was calling me. She thought she was calling you. She ordered me to hand the phone to you immediately. And because I didn’t understand what she meant exactly, she said to me, ‘I don’t have any business to address with you, you slut.’”

  There it was, that fatal word. The word “slut” had left Ponpon devastated. Even having to repeat it made her wail.

  “Sweetie, ayol, don’t you know that you’re not? Why care about what she says? Plus, you know Sofya. She speaks without thinking.”

  The whining, wailing hysterical breakdown on the other end continued.

  “But…but…if that’s what she thinks of me, without thinking…Sss-lut…Ayol, you wouldn’t even say that in a fight. What did I ever do to her? What ill have I ever done her?

  She had clearly given it a lot of thought before calling me. There was no point in raking up the past and reminding her of all the things they had done to each other, both openly and secretly. It was common knowledge among the girls that there had been a three-way power struggle happening for some time—among Sofya, Ponpon, and me! Kindhearted Ponpon is sweet, people love her. Whereas they fear and dread Sofya. They dread what might befall them if they don’t do as she says. As for me, the youngest candidate vying for power, I attribute my own position within this triangle to my status as a club owner. The girls do always compliment me on my intelligence and tell me how much they admire my success as a sleuth and as a businessperson. I am friends with Ponpon. But not with Sofya. Despite Sofya’s mischievous minions, most of the girls are on our side and the joining of my and Ponpon’s forces has always proven victorious.

  At present, we were even. And even if Sofya were to forge ahead a point, we’d always get even.

  “And lots and lots of other calls…Ayolcuğum, you have so many people calling you. I don’t get this many calls in a week. I swear, I feel like your secretary. Do you have a pen and paper? The list is long, and some of the messages are cryptic, so only you’ll understand them…I’m ready when you are.”

  Sofya wanted me to contact her. It was an emergency. She had called twice, and called Ponpon a slut twice.

  My boss, the moneylender Alı, was also expecting my call.

  Kemal Barutçu, a.k.a. Jihad2000, had left the cryptic message, “When?” Never in this lifetime.

  Andelip Turhan had said that I was in her cards and that she needed to see me.

  Gül—my ticket to see the handsome Bahadır—had asked me to call when I had the time.

  “Okay? You got that all written down?”

  I answered in the affirmative.

  “Listen here, ayolcuğum, is Andelip Turhan that famous tarot reader? The one that goes around dressed all weird?”

  When I last saw her she was wearing a man’s briefs over her head instead of a beret, I wanted to tell her; but I didn’t.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m certainly coming with you when you go to see her. I’ve been wanting to go for ages. You know how keen I am on fortune-telling.”

  Everyone knew how Ponpon wandered from one fortune-teller to the next. And not just those in Istanbul; she’d jump on the plane and go to Antalya for a day, to visit the fortune-teller Hülya for a single reading, or call Meto in Trabzon for a session over the phone.

  “Fine,” I said.

  I had a long day ahead of me with Hüseyin. It would be a good idea to start planning. I didn’t want to sit at home with him all day and rot in front of the television switching from this DVD to that channel and vice versa.

  I was going to pop into the office sometime during the day. And I thought it would be amusing for Hüseyin.

  I called Sofya straight after breakfast. Of course the answering machine came on. “Please tell me who you are and why you are calling, so I can decide whether or not to pick up the phone and speak to you. Thank you,” it said. The nerve!

  She picked up the phone just as I was saying my name.

  “I’ve been expecting your call,” she said scoldingly.

  “Well, here I am,” I replied. “Long time no see. How have you been?”

  The truth was, our last encounter had been far from lovely.

  “Fabulous! As always!”

  The word “understatement” did not exist in the vocabulary of Sofya, that marvelous specimen of femininity.

  “What’s up with you forwarding your phone calls to Ponpon’s? What adorable bonding…Yuck!”

  I really didn’t have the energy for a second dose; this time listening to Sofya complaining about Ponpon.

  “You called me?” I said, in my most professional, in other words dull and numb, tone of voice.

  One should never reveal any soft spots to Sofya. She’d nail you in the Achilles the first chance she got.

  “There are people who want to see you.”

  If she was intending to pimp me out again, she was in for a disappointment. She couldn’t use me the same way she did most of the girls; pimping them to celebrities at precious prices, getting them sucked into weird prostitution networks. I had fallen for that trick once in the past, and had learned my lesson. If there was anyone who fancied me since I’d appeared on TV and wanted to sleep with me, well, I had no intention whatsoever of reciprocating. No way would I tolerate being with someone whose understanding of sports was watching soccer on TV, who had saggy skin, a fat belly, a bald head, and greasy hands he’d move across my body, imagining himself to be the most attractive man on earth as his wheezing lungs breathed air all over me. I now chose my partners myself, according to my own taste. I never expect to find someone like John Pruitt, but I do prefer men who are clean-cut, smell fresh, and show concern for my feelings as well as their own pleasure. No matter the price she named, my answer was going to be no. Then again, what would be the harm in negotiating a sum? Just like there was a price for everyone, there was quite naturally one for me. I immediately began imagining astronomical sums and all the things I could do with the money.

  “I don’t do that anymore,” I said. “It’s been years…”

  She let out an artificial hoot of laughter. How did she manage to be so pretentious?

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” she said, abruptly cutting her laughter short. “Who would want you when there are so many young chicks available? To think that they’d pay for it…”

  She sure knew how to hit a gal where it hurts. And so I ceased counting dollars in my head and dreaming of the around the world tours I might embark upon.

  “These people are important…I can’t give you their names on the phone…”

  Oh, how she loved being mysterious.

  “So why do they want to see me?” I asked.

  “You’re after something, apparently…So Hasan said…They have some information for you…”

  The wheel had started turning. Hasan had told everyone, the news had spread fast, and now some mysterious people wanted to share information with me. Seeing as they were somehow connected to Sofya, these very important people whose names were to be kept secret had to be the Mafia.

  “They can call me…” I said. “Give them my number.”

  “Ayol, stop being so childish! These people don’t order takeout on the phone. It has to be face-to-face…”

  “So?”

  “I’ve been told to arrange a rendezvous for you.”

  So she took orders too.

  “I don’t know if I can arrange it right away. These people are always busy. I’ll let you know as soon as I set it up. Give me your mobile.”

  What would important people want with me? If the people in question were the types engaged in dark, sordid dealings, the types Sofya was prone to be involved with herself, then I’d really rather prefer to keep my distance. I didn’t owe them anything, they didn’t owe me anything. And I’d rather keep it that way, but I knew they had eyes and ears everywhere. Perhaps they did have information for me.

  I still had to call Alı, Andelip, and Gül back. I was going t
o the office anyway. I’d call them later.

  11.

  “You’re not going to follow me around all day, are you?” I asked him. “That’ll really suck, for the both of us.”

  Hüseyin was slouched in front of the television, zapping through channels.

  “I don’t mind,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Sucking, I wouldn’t mind. In fact, we could replace that s with an f.”

  It was a stupid joke. He was the only one to laugh.

  “What?” he said. “What else am I supposed to do? I’m only safe if I stay with you!”

  He’d made breakfast but hadn’t set about cleaning up. The kitchen where he’d made himself an omelet looked like it had been hit by a bomb. He’d used dozens of bowls, cups, and saucers to make a single omelet and then left them just sitting there.

  Luckily, Satı was coming the next day. I can never stay at home when there’s cleaning. Not only does the sound of the vacuum cleaner make my hair stand on end, but I get tense, feeling that Satı is following me around no matter where I hide.

  We received a text message from our psycho on my mobile saying, “Don’t mess around. I’m waiting for you,” whereby he kindly reminded us of his existence. What did he expect me to do? Walk around in the streets with a magnifying glass in my hand like Sherlock Holmes? I hadn’t yet found a single clue. Perhaps if Türkanş Hilmi brought me the CD tonight, I might have something. The television channels had already forgotten all about Süheyl, which was now yesterday’s news. I had no hope of finding anything from that lead anyway. The police would handle it much more effectively using their own sources.

  Hüseyin and I went to the office. He had promised to sit quietly no matter how bored he got. He was going to play games on the computer.

  “We haven’t seen you around for a while, sir,” our secretary Figen greeted me. She eyed Hüseyin up and down, her gaze fixed on him; no shame at all! She was wondering what to make of us arriving together.

  I confessed to save her the trouble.

  “My chauffeur.”

  Hüseyin’s eyes widened in objection.