The Fish Kisser

by James Hawkins

  “Oh yes, Sir, that is alright.”

  He didn’t bother—he had caught a glimpse of Abdul’s malicious smile in the rear view mirror.

  The shanty-like suburbs of single story houses quickly gave way to modern apartments and office towers, and they sneaked glances at each other while Abdul gave a spirited impression of a tour guide.

  “This the famous Topkapi Palace,” he said with a wide sweep of his hand taking in four downtown blocks.

  “Wow,” said Bliss. “That’s huge. Who was it built for?”

  Abdul scrutinized the building carefully, seeking inspiration or a sign, and the car wandered hazardously until an irate bus driver caught his attention with a horn blast.

  “It was built for very important man,” he replied eventually, as if he had known the answer all along.

  “Mehmet the Conqueror,” explained Yolanda quietly. “It is where he kept his harem and eunuchs.”

  “That is correct, Sir,” said Abdul, basking in Yolanda’s glory. “And this, Sir,” he added, introducing an enormous building topped by a crescendo of domes with the aplomb of the architect, “this is the Blue Mosque.”

  “It looks grey,” responded Bliss as he stared in awe at the multi-layered building sporting a mass of towering minarets. “How old is it?”

  “It is very, very, very old,” said Abdul gravely, with little calculation.

  “It’s blue inside Dave. We’ll go there tomorrow,” said Yolanda with a little excited squeeze of his hand as they drove alongside the turquoise waters of the Bosphorus.

  The hotel, was, “as stuffed as a pig,” explained the desk clerk colourfully, scanning an incomprehensible ledger while wildly scratching his head. Yolanda slid a crisp twenty-dollar bill between the book’s leaves and a miracle occurred. Apparently a cancellation had just been phoned in, and he had overlooked it. He was, he said, immensely sorry for the misunderstanding, then hinted that the cancellation of a more desirable suite could be arranged for another twenty. Bliss clicked his tongue in disapproval but stopped when the clerk broke into a smile. “It is just my little joke, Sir.” Bliss didn’t laugh.

  A hire car had proved more difficult and Bliss gave up easily. “Taxi it is then,” he said, with relief, having studied the driving habits of the locals for the past twenty minutes.

  They quickly showered, dried, and dressed, and he made a stab at a kiss as they readied to leave, but she turned a hard face and spun away.

  “Sorry …” he mumbled confused.

  She turned back with a mischievous grin. “It is a crime, Dave.” Then laughed as she pushed him onto the huge soft bed and mauled his mouth until he cried, “I can’t breathe.”

  “Get a cab. I’m ready,” she called, disappearing into the bathroom to repair her lips.

  Bliss stepped into the hot evening, sniffing the potent aroma of hibiscus, mimosa and diesel, and found that Abdul had anticipated their requirements.

  “I say to myself. This nice man he needs Abdul, so I stay,” he explained, obviously sensing the possibility of a landing a weekend’s work.

  Of course he could find the address Nosmo King had written on the handkerchief, but as to how far, and how long, his eyes took on a faraway look. “Ten minutes, maybe an hour,” he said, his vacant expression adding, “Who cares.”

  Fortunately, it took only twenty minutes and they arrived while it was still daylight. The address was a warehouse, a windowless white concrete block, like an iceberg rising out of a jumbled sea of rocky pack-ice.

  “Earthquake,” explained Abdul, excusing the ramshackle industrial complex, where only a handful of small factories and the warehouse remained. A twelve-foot perimeter fence surrounded the warehouse and Abdul slowed at the gate. “It is closed,” he said with hardly a glance, and was driving off when Yolanda shouted, “Stop!” He eased back on the accelerator and turned to Bliss. “Do you wish for me to stop, Sir?”

  “I wish you to do whatever the lady says,” Bliss shot back, infuriated by the driver’s treatment of Yolanda.

  “Yes, Sir. If that is your wish, Sir,” replied Abdul with a vicious smile.

  Two minutes later they were back in the car. The high mesh fence topped with razor wire and the conspicuously padlocked gates had dispelled any notion of breaking in for a quick sneak around.

  “I told you,” said Abdul. “Everywhere closed, I bring you back Monday.”

  “Maybe,” replied Yolanda coolly. “But now we would like some dinner,” and sought Bliss’ agreement.

  Abdul said, “I have excellent number one place. Trust me.”

  Bliss toyed with the idea of refusing, just to test Abdul’s hunger, but the young Turk was already warming to a smile so he thought better of it.

  As a tourist guide Abdul had been less useful than a local telephone directory, but he’d hit the spot with the restaurant.

  “It’s Russian,” explained the maitre d’hotel, as they were led to an intimate alcove surrounded on three sides by intricately pierced screens. The atmosphere, heady with the smoke of a dozen ornate hookah pipes, was enriched by the scent of a hundred perfumed candles; the breathy cry of a reed flute added to the aura with exotic Arabian music, the sound barely fluttering the air. The shimmering candlelight, softened by smoke, shifted time, and the two detectives drifted into an ambience of nineteenth century romanticism.

  “This is real gold,” exclaimed Yolanda, fingering a piece of cutlery.

  “The tablecloth’s silk,” replied Bliss and he reached for her hand, whispering, “No messing around O.K.”

  She sniggered, “Okey dokey Dave.”

  “The lamb’s leg is good,” interjected Abdul, wrecking the moment. He had insisted on escorting them. It was, according to him, his duty to do so. He would be there purely as gastronomic adviser he assured them, surely no less than they might expect of a good taxi driver anywhere in the world.

  He took his new-found role seriously, ordering a sampler platter of local delicacies as a starter before they’d even opened their menus. They concurred out of politeness, but Yolanda drew the line at the choice of main course. She wanted the Bosphorus bluefish and said so. Abdul shook his head slowly from side to side, “Not fresh.” He wagged a finger circumspectly. “Fishermen no catch on Friday.” Pretended to spit. “Fish is no good today.” Then smiled. “Lamb is good.” They settled on the lamb, accompanied by Abdul’s choice of vegetables, Abdul’s selection of wine, and Abdul’s recommended dessert.

  The first course arrived almost immediately, and Yolanda gave Bliss a suspicious look while they nibbled on exotically presented tidbits, seemingly comprised entirely of bluefish.

  “We must hire a car, Dave,” she said pointedly, between bites.

  Abdul missed the point. “I can drive …”

  “No, Abdul.” Bliss held up his hand and spoke firmly. “The lady wants to hire a car.”

  “Of course, Sir. No problem, Sir. I get you car.”

  A look of astonishment crept over Bliss’ face as Abdul pulled a cell phone from his pocket and tapped a well-known number. Thirty seconds later he said, “I take you after dinner. It is all arranged.”

  The leg of lamb arrived and was not what Bliss and Yolanda expected. A whole leg the size of a spring chicken sat on each of their plates. “Delicious,” agreed Bliss to Abdul’s enquiry, though Yolanda looked less enthusiastic.

  “Are you alright?” he asked tenderly.

  “It was only a few weeks old, Dave,” she whimpered, gently poking the leg on her plate. A touch of moisture appeared in the corner of her eye and Bliss stroked it softly away. “I know love,” he said, “But it’s too late now, and what we don’t eat will be wasted.”

  The frown blossomed into a little smile. “You’re right, Dave. I am silly, and it is very nice.”

  Forty minutes later, finally free of Abdul and his instructions, advice and opinions, they found their way back to the warehouse in the hired car. The map given to them by the car’s owner—loosely introduced by Abdul as a
cousin—was as old as the car itself; about twenty-five years, they thought, although it was difficult to tell. The car hire office turned out to be a shack stuck on the back of a hovel, and Abdul’s cousin was, according to Yolanda, at least two hundred years old. His habit of spitting, wetly, every three or four words as a form of punctuation, gave his guttural speech a physical dimension.

  Abdul had translated, dispensing with the saliva. “The price is flexible,” he said.

  Taking this to mean negotiable, Bliss offered ten dollars a day as a starter, but Abdul said, “No, my cousin says you must pay him what you think it is worth when you return. He says he knows you will not cheat him because you are American.”

  “Sounds great to me,” said Bliss with as much of an American accent as he could muster.

  The warehouse had changed with the arrival of night. A gleam of light now shone from underneath the double doors of the truck entrance. Light seeped from vents high up on the walls, and floodlights made pools of light at the front and rear of the building. A car, not there earlier, was now parked at the building’s front, inside the perimeter fence.

  They stopped on the side of the unlit road, some distance away, and Bliss pulled another thread from the strap as he nervously checked his watch. “It’s eight thirty,” he whispered.

  “Dave, please change your watch, it’s ten thirty,” she replied. “And why are we whispering?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’ll have to get in there,” she said, straining to see the compound in the darkness.

  “We should call the local police,” he suggested, starting the engine.

  She turned it off. “Dave—think about it—some Turkish cop wanders into your station at midnight on a Friday night, doesn’t speak a word of English, and tries to say he’s chasing a gang of international kidnappers, and they might just possibly …”

  Bliss was shaking his head, “O.K. Yolanda, you’re right. We’d probably lock him up until he was sober.”

  The lights of a large truck appeared in Bliss’ mirror and lit up the car’s interior. “Get down,” he shouted illogically, and they ducked as it rolled passed. Slowing, it pulled up at the warehouse gates.

  “Quick Dave, let’s slip in with the truck.”

  “This is crazy …” he started, too late. Yolanda had taken off and was way ahead as he ran the two hundred yards to the gate in the darkness. The truck had stopped and the driver was beeping for attention. Nothing happened for half a minute or more and they flattened themselves against the fence, as still as posts. Then the gates were opened by a shadowy figure who had appeared from nowhere and, within seconds, they were in the compound, their entrance covered by the truck.

  The gates clanged shut behind them and a hand clamped the padlock in place. Hidden by the darkness, away from the floodlit doors, they crouched to the ground until the truck, and the man, had entered the warehouse, and the giant roller door had hummed to a close.

  Raising his head warily, Bliss squinted at the squat building wishing he had x-ray vision. “We should try to look inside,” he mused, though had no plan or intent.

  “Okey dokey,” Yolanda replied jauntily, willing to go along with him.

  “How?” he asked, hoping she would know what to do.

  They both stared. “What about …” started Bliss, then Yolanda cut in, “There’s some light in the wall up there … Come on,” she said, slipping her hand into his, dragging him to the wall, where, ten feet above the ground, a ventilation brick was sieving light through a mesh of tiny holes.

  “I can’t see anything,” she whispered as she stood precariously on his shoulders a few seconds later.

  “Get down then,” he hissed, his voice straining as his legs shivered with the struggle to remain upright.

  “Wait,” she said, catching a glimpse of movement. Then the lights of a car suddenly swung in their direction and picked them out against the wall.

  “Get down Yolanda. Please,” he implored as the lights turned away, and she dropped into his arms. They crouched silently against the wall until the car had stopped at the warehouse door.

  “What’s happening?” breathed Yolanda, as Bliss peeked around the corner.

  The floppy bundle picked out of the car’s trunk could have been a rolled carpet, judging by the ease that it was manhandled into the building, but Bliss swallowed hard, saying, “I think it was a body.”

  “Dead?” she enquired.

  “Or unconscious,” he replied.

  The gates clanged shut behind the departing car and the shadowy figure walked back toward the warehouse. Bliss had seen enough. “We must call the police.”

  She gave him a quizzical look, lost in the darkness. “How are we going to get out?”

  The locked gate and twelve foot fence certainly presented a problem. “Let’s take a look around the back,” he suggested, hoping to find an exit.

  The back door of the warehouse, with a bead of light running around its edge, caught Yolanda’s attention immediately. The light, from a halogen flood lamp high on the wall, left the door itself in shadow. “Stay there,” she whispered, “I’ll go.” and stepped toward the pool of brightness.

  “No,” he said, trying to grab her arm, but she slipped out of his grasp and sidled along the building.

  This was not in his job description—not in anyone’s job description—and he hissed warnings until she was out of earshot. “Obstinate bloody woman,” he muttered as she inched along the wall and eased herself slowly toward the door. A sudden rustling at her feet startled her as a small creature scuttled from under foot. Scared, she stood gasping for air for a second before moving on. Taking a deep breath, she stilled her hand and slid her fingers over the door handle. It gave way with a jerk and a clunk loud enough to make Bliss jump. “Blasted woman!” he hissed, motioning frantically for her to return. She refused with a shake of the head, and thrust her weight against the door. Bolted, she guessed, as it held, but another door, beyond the circle of light, tempted, and her slender figure faded from Bliss’ view.

  “Stubborn cow,” he moaned as he peered after her into the gloom, then the first door opened with a heart stopping crash and a figure jumped out. Yolanda threw herself to the ground in a split second and prayed. The gun in the man’s hand swept back and forth aggressively as he scanned the lit area. Yolanda, lying beyond the pool of light, lay frozen to the ground. Bliss moulded himself to the wall and watched with horror as the gun swung rapidly. Greeted by silence, and the absence of a target, the gunman pocketed the weapon and, with a shrug, turned back into the doorway. The door started to close, the light from the doorway faded, Bliss let out his breath in a long silent sigh, and Yolanda started to move.

  In a flash everything changed. Yolanda’s foot dislodged a pebble and it clacked against a neighbour as loudly as a pistol crack in the tense air. She dived to the ground as the gunman leapt back out of the door, aiming wildly. Bliss froze, and a warning cry dried in his mouth as the gunman advanced. Yolanda squashed herself into the dusty screen as the gun found her and held steady. Bliss’ heart stopped and his mind whirled in panic as the gunman strained forward, hesitating, momentarily unsure. Bliss sensed the hiatus and shot into action. Picking up a rock, he tossed it at right angles and sent it clattering across the ground.

  “Excuse me, I’m lost. Do you speak English?” he squealed, his strangled voice struggling to be heard as his mind spun through options—duck, run, shake, or shit. “Get a grip,” he told himself. “He won’t shoot.”

  “Click.”

  He ducked, but it was Yolanda. She’d hit another pebble and the gunman was turning. Blood seeped from Bliss’ face, and he didn’t need to see his knuckles to know they were white as he stepped out of the shadows into the circle of light. “I am sorry,” he babbled, “but could you help me.” A blast of vicious Turkish hit him and scared him more than the gun, but he persisted, ignoring the weapon, walking forward saying, “Speak English?” Then repeating, “Do you speak Engl
ish?”

  “Yok,” the man shouted, with a villainous smile that would only cheer an orthodontist’s accountant.

  Bliss stopped and threw up his hands, movie fashion. “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. I just …” But he couldn’t think of anything to say. His mouth froze, brain paralysed by fear, as Yolanda slowly rose from the ground and stealthily crept up on the gunman. Noise, Bliss thought, I must make noise to cover her, and he broke into nonsensical jabber, “I’m Engleesh, Inglees; No; Yes I come … Don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.” Then, just as he expected her to clobber the gunman with a rock, she slipped into the open doorway and vanished. Idiotic woman, he thought, then fell silent as the swarthy man advanced, his potbelly and foul breath preceding him.

  Flicking his gun like a deadly feather duster, and forcing Bliss backwards with a lethal blast of halitosis, the gunman swept him around the building and out to the road. “No Inglees,” he spat, and made a performance of padlocking the gate.

  Bliss crabbed quickly along the roadside, one eye on the gunman, and by the time he reached the car the small voice of his mind was hammering in his skull, “Go for the police.” But his thumping heart was shaking his hand so much he couldn’t get the key in the ignition. “Run,” screamed the voice. “Stay and rescue her,” pulsed his heart, sucking the breath out of his body ’til he felt faint. “How the hell can you get her out?” demanded the voice. “Get the police, it’s her only chance.” But his heart rooted him to the spot. “Go, and you’ll never see her again.”

  He turned the ignition, then switched off. “This is stupid,” he said, knowing it might take hours to get the police. The voice said, “twenty minutes,” but he knew it was lying. “Get her now, don’t wait, they’ll kill her,” thumped his heart, but the gunman was still there, by the gate, still staring, so he started again, turning quickly, and took off toward the city’s glow. Five hundred yards and he switched off the lights, swung on the wheel, and sped back to the compound under cover of darkness.

  Seconds later he was attacking the fence at the far corner like a maniac, muttering, “headstrong witch,” with tears and perspiration streaming down his face in the darkness, as his hands grappled with the wire. He dug frantically at the rocks and sand; his heart pumping wildly as he dragged boulders aside; his muscles straining as he wrenched at the posts, and his hands burning as he pulled at the mesh, yanking it back and forth, worrying it out of the ground, grumbling, “Stupid, stupid, stupid, bloody woman.” His mind spurred him with images of Yolanda: bound, gagged flogged, raped, murdered; each image making him dig faster, harder, more determinately, and all the time his tears dripped onto the parched ground and dust stuck to his sweat soaked clothes.