Happy Birthday, Turk!

by Jakob Arjouni

  He pointed at a corrugated iron roof and was gone before I could shout, “Thank you!” So I didn’t.

  The door to the place was also made out of corrugated iron, and squeaked most unpleasantly. I walked into a fug of stale beer and cigarette smoke.

  Three men sat playing cards at an overturned Henninger crate. A fourth sat in a corner dimly staring at the neck of a bottle. All of them wore greasy sleeveless undershirts that showed off their massive muscles. The card players glanced at me when I entered, but turned back immediately and continued their game of skat.

  “Where were we?”

  “Seven?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Thirty?”

  “Shit fuck piss hell! Bet you don’t get laid anymore!

  You’re getting so lucky it’s illegal!”

  “Nah, brains is all it takes.”

  He reached out for a card, closed his eyes tight. The third one scratched his crotch, looking bored.

  “What you got?”

  The one with brains tossed two cards back on the table.

  “Your girl’s best friend!”

  “Diamonds, and thirty-three? Gimme a break!”

  Seemingly unperturbed by my presence, they started slapping cards on the table. I went and sat down next to the silent drinker, who was still contemplating his bottle.

  “Evening.”

  He turned his head a degree or two, and I saw that his eyes were watering. Among the hairs on his left arm a tattooed mermaid undulated.

  “Wha’ you want?” he whispered in a tiny voice.

  The short attention span of these postal people was beginning to bug me.

  “Can you remember a guy whose name was Ahmed Hamul? He used to work with the mailbags around here.”

  He stared at me a while longer with his wet eyes, then retuned his gaze to the bottle.

  “I don’ work with foreigners.”

  Only the sight of his bulging muscles kept me from punching him in the nose. I had had enough. I stood up, walked over to the card players, saved my salutations, and growled, “Listen, you guys, does anyone here know Ahmed Hamul? If so, please raise your hand and shout ‘present!’ ”

  They stared at me. I was on a roll.

  “For God’s sake, is that so hard to answer? A black-haired Turk with a moustache and Dumbo ears—worked here for the last time last Christmas. Just say yes or no—that’s all I ask. I don’t care if you boycott Black Sea resorts, or if you believe that Turks have rat’s tails in their shorts! Is that clear?”

  One of the men, the one with the greasy hair combed straight back, slowly put his cards aside and got to his feet.

  “Man, I don’t know who you are, but I don’t like your attitude. You better make tracks while the going is good.”

  He emphasized his words by slamming the back of his right fist into his left palm. Several times.

  With a quick glance at the door I added a little oxygen to my lungs and hissed, “Listen carefully, mailman, no one here wants to know if you like my attitude or not. I haven’t lectured you on the uses of soap. All I’m interested in is this: have you ever heard the name Ahmed Hamul?”

  I did my best to give him the threatening stare. The other two, amused by my grimace, looked eager for further developments. Suddenly the shack felt very small and quiet. Only the distant hooting of departing trains could be heard through the corrugated iron walls. The monster in front of me looked down at the floor, scratched his chin briefly, advanced three steps, and let me have it.

  Small white dots sailed through the dark, jitterbugged, described circles and lines to an accompaniment of uncoordinated church bells. Someone had parked a cargo train on my navel. Probably the guy whose resonant laughter echoed through my skull. From far away came the roar, “Soap, eh? But he spews like a sow!”

  Cautiously I opened my eyes, and saw a table leg and a puddle right next to my face. Half-digested peas bobbed on its surface. I had a sour taste in my mouth, yet it didn’t feel as if he’d demolished my stomach totally. I tried to move. After several attempts, I managed to sit up against the wall and barf some more. Still sitting there, I dug in my pocket for cigarettes and lit one. The nicotine flowed pleasantly into my veins.

  The four mammoths stared down at me with expressions approximating pity.

  “Not so cocky now, eh? Taught you a lesson.” After a pause, “Your Ahmed did work here, but it was some time ago.”

  I opened my mouth but managed only a kind of rattle.

  After two or three further tries I croaked, “Did anyone here know him personally … or does anyone know who knew him better?”

  “No one here really knew him. Once a girl came by, she was in a state. She screamed and carried on and wanted to know where Ahmed was. I bet she was a whore, but what do I know? It was quite some time ago.”

  I grabbed a chair, pulled myself to my feet, and staggered out without saying goodbye. Cool air wafted through the station hall. I dragged myself to a bench and took some deep breaths. It took another cigarette to restore me, more or less. It was ten after eight.

  I decided to go home and take a shower.

  On the way, I bought my stomach a present. A bottle of Scotch.

  5

  My investigations had gotten off to a flying start. I wiped the last drops of puke out of my ears and made myself a Scotch and soda.

  At some time, who knows when, a prostitute had yelled for Ahmed Hamul. That was what I had found out.

  I wondered how much physical abuse I would have to endure in exchange for some decent information, and whether I could charge visits to brothels on my expense sheet. Slowly my second Scotch and soda anaesthetised my bruised stomach. If I really had to locate that prostitute in order to find out a little more about Ahmed Hamul, my search could turn out to be interminable. I did not expect the building at Sumpfrainerstrasse twenty-four to yield anything. Futt and his people had already turned it upside down, apparently without results. Besides, I did not believe that Ahmed Hamul had been skewered on his girlfriend’s doorstep. I had discarded the theory that his murder had been an accident. I went to my closet to get a fresh pair of socks and my nine-millimeter Parabellum. I hadn’t used it much since I’d taken it to a class at a gun club. I pulled it out from its hiding place between my underwear, put on a shoulder holster, and stuck it in. I probably wouldn’t need it, but it might earn me a little respect. I put on a sports coat and looked at my bulging armpit in the mirror. Conspicuous as an African in a tanning salon. But maybe this heavy hint of firepower would give me an edge. I fortified myself with a straight shot of Scotch and left the apartment.

  For the second time that day, a swaying subway car took me to the main railroad station. Then I took an escalator down to one of those streets dedicated to carnal desire that I would have to scour in my search for that prostitute.

  Bright juicy neon and posters depicting two-hundred—pound bosoms, orgiastically grunting women, and glowing pink mountains of buttocks covered the facades of buildings on both sides of the street. In front of the purple plush curtains of various clubs stood men with pale and rancid faces, urging the passing throng to pay a visit to their establishments. Small but powerful loudspeakers transmitted groans resembling those of slaughtered animals, enhanced by lukewarm disco noise, into the street. In groups of three or four, horny farm boys from the surrounding countryside jostled their way down the street, mouths and eyes open wide; retirees peered into flaking entrance halls, licking the drool out of their wrinkles. Married men cast wary glances up and down the street before emerging from the pink swinging doors of a “Love Inn” and hurrying off. I stood there for a while and smoked a cigarette. All around me there were pale and haggard faces, arms with needle marks, emaciated bodies, waiting. I looked at them and tried to figure out what might make a prostitute run into that railroad station yelling her head off.

  A pair of glassy eyes approached me, slowly. They stared through me into some indefinite distance.

  “Listen
, man, could you spare a coin? I’m starving.” I walked twenty metres to a burger joint, bought a box of minced cow, walked back, handed the box to the kid, and watched him tear the cardboard and spill mustard and ketchup on his shirt. I sat down on the curb next to him.

  “Bet you know this scene pretty well, eh?”

  He turned his bleak face to me.

  “You a cop?”

  “No, I’m a Turk.”

  He scrutinized me with skeptical eyes.

  “So? The cops don’t care, they hire anybody.”

  “Listen. If I was a cop and wanted to ask you something, I wouldn’t treat you to a burger. I’d throw you in the slammer, and it wouldn’t take three days before you’d inform on your own grandma.”

  He giggled.

  “Last Friday, someone stabbed and killed a guy. His name was Ahmed Hamul. Did you hear about it?”

  “Uh huh. Maybe.”

  “I happen to be interested in who did it.”

  “Guess you are.”

  “I’m looking for a girl who knew him. Now it could be she’s a junkie, just like you, and hangs out here. Maybe you could tell me where to find her.”

  For a while he went on chewing on a piece of hamburger bun, his mouth open, crumbs falling out of it. I felt queasy and looked away, at faces that were now staring at us.

  “Got a smoke?”

  I extracted a cigarette from my pack and lit it for him. Greedily he sucked in the tar. His lungs groaned.

  “You’re OK, man. I’d like to help you find that girl. It’s just that there’s so many of ’em here. It’s not so easy.”

  “What do you know about this Ahmed Hamul?”

  He shook his head, wrinkled his brow significantly and mumbled, “Nothing, man.”

  I pulled one of my two crisp fifty-mark bills out of my pants pocket, held it up against the light of a streetlamp, made it crackle a little. He could buy a quarter of a gram for that, a good hit.

  Suddenly awake, he watched my hands.

  “Or, wait … I do know a little bit about him, maybe even more than that …”

  He chewed on his lower lip. “But … could you make that twice that amount … maybe?”

  I lit a cigarette and sucked on it until the tip was really glowing. Then I started burning little holes in the brown bill. After I had burned off a corner, he slapped my hand.

  “All right, man, give me that, it’s enough. I’ll tell you.”

  I shoved the charred bill back into my pocket. “Go ahead, tell me.”

  “Gimme the money first. It’s a deal, OK?”

  “Oh no it ain’t. How do I know you won’t just make something up? Let’s hear what you have to say. If it sounds useful, I’ll give you the money.”

  “You’re an asshole. I knew it. You’re an asshole, like all the other assholes in this fucking scene! For a moment there I though you were a buddy, but you’re just an asshole!”

  He wasn’t entirely wrong either. I was afraid he’d burst into tears. I felt like getting up and leaving him. It didn’t feel too good to be paying him for his next fix.

  “Come on, stop that shit. I don’t find my money in the street either.”

  He mumbled something inaudible. Then, “OK, what the fuck. I really don’t know a whole lot about it, but I heard some things. That dead darkie was dealing. I think he was a heavy dealer, in fact, but I couldn’t swear to it. He wasn’t a street dealer, at least not here. I once met a guy who talked to him once. And when he died, people were saying, like, that’s what happens when you try to do sidedeals, the guys higher up are bound to get you. Something like that. That’s pretty much all I know, and I really don’t want to know a whole lot more. It ain’t healthy.”

  I considered his state of health.

  “You don’t have a name for the guy who talked to Hamul?”

  “No, listen, not even if you gave me a hundred …”

  “All right,” I said. “And you can’t really tell me anything about his girl, either?”

  “Nah. There’s lots of them that are on the needle. If she was a whore, you better ask a few blocks down the street, but they don’t care for interviews too much.”

  I put the singed bill in his hand, got to my feet, and walked on down. There was a lot going on in the quarter. I noticed a bar with a purple neon sign. I’d have to start somewhere. Milly’s Sex Bar. The letter A had a restless flicker. Curtains were drawn across the window, but it bore the legend “Fun Till 4 AM.”

  I pushed the door open and drowned in a sea of purple. Everything, the wallpaper, the tables, the chairs, the bar, the glasses, the carpet, the pictures, the cushions, the lamp shades, even the people were purple. There weren’t too many people, though. More than half of them looked like employees. In a couple of the darker corners sat a few sweaty gentlemen with loose neckties, conversing with scantily clad purple ladies. Tinkling, sultry guitar music added to the murky ambiance.

  I waded across soft carpets to a table and sat down on a foam-rubber cushion covered in silk. The lady behind the bar had to be Milly. Many years ago she must have been a knockout. Now no amount of paint could cover up the deep wrinkles. Peroxided tresses framed a wobbly double chin. A leopard-skin outfit accentuated the little rolls of fat above her hips, supported her sagging bosom, and made her look like a little old lady down on her luck who had outgrown her fur coat. Nevertheless, you could tell from the way she was issuing orders to the girls that she was the boss.

  I sat there leaning against purple velvet and feeling a little out of place. Then came a draft of air, soon followed by a hank of dark permed hair sweeping across my forehead and the sweetish odour of cheap perfume assailing my nostrils. A half-naked Hessian siren sank down next to me and fluttered her professionally attached false eyelashes.

  “Ah, my savage sheik, may I join you?” she emoted. Her voice flowed across the table like melted Camembert.

  “Sure. What do I have to do to get a Scotch on the rocks?”

  “Nothing. Just wait here. I’m your willing slave.”

  She got up again, with a little twitch of her skinny buttocks, letting her strong stubby fingers slide across my shoulder as sinuously as if they had been long and thin. I doubted that anyone in this establishment had ever heard of Ahmed Hamul, and decided to proceed elsewhere after my drink. A damp hand curled around my neck.

  “Here, my savage sheik,” she whispered. I removed her hand from my neck and made her sit down.

  “Come, come, my savage sheik, what’s the rush, we have time, don’t we?”

  The “savage sheik” number was evidently all her brain could come up with. She gave me a sideways glance, her eyelids half closed. With her index finger she drew slow circles around her navel. Since I could see the stubble where she shaved her belly, the effect was far from arousing. It was time to get down to business.

  “Now listen, my ugly duckling, I didn’t come here to nibble on your ear or to whisper sweet nothings in it. I’m looking for someone who knows a man by the name of Ahmed Hamul. God knows why I walked into this purple laundry room, but now I’m here, and I’m asking you: Do you know Ahmed Hamul?”

  It took her a moment to figure that out, but when she had managed to do so, she came up with the inevitable, “Cop?” At last her voice had lost its syrupy tones.

  “No, I’m not a cop.”

  I tossed my license on the table. She read it slowly, word for word.

  “Happy birthday, Turk!”

  She wasn’t as dumb as I had thought.

  “And many happy returns. So you’re just a miserable snooper, eh?”

  “A job’s a job. You ought to know that.”

  That was unkind. I didn’t care.

  “So. Ahmed Hamul. Have you heard that name before?”

  She gave me a look that wasn’t as sour as I had expected.

  “No, I haven’t.” A pause. “But here’s a word to the wise. You better leave now—the boss doesn’t like it when guys like you slow things down here. You haven’t be
en all that nice to me, but I don’t mind, and that’s why I’m telling you this.”

  “What does the boss have against paying customers?”

  “First of all, you’re a Turk, and she’s not too partial to your kind. And second, if all you want is a drink, there’s no profit in it.”

  “And who is going to bounce me? That grandma in a leopard skin?”

  She glanced at the bar, smiled, and whispered in my ear, “She’s got a couple of friends hanging out in the back, and they’re pretty tough.”

  I was beginning to take a shine to her, don’t ask me why. Suddenly her face no longer looked quite as stupid, and she had abandoned her cheap imitation of a lovelorn harem girl.

  “Let me tell you something, darling. You have a lot more seductive charm in your natural state than behind that sleazy Arabian Nights mask.” She favoured me with a non-commercial glance that I could feel in my toes.

  “Well, I should hope so.”

  “How about we have another drink?”

  She looked at me again, rubbed the side of her nose, and whispered, “Some other time. Now she’s really staring at us. I don’t want to get into trouble. You better go now.”

  “All right. Where do I pay for the Scotch?”

  “Up there. You pay her.”

  “OK, darling. Until next time.”

  “Until next time, my savage sheik,” she said under her breath.

  I struggled through the carpet to the bar. Milly stood leaning against it, a golden cigarette holder between her shiny red lips.

  “How much is the Scotch?”

  She scrutinized me grimly. Then she growled, not removing the cigarette holder from her mouth, “Eighteen, sir.”

  I put my second fifty-mark bill on the bar. While she was making change, I said, in a low voice, “Last Friday a guy was stabbed somewhere around here. Name of Ahmed Hamul. I’m looking for people who knew him.”

  She gave me a quick glance. “I don’t know any Hamuls.”

  She pushed my change across the counter.

  “And I don’t like people snooping around my shop. I like them even less when they’ve got funny bulges in their clothes. I should keep you here and call the cops, but I have a heart, I don’t want ten Turkish brats to lose their dad. So. Get out of here.”