What a fine woman, Hasan thought to himself. If I had a woman like that, I wouldn’t even think about cheating on her. Some guys just don’t know what they’ve got. Hasan felt jealous (and he knew it) of the man who’d managed to nab this tasty side dish. As the old proverb goes, money attracts money, and one woman attracts more women; it was like some kind of law of nature.
The young woman touched the bruise on her cheek with her index finger. Hasan liked her red lipstick.
“You see what he did to me? Bastard. Abuses me just because he can. But would he ever beat his wife? Of course not; he wouldn’t, couldn’t do it. He can only get away with beating me.”
“You should break it off with him, Zeynep Hanım.” Hasan let out a heavy sigh. “The best thing for you to do is get out of here, hide somewhere far away until we’re done with this.”
“My job, my life, everything I have is here,” said Zeynep, with an audible crack in her voice. “Besides, he would find me. There’s nothing, nothing that’s beyond his reach … You don’t know him. No, he would never let me leave him. I’ve tried, I’ve told him so many times. Why do you think he beats me? He won’t leave his wife, and he won’t let me leave him …”
She reached out and took the man’s hands in her own.
“He’s the one who made me do this.”
Hasan looked down at the soft hands resting on his wrists. He felt a slight stirring between his legs.
“Just three more days and it’ll all be over,” he said, looking the woman in the eye. “I swear.”
“We gonna get a bonus for this?” Murat asked with a laugh. He scratched at his palm; the surgical gloves were making him itch, as usual. He wished he was as lucky as Hasan; the gloves never made Hasan itch. Why did his skin have to be so sensitive? The next day his palms would be covered in a rash, and they’d probably swell too. “That’s the first time I’ve knocked somebody off for free in a long time.”
Hasan snapped back to the present.
“What? Oh, right, well, let’s just pick off a few more folks on the way back and give the lady a bulk discount! You shitting me, man? This guy ain’t shit to her. She only hired us to knock off the husband. It’s just bad luck is all. Our bad luck.”
Murat glanced at the man in the bed. “More like his bad luck …”
“It’s his own damn fault. If he’d left on time, he wouldn’t have had this problem,” said Hasan deridingly. Again he slid his hand over the pistol at his waist. “This place was supposed to be empty. The man should’ve kept his word.”
“And he shouldn’t have gone pulling a gun like that, right?”
Hasan nodded. That was true too.
“I’ll tell him to meet me at the hour you say,” said Zeynep. She took a puff from her cigarette, blew the smoke out to the side.
Hasan thought what beautiful lips the woman had. So smooth, full, neither too thick nor too thin. And that dark red lipstick that made them all the more alluring. It seemed that his words had helped to put her at ease. The cloud of smoke grew paler and faded away into the air.
“He’ll be right on time. He’s careful about that. Besides, we haven’t had sex in a week, he’ll be impatient. Wait for him at the house. And when he comes … you know what to do.”
Hasan didn’t respond right away. He was stuck on what she’d said about not having had sex in a week. For a few seconds he imagined taking the woman into his arms and laying her down on the carpet, pumping in and out between those tender thighs. His eyes moved to her lusciously full breasts. He really was jealous of that bastard.
Maybe he’d have a chance once that asshole was out of the picture?
He gave her a suggestive look, and was glad to see her smile back at him. Yes, he might have a chance, maybe just a slight one, but that was better than nothing. He inhaled the scent of perfume that filled the room.
Once he got this job out of the way …
Then again, with a shared secret like this, she’d hardly want to play hard to get, right? Besides, she’d need someone to look after her, to protect her and take care of her. Women—they’re so damn sexy when they’re helpless.
“Do you have any extra keys to the house?”
“Yes. I’ll give you one before you leave.”
“And you’re sure it’ll be empty?”
The woman nodded. “There are three couples who use it. We don’t know each other. We let the landlord know when we’re going to use it, and he tells the others, or he suggests another time if it’s not available. He makes sure there aren’t any scheduling conflicts. Everybody keeps their word; confidentiality is essential to all of us.”
“I’ll call you when we’re done, Zeynep Hanım,” Hasan said with a smile. “You have nothing to be afraid of. You’ve got me now.”
The young woman took another puff from her cigarette. She crossed her legs and her skirt hiked up, but she didn’t move to pull it back down.
“Zeynep,” she said, with a slightly warmer smile this time. “You can just call me Zeynep.”
Murat walked to the window and looked outside. It was dead quiet, not a soul in sight. He glanced over at the “Culture Palace” construction site, where he saw a pack of four large dogs walking by, like some kind of inner-city gang; the big white Labrador that appeared to be their leader walked with a limp, one of its legs shorter than the rest.
The house must have looked calm and peaceful from the outside. Who could have guessed what was really going on inside—that a man had just been shot dead between these very walls? And that the same fate awaited another? But then, Murat couldn’t tell what the darkness outside concealed either. Who knew, maybe at that very moment someone was being strangled, raped, or tortured inside the walls of the silent construction site. A bird alighted on the roof of the half-finished building. A dog barked from afar, and another howled in response.
“Nice piece he’s carrying,” said a voice from behind him.
He turned around. Hasan was standing next to the body, checking out the deceased’s gun.
“SIG Sauer. Loaded.”
“Probably afraid of some jealous husband,” Murat guessed.
His partner didn’t respond.
“What if he’s an undercover cop or something?” Murat continued, with a scowl.
The two friends looked at one another anxiously.
The man’s clothes were piled carelessly on top of an armchair. Hasan started going through them, his fear growing as he searched, until finally he uncovered a wallet. He took out the man’s ID, and an expression of relief spread over his face. He looked at Murat. “We’re all good,” he said.
Just then Hasan’s phone rang. He removed it from his pocket and looked at the screen. Just as he had expected, it was Zeynep. It rang one more time before going silent.
“Our prey’s on his way,” he said in a low voice, but loud enough for Murat to hear.
“A white Ford Focus. Let’s take our positions.”
“You got it, man,” said Murat. “Ali’s on his way too.”
“What exactly is it you idiots want me to do?” Ali asked. He took a swig from his beer and rolled the liquid around in his mouth before swallowing it. An old Turkish folk song played on the radio.
“You just need to get a clean vehicle,” Murat explained from the backseat. “Nothing that’s hot. Get it from someone reliable. But nothing too expensive either. We may need to get rid of it. Once we’ve nailed the guy, you come and get him. Then we’ll dump the body.”
“Your real job is to be our guide,” Hasan added. He looked at his partner out of the corner of his eye before turning his attention back to Ali.
“We’re not from around here, you know that. If it were Ankara or zmir, we’d know the place like the back of our hands, but we’re new in Istanbul. Our client’s talking about a house in Altunizade. On Sultan Selim Avenue. We don’t have time to go scoping out the area. And then we need to find a place where we can dump the body once we’re done. Someplace far away, you know, safe. That�
��s what we need you for.”
Ali nodded. He took another swig of his beer. They were parked along the side of the road. A van drove by.
“That street’s crawling with police. In cars, on foot, in armored vehicles even. The Riot Police headquarters are over there, and the Juvenile Police Station is right next to it … How are we supposed to get a body out of there? It’s too risky.”
“Find a truck,” said Hasan. “We’ll take the body out in a trash bag and toss it in the back. Nobody’ll suspect anything. Besides, it’ll be the middle of the night. One of us’ll keep a lookout, for headlights and stuff.”
There was a short silence.
“I don’t like doing a job when I don’t know who I’m doing it for,” the young man mumbled.
“Man, but you know us,” said Murat. He was about to say something else, but then Hasan shot him a look and he decided against it.
“Our client doesn’t want too many people involved. She found out her lover’s married, she wanted to leave him, but the bastard won’t let her go. He beats the woman day and night. The poor thing’s all messed up, her face, everything. It’s kind of like charity work. You’ll get your money straight from us. You trust us, don’t you, Ali?”
Ali turned and looked at Hasan. He’d done a lot of jobs with these two cronies, and he’d always been dealt a fair hand. He thought the plan over for a moment, and then nodded. It wouldn’t take him half a day to get them a truck. Easy money, he thought. He remembered the tip he’d received on the following week’s horse races; he could really use that money right about now.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
The Ford Focus pulled over in front of the house and the driver took a quick look at himself in the rearview mirror. These rendezvouses still got him all worked up. They’d had sex probably more than a hundred times in this house, on the stone floor, in bed, in the tiny bathroom, breathless, their sweat mingling, but here he was with butterflies in his stomach, as if it were the first time all over again. He was in a good mood. The last time they’d met, he’d really roughed the girl up, taking his rage at some two-bit cheat out on her. But tonight he would be gentle, win her over again, mend her broken heart. And of course he would be duly compensated for his kindness.
Deciding that his hair looked okay, he smiled. He ran his fingers over his goatee.
It’s going to be one fine night, he said to himself.
As he walked toward the house, he thought about what he’d say if she brought up the whole divorce thing again. He was determined not to leave his wife—no way. Fire ran through his veins at the mere thought of her moaning beneath another man; no way that was going to happen. His lover had to accept him just the way he was, period. If she insisted on whining about it, he’d simply remind her of the beatings she’d already been given. He’d shut her up, somehow. But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that; he didn’t want to beat around the bush, so to speak, with such unsavory topics. He imagined his little angel looking at him amorously, like she used to when they first hooked up. He missed that.
He slipped the key in the lock. So let’s see if she’s been a good girl and done as I said, he thought. Or maybe she had another surprise in store for him? He looked at the bed, hoping to find the young girl there, naked, as he had instructed her to be. A roguish smile spread across his lips.
But there was something else waiting for him on the bed, something unexpected. A stranger, a guy, oddly contorted and, holy fuck, covered in blood from the waist down!
The man just stood there, dumbstruck.
Even the two bullets that sent him collapsing to the floor failed to erase the stunned look from his face.
“You sure we’re at the right place?” Hasan asked.
Murat shook his head. “Of course, man. I came here twice and checked it out. This is it.” He turned the key in the lock; the door clicked open. “See, the key fits.”
The two partners quietly slipped through the door. They held onto their guns, just in case. The woman who had hired them was going to invite her lover, their target, here for sex, and they would be waiting. It was a simple but solid plan. This house, which was used by several couples in rotation, was supposed to have been empty at that hour.
But it wasn’t.
When he heard the door open, the half-naked man lying in bed looked up, a stupid smile spreading over his face. He was obviously expecting someone else, probably a woman. A second later he reached under his pillow, pulled out a pistol, and moved to raise it at them. It was a big mistake. Two bullets each from two silent guns nailed him to the bed.
Hasan and Murat turned to one another and cursed.
“Fuck.”
The truck turned the curve slowly, careful not to scrape against the cars parked on either side of the road. It was still the middle of the night; in a few hours, the streets would be packed with vehicles bound for the Bosphorus Bridge. One of Istanbul’s more fashionable neighborhoods, Altunizade was home to modern office buildings with glass façades and shiny apartment complexes reserved for the upper crust, all surrounding the grandiose shopping center, Capitol. The truck passed first by the apartment complexes, then by Capitol, then by the office buildings, before driving through an underpass and emerging at the top of a hill that led down to Üsküdar and the Bosphorus shore.
Ali knew this street well. When he was a kid, he used to come visit his grandfather here, in a house in the Gypsy neighborhood behind the riot police building. He was fond of his grandfather; in fact, Ali was the only person in his family whom the man really liked. A generous Istanbul gentleman with a dour face but a heart of gold, he had always had a big soft spot for his grandson. Disowned by his daughters, the old man had taken his final refuge in this neighborhood. Ali would come here alone to see him, usually without even telling his mother. He felt safe, as if he belonged, there amongst the Gypsies, who sat on the sidewalk chatting, and amongst the slovenly children and the old, wrinkly faced women watching the passersby, and even amongst the trash that littered the street from one end to the next. Poverty had always had an allure for him; he felt more comfortable in run-down neighborhoods like this one than he did in fancy restaurants or upscale hotels.
The avenue was every bit as fascinating now as it had been back then. It was like the crossroads of two civilizations, with police buildings situated like a border control between two different cultures, splitting the avenue almost right down the middle. Below the riot police building was the Gypsy quarter, which was always rowdy with weddings or brawls, while above it stood rows of two-story houses, each with its own garden, all left behind by the Greeks, all still standing calm and silent amongst centuries-old plane trees.
It was in front of one of these houses that the truck slowed to a halt. Its walls were painted dark green, unkempt grass overran its front yard, which was home to a single, paltry tree, and its borders were marked by stones and surrounded by an iron fence. Next to the front door was a chair facing the street, and a folded-up picnic table. Ali pulled on the parking brake and got out. He looked left and right and then, seeing that the coast was clear, started walking toward the house, with a large black sack in hand.
He didn’t need to knock. He’d called Hasan on his cell phone before he parked. He figured they’d be watching for him through the peephole in the door, and he’d figured right. As soon as he reached the door, it opened up. He silently stepped inside. He’d just parted his lips to greet the other men when he saw the two bodies lying in the middle of the room, and so he let out a curse instead.
“Fuck!”
The young woman waited excitedly for several minutes after the man got out of the Ford Focus. That asshole, who was inevitably late for every appointment, couldn’t have been more punctual this time around; he must have been hungry for his lover’s skin. If it had been me who had called him over here, would he have come? If I were his mistress, and not his wife? She couldn’t be sure, and
so she banished the unpleasant thought from her head.
Time was passing at a maddeningly slow pace. The fact that nobody was emerging from the house was a good sign. Or was it? What if something had gone wrong? God forbid … Her phone rang and she looked at the screen; she was relieved to see that it was Hasan. Still, she answered, just to be sure.
“Everything okay?”
“We’re all good,” replied the confident voice on the other end.
She hurried over to the car at the corner, got in, and wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel. She waited like that for several minutes. She felt her body trembling, but thankfully, it didn’t take long for her to calm back down. A smile spread over her face. She turned the key in the ignition.
She quickly made her way down the hill to Üsküdar. It was still dark out. Slightly anxious, she glanced at the gigantic tank and the police armed with machine guns standing guard in front of the station. A group of boisterous Gypsies gathered around a large bonfire turned their inquisitive eyes to the passing car and the attractive woman inside.
When the woman reached the pier, she parked in a spot that would allow for a quick exit. She didn’t plan on sticking around for long. She guessed that the truck would be pulling up to the house right about then. She took great delight in imagining the body being dragged along the ground, stuffed into the sack, and then tossed into the back of the truck. The sleazeball had finally gotten what he deserved.
The coolness and the soft breeze of the Bosphorus quieted her nerves. Finally, she was free.
She walked across the street, over to the girl standing alone in front of the Beikta motorboat pier. Looking at her, Zeynep found it hard to believe that this babe in the woods was only eight years younger than herself. She watched her, affectionately, for some time. The girl was lost in thought, gazing at the Bosphorus and the lights of the opposite shore. What was she thinking? Was she afraid? Worried? Probably. The girl didn’t notice the woman approach her.
“It’s all over,” she said in a gentle voice.
Startled, the girl turned around. For several seconds, they just stood there looking at one another.
Istanbul Noir Page 7
