by Rik Stone
“But everyone over there who might remember me will think I’m dead.”
“Probably, but remember what I’ve taught you: take nothing for granted.”
*
Afternoon had peaked by the time they’d followed the wake of a ferry across the Bosporus to Eminonu and berthed near the Galata Bridge.
“The man I’m hoping will help us works in the local government offices behind Sirkeci Station,” Yuri said. “The one next to where the Orient Express used to terminate. His name is Rifkin Ertug and he’s a senior clerk for the municipality.”
“That’s not a very high position. What makes you think he knows Volkan?” Mehmet asked.
“What…? Oh, no, he doesn’t. But I’m hoping he might be able to point us in the direction of someone who does.”
It only took minutes to walk the short distance to Sirkeci. They arrived at the railway station with time to kill and waited for Rifkin’s working day to end. The late afternoon had begun to dim when a cheery-looking little fat man came out of the municipal building.
Yuri pulled his head back. “That’s him now,” he said. “We’ll let him get well clear of this stretch and then we’ll stop him for a chat.”
Mehmet’s mind mustered a whole bunch of imaginings, wondering what Yuri meant by a chat. The main thought being: would they shoot Rifkin down after getting the answers they wanted from him, so that he couldn’t let anybody know what he’d told them?
“He’ll be going home,” Yuri said, cutting into the thought, “or perhaps to a bar.”
Rifkin walked down to the waterside and turned northward along the quayside. Yuri and Mehmet followed. The wind was warm; nevertheless, the little man seemed chilled by it and pulled in his shoulders and drew his jacket tighter around him, before shuffling along with steps so short, he looked afraid his feet might slip away from under him.
“Drugs might well be his addiction, but exercise certainly isn’t,” Mehmet said, musing over how such a little man could be so fat.
Yuri chuckled. “Hmm… I don’t want him spooked and he knows me, so I’ll drop back. You stay with him. Make sure he doesn’t accidentally give us the slip.”
Mehmet followed alone until Rifkin stopped for a moment and stared at something in a shop window. He turned, looked this way and that, and again Mehmet noticed how round and cheery his facial features were. He suddenly felt sorry for him and truly hoped they wouldn’t have to shoot him down.
Rifkin shambled on until stopping at a café and staring in through the window. He licked the palm of his hand, curled his thin, longish hair over his pate and smoothed it down. Out came the tongue again, this time to lick a finger and flatten a small, bushy moustache. A moment looking at his reflection in the window and, clearly satisfied, he pushed open the entrance door and went in. Mehmet caught hold of the door before it had closed.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you, young man,” Rifkin said and smiled.
Mehmet merely nodded in response.
“Good evening, dear people,” Rifkin announced, once inside. “I see you’re all looking as beautiful as ever.”
Several of the staff mumbled a greeting and an older man, maybe the owner, came to Rifkin and patted his shoulder. “Hello, Rifkin. How are you?” he asked.
“I have never been better,” he chirped and he went straight on, through a door and into another room.
The door on the main entrance clicked shut and in a blink, Yuri was standing by Mehmet’s side. “I’ll get drinks,” Yuri said and went to the bar. “One coffee, one vodka,” he ordered.
Mehmet sat at a quiet table near the door where he could talk to Yuri without being overheard. Yuri came over and a waiter followed a few seconds after him. The waiter put the drinks on the table and Yuri took a Druzhba cigarette from his breast pocket and lit up. He coughed, looked at the cigarette sneeringly then stubbed it out.
“Do we wait for Rifkin to come out, Yuri? If we try going in, one of the staff might make trouble.”
“Drink your coffee. We’ll leave him for five minutes before making a decision.”
Not long after that, Mehmet emptied the last of the coffee and without further discussion, Yuri got to his feet and headed for the room Rifkin had gone into – Mehmet followed. A waiter stepped out into the aisle and tried to stop them. “This is a private area,” he said, but Yuri moved him aside as if he wasn’t there.
They entered a Spartan room with cushions scattered indiscriminately around the floor. The ceiling had been swallowed by a cloud of smoke, yet Rifkin was the only one in there.
“Hello, Rifkin,” Yuri said and smiled the smile he usually reserved for friends.
Rifkin sat on one of the larger cushions near the wall. Warmth pulsed from his round face as he leaned further back and squinted up at Yuri through lazy eyes. He smiled. “Ah, Yuri,” he said, “it’s good to see you – and your friend. Sit next to me.” He patted a cushion to his right, nodded an apology to no one and then patted the cushion on his left.
They had just sat when a man, almost as big as Yuri, charged into the room. Without moving, Yuri nodded to him and then made a calming gesture with an open palm. The big man looked to weigh up the situation and left.
Yuri smiled at Mehmet. “If you hadn’t already guessed, this is a heroin den. That is why the waiters were so nervous when we came in,” he said and turned back to Rifkin, speaking to him as if they were old friends. “I need your help, Rifkin. What can you tell me about General Murat Volkan?”
He was smoking heroin. Smells nice, Mehmet thought as Rifkin took a long drag on a roll-up cigarette. He watched as Rifkin’s eyes rolled back and he appeared to move into a drowsier mind-set.
“Not much,” he said with a slight slur. “I’m not a big enough fish for him to worry about.” Rifkin inhaled another deep drag from his smoke, held it in and then blew a grey line up towards the lingering cloud. “I do know one or two people who like to drop Volkan’s name as if they know him, but they don’t. I think they might know somebody who does, though.”
Yuri took out one of his lists, showed it to Rifkin. “Any of their names here?” he asked.
As he drifted further from reality, Rifkin browsed the list like a drunk, but his mind was clear enough to pick out two names.
Yuri stood and clasped an open palm on Rifkin’s shoulder. “Thank you, my friend. Take care not to overdo it with that shit,” he said, but by now Rifkin had entered another world.
It had never appealed to Mehmet; he had watched some of the Little Dogs smoking joints, but other than silly smiles on their faces, it had been without effect. But smoking heroin was way stronger than a reefer. They got outside and Mehmet started feeling rather pleased. They hadn’t needed to shoot Rifkin.
Chapter 13
“These people Rifkin gave you, do they hold high positions?” Mehmet asked.
They’d made an early start the morning after talking with Rifkin and were about to follow up on their leads. The weekend had arrived and fortunately, Yuri knew where Goker and Abdallah lived.
“Yes, Gul Goker is a regional standards officer in the public sector. He deals with main government, so it is possible he has contacts. Asli Abdallah is a government lawyer. I’m not so sure about that one. But I do know she’s been a bit of a wild-cat in her time, so we’ll get her out of the way first.”
It was Saturday and they’d waited across from the entrance of her apartment building from first light. Around mid-morning she sauntered out through the main door. If Yuri hadn’t told him she was a lawyer, he would never have guessed. The jeans and tight T-shirt she wore were enough to give Mehmet palpitations, and her long black hair had reddish and blond streaks running through it. She looked to Mehmet like… well, the Little Dog girls when they became too old to run with the gang.
Yuri began walking towards her. She looked up, saw him, and raced off. “Asli,” Yuri shouted, lifting a hand in attempt to stop her, but she was up on her toes. “Shit, here we go again. Mehmet, you go that way, see if
you can cut her off.”
They were a stone’s throw from The Grand Bazaar when Mehmet came down a street Asli was running up and cut her off. She stopped looked around to see Yuri come into the street behind her and ran down an alley. Mehmet got there before Yuri. The alley was blind and Asli stood at the end, breathing heavily. He walked slowly up to her and getting to her, he smiled, but she had whipped a knife out and slashed out at him, just catching the back of his hand. He looked down to see a line of blood, and without thinking, he threw a right hook and sent her smashing against the wall, where she crumpled in a heap. Yuri ran up the alley, put a hand to Mehmet’s shoulder to stop him inflicting more damage.
“I told you she was a wild-cat,” he said, and laughed. Asli had dropped the knife when Mehmet hit her. Yuri kicked it out of the way before pulling her to her feet. “There was no need to run, Asli, I just wanted a chat.”
She slumped against the wall. “What do you want?”
“General Volkan, word has it you know him,” Yuri said.
“Oh, is that all? I don’t know him. Well, I did meet him once, but that is all. Truth is, I make up stories to give me a lift in the workplace. I swear, I haven’t had dealings with him or his colleagues at any time.”
Yuri seemed to accept her at her word and gently guided Mehmet by the arm back out onto the main street.
“You only asked her once; she could be lying,” Mehmet said, rubbing at what turned out to be no more than a paper cut.
“True, but once cornered, Asli will tell you anything to take the heat from her past. She would have jumped at a chance to gossip about Volkan. No, she was telling the truth.”
“So how does someone like that become a lawyer anyway?” Mehmet asked.
“Believe it or not, she is incredibly intelligent. She used to run with a gang, a bit like your Little Dogs, the crime lord she answered to saw promise in her and his money greased the path for her to go to college. She still works for them, which is how she ended up on my lists.”
Mehmet nodded. “Okay, so what now?”
“We still have Gul Goker,” Yuri said and took Mehmet directly to the main entrance of the apartment block where Goker lived, which happened to be just on the other side of the bazaar. Getting there, he ran a finger down a list of names on the intercom and pushed the button next to one of them.
“I don’t usually come to their homes,” Yuri said. “If I’m seen with these people, questions might be asked and if that happens, I could lose a contact. But we’re in a hurry. If we don’t get anything out of Goker then we’re back to starting over.”
The intercom crackled and a voice rattled in the speaker. “Yes?”
“Open the door, Gul. It’s Yuri.”
The door clicked before cracking open. Yuri pushed it inward and they went up to the third floor. Gul waited in the doorway. He was quite tall, narrow at the shoulders, but not at the hips. The picture of a pyramid with a head on top jumped into Mehmet’s mind.
“Hurry, come in…” Gul demanded.
Mehmet was first through the door and followed Gul along the apartment’s long passageway. He had to smile on seeing Gul’s great wide backside waddle along in front. Whatever Mehmet eventually did with his life, he thought, it wouldn’t be working in an office and sitting in a chair all day, that’s for sure. And Gul must have rubbed his head a lot too: he had a full head of thick hair everywhere except on the crown. It was completely bare and glowed like a burnished dome. Mehmet chuckled and Yuri pushed him in the back as if he’d read his mind.
“What can be so important you need to come here?” Gul asked as they came down three steps into the living room: a strange design considering they were on the third floor.
Two large, arched windows almost covered the outside wall and could have bathed the room in light, but latticed shades had been placed across them in an attempt to filter out the bright sunshine.
Yuri lounged back on a cushion-adorned sofa against the window wall, put his feet up on a small coffee table and wobbled an ornamental Nargile water pipe in the centre. Gul rushed to steady it and then looked disdainfully at Yuri’s boots while chewing on his bottom lip. Mehmet knew Yuri well enough to know he was winding Gul up.
Yuri gave a commanding smile and said, “Tell me about your friendship with Murat Volkan.”
“Volkan…?” Gul’s brow furrowed and then his eyebrows rose. “Oh, General Volkan. No, I don’t know him. I’m sure you’ve heard I do or you wouldn’t be here. I just tell the right stories and they put me in good stead with my associates’ … err, higher-placed associates.”
“Anyone could make such noises, so why should your colleagues believe you?”
Mehmet had no idea what Yuri had on Gul, but the hostility between them was clear enough. And the way Yuri prodded with his questioning had Gul’s already sunken cheekbones drawing in further, as if he were sucking a lemon.
Gul gave a resigned sigh. “Hasim Ediz. He is a man I know and he is friends with the general. Hasim has told me about some of the functions Volkan attends. When I tell my stories to colleagues, they’re usually about events that are made public later, so people see the evidence of what I’ve said. What’s this about anyway?”
“Hmm, Hasim,” Yuri said, ignoring the question. “He isn’t so highly placed. How does he know Volkan?”
Gul had a superior moment. “You’re out of touch. Hasim is well placed. He was given a job working directly for Kemal Aygun, the province governor himself. And he has been friendly with Volkan ever since taking up the position. I haven’t a clue what they get up to, but I believe they have similar tastes in women.”
“Hasim hasn’t got any sort of taste in women,” Yuri said, and considered. “So … you’re telling me that Hasim and Volkan have similar sexual preferences and that they have been friends for some time?” Gul nodded, face sullen. “Okay, I’ll check it out, but if this information isn’t good, I’ll be back. Oh, and we didn’t have this conversation, Gul.”
“You think I’m stupid? As far as I’m concerned, we’ve never had any sort of conversation – ever. Anyway, what’s your interest in Volkan?”
“That is my business, but if I get friendly with him it could go in your favour.” Gul raised his eyebrows hopefully, but then quickly looked to the floor; Yuri stood and pushed him to one side, walked to the top step and said to Mehmet. “We’re finished here.” They left without a goodbye being uttered – either way.
Out on the street, Mehmet asked, “Why did you tell him you wanted to be friendly with Volkan?”
“When Gul hears of Volkan’s death, he might have thought he had something on me. Giving him a bit of bullshit protects my position – and his life.”
Mehmet shook his head; this silly cloak and dagger stuff was so … silly. “And you knew of Hasim Ediz. Is he a name on your lists?”
“Yes, and don’t ask me why. This is one nasty piece of shit, believe me.”
*
It was mid-evening when Hasim left the government building Yuri and Mehmet had been staking out. Looking him over, Mehmet thought him every bit the successful businessman; he was tall, slender, dressed in a dark suit that was complimented by a white shirt and black tie. From a distance, he appeared to be a good-looking man; finely chiselled features with thick hair flattened back from his forehead and a Ronald Coleman moustache for the finishing touch. Mehmet failed to see the nasty piece of shit Yuri had described.
Hasim walked with purpose, checking every ten or twenty paces to make sure no one followed him. Yuri dropped back while Mehmet trailed Hasim close up. He went into the front entrance of the Spice Bazaar in Eminonu, wheedled his way through narrow, cobbled alleys, occasionally stopped to look at the spices, swivelling his view as if to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The way he acted made Mehmet think of Zeki and the night he’d met the stranger by the bridge: Hasim was going somewhere secret. Mehmet felt evermore sure of his feelings when Hasim left the bazaar and went into the nearby Yeni Mosque. It wasn’t a sh
ortcut, so why veer off to go in a side entrance only to go straight through and leave by the main entrance? Back outside, Mehmet dropped back and waited for Yuri to catch up, all the while keeping Hasim in sight.
“Even I can see he’s trying to get somewhere without being seen,” he said as Yuri came by his side.
“Looks like… Go on, off you go before you lose him… Oh, and you’re doing well,” he said, but Mehmet was enjoying himself. He didn’t need encouragement.
Hasim wandered aimlessly for ten more minutes, but then, after bobbing his head this way and that, he disappeared into a nightclub near the waterfront.
Yuri caught up. “I don’t think we want to follow him in there,” he said.
Mehmet didn’t ask why; he could see Yuri felt cold about the situation.
It was more than an hour before Hasim came back out and Yuri said, “He’s had his fun.”
“How do you know–?”
Yuri cut in. “Because he went in with his suit immaculate and his collar and tie flawlessly set. Look at him now.”
That couldn’t be argued. Hasim had come out more than a little ruffled. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, his tie was loose and his hair had fallen in curls over his forehead. He appeared to be in a hurry to get away from the entrance and tucked his shirt into his waistband, smoothed the sides of his hair back and noosed his tie back into position as he walked away.
Mehmet and Yuri were standing in the mouth of a dimly lit alleyway about fifty metres from the club. Hasim drew level and Yuri stepped out. “Hello, Hasim. Still up to your perversions I see.”
Hasim stepped back in astonishment. “Oh … ehm … oh, it’s you. I thought I was being mugged. You’ve heard of these gangs that call themselves Little Dogs. I thought you were one of them for a minute.”
“Yes, I suppose I am a bit on the small side,” Yuri said and Mehmet laughed.
