Baksheesh (7 page)

“As I said, come what may, I'm here by half-past eight every morning. This morning was just the same as usual. After I arrived, I took all the files out of the cupboards and started sorting out papers. If I'm not mistaken, it was just after nine when I heard footsteps upstairs, then someone started shouting down the telephone. I knew the voice. It was Musa, the next oldest brother after Osman. The windows were open of course, but I couldn't understand what he was saying. However, I could tell he was agitated. A bit later, I saw two more brothers rush upstairs,” he said, adding somewhat sheepishly: “I sensed something odd had happened, so I opened the door slightly as they went up.”

I made a head movement indicating that I believed he had definitely acted as any law-abiding Turkish neighbour would.

“Then I heard a loud yell, so I went up too.”

“And?” I said, getting excited.

“Osman was lying on the floor, right by the front door. He must have crawled there. There was blood all over the place. Pools of it. Dark red, dried blood.” He covered his mouth with his hand and shook his head from side to side, his eyes filling with tears. “He was like a son to me. We'd been friends for years.”

I looked away so that he could compose himself and get back to the story.

“Our offices have the same floor plan and he'd obviously crawled from the back room to the front door. He'd been wounded by a bullet. You know how it is in films when they write the killer's name in blood? Well, I followed a trail of blood that led directly to the back room to have a look. There was certainly enough blood around for it. The brothers were in shock of course. Özcan, the youngest, was on the floor crying and embracing his brother. Musa was crouched down smoking a cigarette. I thought no one
had seen me going into the back room, but Nevruz did because he came after me. That's why I couldn't stay in there long. My guess is that there was a really big fight in that room. Everything was turned upside down. The chairs were on their sides and there were papers everywhere. It was complete chaos.”

“I suppose you weren't able see if the killer's name was written in blood?” I said, with a tinge of irony. Still, it wasn't impossible.

“Out of the question! The police arrived within ten minutes and they wouldn't let anyone inside. A crowd of locals had got into the building but the police sent them all packing. It wasn't a film set, after all. There are so many idlers in this country. All the local tradesmen were here. You'd think they'd have better things to do, wouldn't you?”

“Did any of the police speak to you?”

“Yes, a young one. I told him what I knew. But I don't know a great deal, as you see.”

“You've known the family for a long time though.”

“Yes, fifteen years is quite a long time. You could almost say I brought Osman up. He used to serve tea at the café I went to in Tophane. He was just a child then. I knew his father too. He was a porter. I used to give him work when I could. The poor man died young, and the children were left without a father. They lived around here in those days, but later moved to the Bağcılar area where they had friends and relatives. Or that's what Osman said. Oh yes, there's another thing. When the father died, their mother married an uncle, the father's brother. I thought at the time, ‘What sort of tradition is that?' I say uncle, but he was only a boy, barely older than Osman. Not a day over fifteen. Within a year, Osman was also married, to a cousin on his father's side. They never marry their daughters off to strangers. We were invited to the wedding, but didn't go. My wife doesn't like crowds, especially if they're people she doesn't know. To be honest, I didn't feel like going either. I don't know
why. Basically, they're good boys. Deep down, they're all right. Very polite and respectful. People from the east are like that. Always respect their elders. They were the ones who found this workshop for me. I used to have a place in Tophane until about ten years ago. Osman was a hard-working lad. He worked his socks off as a waiter at that café. Old Abdül Efendi, the café owner, took a real shine to him. Dear, dear, he's passed away too,” said Yücel Bey with a deep sigh.

“The old man had a son who became a heroin addict and died,” he continued. “One day, I found the son in my workshop basement. He'd bound a rag around his arm and was injecting himself. I said to him, ‘Do you have any idea what you're doing to your father, my boy? This addiction will kill you.' But his eyes were all glazed. Dear God, I feel terrible just remembering that scene. He died not long after. Tall and slender, like a willow branch, he was. There was no colour left in his poor face because of that poison. People said he used to beat his father to get money out of him. But I never saw that. Poor Abdül Efendi, what could he do? After his own son was dead and buried, he treated Osman as a son and gave him the café. Osman worked very hard and paid back every penny. ‘My debt's all paid off, Uncle Yücel,' he said to me. He used to call me Uncle Yücel. For a while, things went well for him after he took over the café, but somehow or other he got involved in some shady deals. They say a water bottle breaks on the way to the spring, don't they, dear lady? I said to him, ‘Don't misunderstand me, son; we've known each other for years and I feel like a father towards you, but the things you're getting involved in never end well.' Osman said, ‘What can I do, Uncle Yücel? I've got fifteen mouths to feed.' That uncle turned out to be a layabout and Osman was having difficulty keeping everything going. So the poor boy was forced to get involved in these shady deals.”

“Do you mean the car-park business?”

“He started with little things, before the car parks. He bought the car park six years ago. Or rather, they burned down that building. We arrived one morning and that huge thing had vanished into thin air. I didn't understand any of it, of course. What would I know about burning down a building to make a car park? Istanbul never used to be full of bandits like this. I come from Salihli, near Izmir. We came to Istanbul when I was a boy. That was sixty-odd years ago, so I know all about the old times. It was lovely in those days. You never went down Beyoğlu without wearing a suit and tie. Istanbul just isn't the same any more.”

“So, did Osman change after he took over the café?”

“He got himself a car within two or three years, so he was already hungry for something more. He'd say, ‘I'm working on a deal', but I never knew what kind of deal. He was barely scraping by. A smart boy but…” he said, stopping suddenly.

“Dear me,” he said, clapping his hand against his forehead, “he's passed away, poor lad. I still can't take it in. I feel as though I'm talking behind his back like this. But I don't mean any harm, I'm just telling you how it was, aren't I, my dear?”

“Of course,” I said. “Moreover, what you've said will be very useful. Have you told the police all this?”

“No, my dear. They didn't ask. Do you think what I've said might be useful?”

“Definitely.”

“Tell me, how did the quarrel happen? Did Osman come to your shop?”

I nodded and said, “I think he was going to threaten me.”

“Well, he's paid the price. He wasn't a bad person, Osman, but he could never accept defeat. That was just his nature.”

I nodded again.

“What sort of business was Osman caught up in?”

“To be honest, I don't really know, so whatever I say might be a lie. They used to say all sorts of things at one time. Some people
said he was… I don't like to say it, but… into pimping, others said he was selling drugs at the café. They also said he ran gambling sessions in the basement there. Later, I heard he had a car park in the backstreets of Beyoğlu, towards Tarlabaşı. I don't know how much of that's true, of course. Oh, and they even said he was taking protection money from shop owners to send to some terrorist organisation. But don't believe everything I say, because I saw none of this with my own eyes. Whatever he did, he made money somehow. These days, nobody asks how you make your money. The only important thing is whether you have it or not. He had ‘rich peasant' written all over him.”

“Who? Osman?”

“Of course. He had a BMW. It was too big to go down this narrow street so he'd get out at the corner. When I asked my youngest son how much it would have cost, he just said, ‘Megabucks, Dad,' which is the message that BMW pushed out. Who would think it? How things have changed.”

“How did you hear that Osman had been to my shop?”

He waved his hand. “Oh, my dear, everyone knew that he came back with his ear covered in blood. News spreads fast around here. I'm sure you attracted the attention of all the locals by refusing to give in to him. We heard about it immediately. Good for you, is what I say. You have to put people in their place in situations like that. It's a jungle out there, isn't it, my dear?”

“Is it?” I said. “Is it a jungle?”

“Your shop is opposite Veysel, the carpenter, isn't it? Veysel Bey is old Kuledibi stock, from the good old days. What times we had together! You wouldn't believe it now, but lots of money passed through these hands. ‘Easy come, easy go' is what we used to say about all the money we got through at the poker table. Some nights, I'd go home having paid out enough money at that table to build ten or fifteen apartment blocks. But I swear I haven't so much as touched a playing card for over ten years now. You
know what? We wasted the best days of our life. The very time when we should have been making money. Thank God, both my children completed their education. I have two sons. One's an agricultural engineer. The other's an accountant. I have to be grateful for that. When I look at some people's children… At least ours are straight as a die.”

I didn't want to be rude, but I had to interrupt him, otherwise he would have carried on talking about his children.

“Is there anyone else who knew Osman well?”

Yücel Bey fixed his eyes on the window and thought, stroking the large mole on his face.

“My dear lady, ask any of the old Kuledibi folk. They all knew him. But I doubt if they could tell you more than I can. Just a minute, let me think,” he said, still stroking the mole.

“Osman had a lady friend he was infatuated with at one time. I've no idea how you'd find her, but she used to visit Osman's a lot. We'd bump into each other downstairs in the lobby almost every day. I'm talking about five years ago. Maybe more.”

“Don't you know her name?”

“I used to know it. I knew it because she brought out a CD later on. I even saw her on television one evening. Very indecently dressed she was too, I must say,” he said, pointing to his chest. “If you ask me, it all stemmed from that time. After all, my dear, what was she doing visiting a family man?”

“Her name?”

“I'm trying to remember,” he said, tapping his fingers on his calves, as if playing a trumpet. “Was it Rüya? Or Hülya? Something like that. People like that use stage names, don't they? It certainly won't be her real name. Yes, I remember she used to sing wearing a mermaid outfit with a sort of tail on it. She even dyed her hair blonde. When she came round here, she was never blonde. But I recognized her instantly and I still remember her song. She wore the mermaid outfit because it went with that song.”

He started singing in a low voice:

When he'd finished singing, he looked at me shyly.

“Sorry about my voice, but it went something like that. It might be worthwhile finding that woman. It's three or four years since I saw her on television and I've no idea what she's doing now, of course. How would I? Osman always had lady friends, but this one lasted a long time. Youngsters nowadays would probably say they were an item.”

He stopped suddenly, and then added, “You can't help knowing what's going on when you're neighbours and living on top of each other.”

“You're right,” I said. I'd made a note of the lyrics in the hope of finding somebody who remembered them.

I returned home without calling in at the shop, hoping that over the weekend the local tradesmen would forget about what had happened. I called Lale, the only one of my friends likely to remember a song from four years ago.

“You'll be joining the Prozac club soon. It makes everything seem much better, I can assure you,” she interrupted. Yet I hadn't told her half of what had happened in the four or five days since we had last spoken. Prozac was what kept Lale and half the Turkish women in her circle going. The other half were on herbal antidepressants.

“Can you find me someone who knows about Turkish music?” I asked, after we'd been on the phone for over an hour. I was holding the handset in my left hand, my right arm having gone completely numb.

“I'll find you just the person. Someone who can even tell you the name of the company that issued the album. Why don't you come over this evening? We'll go and eat farmed sea bream at caviar prices in Çengelköy. I want to see your face one more time before you go to jail.”

I was in no mood to laugh at this joke, even if it meant hurting my friend's feelings.

Lale gave me the mobile number of Erdinç Sarıak, the greatest record producer of all time. I called him immediately.

“Yes?” said the man who picked up the phone.

“Hello, I'm a friend of Lale Çağtan—” I said.

The man interrupted me before I could say any more.

“Oh, how is my Lale? It's absolutely ages since we spoke. We go way back. She's splendid. Absolutely splendid. I don't think I know you. Are you wanting to make a recording? I'd have to listen to your voice first. I'd do anything for Lale, but I have to be professional about these things. You do too, no doubt. Of course, we no longer have the backing of Lale's media outlets…” he said, breaking off with a shrill laugh. Lale had been editor of
Günebakan
, Turkey's largest-selling newspaper, until she was sacked a year ago, since when she'd been unemployed.