The Serenity Murders (8 page)

“Yes, I’m fine, fine!” I blurted, in an utterly unconvincing voice.

The state of inner peace and tranquillity at which I had arrived
during the Reiki session was no more. And the evening traffic was terrible. We were moving at a snail’s pace.

I needed to concentrate on something else. I needed to think of other things and shake off the suffocating feeling of panic that was engulfing me. The easiest way to do that would be to count Audrey Hepburn films like I always did. Who she costarred with, what she wore in each one, and so on and so forth. The first film to come to mind was the last one I wanted to be thinking about at that moment:
Wait Until Dark
. In it, Audrey played a blind woman, and there’s this psycho killer who is after her. The psycho killer breaks into her home and poor blind Audrey has to try and save herself. Alan Arkin played the psycho killer. It was particularly annoying that, from among Audrey’s corpus of films, the majority of which I had watched dozens of times, I should first recall this particular, dark movie, which I had seen only twice. It was one of Audrey’s later films, a low-budget B movie. Sure, by then her youth may have faded a bit, but she was still as charming as ever, and she was perfectly convincing as a blind woman. The only problem was, she spent the whole film wearing the exact same clothes. Plus the film was nerve-racking. A house with a psycho killer in it!

It was already getting dark. I thought of how early it got dark this time of the year. I didn’t feel like going home and posing like Audrey Hepburn in an empty house, filled with fearful emotions evoked by the thought of
Wait Until Dark
. I felt dreadfully awful, and awfully anxious.

From what he had said, I deduced that my psycho’s intention was not to kill me (if it had been that he would have done so already!), but to let himself be caught by me. Which meant there was no need to be afraid. But then again, Mr. Psycho was no longer abiding by the one-person-per-week rule that he himself had set. His already malfunctioning mind could go completely haywire, and he might decide to bury me too. If it meant fighting, I could
handle him any day. I could hardly withstand poison or bullets, though. But then, who could? If he wanted to, he could lie in ambush and shoot me, or come into the club like any stranger and slip whatever he wanted into my drink; if he really wanted to, he could even use explosives to wipe me and a whole load of the girls out at once. What could I do to stop him? Cüneyt at the door was just there for display. All he was good for was to stop obvious troublemakers and resolve minor conflicts that arose inside. If someone were to bring in poison or explosives, no one would notice.

Though the fact that the killer had declared he wasn’t going to kill me did make me feel better, it failed to dispel my uneasiness at the thought of going home alone. I had a sneaking suspicion. And my instincts are sometimes very strong. And that day’s Reiki practice must have made them stronger.

No, I didn’t want to go home.

I could go back to Ponpon’s. Her cheerfulness would do me good. Or it might be too much and simply do me in. I crossed that one out.

I could go to İpekten if she was at home. She’d gossip about absolutely everyone. Even the thought of it exhausted me. I crossed that option out too.

I could have made the visit to Selçuk and Ayla that I had been postponing for a long time now, but it was too early to visit them. Neither Selçuk nor Ayla would be back from work yet. I knew Selçuk worked until late. This option was automatically eliminated too.

I could have treated myself to a delicious slice of cake in one of the cafés of one of these five-star hotels. That would mean adding to my body weight. None of the people I had slept with objected to a slightly buxom figure, but I didn’t believe it suited me in the least. Whenever I put on even half a pound, I instantly started dieting and devoting myself to gymnastics. My current lethargic state, though,
had caused me to neglect gymnastics recently. And so the idea of treating myself to a piece of cake was duly banished from my mind. I had stored enough fat at noon with Ponpon’s
börek
anyway. Another option crossed out!

Traffic had begun to flow, and so we were swiftly approaching my home. I’d better make up my mind, and I’d better do it fast.

Wasn’t I going to go home eventually anyway? There was nowhere to run. After all, it was my home. With this in mind, I began concentrating on my options if I went home.

I could call Hasan and ask him to come over. Two were better than one. I liked this idea. But Hasan’s phone was switched off. How many times had I told him not to switch it off during the day? I’d have to get on his case about it that evening.

I called the taxi stand, my one last hope. If Hüseyin was there, I’d ask him to come over. He loved to be of use at times like this, to “play detective,” as he put it. He probably thought he was some kind of Rambo or something.

Hüseyin was at the stand. Without going into the details I told him that I needed him and that he should wait for me outside my apartment. God knows what he’d envisage, what unlikely scenarios, what sexual connotations he’d conjure up as he stood there waiting outside the door, all puffed up like a turkey. As for how he’d explain things to the guys at the stand, whether he’d cringe with embarrassment or happily play the “uncle” to my “aunt,” who knew?

My taxi driver was all ears. Clearly he was doing his best to make sense of what I was saying. I smiled coldly into the rearview mirror. He knew how to take a hint. He quickly looked away.

Hüseyin had pulled his car up in front of the apartment building like I had told him to and was waiting for me there. He was a bit hurt to see me stepping out of a cab that he wasn’t driving. Did he expect me to walk back or something?

“We would’ve come and picked you up, all you had to do was call,” he said.

“Don’t go acting all jealous on me,
ayol
. And don’t be silly, of course I’m going to take other cabs when I’m out. It’s not like you’re my private driver!”

“Right, because you know we’d never stoop to that level,” he said cheekily. “Look, you told us to get over here, okay? And so we marched straight over, no questions asked.”

Something had happened to Hüseyin’s manner of speaking. He was saying things I’d never heard him say before. His tone of voice, choice of words, and the way he referred to himself in the first-person plural were all typical shantytown
kahve
-speak and very unlike him. After all, Hüseyin had an impeccable reputation for minding his manners in even the most distasteful situations.

I had no intention of putting on a show for the neighbors—especially not for that nosy Ferdı, who for some strange reason fancied himself my equal and imagined an affinity between us—by screaming and shouting outside the front door. Interestingly enough, the only dark apartments in the building were mine and Ferdı’s. The lights were on in all the others. I got in the car. Not in the back as I normally would, but in the front, next to him.

“I can’t believe my ears,” I said in all earnestness. “What’s with the jargon? Where’d you pick that up from?”

He stared at me blankly, as if I had just said the oddest thing in the world. He’d normally smile at times like this. But this time he didn’t.

“Say something,
ayol
!” I finally exclaimed, losing my temper.

“You should be doing the talking. You’re the one who asked us to come over and said it was important.”

He was right. I took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry. I’m just a little out of sorts.”

I explained the situation to him. I skipped the bit about Audrey’s
film. I just told him I didn’t want to go into my apartment alone.

“I get it. You’re going to use us as bait. We’re supposed to go in and see if there’s a trap or something.” He was really on a roll with that first-person plural, and he had no intention of dropping it.

“No,” I said. “There’s no trap. I just didn’t feel like going in on my own.”

All of a sudden his face lit up. I could almost see the dirty thoughts racing through his mind.

“No,” I said again, “it’s not what you think.”

I wouldn’t want him to get his hopes up in vain. Besides, I was fasting.

“What am I thinking?” he said, wearing a smirk.

“I know what you’re thinking,
ayol
. We can sit down and have a cup of coffee. Or beer, if you’d prefer.”

I don’t like beer myself, but I always keep some in the fridge for visitors. It has become popular again these days. I think it’s the influence of American movies. Even those men from whom you’d least expect the answer “Beer” when you ask them what they’d like to drink. And from the can, nonetheless! Whereas in the old days, only aged uncles drank beer, and even they preferred it from the bottle.

Before we’d even set foot through the door, I already regretted having invited Hüseyin over. He was going to keep hitting on me, and would do everything in his power to make me horny and seduce me. A past mistake was coming back to haunt me. But then, as far as I could recall, his performance was really too good to be categorized as a mistake. And even that was after he’d suffered a thorough beating and his entire body was in pain. But I was fasting. No way were the thoughts that crossed my mind going to come to pass.

I tried to picture Master Sermet’s dead body in my mind’s eye.
If I could picture it vividly enough, I would be filled with rage toward the psycho killer, and thus be able to suppress my bodily desires.

If Satan did exist, he certainly worked hard at moments like this. Seduction, deviation, denial, recklessness: it was all his doing. Not only was I failing to picture Master Sermet, but my adventure with Hüseyin was springing to life in my imagination, and in a very physical sense.

I chased away my pornographic thoughts. It was times like these that called for a will of iron. Thinking back on my past, though, I realized that perhaps I shouldn’t put too much trust in my own willpower. My record on that front, admittedly, was hardly impressive.

O
f course, there was no one in my apartment. The answering machine had recorded dozens of messages and the light on it was flashing. I quickly had a look around the apartment, with Hüseyin trailing behind me. We collided the first time I turned around. He smiled that smile he believed to be sexy. I ignored it and carried on looking. I even looked in the closet. There wasn’t a soul. No one had hidden a snake, spider, scorpion, or centipede. You see, I’m not very fond of those particular hundred-legged creatures. I breathed a sigh of relief. Phew!

I gave Hüseyin, who had stretched himself out on the sofa and was scratching his chest, a can of beer.

“Switch the television on if you like,” I said. “I’ve got a couple of things to do inside.”

“Do you have any movies?” he asked. “Like DVDs…”

It was blatantly obvious that he was not referring to arthouse films.

One could, out of sheer spite, have presented him with a gloomy Theo Angelopoulos film in which each scene seemed to last for an eternity. But I didn’t.

The phone rang before Hüseyin even had a chance to open his beer. I answered it.

“Who’s the guy you’re with?” said the now familiar voice.

I was startled. He couldn’t be spying on me.

“Hello!” I said.

“Who is he?” he repeated.

“Who is this?”

“You know who it is. Stop pretending you don’t. It hardly becomes you.”

Hüseyin had understood, either from the tone of my voice or the way the blood drained from my face, that something wasn’t quite right. He came to my side and pinned his questioning gaze on me.

“Hello…” I said timidly.

“You’re not as crafty as I’d hoped you’d be. You haven’t lifted a finger. I’m beginning to think you don’t really care all that much for those friends of yours. You spend all your time cruising around the city. It hardly becomes you.”

I held the handset away from my ear a bit so that Hüseyin could hear too. The entire studio audience had heard his voice, there was no reason why he shouldn’t hear it too.

“What is it you want?”

“For you to find me. That is, if you can. When you catch me and see who I am, oh, you’re going to love it…But then, I’m afraid you never will catch me, not at this rate.”

His self-confidence was annoying. He recounted his crimes in a perfectly nonchalant tone, as if letting me know he’d had beans for lunch.

“Why should I catch you? The police can take care of it,” I said, though even I didn’t believe that for a minute. He burst out in hysterical laughter.

“They’re not cut out for it,” he said. “You’re the only person who could possibly understand my clues. That is, if you’re as smart as you claim to be.”

“But why?” I pleaded. “Why?”

“C’mon, we’re playing a game here,” he answered cheerfully. “Think about it! A mind game! The great race, the grand chase! Tracking down your prey! And in the end, the big prize: me! And it’s more real than any of the games we’ve played so far, believe you me!”

It seemed I was up against a genuinely pathological nutcase. If this really was how his brain worked, even if he was caught, he’d beat the rap in the end. All he had to do was plead insanity. They’d lock him up in a mental institution for three or four years, and then as soon as the first amnesty came along he’d be released for good behavior.