Zeitgeist (2 page)

Starlitz watched as a starstruck Turkish housewife entangled herself in a flat yellow strand of police tape. “Yeah,” he offered.

“I have a gift. Don’t you agree?”

“Absolutely, Mehmetcik. It’s written all over you. It couldn’t be more obvious.”

Ozbey sat up. “And you, Lech. You are also a gifted man. Obviously.”

Starlitz shook his head.

Ozbey’s dark eyes gleamed. “Don’t be shy! People tell me things, behind the scenes. They tell me: This man Leggy Starlitz, he is more than just a businessman. He is an imam. Like they say in Silicon Valley, he’s a business guru.”

“Aw, forget that industry scuttlebutt. Musicians are way superstitious. They’re full of New Age crap.”

“Do you know the future? They say that you do.”

Starlitz shrugged. “Sure I do, sorta. I’m into consumer trends, man. It’s all about pop, right? Demographic analysis. Demand curves. Stoking the hit machine. It’s an Internet thing, basically.”

“Then you
do
know the future.”

“Aw, crystal balls are for suckers.” Starlitz scowled. “You want some supernatural powers, pal? Find a money laundry. You can work miracles with those things.”

Ozbey frowned. He daintily lifted a wedge of sliced
melon, changed his mind about tasting it, and tactfully put it back down. “To speak life’s deepest truths across two languages … It’s very hard to speak about these secret things. There are so many important secrets in life—realities that are never said.”

Starlitz very loudly said nothing. To fill the silence he watched a Turkish crow pick its way across the café’s rooftop. The dusty bird, its trash looter’s eyes like two bullet tips, was shivering with greed. Starlitz surreptitiously dropped a chunk of melon.

Ozbey toyed with the ornate coffeepot. “Please tell me that you somehow understand these secret truths I cannot speak.”

“Mehmet, just put a lid on it, okay? Don’t even go there.”

“But we are business partners. I must be sure you understand. I must be very clear from the beginning.” Ozbey sighed and lowered his voice. “I am a powerful secret master of the modern world’s deeper reality.”

“I’m hip!” Starlitz insisted, wincing. “I’m so hip that you didn’t even have to tell me that you weren’t saying that.”

“You and I can both break the laws of nature at will. We are great adepts with supernatural abilities that fools would find fantastic.” He examined Starlitz with frank concern. “Am I saying too much?”

“Mehmetcik, that dervish crap moves a lot of product in your part of the world, but I’m in a global outfit, so I’m not in the market for it. You’re a heavy operator with a lot of local connections. I know that, I respect that. That and a handshake, that oughta be enough for both of us. Let’s leave the deeper reality under the rug where it belongs.”

Ozbey seemed disappointed, but he was bearing up. “I see you came to my town of Istanbul to talk about the rug business. Yes? It’s nothing but business with Leggy Starlitz. Very well. I am your host, I will be polite. Say no more.”

Starlitz said nothing. The air was heavy with coffee and roses.

Ozbey reached deftly across the table and plucked up Starlitz’s coffee cup. “Since I am your host, let me entertain you. We have an old tradition here in Istanbul. We can read a man’s future in his coffee cup.”

“Hey, I was drinking that,” Starlitz protested.

“I’m very good at this,” Ozbey insisted. He brandished the demitasse with an aggressive grin, ritually swirling the coffee grounds. “What is your future, Leggy Starlitz? Let us see.”

“You don’t want to try that with me,” Starlitz told him.

“Don’t tell me what I want,” said Ozbey calmly. “Save that for teenage girls. I know very well what I want. I know it much better than you.” Ozbey cradled the coffee cup in both his hands. Then he gazed inside it, with a careful squint.

The cup was empty. It was perfectly clean.

THE BLACK RUBBER PLATES OF THE LUGGAGE CONVEYOR track moved with eerie mechanical ease. Jet-lagged passengers appeared in silent clumps, awaiting their gear like the bored parishioners of some failing religion.

An apparition sidled silently past Starlitz. Floppy gray fabric hat, long translucent raincoat over bony shoulders, two camera cases and a folded tripod bag, a lumpy photographer’s vest and multipocketed khaki trousers. The ensemble ghosted through the airport on a pair of high-ankled Adidas monkey boots.

Starlitz tossed aside his glossy copy of
Mixmag
and rose from his red plastic seat. “Hey, Wiesel.”

Wiesel rotated his narrow head, his pale eyes like gimlets. The paparazzo’s blank face swam into focus then, and it registered resigned distaste. “Leggy, what are you doing in Istanbul?”

“Is this Istanbul, man? All airports feel the same to me.”

Wiesel shrugged uneasily. “Where are the girls?”

“The girls got a few days off. They’re poolside in a secret hotel. Naked and covered with cocoa butter.”

Wiesel’s sallow face showed a flicker of reflexive interest, but it faded rapidly. “G-7 are yesterday.”

“They’re yesterday in London, man, I agree with you there. In the London scene, fuckin’ tomorrow is yesterday. But spangled hose and lip gloss are the coming thing in Teheran.”

Wiesel examined the passing luggage, feigning indifference. Starlitz, who knew better, watched him weakening.

Wiesel’s eyes flicked up. “You mean to scam the mullahs, Leggy?”

“New regime in Iran, pal. Big window of opportunity there. I need your help again.”

Wiesel detached one swollen camera bag from the shoulder of his flimsy raincoat and set it with care on the floor. “Give it a rest! You and your boss man have nothing left to work with. The gimmick’s two years old. Fuck, they’re not even a
band
. They can’t sing. They can’t dance. They lip-synch. To tapes.”

Starlitz shrugged.

“They don’t even have
names,
” Wiesel insisted. “They’re seven random birds you picked up with adverts.”

Starlitz nodded. “All according to plan.”

“You’re gigging the arena circuit for chump change, in deepest, darkest Eastern Europe. There’s just nothing there, lad. You can’t make big stars out of nothing at all.”

Starlitz sighed patiently. “Who needs big stars? Big stardom is poison. This is all about the
marketing concept
. The first pop group that won’t sell music. The first pop group with an expiration date.”

“Like I said, gimmicks.”

“Lemme tell you about this upcoming Istanbul gig. It’s the first leg of our big Islamic pop tour. The setup behind this one is a thing of genius.”

Wiesel was visibly twitching. Celebrity bored him, but the lure of a well-planned hustle was more than Wiesel could withstand.

Then something caught Wiesel’s gimlet eye, and an
expression of relief flooded his face, giving it an almost human cast. He rotated smartly on his rubber heel.

A motorized wheelchair had arrived at the baggage claim. It bore a woman in an off-the-shoulder Lycra stretch dress. She wore a blond wig: a bubble-headed cut with a broad wing of bangs. She had big blue eyes, and enormous breasts, which rose from her torso with the taut inflated look of sports equipment.

The wheelchair eased to a buzzing halt. Its female occupant looked Starlitz up and down, taking in his lime-green linen suit, the diamond pinky ring, the Gucci shoes.

Slowly, she emitted a stream of smoke. “Friend of yours, Benny?”

“It’s business, Princess.” Anxious to please, Wiesel stiffened. “This is Leggy.”

“Lech Starlitz.” Starlitz cordially offered his hand. The woman switched hands with the cigarette, absently wiped ash into the glittering Lycra fabric on her meaty thigh, and gave Starlitz’s fingers a damp, condescending squeeze.

“You can call me ‘Diana,’ ” she told him. “Most people do.”

“Is it dystrophy?” Starlitz asked her.

She smiled. “Nah.”

“Multiple sclerosis?”

“Nope!”

“It couldn’t be BSE.”

“Aw, fuck no! I don’t eat hamburgers, I’m a fuckin’ dancer!”

“It’s autoimmune syndrome,” Wiesel offered. “She’s allergic to herself.” He jerked one thumb at the luggage track. “I got her CAT scans with us. I got her full NMR scans. You should see all my prints, Leggy. They’re beauties.”

The woman pointed one lacquered finger. “My bags, Benny. Go get the damn bags.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Wiesel said. He sidled off through
the crowd and began to wrestle with an extensive set of yellow hard-shelled cases.

“Lotta luggage,” Starlitz remarked to the Princess.

“Yeah. We’re moving. We’re leaving London, we’re off to play housie together. Me and the king of voyeurs there.”

“Any idea where you’re going, Your Highness?”

She puffed her cigarette, and looked up, squinting. “You ever been to Goa, Mr. Starlitz?”

“Goa’s very happening,” nodded Starlitz. “Got its own sound named after it.”

She blinked. “What sound’s that, then?”

“Well, it’s the ‘Goa Sound.’ ”

“Well, what
is
it?”

“There’s a big trance-and-dance scene in Goa. A lotta techno action there.”

The Princess just wasn’t getting it.

“Techno, you know? I mean electronica.”

No comprehension there at all.

“Music,” Starlitz insisted. “Party tracks that people play off tapes and mixers. Sampling. Break-beat.” Starlitz went up a final level. “In Goa they play a lot of disco.”

She brightened. “Oh, yeah. Party music.”

“Yeah. That’s the big trendy pitch there in Goa, that’s the story.”

“Any strip clubs in Goa? That’s in India, right? Do they do exotic dancing there? Any specialty impersonation acts?”

“Lotta nude beaches in Goa.”

She sighed. “Friggin’ hippie amateurs are always spoilin’ my scene.”

Wiesel pulled over one of the big yellow cases, lugging it two handed. The grainy plastic case was covered with duct tape and bungee cords, and its sides bulged ominously. “They have Ayurvedic medicine in Goa,” he puffed. “Ayurveda, that’s the herbal wisdom of the ages! It’s real progressive!”

“Yeah, I’ve heard a lot about that Hindu herbal stuff,” said Starlitz helpfully. “They use a lot of cow urine. Make
real sure they sterilize those puncture needles.” He held up two fingers, four inches apart.

Then Starlitz gazed down with fatherly concern into the wheelchair. “You know what you need, Di? For an autoimmune disorder you need a major detox. All natural. They got this woman’s Turkish bathhouse in Edirne. All marble inside, all female staff. Medicated mudpacks. Special mineral water. Hasn’t been a man inside that building in four hundred years. They staff the place with these Assyrian nurses out of the mountains of the Caucasus, where people live to be a hundred and twelve.”

The Princess blinked. “Cor.”

“It’s all about the yogurt, you know? And the massage.”

She had a last puff and dropped the smoldering butt near Wiesel’s shoe. “Where did you say this was?”

“Nearby. Outside Istanbul. Of course, they’re booked up years ahead. They’re very strict Moslems, they don’t do Christian women. You gotta be the Sultana Valide Roxana to book a room in that joint.”

“We’re booked for Goa,” Wiesel insisted, loyally stomping the Princess’s cig stub.

“Oy,” the Princess protested, “I can go for Moslems! If they’ve got heaps of money, that is.”

Starlitz gripped the bony shoulder of the paparazzo’s flimsy raincoat. “Wiesel,” he told him soberly, “you see that luggage conveyor track? There just might be an unmarked black valise waiting for you there. With twenty thousand dollars U.S. in it.”

Wiesel and his Princess exchanged significant glances.

“But there isn’t.” Starlitz reached into his lime-green waistcoat pocket, and came out with a gold plastic rectangle. “Because cash is yesterday. Customs people are very down on cash now. So instead I brought you this handy Visa card. It’s made out in your favorite name. With a twenty-thousand-dollar line of credit from an offshore bank in Turkish Cyprus.”

Wiesel reached out reflexively, then restrained himself. “How do I know that’s true?”

“You can call their toll-free number, pal. It’s printed here on the back of the card. Cyprus is a Commonwealth country, so Cypriot bankers always speak great English. You can call the bank first thing, from the suite that I booked you at the Istanbul Pera Palace.”

Wiesel grunted. “Christ.”

“The Pera Palace is a way photogenic hotel, man. Built in 1892 for the Orient Express. All mahogany, Turkish tile, slanting light through the shutters, and Sidney Greenstreet’s drinking arak in the bar. It’s perfect for you, Wiesel. You’re gonna love this assignment.”

Wiesel produced a pair of reading glasses from his vest. He set to work on them with a patch of high-tech lens cloth. “What’s the pitch, Leggy?”

“I’ve put the itinerary here on this diskette for your Palm Pilot.” Leggy handed over a fresh square of data-soaked plastic. “But here’s the executive briefing, man. You call your paparazzi contacts. And I don’t mean the good ones. I mean the worst and scabbiest freelancers you know. Guys with no brakes. Guys who bribe waiters and hide inside trash cans. Guys who bust into rest rooms with shoulder cams. The loose cannons of paparazzidom. You tell ’em the ’bloids are going ape for the G-7 performance in Istanbul. They’re paying top dollar for pix of the girls.”

Wiesel sighed. “Why would anybody pay for that?”

“Romantic rumors, man. We’ve built a whole set of hot leaks, cut for national demographics. The French One is having it off with a soccer star who won the World Cup. The American One’s got a Republican congressman on the line.”

“It’s the usual, then.”

“No, man, these are good rumors this time. We invested some effort. The best part is that we actually
pay for the pictures
. See, we’re not asking you to stiff anybody. You’re actually gonna buy all their photos! You give them their money, straight across.”

“Look, the tabloids won’t run any of that crap! You scammed them already, way too many times!”

Starlitz sighed patiently. “We’re aiming for the
Turkish
media, man. The Turkish tabloids, the Turkish fashion rags, and especially Turkish TV. They all ignore conventional Western promotion. They’re kind of stuck up about it. But when they see your boys turning Istanbul upside down, they’ll catch up on our buzz in a hurry.”