He went up to it and knocked. How silly. Nobody was in there. It only operates once in a while. But still he knocked, very sharp raps.
Heller must have given it up. He made some notes. Just some figures. Pointless.
And there he went again, clickety-clacking, POP along.
He’d stop by an exit tunnel, go down it a bit and come back. I had to laugh. He even went up the exit tunnel which led to my room! He could never suspect the villa lay on the other side. He didn’t even try the switch which opened the door, didn’t even see it, apparently. It would have brought him within ten feet of where I was sitting.
Some spy!
It had only taken him an hour.
Then he’d done a little sketch, all neat, very fast. Apparently there was nobody near to give it to, to show them how good he was—or maybe he had understood they weren’t talking to him. He just climbed back up into the ship.
And that was that.
I had to laugh. What couldn’t he have discovered if he had been a real trained spy! And what did he have? A silly map he could have gotten in the base construction office anyway.
I packed it up. It had turned ten and I had really important things to do—namely, making Soltan Gris rich!
PART THIRTEEN
Chapter 2
The villa had three cars, all more or less in what Turkey considers running condition. I went out and considered them. The Datsun pickup was more or less full of the remains of vegetables from the morning marketing. The Chevy station wagon had an empty gas tank. That left the French Renault sedan. I think the car had been left over from the wreckage of World War I: they believe in making cars last in Turkey.
The body was dented from several direct hits, the windshield was cracked. It had to be cranked because the battery was dead. It kicked and had been known to break somebody’s arm, so I got Karagoz to crank it. And off I went to town.
I dreamed that soon I would buy a long, black, bulletproof limousine, the kind gangsters have. I even knew where there was one: a Turkish general had been killed in the 1963 military take-over and the car was for sale cheap.
The Renault, however, had its advantages. It steered erratically and could be counted on to drive carts off the road. They are stupid gigs, usually heavily laden, drawn by donkeys, and they really clutter the place up. If you swerve in close to the donkey as you pass, the cart winds up in the ditch. It is very comical. You can watch the driver shaking his fist in the rearview mirror.
I was just enjoying my fifth cart upset when I noticed I was passing Afyonkarahisar: the vast bulk of the rock rose 750 feet in the air.
Abruptly, I pulled to the left and stopped. I blocked a chain of carts coming from town, but they could wait. I leaned out and looked up the face of the rock.
Even though it was powdered with cement dust, you could see that it had handholds if you didn’t mind losing a few fingernails. Still, I would never attempt to climb it. Never. And in the dark? Absolutely never!
My interest in this was a matter of character, not the character of Heller—I already knew he was crazy—but in the character of a man who had suddenly become vital in my plans of riches: Jimmy “The Gutter” Tavilnasty. He said he had seen Heller climbing it. Obviously, the feat was impossible. Therefore Jimmy “The Gutter” Tavilnasty was a pathological liar. Good. I would watch it when I spoke with him later today and made him my offer.
The engine had died so I got out and cranked it. The drivers of the halted carts were screaming and shaking their fists. I screamed and shook my fist back, got in and drove the rest of the way to town.
The Mudlick Construction Company was my destination. It has branch offices all around Turkey. It does a lot of government contracting and therefore must be crooked. I double-parked and went in.
My business was soon transacted. The manager took my sketch and estimated the cost. When he heard I wanted the hospital built in six weeks, he raised the price. I walked out and he rushed to the sidewalk and brought me back and halved the amount. But he said he would have to build it of mud, the favorite construction material of this district. I told him it had to be of first-class materials. We compromised by planning to build it half of mud and half of proper materials. Then I doubled the price and told him he would owe me half, as a kickback. We signed the contract and parted firm friends.
When I came out two motorists were glaring at me so I glared back and cranked the car and drove to the Giysi Modern Western Clothing Our Specialty Shop for Men and Gentlemen. I would much rather shop in Istanbul but I hadn’t much time and I knew I would have to dress right for my call on Jimmy “The Gutter” Tavilnasty. It was vital I make an impression.
The selection was pretty poor, really. But it is the law that Turks must not look like Turks but dress like Americans or Italians and I was lucky. They had just received a shipment from Hong Kong of the very latest Chicago fashions.
I found a gray suit, a black shirt, a white tie, black and white oxfords and a gray fedora hat. They all more or less fit. I changed in back, shortchanged the clerk by palming and swapping a five-hundred-lira note for a five at the last instant, glared him into thinking it was his mistake and was on my way.
I looked pretty sharp as I admired myself in a shop window reflection. Just like a film gangster.
Rapidly, I made a round of hotels, looking for Jimmy “The Gutter” Tavilnasty. It does not take long to do in Afyon. There aren’t many hotels. The clerks shook their heads. No trace of him.
Well, I had another errand. I went to the Pahalt General Merchandise Emporium. It is patronized by peasants and they certainly get charged pahalt, which in Turkish means “high-priced.” In a back room, I had a little talk with the proprietor.
I told him I wanted him to put up a sign that said he bought gold. He said the gold mining districts, such as they were, were further north. I said that didn’t matter: at his prices, the women of the family had to sell their jewelry, didn’t they? And he said that was true. So I told him that any gold he bought from said impoverished peasants, at London prices, I would buy from him at a ten percent markup. He said there wouldn’t be much, but I said how much there was was a secret between us and so we made the sign and he put it up.
Now, I had a way to explain all the gold I was about to dump on the market when the Blixo arrived. I could point out that gold was bought in Afyon. When I unloaded chunks of mine in Istanbul, I would probably never bother to buy the proprietor’s gold.
In the pleasant noonday sun, I sat basking double-parked on the street, trying to figure out where Jimmy “The Gutter” had gotten to. Some carts were blocked. A policeman came along and disturbed my concentration. He bent over and stuck his bristling mustache in the window. Then he said, “Oh, it’s you!”
Well, that was quite a compliment, the way he said it. Sort of alarmed. They think I am the nephew of the original subofficer that was the war hero. After all, I live in his house. He moved on rather quickly to bawl out the carts I was blocking. Oh, it was good to be home!
It must have sparked my wits. Where would a gangster go in this town? Of course, the Saglanmak Rooms! Now, saglanmak, in Turkish, means “to be obtained” or “available.” But there is another word, saklanmak, which means “to hide oneself.” Now, according to that great master, Freud, the unconscious mind can twist words into meanings closer to the intent of the person. These are called “Freudian slips.” This was what must have happened. No matter that he probably didn’t speak Turkish, Jimmy “The Gutter” Tavilnasty had made a Freudian slip.
Besides, it was the only place in town the Mafia ever stayed.
I drove through the gathering crowd of fist-shaking peasants and proceeded to the Saglanmak Rooms. But I was cunning now. I double-parked a block away and cased the joint.
There was a balcony that ran around the outside of the second floor and a stairway to it—a vital necessity if one had to get out a window and escape quickly.
I went in. I walked up to the desk. The clerk was a young
Turk with his hair plastered down. He had earlier told me no such name was in the hotel. I didn’t bother with him. I reached over the desk and into the niche for the box of room cards. The clerk stood back.
I went through the cards. No Jimmy “The Gutter” Tavilnasty.
He had said he had been around for weeks. I checked dates. And there it was! John Smith!
“I thought,” I sneered at the clerk, “that you said Tavilnasty wasn’t here!”
He was reaching for the phone. I clamped his wrist. “No,” I said. “He is a friend. I want to surprise him.”
The clerk frowned.
I laid a ten-lira note on the desk.
The frown lightened.
I laid a fifty-lira note on the desk.
The clerk smiled.
“Point out the room,” I said.
He indicated the one at the exact top of the steps on the second floor.
“He is in?” I asked.
The clerk nodded.
“Now, here is what I want you to do. Take a bottle of Scotch—the Arab counterfeit will do—and two glasses and put them on a tray. Just three minutes after I leave this desk, you take that tray up to his room and knock.”
I kept laying hundred-lira notes on the counter until the clerk smiled. It was a seven-hundred-lira smile.
I had him note the time. I synchronized my watch.
I went back out the front door.
In a leisurely fashion, but silently, I went up the outside steps.
With care, I marked the exact outside window of the indicated room. It was open.
I waited.
Exactly on time, a knock sounded on the door.
A bed creaked.
I stole to the window.
Sure enough, there was my man. He had a Colt .45 in his hand and he was cat-footing to the door. His back was to me at the window.
I knew it would be this way. Mafia hit men lead nervous lives.
Jimmy “The Gutter” Tavilnasty reached for the knob, gun held on the door. That was my cue!
The door was swinging open.
I stepped through the window.
I said, in a loud voice, “Surprise!”
He half-turned in shock.
He sent a bullet slamming into the wall above me!
The shot had not even begun to echo before he charged out the door.
The effect was catastrophic. He collided with the clerk and tray!
In a scramble of Scotch and glasses, arms, legs and two more inadvertently triggered shots, they went avalanching down the stairs.
With a thud and final tinkle they wound up at the bottom.
I trotted down the stairs after them and plucked the gun from Jimmy “The Gutter’s” stunned hand.
“What a way to greet an old pal,” I said. That’s the way to handle them. Purely textbook psychology. It says to get them off-balance.
Tavilnasty was not only off-balance, he was out cold.
The clerk lay there looking at me in horror. I realized I had Tavilnasty’s gun pointed at him. I put the safety on. I said, “You were clumsy. You broke that bottle of Scotch. Now get up and get another one on the house.”
The clerk scrambled away.
I picked up Tavilnasty and got him over to a small back table in the lounge. He was coming around.
The clerk, shaking, brought in another bottle of Scotch and two glasses.
I handed Tavilnasty his gun.
I poured him a drink. He drank it.
Then his ugly, pockmarked face was really a study. “What the hell was that all about?”
“I just didn’t want to get shot,” I said.
He couldn’t quite understand this. I poured him another drink.
I tried another tack. “I could have killed you and I didn’t. Therefore that proves I am your friend.”
He considered this and rubbed a couple of bruises on his head. I poured him another drink.
“How’s Babe?” I said.
He really stared at me.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Babe Corleone, my old flame.”
“You know Babe?”
“Sure, I know Babe.”
“Where did you know Babe?”
“Around,” I said.
He drank the Scotch.
“You from the DEA?”
I laughed.
“You from the CIA?”
I laughed.
“You from the FBI?”
I poured him another drink. “I’m from the World Health Operation. I’m going to make you your fortune.”
He drank the drink.
“Now listen carefully,” I said. “We are building a new hospital. It will be in full operation in about two months. We have new techniques of plastic surgery. We can change fingerprints, dental plates, larynxes, facial bones.”
“No (bleep)?”
“Absolutely. Nobody else can do it but us. Nobody will know. Hippocratic oath and so forth.”
“Is that like the Fifth Amendment?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “But down to business. You know the Atlantic City mob. You know lots of mobs. Right?”
“Right,” he said.
“Now, those mobs have people hiding out all over the place. Those people can’t show their faces because they are in all the fingerprint and police files of the FBI and Interpol. Right?”
“Right.”
“If those people are smuggled in here to the World United Charities Mercy and Benevolent Hospital, we will physically change their identity, give them new birth certificates and passports, all for a stiff fee, of course, and you personally will get twenty percent of what they pay.”
He found a paper napkin and laboriously started figuring. Finally, he said, “I’d be rich.”
“Right.”
“There’s one thing wrong,” he said. “I can spread the word. I can get big names in here in droves. But I can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have a job. There’s a contract out.”
“I know,” I said. “Gunsalmo Silva.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I got sources.” I fixed him with a lordly stare—down the nose. “Gunny Silva won’t be back here for seven weeks. So you got six weeks to recruit some trade for the hospital.”
“I’d need money for expenses. I can’t hang this on Babe.”
“Take your expenses out of the advance payments,” I said.
“Hey!” he said, smiling.
“And,” I said, “if you bring in lots of trade and payments ready to begin in two months, I’ll throw something else in.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll give you Gunsalmo Silva on a silva platter!”
“No (bleep)?”
“Set him up for you like a clay pigeon!”
With tears of gratitude in his eyes, he held out his hand, “Buster, you got yourself a deal!”
Ah, psychology works every time!
A bit later I returned to my car, fought my way through the crowd protesting the street blockage, cranked up and drove away.
I felt I was driving on air!
Soltan Gris, a.k.a. Sultan Bey, was on his road to becoming filthy rich!
And, after all, hadn’t the Grand Council said to spread a little technology around on this planet? Where it would really do some good?
PART THIRTEEN
Chapter 3
The sun was hot, the sky was clear, as I hurtled down the road.
Then I remembered that I even had a dancing girl coming today!
My prospects seemed so brilliant that I could not help doing a thing I almost never do. I burst into song:
Frankie and Johnny were lovers.
Oh, my Gods, how they could love
They swore to be true to each other.
As true as the stars above. . . .
There was an obstruction. It was a string of ten laden camels. They were humping and grumbling along, but I didn’t see any driver. The horn of the Renault was bu
sted so I had to veer out into the other lane to see what was at the head of this parade.
Aha! I thought so!
Around here they sometimes put a lead rope on a donkey and the animal apparently knows where to go and he just leads the hooked-up string of camels to their destination. Shows you how dumb camels are when even a jackass is brighter than they are!
Here was my chance!
I resumed singing at the top of my voice:
He was my man!
But he done me wrong!
I swerved in tight past the donkey. It was either my bump on his nose or it may have been the singing.
He dropped the lead rope, brayed and took off!
Ten camels exploded. They went bucking off the road into the sunflower field, spraying packs in all directions, trying to follow the donkey.
Oh, did I laugh!
I drew up at the International Agricultural Training Center for Peasants, knocked over a No Parking sign that shouldn’t have been there and bounced into the base commander’s office.
The contrast between his face and my mood was extreme.
He moaned; he held his head in his hands a moment. Then he looked up. “Officer Gris, can’t we possibly have a little less commotion around here?”
“What’s a No Parking sign?” I said, loftily.
“No. Not that. Last night there was that fight and today our agents in town tell us there are complaints from cart drivers, complaints from the police on your double-parking and just a moment ago I had a call that you and some gangster were shooting up a hotel. Please, Officer Gris. We’re not supposed to be so visible here. Before you came, it was all—”
“Nonsense!” I cut him off sharply. “You were not in tune with this planet! You were becoming hicks and hayseeds! You weren’t keeping up to it—you weren’t with it. You leave such things to me. I am the expert on Blito-P3 sociological behaviorism! You should watch their movies. You should even go to see some of the movies they make in Turkey! They do nothing but shoot people and blow things up! But I have no time now to educate you in the psychological cultural cravings of this place. I’m here on business.”
I threw the pack of contracts down on his desk and he picked them up wearily with a what-now shake of his overpadded head.