WHAT TIME IS IT, MR. WOLF?
a novel by Ercan Akbay

Saturday, 18th November

CHAPTER 1
THE CHIEF

In my sleep, I heard the damn thing ringing like it was never going to stop. I’d always leave my mobile just inside the front door, ‘cause I don’t want to get a brain tumor. And my wife, sleeping next to me, woke up as I leapt out of bed. When she saw I was getting up muttering angrily to myself, she didn’t say anything. I felt my way around and turned on the light. Six in the morning, and Mert, the duty officer, was phoning from the station. No doubt it was going to be bad news.
“What’s happened?”
“It’s horrible, Chief; Sami Tuzcu’s been killed in his home. The news’s just come in, while I’ve been on duty.”
Sami Tuzcu, an old man who devoted himself to charity, a well-known and well-liked businessman... Who on earth would want to kill him and why?
In my twenty-nine years on the job, this was one of those situations that I had faced many times. They come up against a problem they can’t get their heads round and always call me. You wake up at some ungodly hour and go off someplace where they’ve found a decomposing body and then you’re on the trail of some killer, ripper or pervert.
Have you any idea what kind of hell it is to have to live through these harrowing situations hundreds of times? For a cop at the head of Istanbul Homicide who’s pushing retirement, a cop they should be getting ready for the good life for everything he’s done to date, a cop they should be putting out to pasture? But no, it’s got to the point where the bastards won’t even accept my resignation.
I left my anger at the bedside. Now I had to deal with something serious, inhuman. It was dark; I groped around for the light switch. As a veteran cop’s first reflex, I asked what had to be asked.
“How did it happen?”
“Well, first, burglars robbed Sami Tuzcu’s house. They opened the safe and walked off with his jeweler collection. And after that, they stabbed him through the heart.”
Wishing that what I heard was part of the dream I dreamt a few minutes ago, I chafed my face. “Do we know what time it happened?” I grumbled.
“Not yet. A short while ago, his servant called to report it. The faithful old couple thought that something strange had happened and, when they came in the house early this morning, they found him in the middle of the living room, lying on the carpet. I sent Serdar over straight away. I’m off too, shall we meet over there?”
“Has Robbery got involved?”
“I guess not,” he said, thinking a while. “Cause it was phoned in as murder, 911 sent us over.”
I paused. I still hadn’t completely woken up. Couldn’t find anything to say to buy some time; I kept quiet for a bit, thought and took a deep breath. Mert was holding the line. In the end, I made a decision, and flung myself into the experienced arms of my common sense.
“Mert, listen, what I’m about to say is very important: no one is to hear about this incident. And I mean no one...” I whispered. “If even the tiniest bit of news gets out, all the crime correspondents and media bastards will be crowding the place out, they’ll be crawling all over the place and won’t let us get our job done. We won’t be able to pick our noses without becoming front-page news; there’s no one in the country who doesn’t know who Sami Tuzcu is. Got it?”
“Yes, Sir, but what about procedure, the police…”
I knew what he was going to say, “From this moment on, I’m forbidding you to breathe word about the Sami Tuzcu murder. And that’s an order!” I interrupted him.
“W-What’ll I say if they ask?” he stuttered.
Mert was crazy about drawing things out.
“If anyone asks you, you’ll say you’ve got your orders,” I answered, sighing. “I only hope I haven’t told you too late. Don’t mention it in your duty report, and, when you’re there, don’t tell anyone anything.”
“Don’t worry, Chief. No one’s caught on yet. Like I said, the operator transferred the call directly here. And I told them not to call anywhere else.”
While I was talking, I went through to the bedroom and looked in the wardrobe for something to wear. “I was going to ask about that,” I said. “You’ve done well. Go over straight away. I’ll be there in half an hour. Don’t touch anything till I get there. Tell that to the lads from Crime Scene and Serdar, too.”
I had only put on some trousers. I went into the bathroom shirtless and squeezed some shaving foam onto my face.
“You go. Don’t take a radio or anything with you and, whatever you do, don’t give the game away.”
“OK, Chief. See you over there,” he said with an issuant voice.
I hung up.
When I started to shave, the disheveled face I saw in the mirror disturbed me. Years of weariness and exhaustion were scrawled all over it.
And what exhaustion...
You could also call it Chief Inspector Kemal fighting his own hot air: everyone’d be asleep, and he’d be working; everyone’d be eating and drinking, and he’d be training, all for peanuts. Oh yes, they always give commendation medals to the Chief, but shiny medals don’t pay the rent; they’re not enough to save him from the struggle to make ends meet.
Poor bugger, he would say, ‘Go to bed and sleep, what’s it to me?’
But what’s the use? Once we’ve got used to putting up with abuse
Well, that was enough poetry; I went into the bedroom without making a sound, and picked up my keys and reading glasses. The kids hadn’t woken up yet. Without breathing a word to anyone, I left the door on the latch and left.
There was a terrible chill in the air; I turned on the car heating and waited a while for the steamed up windscreen to clear.
Lit a cigarette, slowly woke up.
I called Mert on the way over. As a seasoned cop, I already knew roughly where Sami Tuzcu’s house was. Just got the house number and set off for the address. Entered by the garden gate and saw Mert trying to bring the Crime Scene boys round and send them on their way. They’d come from the station in Beşiktaş and were familiar faces. It takes a cop to know a cop. What’s more, their boss and me went back a long way. When the lads saw me they stood up respectfully and made themselves scarce.
I went inside the house with Mert.
In the middle of the living room, Sami Tuzcu was lying face down on the floor. Blood had seeped out from the edge of his jacket and had formed a half-dried, brown pool on the floor. In the corner of the balcony door, I saw Detective Sergeant Serdar Emanet reading some notes he had in his hand. He saw me and saluted with a serious expression on his face.
On one of the white-gray chairs in the left of the living room, a short blonde-haired young woman was sitting crying. Mert turned to me and said the woman was Sami Tuzcu’s daughter: Billur Solmaz. After that, he began to explain, with a hint of desperation in his voice.
“Chief, unfortunately, we haven’t been able to find any clues at all. There’s no fingerprints, no fibers, no footprints, no nothing… Crime Scene took photos of everywhere; they turned the whole place upside down. I don’t think that they’re going to find whodunit.”
If our lot did find out whodunit, it’d be a miracle. Even with normal burglaries, there may well be heaps of clues and witnesses, but the number of cases the Istanbul police had solved were few and far between. This incident was a bit different from a normal burglary, though: a prominent business man had been killed and a precious jewelers collection had been stolen. This type of case is very important for them because it’s a golden opportunity for the media-police-political bigwigs to get together and hold hands in public.
Forgetting my weariness and despair for a moment, I reeled off my most shop-worn questions about the incident to Mert. He should have been prepared for them ‘cause it was me who’d taught them, and they form the basic rule of being a cop.
“How did they get in?”
“They opened the door locks with a master key,” he rushed.
“What about the servants?”
“Oh, that old couple, they were staying in the outbuilding in the garden. Before it happened, at about half past ten or so, both of them were either drugged or fell asleep.”
I wondered how he could tell the difference, so I asked.
“We don’t know. Neither do they; they didn’t hear or see anything. It could be knockout gas or something like that. It’s just that a little before they fell asleep, they heard the dog barking in the garden. Then the electrics were cut.”
“What happened to the dog?”
“Touch wood, there’s nothing wrong with him.”
He thought that he’d cracked the joke of the century. When I looked sternly at him grinning, he pulled himself together and was serious again.  “I mean they don’t understand why the dog didn’t kick something off. It could have been drugged as well,” he said.
I didn’t say anything. I walked up to the entrance hall and took a look at the wall opposite the door. On the left hand side, towards where the wall joined the ceiling, was a white plastic box with the word ‘alarm’ clearly written on it. I called Mert over, showed him the box and asked:
“Wasn’t the alarm working, then?”
I grasped.  “Hmm, well... It’s interesting because the alarm somehow didn’t go off,” he answered me.
“How’s that, then?” I said naturally.
I had asked this question on purpose. I’d worked my bollocks off for years, instructing him and all the other twits at the station how to answer questions like this.
“The electric was cut…”
Mert saw I was staring right at him, realised what he’d said, but must have felt the need to finish his sentence, “... and maybe that had something to do with it?” so he continued.
“Well, is it working now?”
He bit his lip shamefully and, without looking at my face, “I haven’t checked,” he mumbled.
Now, this was an answer that no cop should ever give. And Mert knew this very well.
Suddenly, I was seeing red.  “You haven’t checked?! How the hell do you run an investigation?” I yelled out.
“A-Alright, Chief… I’ll check now. I’m sorry...”
Mert went and checked the alarm and the cables. He came back.  “Chief, I think it happened like this. First, they cut off the buildings electric at the transformer in the garden. The alarm’s battery kicked in, and as soon as they entered, they sorted it out by opening the box and breaking the circuit. I mean this lot are no amateurs, they came well prepared. The skeleton key and the way they opened the safe were very skillful, too.”
Mert had started stammering in a high-pitched voice. So that his self-confidence, which was at zero right now, would come back, I gave him a friendly pat on shoulder and looked at him calmly.
“Call around and see if there’ve been any similar robberies recently.”
He knew very well that I had a soft spot for him.
He relaxed and smiled “I’ll take care of it right away, Chief,” he said, streaking a salute sympathetically.
Just then, my phone rang; it was the super’s number. ‘That’s all we need!’ I muttered to myself. Before answering, I turned towards Mert again, “It wasn’t you who told HQ, was it?” I said angrily.
“No, Chief. I wrote exactly what you said in the report.”
“I suppose it’s some bigmouth who’s been giving it the large again,” I murmured.
I picked up the phone.
“Detective Chief Inspector Kemal Güçlü?”
“Speaking.”
“Hold the line, please, Sir; Superintendent Faruk Kuloglu is on the other end; I’m putting you through.”
His secretary put me through to the oaf. It was obvious that the Sami Tuzcu murder had got Kuloglu really worked up. Next thing you know, he’ll be going to the TV and the papers and putting out a statement…
He asked and asked…
And then he asked who has decided not to inform to the press.
“No one is to be informed, expressly; those are my instructions and I take full responsibility,” I said. “And I’m asking you that as a favor, Sir. Otherwise, they won’t let us do our job; you know that...”
Yes, he certainly did know...
And I knew very well what he was after too, but the man was determined to show how thick he was. Although he’d understood the reasons for keeping the murder secret, he’d wanted confirmation that the order had been given by me; he wanted to show he knew everything.
“Yes, Sir… It is a difficult case: there are no clues, no leads...”
He went straight on to long, other drawn-out questions:
“Yes, now Crime Scene says that the murder weapon was a screwdriver or similar penetrating object,” I continued.
After he had told me a load of unnecessary details, he asked us to solve the incident as quickly as possible. Ahh, if only I want could always get… What a hell of a lot of things I would want.
“Understood, Sir,” I said. What else could I say?
Then Kuloglu, with surprising insight, told me the name of the best man for the job. This was an officer who, before coming to Homicide, had been kicking around for years in the Drugs Squad. He was a unique cop and was a D. S. with us. To get cracking, he said that he thought it would be a good idea for us to get this guy involved in the case, and then he asked me if I thought so, too.
“You’re absolutely right, Sir,” I said immediately. “I do think he’s the right man for the job. And like I said, I’ll be working in the field personally on this one. I’ll call him now and get him up to speed on the incident. It’s still early: I think I can catch him at home.”
My acceptance about his rightness had put him in an even better mood. He said he would mobilize all units for our department’s work if necessary.
“Thank you, Sir.”
I hung up and thought a bit more.
In fact, I had quite a few things to think about: preparations for my eldest daughter’s engagement, my wife’s health problems, the drama of promotion season in the office, a whole load of complicated files and the heart tablets that I take every morning. It occurred to me that I’d forgotten to take my Coumadin, so I took one out of the box in my pocket and swallowed it.
Ahh, thinking is something you can only do by yourself; no one else can do it for you.

CHAPTER 2
ARZU

This evening I had come a little early to the Joy Bar, where I’d arranged to meet my boyfriend. It was around nine o’clock. The man on cloakroom duty had changed, and in his place they’d put an imposing man of a certain age who looked like one of those characters who could play a gangster in a French film. He appeared to be courteous when he saw me; he looked up from the computer screen in front of him, and rose to his feet, smiling, and welcomed me with a nod of his head. He asked me if I wanted to leave my coat in the cloakroom.
I didn’t; it was only something light anyway.
Ever since I had started going out with my current boyfriend, I had stopped wearing low-cut dresses. My boyfriend wasn’t the type who would allow me any risqué evening wear. At home, though, he preferred me with nothing on.
I hadn’t been here for a long time. Friday evenings in the Joy Bar were generally very busy, but this evening, maybe because it was still early, it seemed somehow deserted. I went over to the bar, sat down and asked the barman for a glass of red wine. Then I cast a glance around the place. There were fifteen or sixteen people at the tables, while at the long bar where I was sitting, there were only four people apart from me.
Recently, because of my weight problem, I hadn’t really been eating anything for dinner. At home I had picked at a salad and gone out. I wasn’t overweight, actually. But even if I only put on one pound, I was afflicted with this terrible disorder that would make it go straight to my hips. Tonight, in honor of my birthday, I could spoil myself and have a drink and some nibbles.
Like a day off...
My boyfriend was due within the next half hour. While I was waiting for him, I thought I’d have a glass of wine and flick through the new issue of ‘Art’, a real bijou of a magazine. I was just glancing at the pictures in the first few pages of the magazine when one of those eccentric types came in and walked towards where I was sitting, looking around. He said hi to the barman and ordered a drink. I’d immediately understood from his first few gestures that he was a warm guy who had no trouble communicating.
You know those men who you don’t think are handsome, if you count off their physical attributes one by one, but who, nonetheless, have a certain charm. Well, he was one of them: thin, medium height, curly brown hair, around thirty-five or forty and with a sunny face. He was wearing a thin crew-neck sweater with very stylish, light blue jeans. He had a really nice, casual style. His Italian design, tobacco-brown suede shoes, and his thin angular glasses in the style that I like gave him a more well-to-do air.
Right next to me, he asked the barman for a glass of red wine. He put his hands on the surface of the bar. Those immaculate, tapering fingers... I got a good look at his hair and ears close up. When he spoke, I noticed that his tone of voice was warm and confident and that his teeth and lips were nice. I always do this instinctively: a head-to-toe analysis.
For a man to get a pass mark from me, he would have to be able to walk on water.
It’s really difficult for a woman who’s this choosy about men to find a someone to go out with. I should confess that up to this day –my thirtieth birthday– I’ve never come across anyone who I could give full marks to. This man, who I’d given a high mark to at first sight, took an elegant sip from his glass. After looking around the place for a couple of minutes or so, he turned towards me.
“Hi. I do hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said gently, with a deep voice.
I’d been feeling that he wanted to talk to me, right from the moment he walked in to the bar. That’s why I wasn’t surprised. “No, of course not… You’re not disturbing me,” I answered smiling. So as he wouldn’t get too full of himself, I turned away and took a pistachio from the bowl on the bar. I crunched it between my teeth and continued with what I was saying. “At least, not for the moment…”
In spite of what I had said, he smiled again sweetly. He looked at me impishly from over the frames of his expensive-looking glasses. “Okey, well, if I do anything indecent you can send me away,” he said shrugging. “Men in bars have a bad reputation, don’t you think?”
The words of an attractive man sound charming, too. He wasn’t waiting for an answer or anything to his sentence actually, but I still decided to respond with a short question. And this meant ‘go on’.
“I wouldn’t know, do they?”
“To tell the truth, I’m really hesitant about chatting to a woman in a bar. And if you become too chummy with men, then that’s even worse…” He winked roguishly. “They’ll be gossiping about you immediately.”
I laughed at his witty remark. His bearing and manner amused me.
“You’re right, but it’s become almost impossible for a woman to sit alone at a bar without being disturbed these days.”
I said these words in a serious way because it wouldn’t have done for me to give him too much encouragement. To let him know the limits, I thought I’d take the precaution of starting to talk to him about my boyfriend.
“Anyway, I’m waiting for my fiancé.” I immediately looked at my watch and continued with a false smile. “He’ll be coming just now to rescue me from you. That’s why I’m so relaxed.”
Surprisingly, the man didn’t even seem disappointed at these words. “You looked like you’re waiting for someone anyway. Maybe this evening I’ll be able to entertain you both a little,” he continued to the conversation as if nothing had happened.
He shrugged his shoulders with a very sweet look on his face. “Free entertainment and drinks: it must be your lucky day…” he said.
I was caught completely off guard by what he’d just said. “Well, actually, today’s my birthday.”
In response to my surprise, looking to all the world like the cat that had got the cream, “Ahh, so you’re a Scorpio. Very nice, what a happy coincidence...” he replied exuberantly.
I wondered what was so happy about this coincidence and what his star sign was. Without being able to ask him and without him giving me the chance to say anything, “Scorpio women are alright; so charming and mysterious... I bet you’re someone who’ll make any sacrifice for the man you love and stay faithful to him forever,” he continued.
Was I really a woman who was faithful to her boyfriend? Well, I would be, if only for this evening. It was good that he hadn’t mentioned the dark side of the Scorpio personality. He was so sweet.
“Yes, I am, actually; and I think that everyone ought to be faithful to their wife or girlfriend,” I said, just to chat.
There was a short pause in the conversation. The man reached out his hand to me with a warm smile.
“My name’s Caner, and you?”
“Arzu…”
“That’s a nice name. It means ‘desire’, doesn’t it? Oh, now you’ve got me thinking of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’. What a fabulous film.”
I’d never come across a man who’d said this to me before. I liked it. As well as ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ being one of my favourite classic films, I’d also read the book.
“It’s an Elia Kazan film. One of my favorite directors,” I said excitedly.
His face lit up. I suppose he thought that I was a film buff like him, too.  “Well, if you want my opinion, it was a magnificent film. It had Marlon Brando and what you may call her, that beautiful woman?” he asked.
Oh gosh, I don’t know why, I could picture her face, but I’d forgotten her name!
“Was it Kim Novak? No, that was one of the characters’ names, I think, Kim.”
Caner, too, had started to squirm in his seat. “No, that’s not it... Her name’s on the tip of my tongue; it began with a V.”
Vicki, Vanessa, Vivette, Victoria... While I was going through all the names I could think of that started with a V, all at once an actress’ name that fitted the woman’s face came to mind. As if we had planned it beforehand, we both cried out at the same time.
“Vivian Leigh!”
I clapped my hands together in delight.
“Yes. That’s it, now, there really was a beautiful woman,” he said, snapping his finger. He cast another roguish glance at me.
As a matter of fact, I certainly was not unattractive. Any man looking me up and down carefully wouldn’t be able to stay indifferent. But if I don’t feel anything for him in my heart, what difference does it make, naturally?
As for my relationship with my boyfriend, well, that was something completely different: he was a real man, handsome and his firmness made me go wild in bed. And he was someone who I could have as a guarantee for my future. I mean, you can’t just say no straight off when a man proposes to you. You’ve got to put all that lovey-dovey stuff to one side and just take whatever you can get, whether he’s from the sticks or not.
I mean, after all, once you’re past thirty, your body clock starts ticking away even faster.
This man was nothing like my boyfriend, and he was trying to chat me up.
“That’s so true, they do say that women used to be so much more beautiful. But if you ask me, women of the new generation are even more beautiful.”
He meant me, of course. Then he got straight to the point.
“Your job is something to do with art, isn’t it?”
He’d got it in one!
“Yes, I’m a painter,” I said in a daze.
“I can see that.”
How it was that he could see that, I didn’t ask. There was nothing serious yet; all I wanted was to experience the beauty of the moment and have some fun at the same time. Caner closed his eyes – I thought he was doing it just to make me laugh – and turned his head upwards. He started to talk in a low mumbling voice.
“You used to work on some expressional pieces, but now you tend more towards abstract painting. Your character is not insensitive to the problems of those around you and, when you see something unfair in life, you react to it with all your might...”
Bingo! And he kept on talking and talking.
I was very surprised by what he was saying. It was interesting that someone who I had only got to know ten minutes ago could make such an accurate character analysis. I couldn’t help thinking he was trying to bowl me over with things he had been reading in astrology books. After pausing a moment, he suddenly went off onto prophecies about something completely different.
“Let’s move on to your relationships with men: you are someone who is very difficult to please, and for this reason you’ve had a lot of difficulty finding someone suitable for you. Although you’ve had several attempted relationships in the past, it’s always ended up with you going off the man and running away.”
He’d done it again. What was going on? How could he tell?
“Everything you’re saying is true.”
He paused for a moment and took a deep breath.  “You’re from the Aegean; you were born in Izmir,” he mumbled. “You have a loving family, and you’re all very close. When you were growing up, your father made sure you wanted for nothing. He’s an architect or, perhaps, a construction engineer. You came to Istanbul to go to university. Your family still lives in Izmir, or am I mistaken?”
I’d given up by now.
“Where do you know all this from? It just doesn’t add up.”
And, for sure, there was something that didn’t add up...

CHAPTER 3
MURAT

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I popped a load of pills. That’s why I had bad heartburn and it tasted like something had shat in my mouth. Feeling like this, it’d be better not to go anywhere, just straight to bed. But I’d promised my bird; I had to keep her sweet a bit longer.
I had the diamond watch from the safe with its box on me. I put on that blue sports jacket she’d made me buy from Versace. I looked myself at the mirror. Saw I needed to have a shave. I didn’t like the black sweater under the jacket. Took off the jacket and sweater and went into the bathroom to have a shave. I’d just spread the stuff on my face when my mobile rang. I saw the boss’s name on the screen and felt that bad vibe again inside me for no reason. Felt a bit sick. Answered the what you may call it.
He was asking about last night’s job. Without even a hello, how are you? of course. There was that usual pisstaking tone in his voice. I said we’d got the goods. Then, couldn’t keep my big mouth shut, and told him the owner’d come home early and so on. He asked if I taught that old crook a lesson.
“Look, boss…” I lowered my voice and hissed back.  “I taught him a lesson that no one forgets.”
Course, he was curious about what I’ve done. Preferred not to say, like… “You know, he was asking for it,” I said instead.
I hated him. I just couldn’t do anything against the hate. If only I could. As I expected, he asked me straight up about the jewels. At the same time, I opened the wardrobe to choose myself another sweater. Put off the shaving mularkey ‘til after the call, ‘cause it’s too noisy.
“The goods are with Mustafa; I mean in the shop. Next week they’ll be delivered to Kirkor, and then put on sale.”
He repeated the usual orders. Wanted to say that I was in a hurry, but couldn’t do the necessary to butt in.
He talked and talked.
Then suddenly shut up. Instead of answering him, I preferred to tie things up so as not to draw them out.  “OK, boss,” I said, and that I had things to do.
He said, “We’d meet up very soon,” and hung up in my face without listening to the last thing I said, as usual.
Heartless bastard!
Took a good long look at my face in the mirror… Raised my brows and gave myself a mean look. My bony, angular face was sort of impressive and frightening. Even the gash on my forehead suited my face. Well, God’s given me just the exact image I wanted to be.
I thought about the rich chicks I’d pulled and stroked my tackle. Yeah, I’m the man. You gotta be a bit rough with them, so they understand what you’re worth. I tell everyone; rich chicks like tough guys smelling of tobacco and BO. They want to give their lovely bodies to loudmouth yobs. Ahh, and if you hurt them a bit in bed, they never leave you.
I remember now, the bootiful arse on that whore, Yasemin, who I was screwing for a while; she was gorgeous, man…
Anyway, I’d understood how much the slags lust after me when I was ‘round seventeen. Back in the days, it was mostly desperate housewives who wanted to fuck me. Wouldn’t go to school; I’d go to their houses. Furious bitches… None of their husbands caught me on the job. Not like I was scared, though. So the husband catches me banging his missus; well, I got my blade...
I’d spill his guts over the bed and fuck his wife on top of them.
After I’d washed my face, and ran some gel through my thick, slightly greying hair, I looked at my teeth in the mirror. White and sparkling… Poured myself a straight whisky and downed it. Rolled a joint and lit it with my golden Dunhill. Three drags, one after the other. Wanted to get high. Splashed on my classic ‘Safari’ aftershave, a palmful as usual… Didn’t use deodorant anyway; as you know, a real man should smell of sweat a bit.
The boss came to my mind; I came down again. When the time was ripe, I’d take him out, too. I could almost feel the pieces of his brain in my palms spurting out of his smashed up skull. Took the keys and went out. My spanking new car was waiting on the driveway.
Heey, this is the life, man…

CHAPTER 4
CANER

When I entered the Joy Bar, an old tearjerker was playing: Al Green was singing ‘How can you mend a broken heart?’ in his inimitable style. I felt a bit sad about that; unfortunately doctors are yet to find a remedy for a broken heart.
Swaying with the music’s beat, I went over to where a single man can be most effective: the bar.
The young blonde sitting there wasn’t one of those women who usually catch your eye at first glance. Actually, in spite of her classically beautiful face, well shaped body and appropriate height, it was as if there was some kind of presentation problem. Yes, breasts a bit small and hips a bit narrow, but these weren’t the reasons that dampened her appeal. It was as if there was no femininity in the way she bore herself. She wasn’t wearing one of those wonder bras to push her tits up, or anything with a plunging neckline, or a skirt with an erotic slit. Only some dark blue jeans, a cream blouse, and really closed low-heeled shoes.
I wonder if women dress to kill and look sexy only when they’re searching for a husband.
When I passed through and stood in the space next to her, she was reading a magazine about design or art or something. Before I got close to her, and before I reached the middle of the dance floor, she had already lifted her head subtly, and looked me up and down, from head to toe. As soon as I had asked the barman for a drink, I got straight to the point. It’s good to talk. Like they say: animals sniff each other, humans talk…
Men are usually reluctant to talk to women in a social milieu like a bar or a club. In psychology it’s called ‘rejection anxiety’. As for me, I am not afraid of being rejected by any woman. Because, more often than not, they think rationally; a woman who says no to a man, doesn’t really mean that she doesn’t want to go out with him. It’s not as easy as that. After a certain time, she might want the same man badly. Actually, it doesn’t make any sense to give extra meaning to the words, gestures, posturing and behavior of women and take them too seriously.
I’ve been doing this for quite a while, and so, that’s why, I don’t suffer from rejection anxiety.
Shortly after striking up conversation, somewhere deep inside me, I could feel her warm femininity, which hadn’t been obvious before from the outside. As far as I was concerned, it was like a blazing fire actually. Even more importantly, she was the type who I could attract; an intelligent woman who seemed to have had a good education and developed sophisticated aesthetic taste.
Right at the beginning of our conversation, I made a very apposite and dainty opening gambit. It wasn’t complete improvisation, but it was an opening that had something of that flavour, if you know what I mean. I have enough talent to seduce an intellectual, clever woman. Just like some singers have God’s gift, well, what I had was something like that. Cunning women who don’t think of anything other than wringing all the money out of a man, and, in return, paying with their bodies up until they have ensnared the poor unfortunate, never liked me at all…
Given suitable surroundings, while in the midst of a game set up to seduce her, once you’ve reached the phase after you’ve created the initial model and atmosphere, you have to continue in the same key. For that reason, I was sipping my wine and continued without leaving a break in the conversation.
“What I’ve said about you is nothing. In a strange way, I can see what is going through your mind at the moment, your life in the past few years, and what’s going to happen in the future. This sort of thing has happened before with people I get intense vibes from. I just don’t know how it happens.”
Arzu didn’t really appreciate what I’d said this time. “I guess you’re just making fun of me,” she said.
The things that I said weren’t ordinary things. They were a little presumptuous on my part, and I hadn’t managed to warm up enough. In actual fact, I should only have entered the telepathic energy thing after a little more smoke and mirrors. But I didn’t have any time for that. Her man was on his way and the cat might have been out of the bag.
After what I’d said, I could see at Arzu’s eyes that my newly earned esteem seep away.
Was I too fast?
I didn’t have enough data to do an analysis just yet, I just launched into the first weird and wonderful subject that came to mind, and then, full steam ahead. “Well, have you ever met a sword swallower before?” I asked.
She was surprised. “I beg your pardon?” she stammered out:
You need knowledge to be able to persuade someone. But faced with a really wise man, all women are lost for words.
“You know, you get them in circuses or fairs and places like that.” I stood up, and I played the act of a sword swallower right there and then. “Have you ever seen that kind of show?”
“No, but what’s that got to do with me?” she said, her eyes open wide.
I had the answer to that one up my sleeve. “Because you don’t know how it’s done,” I said. I looked into her eyes and paused especially to give her time for what I had said to sink in. “Just like my telepathic powers,” I whispered to her ear. “Isn’t that so? Would you like to learn how it’s done?”
“I’d love to,” she prompted.
“It’s not a magic trick; they really do swallow the sword. It’s all about learning to relax the throat muscles, and so prevent the gag reflex.”
I was on my feet waving my hands and arms about. Like miming… At the same time, all eyes in the club were on us.
“Both edges of the swords they use are blunt, but the tip is as sharp as it looks. If it’s of a size that won’t touch the floor of the stomach, there won’t be any problems. The greatest of all sword swallowers, Dan Mannix, even wrote a book on the subject in 1951. But scientists treated him as a fraud.”
Curious, she continued to watch and listen.
“Finally, only after he had swallowed a sword-shaped neon lamp, and the lamp was lit and he had shown his insides, did the public believe him.”
Arzu’s beautiful blue eyes were wide open now. How beautifully she listened and how sincerely she smiled at me.
“Wow, now that is interesting,” she said sincerely.
She had taken the bait.
“Well, you see? That’s why…” I couldn’t stop myself and started to laugh.  “People like me, with telepathic power, are condemned to be misunderstood and rejected by society.”
I realized that I had to raise the tone of the conversation, and so I delivered the killer line. “However, I do know that I can change your future,” I said.
My, my… She was looking into my face like someone who had been left in a trance after a session with a hypnotist. You couldn’t say she was wrong; what I’d done was a kind of hypnotism, after all.
“Ahh… Really?”
This time, and with a more serious expression on my face, I leaned towards her ear.  “What’s your fiancé’s name?” I whispered.
Surprised. “Why are you asking?” she asked.
“It’s necessary if I’m to be able to establish a link with him,” I told her calmly, shrugging.
She paused. I waited, looking her straight in the eye. She took a sip of her drink. And I suddenly found her far more easily convinced than I’d been expecting. “OK, well…” she said. She looked at my face and then smiled.  “Murat. Murat Sevil…”
“What does he look like?” I asked immediately.
“He’s tall, big-boned but thin, with back-combed, thick black hair. He’s dark. Dresses casually…”
She seemed embarrassed and looked away. “He’s handsome, I mean…”
“Does he wear suits?” I asked.
“No, he wears casual things, but, you know, he’s chic. Tonight he’s going to come wearing his new blue jacket.”
Now, how did that work? I thought he must have a good reason, but I didn’t go there. Anyway, I was in a real hurry. I wondered if the guy had any distinguishing features, and asked. “Does he have any visible marks?”
She thought about this question a little. “He’s got a scar on his forehead. From when he was a child,” she answered.
Aha, this was the icing on the cake.
“He’s coming just now anyway; I’ll introduce you. Why are you asking all these things?”
Touching my finger to my lips, I made her keep quiet. I closed my eyes, and slowly raising my hands to the sides of my head, I put them over my ears. I got off my bar stool and turned my back to her. The Joy Bar had got really crowded and hot inside. The lights were low; the music was pumping.
‘Ain’t No Sunshine’… Bill Withers’ most famous song, was being sung by the Jackson family, brought up in gospel choirs, in the classic Motown style. Their main vocalist, Michael Jackson must have been a teenager the year this recording was made.
It was a nice atmosphere, really nice…