tapes of all Torvill and Dean’s greatest performances. In his kitchen, he had a case of expensive wine, a robot-chef and a microwave oven. In his lavatory, he had copies of
The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook
,
The Naff Sex Guide
and
How to Be a Wally.
In his work-room, he had a licensed handgun, five thousand pounds in small notes and a fax machine.
In his basement, he had a dead prostitute with her arm cut off.
10
A s near death as he had ever been, he tried to slither over the beaten earth of the alley. His face hung off his skull in lumpy rags. One of the cuts had been high up and at the back of his head, and a torn curtain of skin and scalp had flapped forwards over his face. It hung over his eyes and nose like a wet scarf. Since his own pain had long since ceased to mean anything to him, he felt almost at peace in the red darkness.
The irony of it was that the men who had done this to him knew nothing about his real nature. They had killed him simply because they were paid to. He would kill them, but without true malice, or even true relish. If people habitually treated each other like this, who could blame the Kind for the way they treated the human race? Of course, it was really his own fault. He knew that he should never have got mixed up in politics.
He had tried to change when they assaulted him, but there had been eight or ten of them and they were very skilled in their profession. Using iron bars and sharp knives instead of crosses and cats’ cradles, they had caught him efficiently before he could make himself more dangerous and ripped him apart. They had broken his arms and one leg, and his pelvis was twisted out of shape. Consequently, he could not roll himself over and had to try crawling face up. He grew horny talons, curving them into the hard ground. His hands clawed at the ground like scuttling crabs and pulled the heavy bulk of the rest of his body towards the mouth of the alley, assisted only by the occasional inchworm push of his good leg.
Arriving in Istanbul between the coming of talking pictures and the Wall Street Crash, he had drifted into the restaurant trade, turning a particularly vile brothel into a fashionable nightclub. He hired singers who actually could sing, rather than belly-dancers renowned only for their ability to pleasure simultaneously an inordinate number of patrons, and he replaced the group of criminals, cripples, degenerates and relics who had served as an orchestra with genuine musicians from Paris, London and New Orleans. Finally, he had struck an exclusive deal with Turkey’s leading importer of American phonograph records, so that his club would introduce the latest Cole Porter or Irving Berlin song to Istanbul weeks before the Fred Astaire or Paul Whiteman versions became available.
It started to rain, and he began to feel as if vinegar were being pissed into his open wounds. Perhaps he had not outgrown pain after all. The entrails piled on his empty belly must be steaming. Somewhere above, but quite near, he heard music. It was Victor Young and His Orchestra with The Boswell Sisters, performing ‘I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten Cent Store’. He stopped crawling, and feeling came back to his misaligned elbows. He tossed his head, and the bloody flap lifted from his face and fell more or less in its proper place. He looked down at himself. He was already covered with flies, and a scraggy monkey, a refugee from some street act, was picking at one of his ankles. It looked hungry enough to forget it was supposed to be a herbivore.
As usual, he had got bored with an easy life, and expanded his operations. He had never entirely taken his establishment out of the business of procuring, and he soon rekindled his taste for the marketing of human flesh. He imported girls, and boys, from Greece, Egypt, various Balkan pretend countries, India, China, even the Socialist Workers’ Utopia across the Black Sea. Then, he found his acquaintances became useful in
The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook
,
The Naff Sex Guide
and
How to Be a Wally.
In his work-room, he had a licensed handgun, five thousand pounds in small notes and a fax machine.
In his basement, he had a dead prostitute with her arm cut off.
10
A s near death as he had ever been, he tried to slither over the beaten earth of the alley. His face hung off his skull in lumpy rags. One of the cuts had been high up and at the back of his head, and a torn curtain of skin and scalp had flapped forwards over his face. It hung over his eyes and nose like a wet scarf. Since his own pain had long since ceased to mean anything to him, he felt almost at peace in the red darkness.
The irony of it was that the men who had done this to him knew nothing about his real nature. They had killed him simply because they were paid to. He would kill them, but without true malice, or even true relish. If people habitually treated each other like this, who could blame the Kind for the way they treated the human race? Of course, it was really his own fault. He knew that he should never have got mixed up in politics.
He had tried to change when they assaulted him, but there had been eight or ten of them and they were very skilled in their profession. Using iron bars and sharp knives instead of crosses and cats’ cradles, they had caught him efficiently before he could make himself more dangerous and ripped him apart. They had broken his arms and one leg, and his pelvis was twisted out of shape. Consequently, he could not roll himself over and had to try crawling face up. He grew horny talons, curving them into the hard ground. His hands clawed at the ground like scuttling crabs and pulled the heavy bulk of the rest of his body towards the mouth of the alley, assisted only by the occasional inchworm push of his good leg.
Arriving in Istanbul between the coming of talking pictures and the Wall Street Crash, he had drifted into the restaurant trade, turning a particularly vile brothel into a fashionable nightclub. He hired singers who actually could sing, rather than belly-dancers renowned only for their ability to pleasure simultaneously an inordinate number of patrons, and he replaced the group of criminals, cripples, degenerates and relics who had served as an orchestra with genuine musicians from Paris, London and New Orleans. Finally, he had struck an exclusive deal with Turkey’s leading importer of American phonograph records, so that his club would introduce the latest Cole Porter or Irving Berlin song to Istanbul weeks before the Fred Astaire or Paul Whiteman versions became available.
It started to rain, and he began to feel as if vinegar were being pissed into his open wounds. Perhaps he had not outgrown pain after all. The entrails piled on his empty belly must be steaming. Somewhere above, but quite near, he heard music. It was Victor Young and His Orchestra with The Boswell Sisters, performing ‘I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten Cent Store’. He stopped crawling, and feeling came back to his misaligned elbows. He tossed his head, and the bloody flap lifted from his face and fell more or less in its proper place. He looked down at himself. He was already covered with flies, and a scraggy monkey, a refugee from some street act, was picking at one of his ankles. It looked hungry enough to forget it was supposed to be a herbivore.
As usual, he had got bored with an easy life, and expanded his operations. He had never entirely taken his establishment out of the business of procuring, and he soon rekindled his taste for the marketing of human flesh. He imported girls, and boys, from Greece, Egypt, various Balkan pretend countries, India, China, even the Socialist Workers’ Utopia across the Black Sea. Then, he found his acquaintances became useful in
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