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bargain with shopkeepers. Once again I caught all those sex-starved men in the area stripping them with their eyes. I think that the pleasure I derive from reading Evliya Çelebi is comparable to the basic human sex drive.
    My favourite soup kitchen is by the Lütfullah Gate in the left wing of the Grand Bazaar. Over the arched entrance is engraved the year when space was allotted for more than 4,400 shops. I was upset at being unable to subtract 1461 from 1991 to figure out its age. I can send a bullet through the eye of a needle while at the same time dealing with a couple of roughnecks, but I’ve no head for mathematics. As a result I’d shied away from the secondhand book business.
    Coming out of the soup kitchen, and struggling with a broken toothpick in my mouth, I was addressed by a stout man with a face like a self-satisfied turkey.
    â€˜I hope you enjoyed your meal, Commando Bedirhan!’ he said. With his bureaucrat’s air, this fifty-year-old pain in the neck was grabbing the opportunity to thrust his forged business card under my nose: ‘Ali Hadi Bora – Retired Chief Inspector’. I was taken aback when he continued, ‘Don’t worry, Commando. If you just listen to me for ten minutes, I have a terrific offer for you.’ Taking my arm, he pushed me into the first empty coffee house, and took it upon himself to order two sage teas.
    â€˜You did good work in Tarlabaşı, congratulations! Because you handed out retribution to those killer-robots, prayers for you will never cease. Your dossier is reckoned to be closed. According to the tabloids, “The rival gangs have settled old scores.” Because of insensitivity, fear, the legal vacuum and bureaucracy, in Istanbul particularly, so many hoodlums like Zazo who’ve damaged the social order are obstructing the state’s good works.
    â€˜To be frank, I’m a member of an organization called Mecruh, whose dream is to eliminate microbes like him.
Mecruh
means “hurt” or “injured” in Arabic. In exchange for a fee from injured clients we assist justice by restoring their rights. We are incredibly powerful, consisting of élite members. If you join as our hitman, you will achieve material and spiritual prosperity. You will usually be required to do one job a year, and your salary will begin at $100,000, with a down payment of 20 per cent. If all goes well, you’ll be a millionaire in ten years. Let me add, while I remember, that Mecruh never sheds any innocent blood for money.
    â€˜You are strong, a true marksman, you keep your mouth shut, you don’t chase after sex and you’re on your own. Commando, you must have been sent from heaven to do this work. I’ll balance your passion for books with personal training. (If you join us I’ll be your contact.) We will never use the Tarlabaşı incident against you. But if we wish, we can get rid of you for crimes you’ve never even committed, my dear veteran of Hakkâri.
    â€˜We offer you a job which is well paid, exciting and beneficial to society. There’s $5,000 in the envelope I’m putting in your pocket. Consider it a gift. You’ll be on leave on Thursday next week. We can meet then at the same time in this pissy coffee house. Think about it. If you don’t come back here in seven days, the money in your pocket is as much yours as your mother’s white milk.
    â€˜I know you’re about to buy a book from the secondhand book-market and then rush off to the Şafak Cinema in Çemberlitaş. But don’t forget, Commando, there are pleasures more profound.’

    I insisted on two things: the hideous, grotesque Baybora must persuade me of the victim’s guilt and must never again address me as ‘Commando’ in his insolent way.
    My first job was to punish a professor of mathematics, a pretentious follower of the West who insulted our religion in his speech and writings, and