The Serenity Murders by Mehmet Murat Somer

the stage and began swaying her hair as she danced a dance she believed to be erotic.
    “Burçak, you’re not listening to me,” said Hasan.
    He was right. I wasn’t listening. I couldn’t care less whether we had used up two bottles of gin instead of three bottles of whiskey, or how many kegs of beer were sold over the weekend.
    “Have you started again?” he asked, motioning with his headtoward the corner where Hüseyin sat. I wanted to slap that cynical smile off his face. Instead I tried taking a deep breath.
    “Come with me,” I said, grabbing hold of his arm and dragging him upstairs, into the storage room we called our office. He walked in front of me, giving the low-rise jeans slipping down his butt a yank with each step. When we reached the top of the narrow staircase, Hüseyin’s head appeared at the bottom. He had come after me as if I were running away, and looked at me with an expression of concern and curiosity.
    “You wait there,” I said, shouting in an attempt to make my voice heard over the earsplitting music.
    I ignored Hasan’s giggle and made do with opening the door and fiercely shoving him into the office.
    I paid no mind to his plea, “
Ay
, take it easy!” as I closed the door behind us.
    “Look here, darling,” I told him. When I start a sentence with “darling,” and say it in that tone, he knows I mean business.
    He studied my face carefully, widening his eyes. “
Ay
, you’re angry,
ayol
.”
    “Yes, I know, don’t push my buttons.”
    Strangely enough, Hasan too had picked up “
ayol
.” Following the visit of my friend from Rio, drag queen Suzy Bumbum Ricardo, Hasan had let himself go; he’d become completely unwound. Ricardo had been in town on a dual pleasure and business trip, her itinerary consisting of sightseeing and performing at our club. The utterly feminine Ricardo and Hasan had gotten on like a house on fire. Meanwhile, Hasan had driven me mad by being at Ricardo’s beck and call every minute. She hadn’t had to ask for anything twice, and when she finally left, she gave her most flamboyant stage costume to Hasan as a token of remembrance. Thus this leafy green costume, which was adorned with sequins from head to toe yet nevertheless covered only a small portion of the body,hung right in front of me, in its nylon packaging. Even in the dim lighting, the sequins on it glittered.
    Sharing any old gossip with Hasan and Hasan alone was enough to ensure that the masses got wind of it immediately, whether it concerned them or not. He had an extraordinary ability to disseminate such gossip at an incredible speed. He even managed to deliver it in less than twenty-four hours to people he hadn’t even seen in person. And since I was aware of this splendid trait of his, my prologue ran a little longer than usual. With utmost clarity I explained to him that there was no room for joking around or sloppy gossip, and I made him repeat each important sentence after me.
    “And darling, as you may have guessed by now, it could very well happen to you too,” I said, to intimidate him.
    Upon hearing this, Hasan put both his hands over his mouth and opened his eyes wide, but not a single sound escaped his mouth.
    “You see now why Hüseyin is here?”
    He nodded yes.
    And then, in a hugely theatrical air reminiscent of Ricardo, he joined his hands over his heart and said in a high-pitched voice that would make countertenors green with envy: “The situation is grim!”
    That sound couldn’t possibly have come from the Hasan I knew. Unless, of course, he’d secretly been taking singing lessons for the last couple of months. It sounded as if he’d borrowed the shrieks of our national nightingale Sertab Erener, winner of the 2003 Eurovision Song Contest.
    A knock on the door halted our conversation from reaching its conclusion. I opened the door violently, thinking it was probably Hüseyin. But instead, there in front of me stood none other than she of the colossal bushy