Free Zeitgeist by Bruce Sterling

fired.”
    “You can’t fire me! I quit!”
    “Great. That’s even better.” Starlitz dug in his back pocket. “I can’t give you one thin dime from the G-7 account, because Nick the Accountant just wouldn’t hear of that. But I’m a good sport, so I’ll do you a personal favor. Here’s a hundred bucks. That’ll get you to Istanbul. They got planes to all over from there, so call your parents and get a ticket to wherever.”
    She looked at the crisp hundred-dollar bill in disbelief. “Hey! Wait a minute! You can’t just kick me out of the act and leave me in a strange country!”
    “Of course I can. Do it all the time.”
    “Hey. I’m not like the Japanese One, okay? I’m the American One! I’ll sue you.”
    “You wouldn’t be the first to try, but I wouldn’t waste Mom and Dad’s money in the Panamanian court system. Go be true to thine own self now, babe. You’ve screwed up my operation, and created a lot of extra work and hasslefor me, but I’m cool about that. No hard feelings. So long.”
    Starlitz left her fuming. He sought out Turgut Altimbasak and had all the keys changed in the rooms of the American One and her layabout personal entourage.
    The casino owner was totally obliging and agreeable. “I understand the difficulty, Mr. Starlitz. We’ll do just as you say.”
    “Mrs. Dinsmore and her assistants will be throwing quite a bit of luggage into the street tonight. Tell the bellhops to pay no mind.”
    Altimbasak pawed at the leather thong of his worry beads. “Is Mr. Ozbey happy tonight?”
    “Why ask me?”
    “If you could speak with Mr. Ozbey about me … You are his business partner, I know that he listens to you.…”
    Starlitz frowned at him. “You got Ozbey the best penthouse suite in the joint, right? Adjoining rooms for his boys? Private boudoir for the girlfriend? Limos standing by, fax machines running, a big booze tab?”
    “Yes, yes, of course we did all that. Of course!”
    “Well, if the red-carpet treatment doesn’t mellow him out, nothing will.”
    “Mr. Ozbey’s friends are very powerful.” Altimbasak lowered his voice to a reedy whisper. “He has many friends in the MHP … and the ANAP.… I don’t want him to think that I might be in DHKC! Or, my God, that I have anything at all to do with the PKK!”
    “Yeah, yeah.” Starlitz nodded helpfully. “Well, those sound like legitimate concerns. I’ll have a word with Mehmet tonight, and see if I can’t get that straightened out.”
    “Thank you so much.” Vague hope was dawning in Altimbasak’s glassy eyes. “That would be so wonderful.…”
    Starlitz briskly returned to the evening’s festivities. Gonca Utz was doing her closing number. She had a backing track, a bread-loaf microphone, and a white satingown. Gonca required nothing else. Finally given the spotlight she deserved, she had publicly flung open the depths of her being.
    Gonca slid into the song’s secret depths like fingertips filling a kidskin glove. Glittering eyes half-lidded, she emitted a soulful ululation that set men’s hair on end all over the building.
    Starlitz fought his way into the room and across the grain of Gonca’s voice. He managed to reach Ozbey, where the Turk stood, arms folded, in judgment, amid a pack of his armed retainers.
    “The song is old-fashioned,” Ozbey remarked.
    “Damn,” Starlitz gritted.
    Ozbey smiled triumphantly. “It’s a shame she has so much talent,” he said. “It seemed like such a good idea, to find a Turkish girl with the true talent. But now that I find such a girl, what am I to do with her? You see, she is a voice of the people.”
    Starlitz forced a nod. “Yeah.”
    “They are a very great people, the Turks. You see that now, don’t you? A people’s soul, that is what I found in her.”
    “Oh, yeah,” Starlitz said, coughing. “I grasp the situation, man. It’s way hard to miss.”
    “I’m glad that you agree with me. Of course you do. You are a man of perception.