Zeitgeist

DISTRACTION

HOLY FIRE

HEAVY WEATHER

NOVELS

DISTRACTION

THE ARTIFICIAL KID

THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE

with William Gibson

HEAVY WEATHER

INVOLUTION OCEAN

ISLANDS IN THE NET

SCHISMATRIX

HOLY FIRE

STORIES

CRYSTAL EXPRESS

GLOBALHEAD

A GOOD OLD-FASHIONED FUTURE

NONFICTION

THE HACKER CRACKDOWN:

LAW AND DISORDER ON THE

ELECTRONIC FRONTIER

EDITOR

MIRRORSHADES:

THE CYBERPUNK ANTHOLOGY

SUMMER IN ISTANBUL. ROSES IN A HAMMERED SILVER urn. Fresh-ground coffee in a shiny brass hand-mill. The rich tang of fertilizer and fuel oil hung over the damaged café. Starlitz could smell the hot caramel aftertaste of the car bomb, right through the baked metal, smashed cement, and burnt upholstery.

“Where are the girls?” said the Turk.

“The girls are in Cyprus. They’re partying.”

“With Greeks?”

“Oh, heavens no,” Starlitz assured him. “The girls are in the
fun
part of Cyprus.
Turkish
Cyprus.”

The Turk smiled. He picked open the lid of the coffeepot and deposited a heaping spoon of brown sugar.

Starlitz leaned back in his wrought-iron chair and folded his plump hands over his lilac waistcoat. He and the Turk sat in companionable silence, with hooded eyes behind their designer shades, and watched the pot reach a boil.

The Turk, who called himself Mehmet Ozbey, was young, and rich, with a film star’s good looks. In his Italian leather jeans and camel-hair jacket, Ozbey was the picture of masculine chic.

Starlitz felt at peace. Local events were going very much his way. There had been a time in his checkered career when he would have shown up in Istanbul two days
before
a car bomb. He would have hit town with the plan, and the contacts, and the agenda, and he would have
found the old city strained and jittery with fatalistic Ottoman tension.

Here at the tag end of the twentieth century, however, Starlitz was pampered by circumstance. He had arrived in Istanbul two days
after
a car bomb. The catastrophe was behind them now. They had entered the professional realm of consequence management. Bored Turkish cops measured their new monster pothole with yellow metal pull-tapes. Indifferent janitors swept up the scattered tonnage of broken glass. Istanbul downtown girls, in their chunky gold chains and Chanel suits, were trying to window-shop through the street’s battered length of plywood sheeting.

Mere domestic terrorism could not cause Mehmet Ozbey to break a business appointment. The shrapnel-damaged café was almost deserted, but the young pop promoter had arrived bang on time, clean, shaved, sober, and toting a white calfskin valise. The café Ozbey had chosen was lovely, though its windows had all been shattered by the car bomb’s concussion. The café staff doted on Ozbey, touched by his loyalty during their trying circumstances. They kept tiptoeing up to offer lacquered trays of sliced melon and baklava.

A young woman passed the damaged café and caught sight of Ozbey. Instantly entranced, she stumbled headlong into a striped police sawhorse.

“My little girlfriend Gonca,” Ozbey remarked solemnly, “would very much like to meet your G-7 girls.”

“I’m sure that can be arranged.”

“She’s especially fond of the French One.”

“Everyone has a favorite G-7 girl,” Starlitz allowed.

“The French One has the most talent,” said Ozbey judiciously. “She can almost sing.”

Starlitz nodded. “Yeah, that’s her Left Bank café chanteuse riff.”

Starlitz and Ozbey watched the pot foam up, once, twice, and the full and traditional third time. Starlitz was pleased to have stolen this moment from the onrushing millennium. It was important to pry these little breathing
spaces from the final hum of the dying century. It was good for him, like oxygen.

Ozbey removed the curved pot from its flickering burner, and with exaggerated hostly care he began to pour.

“Why is there no Russian G-7 girl?” Ozbey said, setting the pot aside. “Because it’s the Group of Eight now, officially. With Russia.”

“That’s an odd thing,” said Starlitz, accepting his cup. “No one ever asks me why we have no Russian girl in the group. Unless they’re Russian.”

“You don’t like Russians, Mr. Starlitz?”

“I fucking love Russians,” Starlitz said politely, “but Russians just don’t get it with the tie-in merchandising angle. They still think that a pop group has to sell music.”

Ozbey removed his shades, folded them fastidiously, put them in an inner jacket pocket. He lifted his gleaming demitasse and gazed at Starlitz across its gilded rim. “ ‘Selling the whole concept,’ ” he quoted.

“Right you are.” Starlitz savored a sip. He rinsed his molars with the coffee grounds. That subtle flavor of cardamom. Business was good.

Ozbey cocked his freshly coiffed head. “We sell the big picture. We sell the whole bag of wax.”

“It’s the spirit of the times.” Starlitz nodded. “It’s the soul of postmodernity.”

“We sell little plastic dolls, for instance.”

“ ‘G-7 action figures,’ ” Starlitz corrected.

“They’re very popular with children. And the lip gloss. The candies. Those very big shoes that they wear.”

“Yeah, G-7 WonderBras, G-7 pantyhose—the tie-in apparel thing has definitely been a breakthrough area for us.”

Ozbey put his cup down and leaned in intently. “Who is your supplier? For the clothes.”

“Indonesia, mostly,” said Starlitz. “Before the currency crash.”

Ozbey placed his jacketed elbows on the polished marble tabletop. “My Uncle the Minister,” he announced,
“has many interests in the Turkish apparel trade. He is very influential in domestic Turkish manufacturing.”

“You don’t say.” Starlitz scratched his double chin thoughtfully. “That’s very interesting.”

“My Uncle the Minister has extensive interests in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.”

“The Republic is a very interesting place,” said Starlitz, leaning forward in tandem. “After just one week on the ground in Turkish Cyprus, I could tell that it’s a country of tremendous opportunity.”

Starlitz lifted one meaty hand in mock demurral. “Yes, I know—some people claim that the Greek half of the island has a better tourist industry. But if you ask me, the Greek scene in Cyprus is yesterday. They’re all overbuilt and tapped out. All those nightclubs, and the rave scene, and the big cruise ships in from Beirut …”

“Let me show you the Meridien,” said Ozbey. “Turgut Altimbasak’s casino in Girne. That establishment is very … what is the English word?”

“ ‘Suave’?”

“Yes! Very suave, very international-playboy. Mr. Altimbasak is a friend of my uncle’s. You could gamble freely there, Mr. Starlitz. You could run a big tab.”

Starlitz considered this bold proposal. It was very much to his liking. “Call me Lech,” he said.

“Okay!” grinned Ozbey. “You call me ‘Mehmetcik.’ Mehmetcik, it’s like ‘Johnny.’ ”

“Mehmetcik, my friend, let’s be frank together,” said Starlitz, steepling his big blunt fingers. “In the past we in G-7 were very displeased with our offshore accounts in Jersey and Bimini. But then you brought those Turkish Cypriot banks to our attention. Your Uncle the Minister had a few helpful words there. It’s all very smooth now. That broke up the red tape. My accountant’s very happy about all this.”

“It’s good to have happy accountants,” said Ozbey. “We should all have happy accountants.”

“We can all be very happy doing business together,”
Starlitz said. “As long as we always remember the number-one G-7 rule.”

“The number-one rule is that everything shuts down before the year 2000.”

Starlitz leaned back in contentment. “Mehmetcik, I knew you were special from the first time you sent us fan mail.”

Ozbey nodded intently. He was shifting gears now, onto his favorite topic, himself. “People tell me that I’m special,” he concurred. “My Uncle the Minister, my wife, my girlfriend, my many good friends in the pop business world—they all say I have a very special gift.”