"A safe-deposit box," I said, "that nobody can get into but me. Nobody."
Buzzers buzzed and guards paraded. We were shortly in the safe-deposit department.
"Two combinations," said Mudur Zengin. "The latest thing. One is yours and one is ours. Only you can appear. No one else can sign the card. Your photograph appears on it and the guards will look at you for sight recognition."
I was shortly in a private cubicle with the box. I laid the precious certificates in it. I laid the gold-sale original receipt on top. I then took out five certificates, each a half a million dollars. It hurt to do so but I did it. There were still 510 of them left in the box.
I rejoined Mudur Zengin. He was polishing his hands. I ended that by pushing a certificate into them. "I want this in cash," I said.
He stared at it. "Cash?"
He suddenly pushed me into his office. He sat me down in the most comfortable chair. He would not hear a word until a clerk brought in kahve on a silver tray. It was like Switzerland all over again except that there it had been chocolate.
Having ascertained if my kahve was sweet enough, if it was just the right temperature, if I was warm enough and if the cushions were soft, he got down to business. "You had better tell me your banking problems, Sultan Bey. I was a friend of your father's, the great revolutionary hero." That was the traditional lie because I doubt if he had ever met the original Voltar surveyor. "I consider your problems as though they were my own. So speak."
I told him I owed the credit companies and had to go see them and pay them off and try to cancel their cards.
He was snapping his fingers toward the door. A clerk appeared with a tweed overcoat and a homburg hat.
"You need," said Mudur Zengin, "professional guidance. Credit companies are a bit tricky. I would never forgive myself if you went wrong."
We went out and got into the taxi and then we began our rounds. First was American Oppress.
"Cancel your card?" screamed the manager. "Never! Suppose you cancelled ours and left just one other in force! It would be discriminatory. We would sue you for an attempt to ruin our reputation! Sultan Bey, as a leading citizen with unlimited credit, you have a socio-economic responsibility to support the institutions of the world!"
The American Oppress manager was raving so that his staff was peeking in, keeping clubs handy in case we upset him further.
"Leave this to me," whispered Mudur Zengin.
He went over and soothingly stroked the shoulder of the manager. He whispered to him and then the man nodded and smiled.
"Come," said Mudur Zengin and hurried me out.
We went to Dunner's Club. It was the same. We went to Masker-Charge. It was the same. We went to the Istanbul lair of Start Blanching and the act repeated. We kept on, credit-card company by credit-card company. All the same. We finally only had one left.
"What are you telling them?" I asked him.
"Very simple," said Mudur Zengin. "I am telling them that I will start for you a bills-paying account at the bank. You should not bother yourself with these trifles. All you have to do is put half a million in the account and they will send their bills to it and the bank will pay. They need never come near you again."
Wonderful! Just what I wanted. Never to see those dogs again. And I was laughing to myself. I had a plan that never, never, never in the future would any credit card ever be used!
We went to the final one, Squeeza. This was the touchy one. Krak held their card. If I cancelled it, she would find out the moment she tried to make another purchase on it: they would fly into her face and throw things. And the Countess Krak would then get suspicious and she might take it into her head to look me up. Later, I could have her done away with, when Lombar sent the word it was now okay to kill Heller. But to prematurely face the Countess Krak was above my stamina utterly. I could not close off the use of that one card.
Sure enough, the Squeeza manager met us with a triumphant smile. "Aha! Sultan Bey! Your concubine is keeping up the tradition expected of a citizen like you. She is buying, buying, buying in New York-by WATS line, no doubt. Splendid, Sultan Bey. Splendid!"
I looked at Mudur Zengin. He looked taken aback. Obviously, this was a new factor entering the scene that he hadn't taken into banker planning.
I said, "There's a special account being set up at the bank for all the credit companies; I am sure there will be no problem."
"Oh, I don't know," said the Squeeza manager. "Our company is different. It prides itself on individualism. That is why we charge such high penalties a month. In fact, I was just looking at your account when the secretary saw you get out of your cab-we knew of course that you just landed here from Zurich in the private jet and took twenty-one and a half minutes getting in from the airport to the bank-and in just twenty-two hours from now, your bills go under the usual 100-percent-per-month delinquent penalty as allowed by the new underprivileged-creditors law. So are you going to pay this bill or do we foreclose on the villa?"
I felt faint.
Mudur Zengin supported me to keep me from falling. He said, "I will give you a bank draft right now for the bill, manager."
"Aha!" said Squeeza's man on the job. "We will accept that this time as a favor to you. But we cannot keep accepting it."
"There must be some way," said Mudur Zengin.
"Well, yes, there is," said the Squeeza manager. "If you give us just one of those Zorich Banking Corporation certificates to hold-assigned to us merely as collateral and still yours-we will promise faithfully not to charge you any penalties and not to foreclose on your villa unless delinquency exceeds it in any given quarter."
"That's a good deal," Mudur Zengin whispered to me.
I sighed. What else could I do? I hauled out one precious certificate and passed it over.
"As a matter of fact," said the Squeeza manager, "I had the contract and receipt for it all made out. Right here. Please sign."
It appeared in the small print that the certificate was theirs if a delinquency occurred at the end of any quarter. But I would keep that from happening. I signed. Mudur Zengin made out a draft on the bank and paid the current bill.
"Now, remember that at Squeeza," said the manager, taking the bank draft and putting it with the papers in a safe with teeth, "you must hereafter personally pay the bill in person. It is one of the rules of our owner, Grabbe-Manhattan Bank of New York."
Oho! A Rockecenter company! No wonder it was run so efficiently!
"Only if our customers come in and fawn at the door monthly can we guarantee we are doing a proper job of world reform, teaching the lessons of slavery and thrift," the manager said. "And remember our motto, 'Buy, buy!'"
I chose to take it as a cue. I left hurriedly.
Thank Gods, including Allah, I had the credit companies off my neck!
And there were changes still to come. Gods help those who had been badgering me and tormenting me. Money is POWER and revenge is sweet! They would suffer far more than they had made me suffer. Including Krak and Heller!
Mudur Zengin, back in his office, was a very persuasive man. He no more than got his hat and coat off, with me ensconced in his most comfortable chair, than he began to pace back and forth on his priceless Persian rug, now and then tossing his fat hands into the air and gazing up toward Allah with his jowls shaking.
"Whatever is wrong now?" I said at last in some alarm.
He stopped. "The crime rate! Have you seen that it has trebled in the last three months compounded quarterly? The very thought of you, the son of my oldest friend, lying prostrate beside the road with your skull caved in by robbers..." And once more he began pacing and throwing his hands up into the air.