We roared past the Egyptian Bazaar, twisted our way into the mainstream of the approaches and were soon rattling across the Galata Bridge which separates the Golden Horn from the Bosporus.
We progressed through a band of smoke-belching factories and, diving down some questionable alleyways, at length emerged into an area which might have once been an estate but which today was a gecekondu, a word which means "set down by night" and designates a squatter town of the meanest hovels.
Wheels skidding in garbage and mud, the taxi approached what might have once been a stable but was now held together mainly by the sheet-iron shanties that were using it for a back wall.
"You let me do all the talking," said the taxi driver, Ahmed. "And throw your coat or something over that bale of money." He got out and approached a door.
I did as he asked. Looking at some of the people around here, I also reloaded the shotgun. Gods, but this was a slum!
The taxi driver came back shortly. He beckoned me to get out. He locked up the cab thoroughly. He whispered, "Now, don't let out any cries of delight or anything like that. This is a real find. The general owned this estate once. He was a very famous man. They have no idea at all of the value of the car, as it was bought when the lira was worth a hundred times what it is now. So don't go shouting 'huzzah.' And don't go throwing your cap in the air. And let me do the bargaining."
I agreed. By bending down and going through a tunnel of fallen stone, we came into a dim area.
There was a loud bustle and squawk. Disturbed chickens were flying everywhere!
My eyes became accustomed to the gloom. A huge bulk of something loomed. It was covered with a worn-out army tarpaulin. And the tarpaulin was covered totally with chicken dung.
I heard a sort of evil cackle to my right. An ancient man was standing there. He had a nose like a beak. He had no teeth. That laugh was reminiscent of the Manco Devil.
A woman bustled in from a side door. She had two naked children clinging to her skirt. She was very fat and very dirty.
"Where's the car?" I whispered to Ahmed.
"Right there," he said. "Don't try to lift the tarpaulin. I've been through all that. It's all right."
I peeked anyway. I saw a tire so flat, the rim was through the rubber. I went a little further. I flinched. I was staring eye to eye with an eagle! It was bright red.
Its wings were outstretched. It had horns! It was painted on the door.
"The general was descended from the Gok Turks," whispered the taxi driver. "One of his ancestors was the Turk hero, Kultegin. That eagle appears in his crown. Ain't it great?"
I dropped the tarpaulin and wiped some chicken dung off my fingers in straw. "Is there any car behind it?" I asked.
"It's a Daimler-Benz," whispered Ahmed. "Don't be misled. It's been sitting there for more than a quarter of a century. It needs a little work."
The dirty woman spoke up. It was just as though she was picking up a conversation that had not been concluded. "And I won't take a kuru less!"
"I'd have to see the registration papers," said Ahmed. "How do I know they're valid?"
She reached into her apron pocket. "They're right here and I own it. You're not going to swindle me out of anything! I was his cook and the court awarded it to me for unpaid wages. Here's all the papers. And you can argue until you explode and I am not going to reduce it one piastre! I know you swindlers. This car has historical significance. He was shot right there in the back seat."
"I thought it was bulletproof," I whispered.
"He had the window down," said Ahmed. Then to the woman he said, "Well, all right, hanim, if that's the way it is, we'll take it."
I tugged his sleeve urgently. "Wait, wait," I whispered. "This thing won't even run!"
Ahmed brushed my hand off. "I told you not to appear excited," he whispered. "You'll drive the price up."
I moaned to myself. Here went the bulk of my week's allowance for a piece of junk!
Ahmed and the woman did a firm handshake. She said, "I'll sign over the papers just the moment I see the money."
Ahmed turned to me. He said, "Here are the keys. I don't want to be handling your money. Run out and get twenty thousand lira."
I was stunned. I almost laughed. And then I remembered in time his admonition. I raced out and undid the bale. I grabbed a double handful, locked the taxi and raced back in. I was hard put not to guffaw aloud. Twenty thousand lira is only two hundred U. S. dollars!
The ancient man was standing there cackling his evil laugh.
Ahmed got the papers all signed and counted two hundred hundred-lira notes into her hand, told her someone would come for it.
We drove away. "You had me worried there," he said. "I was afraid you'd let the cat out of the bag that we were practically stealing it."
"Why so cheap?" I said. "It would be worth that for scrap."
"I think the general was on the wrong side," said Ahmed. "He tried to stage a counter-coup and put a sultan back on the throne. But we're in cars, not politics. I've got to get over to Yolcuzade Street and get to the garage that told me about it."
Soon, we were in a more civilized part of Beyoglu, the area of Istanbul on the north side of the Golden Horn. We pulled up in a ramshackle garage where lots of trucks stood about in various stages of disrepair.
A tough-looking Turk came over and he and Ahmed walked away. Ahmed was showing him the registration papers. They had a low-voiced conversation and suddenly the tough Turk's voice rose to a crescendo.
"But," he yelled, "I went over myself and inspected it! It needs new tires, new hoses, new gaskets, new exhaust pipes, new upholstery and a dead rabbit taken out of the transmission! I won't do it for a kuru less than..."
Ahmed was shushing him. He led him much further away. Finally Ahmed came over to the taxi. "I finally beat him down. He'll put it all in running order but he demands we pay him in advance. Give me five thousand of those hundred-lira notes."
"Five hundred thousand lira!" I gaped.
"Well, yes. They don't make parts for it anymore and any they need will have to be hand-machined. That's only five thousand U. S. dollars. We own it now. We can't just let it sit there. The police would get after us."
I knew I was beaten.
"Here," he said, "I'll help you count it out."
"No, no," I said. "I'll let nobody touch money now but me." I began to pick up packets of hundred-lira notes. It made the bale less than half.
He got a big basket and carted the money away.
Oh, well, it was a one-time-only expense. And I could call upon the Afyon Branch at any time for more.
I wondered what the car was really like under that coating of chicken dung.
Along routes taken by the victorious Alexander, in the paths of the Romans who had conquered the East, over the broad highways established by the Crusaders in their holy cause, I sped back to Afyon.
The old Citroen taxi with Deplor of planet Modon at the wheel might not have compared to the cloth-of-gold caparisoned horses who had carried the swaggering giants of history when they invaded Asia, but it made better time. It ignored the shouts and shaken fists which always, since time began, have protested the overrunning of Anatolia and laying it waste with lakes of blood. Travelling at ninety and a hundred miles an hour, the taxi's way was not seriously disputed by other motorists, trucks, donkeys and camels. We were going too fast for them to note down the license plates and they were only riffraff anyway, far beneath a conqueror's contempt.
There were going to be some changes made.