Serhat stood in the shower, his head down, eyes wide open, a hand bracing on the tiled wall while he ran everything over and again in his head yet could focus on none.
He turned off the faucet.
At the wall-mounted, fog-free mirror above the wall mount vessel sink, he bored into his own reflection. The years had put on a few extra pounds he wore with confidence. But with all the many hours he spent at the gym, he doubted he could keep up for long as he got even older. Tracing a hand up his neck, he ran it along his bearded jawline ever less defined, his beard a solution that merely capped a boiling pot of hatred and unease spilling over the edge. A snicker escaped his throat at humanity's ineptitude against the ticking clock.
He slapped his cheeks, his head shaking, his russet brown eyes drab and droopy. Indignation at Arslan aside, he wanted to join the Eternal Project, or else he wouldn't have gone all in with his betrayal and offered Mustafa the Phantom Lord's identity. Little did he expect that beyond the stem cell research and bio-printing, the project was a human butchery, and the division of parties a mere smokescreen to divert the masses from ever looking in at the union beneath. But he should have anticipated the hidden cost. Why else should anyone oppose a science project that promised to build the Tower of Babel? A snort rattled through his nose.
Oh, he'd have very much liked to have a seat at that filthy table, had they sent him an invitation other than making him a butcher.
Gnashing his teeth, he banged a fist at the granite countertop.
"Mirror," he grunted. "Call Armo Palermo."
Overlaying his reflection, a new interface popped out, dialing.
"Yes?" the hoarse voice came through the sound system embedded in the wall as the other picked up.
"I need you to pick me up again. We're going back to my mother's."
"So soon?"
"You have a problem?"
"Nah, sir," Armo cackled. "It's just that from your earlier reaction, I thought you wouldn't like to see Lady Effendi for a while."
"Who says I was going to see her?" he snapped, glaring at his face in the mirror. "I need to speak to Arslan. Better to catch him at home than work, eh? Pick me up in an hour."
"I can stop by now. Having breakfast at Donald's."
Serhat scowled, one brow raising over the other as he glanced at the time. "Who the fuck eats at four a.m.?"
"The fuck who works at four a.m.," the man riposted, his hoarse voice unhurried.
A pause, small enough to have gone unnoticed. "Have I not compensated you well, Armo?"
"Yes," the man drawled, likely with his mouth full. "But that's for my family. I never have the time to enjoy your generous compensation, boss."
"You have an hour to enjoy your plate now," Serhat blurted, spraying tonner on his neck and face.
Armo let his laugh drag, his cackles grating the sound system. "I'd prefer the smell of cunts in bed at this hour than bacon."
Serhat joined his laugh. "Tell me, Armo, how did you stay in Mother's grace all these years?"
Teeth gritted, cutlery clacking. "I never did." The man smacked his lips. "It's your grandfather who kept me around to keep your company like I was supposed to play the role of your dead father."
"Did you kill him like what the rumor has it, my father, I mean?" Serhat put donw the jar of caviar cream.
The man took a pause, longer than perhaps intended. "It's been forty years now, Sir."
"So?"
"I expected the question from you many years ago. But you never asked. Why now?"
Serhat shrugged, his eyes empty. "Just realized I knew absolutely nothing about him. He's part of me which I didn't deign to acknowledge. But as I get older, I want to understand myself better, including the half of me that isn't Effendi."
"A handsome nobody, I'd say," Armo burped, accompanied by a sardonic chuckle. "If he was born in your time or later, you'd scouted him, and crushed him."
Serhat attempted a laugh. "You still haven't answered my question."
"I'm not obliged to."
"So, you did."
When the other didn't respond, silence slithered the air like a tickling tongue. Serhat shifted between his feet. His breath hitched.
"No."
"Took you long enough to decide."
The other cackled. "It wasn't my answer that took the time to decide but this. That you've already decided what you wanna believe. So I debated why wasting explaining."
"What changed your mind?" He twisted open the jar of caviar cream.
The other swigged whatever was at his hand, likely coffee with a mix of something stiff he carried in his flask. "It's my call whether you should hear it from me, and yours how you should take it. I cleared up on the logic, and the decision was made."
"Who shot him?"
"Your grandfather," Armo sounded bored as he smacked his lips. "He made me take care of the body, of course, and there you have your rumor."
Serhat wiped a hand down his face, the cream smudged on his skin. "Some compensation he must have made you, I take?"
"Hmph," he paused to take another sip. "No offense, sir, but wrong question."
Serhat squinted, gritting his teeth, his knuckles white while his hands doubled into fists.
"Nobody works for free, and of course, I was compensated," the hoarse voice went on. "Your grandfather needed you as a grandson. Naturally, he didn't want you to hate him. If you have to blame someone for your father's death, better that one is an outsider, like me. And so long as there is no evidence against me, why should I care? But here is the question you should ask: why didn't you blame me? Quite the contrary, you bossed me around like I was some kind of male nanny. Was that your way of getting back at me?"
Rubbing his face, Serhat sniffed. Part of him knew he should be tangled in guilt by now. But he felt nothing, nothing but a dark void in which he fell freely. He didn't ask because he didn't care. Why should he?
When he didn't reply, Armo continued, "Anything else? Other old ledgers you want me to blow dust off?"
Serhat hawked up a dry cackle. "Just meet me here in an hour. Arslan the old fox is avoiding me. I need to be sure he won't succeed this time."
"Why not just call him and ask for a meeting?"
"He won't answer."
"Have you tried? Would seem more sincere if you call for a meeting than pouncing on him from the dark, eh?"
Caught in the mirror, a smirk was tugging at his lips. "You're the closest thing I have to a father, old man."
"And you're a hell of a shit son," Armo scoffed. "I'll come after you call Lord Qusbecq." He hung up, leaving Serhat staring at his naked self, wondering who was the boss in this relationship and if the dynamics had always been shifting without him knowing.
"Mirror," he said.
"Yes, my lord?"
"Send a message to Armo Palermo, and ask him to come here at his earliest convenience. I need someone to practice the meeting with. Ask him nicely."
"Sent."
***