HE SPENT ALL MORNING waiting for a call-somebody from Tommy’s office at the consulate, maybe even the Consul himself. The account in Hürriyet had been skimpy, a businessman shot, but the details were already racing through the foreign community. Why hadn’t Barbara been invited to the party at the college? Why had Tommy left early? Heading away from town? Suspicions percolated up and down the phone lines, but no one believed Tommy was seeing another woman, certainly not one who would shoot him. Which left robbery. Except, according to Barbara, his wallet had been in his pocket when the police found him. His gun had been fired, so he must have scared them off. But why was he carrying a gun?
A full morning of it, pacing, then staring at the phone, expectant. Turhan, Leon’s secretary, one of the Atatürk new women who didn’t cover her head, but still went home to her family at night, gave up any pretense of working, answering calls in a breathless voice, eyes wide with interest. During a normal day not much happened at R.J. Reynolds; today the phone kept ringing. But not with the call he wanted.
By noon, standing at the window overlooking Taksim, he realized that no one was going to contact him, that he was alone. Nobody knew. Did his name even appear on any record, some payment voucher? Tommy spreading his bets over the table, the way he liked it. Using someone outside so he could distance himself, someone to blame if anything went wrong. But why should it? A job so routine it hadn’t required the usual precautions. Tommy hadn’t even asked where the safe house was, just the neighborhood.
Why not? But the answer was the same one he’d been getting all night, sitting up with it. The address didn’t matter. Alexei was never supposed to get there. He was supposed to die on the quay. And Leon? Would he have been left there, Tommy squealing away in his car, not sure if he’d been recognized? Impossible to risk that. Of course he’d have to be killed too. An easy target, not expecting it, just picking up a package. Two people left dead. Who’d killed each other? How would Tommy have arranged it? Dressed the scene? He thought of his face at the Park bar, pink, reminiscing. Already planning it. And that always led back to why and the other answer he circled around, the one he wasn’t ready to accept. He gripped the windowsill as if his body had caught the swirling in his head.
Meanwhile, he had to hand Alexei on to someone. Who? Tommy’s people at OWI were already gone. The plants at Robert College, whoever they were? But Tommy hadn’t used any of them; they didn’t know. Nobody had called. His operation now. He had to find the next link in the chain. There must be a name, maybe in Ankara, maybe lying around Tommy’s desk.
But when he got to the consulate he found it surrounded, small clusters of people drawn by the police cars in the street, patrolmen at the gate cadging cigarettes from the guards, the carved American eagle over the door staring down at them all. Not just a consulate matter anymore, a courier assignment. A crime. Police. Wanting answers. Tommy setting up his own man. Why would they believe it? Why would the Consul? The only story they’d hear was that he had killed Tommy. His word against a dead man’s. What proof did he have besides Alexei himself, who wasn’t here, not to the police.
He looked up, some movement at the door, the Consul shaking hands with a Turk in a bulky suit. Cigarettes doused, orders being given, a few policemen staying behind, everyone else moving toward the gate. They passed around Leon as if he were a stick in a stream. Nobody knew. Getting into cars, writing up reports, not one of them looking at him. He stood there for a minute feeling them all around him, unable to move, invisible. Nobody knew.
They had arranged to meet in the secondhand booksellers market, a narrow passage shaded by plane trees near the Beyazit Mosque. Mihai was waiting at an English-language stall near the end, flipping through a book.
“You’re late. Anything on the car?”
Leon shook his head. “Nothing. If anybody saw it, they’re not saying. No calls from the consulate, either. Nobody.”
“You said there was a plane arranged.”
“That was Tommy’s job.”
“Then now it’s yours. You have to get him out. He starts to panic- Where’d you park him?”
Leon said nothing.
“They’ll be checking the hotels. First thing they do.”
“He’s not there.” He picked up a book, the cover a blur.
“As long as he’s in Istanbul, we’re- A man who’d sell out anybody. Cheap. He says what’s good for him. Not us.”
“But we didn’t- I mean-”
“Which explanation do you think they’ll believe? Let’s say the real one, what we were doing there. Just for the sake of argument. Your new friend can vouch for it,” he said, his voice suddenly hard. “A wonderful history of telling the truth. And then what? Your ambassador intervenes? An embarrassment for him. But let’s say he does. A deal. No prison. They deport us instead. Resident permit? Revoked. If they believe us.” He looked away. “We don’t want to explain anything.”
“We won’t have to. I’m telling you, nobody knows. If I can get him to the consulate-”
“The consulate. It’s police now. With a body. Murder. The Emniyet have to have at least one pair of ears over there. At least. Take him in and the police-” He let the thought finish itself. “And the Russians. If they’re watching, you wouldn’t even get him to the gate. Maybe what he deserves, but not the best thing now, an incident. More police.”
“He has to talk to somebody eventually. Tell them.”
Mihai made a wry face. “His American confessor. Discretion guaranteed.” He lifted a finger from his book. “But not here. If he’s gone, the Turks have nothing to use against us.” He placed the book on the barrow. “Except each other.” He looked at Leon, quiet for a second. “What are you going to do if there’s no plane?”
“Tommy said there was.”
“He said a lot of things. I know someone at the airport. I can have him check the manifests. Not a scheduled plane, I suppose, not for this passenger. Military?”
Leon shrugged his shoulders.
“Wonderful. All right, I’ll check all of them.”
“Look, you don’t have to get involved in this. You weren’t there, remember?”
“If everyone says so. But will they?” He looked over. “I’ll let you know about the airport.”
“You think there is a plane, then.”
“Probably. Your Tommy was passing him along. He’d want his end covered. It’s just that Jianu wasn’t going to be on it. Thanks to you. Given that any thought?”
Leon met his glance. “All night.”
“It’s something to think about,” Mihai said, turning to go, then put his hand on Leon’s upper arm, a good-bye gesture. “How long have you known me?” he said quietly. “There’s blood here. Like blood. We have to look out for each other.” He squeezed the hand tighter. “Keep your head. Everything normal. Or they’ll smell it. It’s not just for us. You know what I’m doing here. What Anna did. These people, it’s the last hope. For them I’d even help a pig like Jianu.” He dropped his hand, still looking at him. “Since you want him alive. Your new American friend.”
He got on the tram at Beyazit, preoccupied. It’s something to think about. Shooting at Jianu, shooting at him. How long had Tommy been someone else? But how do you prove it? Make one thing lead to another, like the stations on the map over the door. Next to him two women in robes and headscarves were talking to each other, as cut off from the rest of the car as if they were still in the harem, the men barely noticing, staring out the windows, stubble and bushy moustaches. Not Europe. Outside, the old city jerked past. The Blue Mosque. The Hippodrome. Chariot races a thousand years ago. Old enough to have seen everything, Alexei’s Iron Guard a modern version of an old story, infants impaled, blood smeared over doorways, bodies flung into the Golden Horn, staining the water. Everything. Not what Anna had seen, clutching her guidebook. The Iznik tiles. The delicate carvings on the minbar. A city of wonders to her, not the other one, no longer surprised by anything.
At Topkapi, a group of sailors fresh off the seraglio tour crowded into the car, and Leon had to turn, facing the back. At first there were just the same anonymous faces, then he felt a prickling on his skin. Someone he knew. Head down, reading a Turkish newspaper, the same man who’d come out of Marina’s building. A coincidence? When had he got on-before Leon? with Leon? So good Leon hadn’t noticed. Still not looking up from his paper.
Leon turned back. Or was it just his imagination, jumpy about everything now. A public tram, a man Marina said she didn’t know. Don’t turn to look again. The car was heading down the hill into the swirl of Sirkeci. He had begun to sweat.
When the doors opened, the crowd pushed in. For a second he felt out of breath, as if they had taken all the air out of the car. The buzzer rang. He held back, waiting, then plunged through the door just as it was closing. Don’t look back. A face at the window. Or maybe not. Something he’d never know. Keep moving. He took a gulp of air, heavy with diesel fumes and charcoal smoke, and headed over to the Eminönü piers. Out on the water you could think. Follow the logic, one thing leading to another. Tommy had used someone outside.
He took the ferry to Üsküdar, sitting in the open back of the boat with a glass of tea, something warm, his coat pulled tight. He went over it all again, each move like a step into open space with nothing to break the fall. He glanced over at the birds, circling, and tried to fix on landmarks, Galata Tower, the shipping offices in Karaköy, but they seemed insubstantial too, just something to graze with your fingers as you fell past. In over your head, a phrase he could actually picture now. Where Tommy had wanted him to be. Grab onto that, follow it.
Someone must still be expecting Alexei. There had been people in Bucharest, the fishing boat. Only Tommy’s link had broken. And now they’d come looking. But not for Leon, not yet. It was the trap that folded in on itself: the minute he went to someone about Alexei he was putting himself on the pier. And Mihai. He watched the boat crunch against the rubber tire buffers on the dock, the gangplanks being slid into place. Everybody in one another’s hands.
He changed boats for Beşiktaş, looking at people, half expecting to see the man from the train. Two places, a coincidence? But there were only clumps of men in woolen peacoats, smoking, indifferent. Didn’t anything show in his face? A man dead. When they landed, he stood on the pier for a minute, at a loss. Commuters brushed past him as if he weren’t there, like the police at the consulate. Nobody knew. Go back to the office. Everything normal. But nothing was normal.
Anna was sitting in a chair, and she lifted her head when he came in. She was aware of physical activity, knew when she was being dressed, helped into clothes, even though her face showed no expression. When he leaned down to kiss her forehead she didn’t flinch, simply accepted it.
“Something’s happened,” he said, then hesitated. Too abrupt. “Are you warm enough?” he said, fidgeting. The nurse had opened the French windows, letting in a crack of air. He put a shawl around her shoulders. “I was thinking about you on the ferry. How you love the water.” But he hadn’t been. Her eyes stayed fixed on the garden. Just say it. “Tommy King’s dead. Shot. In a robbery, they think-”
He stopped and sank into the other chair, falling again.
“Am I doing that? With you? It wasn’t a robbery.” And then he couldn’t say anything more, not out loud. Instead he followed her gaze to the garden, the patch of sun on the bare Judas tree. “I was there,” he said softly. “He tried to kill a man we’re bringing out. He tried to kill me.”
Anna stared ahead, not moving.
“There wasn’t anything I could do. I had to.” Still not finishing it. “It didn’t feel like anything. Not at the time. It’s only later you- But I can’t explain what happened, to anybody, until I get him out, the man we’re moving.” He took a breath, looking away from her. “And I don’t know if I can do it. Tommy was supposed to-” He stopped. “And then there he was, with a gun.”
He heard her question in his head and nodded.
“I’ve been going over it. All night. It has to be. Why else would Tommy have to kill him? I keep coming back to that. Why he’d have to. But think what it means. Tommy. It turns everything upside down. All these years working for- Christ. I worked for him. How long was he-”
He stopped talking, the two of them sitting in silence.
“Nothing was supposed to happen. Just a babysitting job. And now I’ve got him. He’ll be killed if I-” He looked down. “A man who would have killed you. Not even thinking twice.”
He got up and walked over to the French window, careful not to step into her line of sight. A bed of late asters near the wall.
“But if I don’t help him, the Turks’ll get involved. Then it’s murder. And Mihai-” He let the thought drift, his eyes following a bird fluttering between branches. “You know what I was thinking before? If I can do this, deliver him-it’s the kind of thing people notice. In Washington. It would be a chance to show them I could-” He stopped. “And then I thought, maybe it would have been better if Tommy had got him. They’d both be gone. Nothing to explain. Easier if he were dead too. And what kind of person thinks that? What kind of person.”
A reflection in the glass, someone standing in the doorway. Obstbaum.
“Doctor,” he said, turning, his voice changing. “I’ve just been telling Anna-” How long had he been listening?
“Don’t let me interrupt.” Obstbaum held out his clipboard, a visual excuse.
“No, no, please,” Leon said, then glanced down at his watch. “Anyway, look at the time. I’m seeing Georg,” he said to Anna. “I couldn’t put him off again.” Do all the normal things. “An old friend,” he said to Obstbaum. “She was very fond of him. Weren’t you? I’ll give him your love.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead, then looked back up at Obstbaum. What had he heard?
“I hope it’s all right, talking like that,” he said at the door.
“It’s good, your coming. The activity. And two days now. Last night too, I hear.”
From whom? Why?
“How is she?” Leon said, ignoring it.
“No worse.” He caught Leon’s expression. “It’s something, you know, no worse. At least there’s no deterioration. It’s good, the talking.”
“Sometimes I think it’s for me. Just sitting here. It makes me feel calmer.”
Obstbaum nodded. “An oasis. It can have that effect. You know the shooting last night? Up the road? It was in the papers. All the patients so upset, you know what it’s like-just getting them to calm down. But for Anna it never happened.”
Leon looked away. But now it had, his voice registering somewhere in her brain.
“So that’s one good thing,” Obstbaum said.
Georg Ritter had come to Istanbul the week Hitler became chancellor. A job at the university barely paid for his room in an old wooden house in Fener, but he was free, and he’d brought the Lessing manuscript with him, his future. Years later, when Leon and Anna got there, he was still working on the book and by then had become an institution in the foreign community, the man who knew where to get residence permits, secondhand appliances, Turkish lessons. He and Anna shared a passion for the city, out-of-the-way fish restaurants, the best carpet seller in the Bazaar, and he became an ersatz father to her, as cranky as her own, full of convictions that everyone else had abandoned.
When the house in Fener was seized for the wealth tax-the owner, a Greek, sent to a work camp-he was rescued by a former student, a rich Turk who set him up in a building he owned in Nişantaşi. “The only Marxist in the neighborhood,” Georg claimed. But the move suited him. He could now shock the bourgeoisie just by being among them, something he couldn’t afford before, and Yildiz Park was nearby for his dog.
“You don’t mind we take a walk? She’s been in all day.”
“I thought you wanted to play chess.”
Georg waved his hand. “With you? No surprises. Move the knights out first. Keep the pawns back.” He was snapping on the leash, locking the door. “Are you all right? You don’t look-”
“Just tired.”
“At your age. Wait till you see how it feels later.” He sighed, the air seeming to wheeze out of his plump cheeks.
“How’s the book?”
“Mendel wants to use the new chapter on Nathan der Weise. He thinks they’ll be interested here, the comments on Saladin. As if the Turks will read it. A German journal in Istanbul. Well, where else? Germany? At least you keep something alive.”
“Nathan?” Leon said, trying to remember the chronology. “Then how much more to go?”
Georg shrugged. “The last years. At Wolfenbüttel. Not so happy for him, but very productive. Several chapters at least. A pauper’s grave, you know, in the end. Me too, by the time I’m finished. What about your friend?” he said, tacking. “Where are they going to bury him?”
“Who? Tommy? You heard about that?”
“Everybody’s heard about it. Like a Western. Karl May. Shoot-outs in Istanbul,” he said, shaking his head.
“I don’t know. That’s up to his wife. I knew him, I wouldn’t say he was a friend.”
“No? Just drinks at the Park.” He caught Leon’s reaction. “You hear things.”
Leon looked at him, waiting, but Georg moved away from it. “You’ve seen Anna?”
“Yes, the same.”
They were passing through the gates into the park, the wooded hills dotted with pavilions, the sultan’s old compound.
“I wonder what she sees.” Georg gestured to the trees. “A shame to miss these. But of course the mind-Abdul Hamid thought people listened in the trees. Everywhere. So it was very quiet here. Whispers. And that made him worse. Why are they whispering? The mind. You know he thought every week he would be killed. Every Friday, in the great selamlik down to Hamidiye Mosque. Hundreds, all lined up, the only time they could see him. So one of them must be an assassin. The whole time, all during prayers, waiting to be shot. You know there were five hundred slaves in Yildiz then? Not forty years ago, not even history yet. Slaves here. And people listening in trees.” The kind of detail Anna loved.
“How did you hear about the drink at the Park?”
“Someone mentioned it. I don’t even remember who. It’s a great place for rumors here.”
“A farewell drink,” Leon said, answering what hadn’t been asked. “He was going back to the States. They say it was a robbery.”
“And no money taken. So now everyone has an idea.”
“Like what?”
“You know, maybe a coincidence, but there’s a man missing. So one theory, he was meeting your friend Tommy but shot him instead and ran away.”
“Why?”
Georg shrugged. “A hundred reasons, who knows? An unreliable type, apparently.”
“Unreliable,” Leon said, marking time. “Who’s missing him?”
“Russian friends,” Georg said, looking at him. “He took something valuable, so they want to find him.” He paused. “It would be worth a lot to them.”
“Money, you mean?”
“Money, yes, certainly. Favors. Whatever is required.”
“How much?” Leon said, going along.
“That would depend. A tip, some information, they would be grateful. But if someone knew where he was, could find him, that would be worth-I don’t know a price. A good sum. And of course it would mean finding the man who shot your friend. So it’s good that way too.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“So suspicious you are. Not just you. They want people to know how valuable this help would be.”
“Like a reward. More Karl May. Why don’t they just put up posters?”
“A joke. You don’t think it’s serious.”
“I don’t know, is it? They’re your friends.” He paused. “I didn’t know you were still in touch with the comrades. Anna said you’d left the Party.”
“Old ties, only. It’s a serious matter. They have to use every channel.”
“And not the police.”
Georg looked away, watching the dog.
“What, Georg?” Leon said, then pointed to the trees. “Nobody’s listening. Or is that why we came here? So we could talk. They asked you to approach me? Why?”
“You were a-business associate.”
“Of Tommy’s? We weren’t in business together.”
“An acquaintance then. Maybe you have an idea why he was shot. Maybe he told you something. A man who’s drinking with him the night before. You understand, they have to ask.”
“And get you to do it. Sorry. He never said a thing. Why do the comrades think he was shot?”
“That’s something they’d like to ask their friend.”
“And they’re willing to cough up a reward to do it? Maybe they should just write him off.”
“That’s not possible.”
“What did he take? Stalin’s phone number?” He moved his head toward the main pavilion. “Another one. Like old Abdul. Assassins everywhere. So get rid of them. How many now? Millions? That’s who you want to do business with?”
“It’s a world of excesses.”
“Isn’t it just.”
“He killed your friend. He’s of no use to you. What do you care what happens to him? It’s an old quarrel between them. Not with you.”
“So why not make a little money while they work it out. Georg.” He turned to go. “What makes them think he shot Tommy anyway?”
“We know they were meeting. One’s dead. Now the other one is gone. Why would he be unless-”
“How do you know they were meeting? Another rumor?”
“He’s capable of this,” Georg said, not answering. “A violent man. Unreliable.”
“I’m surprised they want him back.”
“They don’t want him for long.”
Leon looked at him, but Georg simply stared back.
“I’ll keep my ears open,” Leon said, about to leave. “As a favor to you.” He stopped. “I didn’t realize. All these years. Still with the comrades.”
“A messenger only.”
Leon nodded. “Delivered.” He started to go, then turned to face Georg again. “Do you really think I would do this? If I did know? Shop a man?”
“This man? It would be the right thing to do.”
Leon looked at him. “Then you wouldn’t have to pay me.”
He used the agreed-upon three knocks.
“I brought you some food,” he said, handing over a bag, grease from the kebabs already beginning to stain through. “Everything okay?”
He looked around the flat, as neat as the night before, no clothes draped over chairs, uninhabited. Alexei was sitting before the miniature board of a travel chess set, the only thing that seemed to have been removed from his duffel.
“The plane? We have a time?”
“Not yet. We’re going to need to switch airfields. After last night.” The all-purpose excuse, nothing safe now.
Alexei grunted and got up. “You want some tea? It’s all I do, drink tea.” He coughed. “And smoke.” Puttering with spoons, lighting the kettle.
“I see you’re a chess player.”
“It passes the time.”
“You play against yourself?”
“You make a move, then you turn the board. And you know what’s interesting? When you’re on the other side, it’s completely different. You think you anticipate the move, but you turn and you see something different.”
“I’ll have to try it sometimes. Playing both sides.”
Alexei looked up at him.
“You’d better eat. It gets messy.”
“Did they find the body?” Alexei said, taking the food to the table.
“Yes.”
“So he was alone. Maybe I’m not so important. And now someone’s raising hell. Melnikov. Whose idea to send one? You’ll pay for this. It never changes.”
“You knew him?”
“Political officer,” he said, eating. “You know what that means? At Stalingrad? The Nazis in front of you, Melnikov behind. No cowards there. No Stalin jokes. He shot them on the spot. Easier than sending them back to the gulags. Less paperwork.” He crumpled up the bag. “But you have all that in Bucharest. His staff list. That was my deposit. You want to do that again? And then again with the tape recorder? Over and over until a slip, a name you forgot, or maybe didn’t forget. Well, everyone does it.”
“Save it, then. For the tape recorder. I’m not here to interrogate you.”
“No? What, then?”
“Just get you on a plane.”
“Ah, to be my friend. Easier to get them to talk. A little trust. So, you have a name? You never said.” Familiar, somebody at a bar. He got up to pour the tea.
Leon looked over, trying to imagine it, the abattoir, putting bodies on hooks. An ordinary man, making tea. “Leon,” he said.
“Leon?” Asking for the rest.
“Bauer.”
Alexei handed him a glass, smiling a little. “A German name. Farmer,” he said, translating. “Also pawn.” He opened his hand to the little board. “In the game. So that’s you, the pawn?”
“That’s everybody.”
Alexei looked up at him, pleased. “A philosopher. Something new. It’s different with the Russians. No sandwiches, either. Just fists.”
“When they interrogated you?”
“My friend, if they had done that you would see it,” he said, putting a hand to his face. “The bones. You see the prisoners after, their faces are different. They take pictures for the files. If they’re alive.”
“So you were lucky.”
He shrugged. “I ran. I knew what they were. That was my job, to know about them.” He took a sip of tea. “But you know that. And you’re not here to interrogate me.”
Leon looked over. A conveyor belt. People bleating. Now calmly lighting a cigarette. But Tommy had talked about old times while he planned to kill him.
“You have a wife?” Alexei said, running a hand across the top of his head, hair cropped so short it seemed to have stopped growing.
“Yes.”
“In America?”
“No, here. And you?” The obligatory response.
“Magda. Like Lupescu. But not so lucky. She was killed.”
“In the war?”
Alexei nodded. “Partisans. In Bukovina. Three years now. It’s a convenience, sometimes. To have nothing to lose.” He drew on the cigarette. “That’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? Can they use somebody? Keep me on a leash.” He shook his head. “There’s nobody. Just me. You didn’t know this before?”
“Why would I?”
“That’s right. Not the interrogator. What, then? A wife here. So there’s a cover.”
“Businessman.”
“At Western Electric?”
Leon raised his eyes. How many of Tommy’s people did they know? All? Even the freelancers?
“No.”
“Where then?”
“Dried fruit. Apricots. Figs.”
“Apricots,” Alexei said. “It’s a good business?”
“Now you’re interrogating me.”
Alexei smiled. “Just talking. Like you. We do it differently. Maybe better.” He leaned his head to the side, still amused. “Yes, I think so.”
“That’s because you don’t know what I’m after.”
Alexei looked straight at him, no smile now at all. “No. So it’s an advantage you have. What do you want to know?”
Leon hesitated, trying to frame it. “How it was, at Străuleşti.”
A stillness, Alexei’s eyes locked on Leon’s, not blinking. After a minute he looked down at his hand, the cigarette burning to his finger. He rubbed it out, still quiet, a test of wills, his eyes neutral, sorting things out.
“We do that too,” he said finally. “Tell them you know the worst thing. So they think you know everything.”
Leon waited.
“Nobody asked me this before. Your people. So why now?”
“You were there.”
Another silence, calculating. “Your Romanian friend. He told you.”
Now it was Leon who was quiet.
“When did a Romanian not betray a Romanian? A national gift.” He reached for another cigarette. “Well, I’m one to talk.” He waited another second, then shook his head. “I had no part in that.”
“Just the rest of the Guard.”
He nodded. “That’s when I decided-”
“What?”
“That they were crazy.”
“They weren’t crazy before? Blood oaths?”
“But this. It was bound to call attention. Make them turn against us.”
“So you did.”
“That’s what you want to know? Why I turned against the Guard? That’s easy. Because I could see what was coming. The future was Antonescu.”
“For a while.”
“Yes.”
“And now he’s going on trial. But not you.”
“Trial for what?”
“You were there. That would be enough.”
Alexei nodded. “They’re not so interested now, what happened. They just want to shoot us. Then all these things can go away.”
“So you made a deal.”
“That’s right,” Alexei said, eyes on Leon. “With you.” He got up, clearing his cup. “You know what it’s like, a mob? Like water. You can’t stop it. They were going to ruin everything and who could stop them?”
“Not you.” Leon paused. “You knew what they were going to do.”
“No,” Alexei said, raising his voice. “Shoot them maybe. This was already happening. Dudeşti, all over the city. But this-” He stopped, his shoulders suddenly slumping. “Of course, you know in the end they were dead anyway.”
He shuffled over to the window and stood there for a minute, lifting his hand to part the shade, then letting it rest there, staring.
“When you have blood on your hands, does it matter how it got there?” he said.
Carcasses dripping.
He turned. “Is that what you’re asking? What’s on my hands?” He held one out. “Not so clean. Are yours? In this business?” He lowered his hand. “Do you know how easy it can be? Something you never thought you could do. Easy. Later, it’s harder. People forget, but you live with it, whatever you did.” He turned. “We penetrated their military intelligence. That’s all that should matter to you now. You want to put me on trial with Antonescu? For what? The Guard? The camps? All of it my fault. Maybe even the war. My fault too.” He stopped. “Nobody cares about that anymore. Not them, not you. It’s in the past.” He looked up. “Except your Romanian friend maybe. So eager to tell you things. Maybe he’d like to tell someone else. A Romanian will sell anything. Maybe me.”
Leon looked at him, intrigued. A life revealed in a phrase.
“He can’t. He doesn’t know where you are.”
“Only you. If you weren’t followed,” he said, dismissive. “And what do we talk about? All these arrangements-the truck from Bucharest, the boat, this place-and now it’s what happened to the Jews? They died.” His voice final as a window being slammed shut.
He went to get more tea, refilling Leon’s glass, Leon watching him, not saying anything. Alexei raised his eyebrows, waiting.
“All right,” Leon said. “The American working for the Russians. Let’s talk about him.”
Alexei stared at him.
“I need to know.”
Alexei held his gaze, sipping some tea, calculating, as if he were running his finger over a chess piece, not yet ready to move.
“How long have you been doing this?” he said finally. “This work. Maybe you’re new to it. Maybe that’s it. So let me explain something to you. If I knew such a thing, would I tell you? We talk in Bucharest-enough information so you know it’s real. The rest? When I’m out, safe. If I tell you here? You squeeze a lemon, what’s left? So you throw it away.”
“We don’t do that.”
“Everybody does that,” he said flatly. “Everybody. So you can wait.”
“Not anymore. I need to know. For your sake. If he had anyone else here.”
“Here? An American here?” Alexei said, a little surprised, relieved. “Well, you wouldn’t have to wait for that. It’s not such a bargaining chip.” He stopped. “I mean-”
Leon looked at him, turning this over. “Not worth a trip to the States. But someone in Washington would be.”
Alexei met his glance. “Yes, he would be. But we’re here. Wasting time. These questions. I don’t know anyone here.” He sipped more tea. “You’re so sure there is such a person.”
Leon nodded.
“How?”
“I shot him last night. On the pier.”
At first there was only a flicker of movement in Alexei’s face, the composure still fixed, then his eyes began darting, as if they were involuntarily following his thoughts, leaping from point to point.
“They identified the man,” he said, leading. “Not a Russian.”
“No. One of us. Who knew you were coming out. And who tried to kill you. Why would he do that? In the open? Take that chance. Unless you were someone he had to stop. He couldn’t give you back to the Russians-he’d expose himself-so he’d have to kill you.”
“Expose himself?”
“He was running this operation, getting you out. Which makes for some complications.”
“Running-”
“This piece of it anyway. So the trip had to end here. Things go wrong, but he’s safe, no one blames him, and the Russians get their rat. But then I shot him and I got you instead. So I need you to tell me. Are there others? Am I wrong?”
Alexei put the tips of his fingers together in a pyramid, pressing them against his lips, almost prayerlike, thinking. “No,” he said finally, then hesitated, as if he were eliminating more possibilities. “They had a man in Ankara. Why not here.”
“Ankara,” Leon said dully, seeing himself at Karpić’s, leaving an envelope on the banquette.
“During the war. Now I’m not sure. You understand, it’s only GPU I know, not the other agencies. But you see what this means. The Russians know. The whole operation. We have to leave this place. It’s not safe.”
“He never knew about the flat. So they don’t know, either. We’re back where we started.”
“No. Everything is compromised now. The plane-that’s still your plan?”
“I don’t see why not-if there is one.”
But Alexei was shaking his head. “They must know. If I show myself there they’ll kill me. We have to start over. Everything. I’ll help you. We’ll work together.”
Leon looked up, caught off guard. His new partner.
Alexei started coughing, a smoker’s hack. “Amateurs. It’s my life, and the man in charge is working for them.”
“Was.”
“And now it’s you,” Alexei said, peering at him. “The new gazi. And who else?”
Leon shook his head. “I only knew Tommy.”
“So,” Alexei said. “And you had no idea. What he was.”
“Not until he shot you.”
“Not even me. The Romanian. Amateurs.” He started coughing again, his face getting paler. “Istanbul,” he said, choking on the word, still trying to stop the cough. “Maybe it ends here. I always wondered, what would that be like. When they finally get you.” He looked up. “So. We make a new plan.”
“We,” Leon said.
“You can’t trust anybody now. Not here. Not in Ankara.” He put his hand to his mouth, thinking. “But we have one piece of luck.”
“What’s that?”
“Nobody’s looking for you. Or they’d already be here. They’ll think I’m running, not hiding. Who would be hiding me?”
“Who would.”
“And then they’ll think I’m gone. We can do it.” He paused. “If no one else knows. Just you.”
“Do what?”
“Get me out. Istanbul-it’s a trap now. We have to leave here.”
Leon was quiet for a minute, then got up. “To save your skin.”
“My skin? I saw your face, when I told you about Washington. A valuable chip, no? People will want to hear about him.” He looked up. “Always have something to trade.”
Leon stood still for a second, as if he were balancing himself, testing his footing. Alexei’s eyes, gray and clear, insistent. Which hadn’t seen anything at the abattoir. He said. Holding up his bargaining chip.
“Let’s start with the gun then,” Leon said. “One less complication. I’d better have it back.”
“The gun?” Alexei said, not expecting this. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Get rid of it,” Leon said, picking up the empty food bag.
“And how do I protect myself here?”
“Use the one you brought with you,” Leon said, looking at him. “You’d have to have one. You just wanted this for a little insurance. And maybe to see if I was dumb enough to give it to you.” He held out his hand. “It’s a murder weapon now. Evidence. You might use it to put me there. In Bebek. If things don’t go well. Right?”
Alexei looked at the open hand, then reached into his pocket and took out the gun, smiling a little. “A quick learner.” He handed it over.
“You’re right about the plane,” Leon said, putting the gun in the bag. “I’ll arrange something else.” He started for the door. “Just stay put. You’re safe here.”
“And that’s my protection now,” Alexei said, nodding to the lock. “A door.” He looked at Leon. “And you.”
Leon reached for the knob.
“By the way, it matters to you? What happened at Străuleşti? I wasn’t part of that. What they did. If your friend says yes, he’s lying.” Making a case now, reassuring. “I wasn’t part of that.”
Leon turned. “That must be a comfort.”
On the ferry back, Leon stayed out on the lower deck, dropping the bag over the side halfway across, even the sound of the small splash covered by the grind of the motors. Ibrahim the Sot had drowned his whole harem here, sewn into sacks. The gun was easier. Just another secret in the Bosphorus. Nothing to connect him now to the quay, nothing to connect Mihai. Not even Alexei once he could pass him along the chain Tommy had tried to break. His new partner. He looked down at the dark water, uneasy again. The gun would be settling on the bottom, lodging itself in the silt, too heavy for the current. Except there were two currents in the Bosphorus, he’d read somewhere, the surface current flowing south and a deep undercurrent kanal flowing north, dense and saline, strong enough to drag a fishing boat by its net, pull someone off course.
Inside the cabin, the tea man was handing a tulip glass to a man in a knit cap, the kind Mihai had worn. A dockworker? A thief? Who was anybody? Tommy ordering drinks at the Park, every second a betrayal. Years of it. You can’t trust anybody now, Alexei had said, asking Leon to trust him.