Istanbul Passage (27 page)

“What is it?” Alexei said when he opened the door. Dressed, the way he always was, maybe the way he slept, ready to get out in a hurry.

“I’m moving you.”

“Something’s—”

“No, a precaution. It’s time.”

“Good,” Alexei said, putting out a cigarette and folding up the chess set. “Somewhere better, I hope. The Pera Palas?”

Leon looked up.

“A joke,” Alexei said. “One minute. My razor, that’s all,” he said, heading toward the bathroom.

“I met your buddy Melnikov tonight,” Leon said.

Alexei stopped. “Be careful with that one. A friend of Beria’s.”

“Meaning?”

“He does what he likes. Kill first. He can afford to make mistakes. Is that why we’re moving?”

“No. It’s time, that’s all. He’s still trying to buy you back.”

“How much am I worth now?” Alexei said, coming in with a Dopp kit. “Have I gone up?”

“I didn’t ask. That everything?”

Alexei put on his jacket and woolen sailor’s cap. “You go first,” he said, suddenly in charge. “The street that goes to the big mosque. I’ll use the back. Give me five minutes. If anything seems wrong, come back here. You forgot something.”

“But you’ll be out there.”

Alexei shrugged. “How far is the car?”

“We’re walking.”

Alexei looked at him, then took out a gun and put it in his jacket pocket. “The lights,” he said, nodding to the switch.

Outside, Leon headed past the high walls of the university grounds. He could hear his footsteps. No one else around. Two men in jellabas and skullcaps, lost in their own conversation. He slowed, giving Alexei time, forcing himself not to look back. You could see the great dome from here, a weak milky light in the square facing the mosque. The night, so clear at Lily’s, had turned misty, the cobblestones slick. Alexei would have left by now, slipping through the streets, some route he’d worked out when he should have been inside.

And then he was there, a shadow suddenly turned solid, walking with him, the mosque getting closer, filling the end of the street. Some voices in the square.

Leon felt the hand on his sleeve, Alexei looking back over his shoulder then jerking them off the street, wedging them into an arched doorway on the narrow side street, backs flat against the wood. He took the gun from his pocket and held it, waiting. Leon slowed his breath. No voices, a soft indistinct sound behind, maybe footsteps if you were listening for them. He glanced over at Alexei. His face was rigid, the wool cap covering his short, receding hair, so that the head seemed almost skeletal, like a death mask. As still as Georg had been, and just for a second Leon saw him the same way, already dead. Even if he got him out. Once he said whatever he had to say there’d only be some half existence, listening for sounds. Assuming he got there. Now he was breathing again, fear pumping life back, and Leon could feel his shoulder move and realized they were breathing together, the same adrenaline rushing through them.

Real footsteps now, then a shadow moving down the street, backlit by the streetlamps. It stopped at the side street, as if it were listening too, then started again, a shuffling sound, not trying to be quiet, the shadow weaving slightly. Maybe a drunk. But someone who’d been behind them. They waited, Alexei’s gun close to his chest, following the footsteps down to the square until they were out of hearing. Another minute, nobody coming back up the hill to find where
he’d lost them, then another to make sure, and Alexei nudged Leon toward the street.

They walked quickly, making up time, still not talking, but Leon felt shaken, the mask still in his mind. Contours of bone, the shape of a head, lifeless. Süleyman’s Mosque and its outbuildings bulked up ahead, but all the details were lost in the dark. The old
medrese
, the cylinder burial
türbes
, the leafy courtyard—Leon’s dream of Istanbul, where he used to come just to sit, listening to the hum of the prayers inside, now all in shadow, someone’s hiding place. The way Alexei saw things. How he had begun to see them too.

He led them past Sinan’s tomb and down the steep streets of broken cobbles littered with clumps of garbage. On Galata Bridge a few fishermen were still tending rods.

“Where are we going?” Alexei said.

“You wanted the Pera. Not far from there.”

The lighted cars of the funicular would be a risk, but Alexei was already winded and climbing the hill seemed worse. Leon looked at him on the platform. A man in a wool cap with a duffel, some sailor docked in Karaköy, out for a good time. No one followed them on top.

Marina opened the door in the silk kimono Leon thought she wore only for him.

“It’s you,” she said, a question.

“Are you alone?”

“It’s late,” she said, another question, noticing Alexei.

“I need a favor. A bed. For a friend. Just the bed.”

She looked past him. “Who is he? He’s trouble for me?”

“Just a customer. Who wants to spend the night. You have customers like that, don’t you?”

She stared at him.

“I’ll give you the going rate.”

“What a bastard you are.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“No?”

“You have no idea who he is. He paid for the night, that’s all. You can show the money. If anybody asks.”

“Who? Police?”

Leon shook his head. “Anybody. But nobody will. One night.” He paused. “A favor.”

She looked at him, then opened the door. “Don’t stand in the hall.”

Alexei dumped the duffel bag inside, looking around the room, then at Marina. “Much better,” he said.

“What’s he done?” Marina said, lighting a cigarette.

“Nothing. He’s a customer. That’s all you know.” He looked down at the kimono, her breasts half showing.

“And you? What have you done?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t even here.”

“If anyone asks,” she finished.

“That’s the favor.”

She snorted, then turned to Alexei. “There,” she said, pointing to the bedroom door.

“I appreciate this,” Leon said. He took out his wallet. “How much?”

“I’ll let you know,” she said, waving the cigarette.

“Then here’s fifty. On account.” He held out the bills.

“Fifty,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “And it’s not police.”

“In case you need to show. That he paid.”

“You think I’d do this for fifty?” she said, slipping the bills in her kimono pocket.

“Then how much—”

“No, this.” She opened her hand to the room, the risk, everything.

He met her look. “Thank you.”

Alexei was standing in the bedroom doorway smoking, his eyes
half shut, fixed on her. He took off his cap, running his fingers through his flattened hair.

Marina put out her cigarette, then shrugged. “Does he speak Turkish?”

“No. German. A little English.”

“All right. Anything special? What does he like?” Her voice wearily matter of fact, taunting him.

“Just the room. I’m not asking you to do that.”

“No,” she said, raising her eyes to him. “Other things.”

The hall light operated on a timed switch but he ignored it, feeling his way instead toward the dim landing. In the dark, the usual wet plaster smell seemed even stronger, feline. He waited at the outside door for a few seconds to see if anyone was in the street, then turned left down the hill for a block and circled back up. No footsteps behind.

In Tünel Square the tram had been turned around and was waiting for the conductor to start, a few passengers slumped in their seats. The whole square seemed motionless in fact, opaque in the misty air, and for a moment Leon imagined them all dead too, the conductor’s hand frozen on the controls, every face like Georg’s and Alexei’s, immobile. He felt his chest squeeze and forced himself to breathe out, a kind of protest. What would happen to him someday. When? Tommy surprised in a second, Georg clutching the table. Alexei jolting himself alert with fear, but already gone.

Leon started for the tram. What you thought about when you were exhausted. But in the doorway he and Alexei had been the same. Get on the tram and go back to Cihangir, watch the ferries, the room as quiet as the clinic. Lily’s garden, seeing ghosts, talking to them, receding. Then real eyes, darting across his face. Do something for me, she’d said, then brought his head down.

The conductor rang the bell, waiting for his straggler. Leon grabbed the pole, about to swing up, then stopped, remembering the
doorway again, Alexei’s mask. He stepped away, waving the tram off, even the sleepy passengers now awake watching him. A scene, something noticed. Five minutes ago he’d been slinking around buildings. Now he walked through the lighted part of the square and into Sofyali Sok, still busy with late-night restaurants. Down to Meşturiyet, not looking behind, loud steps, nothing to hide. At the Pera, he went straight to the elevator. An American in a good suit, somebody who might be staying there. The elevator boy, in a pillbox hat and white gloves, took him up without a question. A birdcage lift, Parisian grillwork and red plush. He walked down the hall, not hesitating, a soft tap, then a louder one.

“Yes?” he heard from inside. A rustling sound, maybe belting a wrapper.

She opened the door, eyes widening. Her hair was down, brushed out, and she had taken off her makeup, her face still a little shiny from the cold cream, but flushing now, real color.

“You came,” she said, surprised, then clutched the lapels of her bathrobe. “I didn’t think you would come.” Her voice slightly out of breath.

“Is that all right?”

She was still holding the door, and he felt as if he might pitch forward, the momentum that had carried him from the square suddenly stalled.

“My hair—” she said, touching it nervously, a gesture so beside the point that he smiled.

“Your hair?”

She caught his eye but didn’t smile back. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say, come in.” He paused. “Unless you don’t—”

“No,” she said, shaking her head and opening the door wider.

He stepped into the room. A small lamp by the bed, the lights of the Golden Horn through the window beyond.

“I was reading,” she said, just to say something, closing the door and backing against it, as if he had pinned her there. “I’ve never done this before.”

He kissed her, leaning his body into hers, warm. “No?” he said, kissing her again, hands on her now, feeling her body move against him.

“No,” she said, breaking away for air.

“So why—” he started, but she had reached up, pulling him down again, her mouth on his, and his head filled with the taste of her, new, not like anybody else.

“I don’t know,” she said, the words in a gasp, near his ear.

He leaned down and kissed her neck, smelling the last trace of perfume.

“Just something. When we met. I thought—”

“What?” he said, still kissing her.

“Maybe it’s my last chance.”

“For what?” he said, raising his head, caught by the words.

“I don’t know.” She stared at him for another second, then reached over and slid his jacket off his shoulders. “Ask me later.”

Then they didn’t say anything, kissing in a rush, their breathing louder, ragged, undoing his tie, buttons, still backed against the door, as if they were hiding in a closet, stealing the minutes. He slid off her robe, the shoulder straps of her nightgown, letting it fall from her breasts, then cupping them, bending down to kiss them. Not fleshy like Marina’s, just filling his hand, but nipples hard already, all of her taut. One touch and you felt the skin move under your fingers, a string vibrating, little gasps of air over your head.

She pulled the nightgown the rest of the way down, crumpling the silk at her feet, and he reached behind, hands on her cheeks, pulling her toward him, kissing her mouth again, pulling the soft skin even closer, as if he could pull it inside of him. She moved a hand down between them, clutching at his prick, still in his pants, stroking the length of it until they both broke off, out of breath,
and he threw off his shirt, starting on his belt, then kissing her again, backing her toward the bed, mouth still on hers, hands on her behind, and then laying her down, snapping off the light, shoes, socks, stepping out of his pants, standing next to the bed looking down at her, naked, just the light from the window. Her skin seemed to be rippling, not still, legs opening to the patch of hair, the lips beneath, already wet to the touch. He moved a finger over it, excited by the wet, some involuntary yielding, and then she reached up, grabbing him and pulling him to her, and he thought he might come then, her eagerness more erotic than anything Marina had ever done.

He moved onto the bed, his prick still in her hand, drawing him into her, not waiting, wanting to hurry too, moving her hand away so he could put the rest in all at once, the skin inside slick with sex, one sliding motion, then the warm softness closing around him. He stopped, dropping to his elbows and kissing her, not wanting to move inside, just feel her holding him, but her skin had begun to ripple again, moving against him, and he started moving too, finding her rhythm, then moving with her, only the movement familiar, the feeling something new, sex with her, not anyone else. She let out a sound, the most private thing there is, something nobody else ever heard, and he put his head near hers, wanting to hear more, the sounds urging him on, making everything go faster, so that he could feel the sweat now, the heat of it, and hear himself panting, his prick swelling with sensation, almost apart from him. When she cried out, he could feel her clenching then going loose, the string snapped, then more sounds in his ears, the wonderful abandon, not caring who heard, still moving with him, as if each thrust set off another release, then another, until finally he could feel it racing up in him, faster, then spurting out, an explosion of pleasure, helpless, leaving every part of him exposed.

He lay motionless for a second, and then he felt his weight on
her, the sweat, and the world started seeping back. He rolled off onto his side, his heart still racing, then slowing down, waiting for the deflation that always came, embarrassed, back in himself. But she had turned to him, running her hand along his face, and it wasn’t Marina, something else.