Istanbul Passage (37 page)

“I can’t,” he said, stopping her. “It’s not just me.” He paused. “You’re safer here.”

“Safer,” she said.

“I’ll be back in a day or two.”

“Maybe. Or maybe shot, like Frank. In your cat and mouse. And then what’s my life?”

“Kay—”

“Well, it’s possible, isn’t it? So tell me what to say when they ask. He went to Ankara? Why? I don’t know. And make up a story for me. What happens. If you don’t come back.”

“I will.”

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll see.”

She was quiet for a minute. “We’ll see. It’s not much, is it?” She stood up, folding her arms across her chest. “My god, look at me. Ready to run away with you. Where? I don’t know. Like criminals. And Frank not even buried. What kind of woman does that?” She held up a hand before he could answer. “I know. You can’t. So now what. Buy an urn. When I’m feeling better.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. “The concierge said this one was the best.” She looked over at him. “What did you mean, it’s not just you going?”

“Somebody’s going with me.”

“Who?”

“Kay—”

“And that’s why it’s not safe?”

He nodded, then looked at his watch. “We have to go.”

“Walk away,” she said quietly. “All day, at the hotel, I kept thinking. What if it’s the end?” She looked at him as if she were trying to memorize his face. “Like Frank. It could be. The same work. Secrets. And now he’s dead. For what? His country?” She turned her head. “Whatever it was to make someone do that. It’s funny, what people
will do for their country. Things they would never do for each other. So what if it’s like Frank? He’s not coming back.”

“I’m not dead.”

She walked over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “No. But maybe not coming back, either.” She took a breath. “So. When I leave here—” She left it dangling.

“Go out past the mosque to the taxi rank. If he spots you, he’ll just think you wandered off and he’s picked up the trail again. I’ll wait here. Go back to the Pera. Talk to the concierge.”

“Tell him I couldn’t go through with it. And what’s the rest?” she said idly. “Dinner in my room? Or downstairs, with a book. So they can see I’m not waiting?”

He looked at her.

“Never mind. It’s all right,” she said, moving her hand up to the side of his head, a tentative touch, then brushing his hair back. “I just wanted to see you. In case. Do you know the awful thing? I’m not sorry. Isn’t that terrible?” Her voice breaking a little at the end. “To say that today?”

Leon got up, taking her by the arms.

“No,” Kay said, patting his chest. “No good-byes. Just come back.”

He nodded.

“And then we’ll see,” she said, then suddenly reached forward, putting her arms around him, head next to his. “But for a second. Nobody’s here.”

He felt her tight against him, hands tugging at his coat.

“Just for a second,” she said.

The creak of an opening door.

“Oh,” she said, startled, breaking away.

A woman in a headscarf, looking like a nun in the cloistered walkway.

Kay stepped back, her eyes anxious, as if a platform whistle had just blown, then lowered her head and started walking to the door,
leaving it ajar for the Turkish woman, only a quick last glance over her shoulder, then into the square. Where Gülün’s cousin would see her. Willing to run away with him. And then what’s my life? Her hands pulling at him. For a minute he stood still, a ticking in his ear, feeling suspended up on a high rope with his arms held out. Too far away from the edge now to go back. Everyone below looking up, waiting.

Marina didn’t want any more money.

“Just get him out of here, before it’s trouble.”

Alexei had gone into the bedroom to get his duffel, packed and ready, everything as trim as his short hair.

“You’re so rich?” Leon said.

“No. But you’re nice to me. Not so many are. So maybe it’s thanks for that.”

“Nice?” Leon said, thinking of sweaty sheets.

“Call it what you like. You like to think the best. Not like him. He thinks the worst. Of everybody.”

“Maybe he’s right.”

She looked up at him. “He’ll be trouble for you. Someone like that.”

“He talk to you?”

“He didn’t have to. You take someone’s clothes off, you know things.”

He smiled, nodding at her kimono. “Do you ever get dressed?” A life in silk, lying on beds, a painter’s idea of a harem.

“Yes. Like a lady, very nice. Shoes, hat. Sometimes like a Turkish
lady, with the scarf. My old friend Kemal comes with me. An escort. So I can go places.”

“Like where?” Leon said, intrigued.

“Here and there. Shops. You’re surprised? You think I live in bed? Waiting for you?”

“No.”

“Yes, you’re surprised. What would you do? If you saw me on the Rue de Pera? Walking there. In a dress.”

“Say hello.”

“No. You’re with somebody maybe. Or you don’t see. You know why? Because you don’t expect it, to see me. You know what I do sometimes? Kemal takes me to the bar at the Park. And I see men who come here. And them? They don’t see it’s me. They don’t expect to see me there, so they don’t.”

“Maybe they think you’re working,” Alexei said, coming out of the bedroom. “The hotel bar.”

“Ha,” Marina said, annoyed. “You think I go looking for business?”

“Not in the streets,” Alexei said, volleying. “Not yet.”

“Go fuck yourself. That’s the language you use with him,” she said to Leon. “What he understands.” She turned to Alexei. “So you’re ready? What are you waiting for?”

“Thanks for everything,” Alexei said, playing with her.

She waved this off. “I don’t do it for you.”

Alexei bowed. “So now I’ve met one. With the heart of gold.”

She said something in Armenian that Leon couldn’t understand, presumably a curse, spitting it out. “I hope they catch you. You deserve it.”

Alexei moved closer to her, putting his hand to her throat, so quickly it seemed to have already been there. “Just don’t help them.”

“Hey,” Leon said, surprised.

“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” Alexei said, waiting for her to shake her head before he took his hand away.

“Pig.”

“For Christ’s sake—” Leon started.

“Don’t waste your breath. She’d sell you out too. How much, I wonder,” he said, looking at her.

“For you?” she said. “Not much.”

“All right,” Leon said, ending it. “You ready?”

Alexei made a thank-you flourish to Marina and went out to the hall.

“What was that all about?” Leon said to her.

“He wanted it for free. After he ran out of money. For a man like that? Don’t think the best of that one. Get rid of him.”

“But you wouldn’t take the money before?”

“To hide him? Then it’s a crime. They ask, I say no, I never helped. Just money to fuck me. How did I know who he was?” She looked up. “I still don’t.”

Leon leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”

She flinched. “Don’t think the best of me, either. I took what he paid. Go,” she said, shooing him out. “Before the landlord.” She paused. “Maybe you’ll come see me again. Like before. When it’s over with him.”

“I’ll buy you a drink at the Park.”

She raised an eyebrow, then smiled. “Go,” she said, closing the door.

They walked single file down the stairs, just the sound of their footsteps and the faint dripping of water, the familiar cat smell. At the door, Leon looked out, then steered Alexei left, around the hill.

“That was a hell of a thing to say,” Leon said. “A girl saves your life.”

“She’s a whore.”

“And what does that make you?”

Alexei said nothing, following him. They passed the Dervish Lodge, then the church where Tommy’s funeral service had been. Kay sitting ahead, face hidden by her hat.

“So this business with your Mr. King. Who kept the money. He’s just a thief. That’s your thinking? Not with the Russians?”

“No.”

“So it’s safe, the consulate?”

“Not exactly. Somebody was shot there last night.”

Alexei stopped for a second, looking over at him. “One of your people?”

“From Ankara. Head of the Soviet desk.”

“But he’s killed in Istanbul. So there is someone here,” he said, beginning to walk again, thinking. “But why? The embassy, yes, they’d want someone inside. But a consulate? Passports?”

“You can pick up a lot here. Tommy’s group was here, don’t forget.”

Alexei shook his head. “The war, it was different. The cable traffic’s in Ankara. That’s where you want your people. How many can they have? Americans are hard for them to recruit. Usually locals. So maybe a local here too.”

Saydam the guard, gone for a smoke.

“Or maybe to make you
look
here. Not in Ankara. Your man was here alone? No one came with him?”

“Just his wife. A few days ago.”

Alexei grunted. “His wife. Well, not her.”

“No.”

“It’s something a Romanian might think of. Not the Russians. Not Melnikov.”

“They’re not all Melnikovs.”

“Yes, all. They think with this,” Alexei said, making a fist, then smiled a little, amusing himself. “But think how perfect for her. To have the Russian desk in bed.”

Lying side by side on pillows. Some other face, not hers. But they must have.

“These hills,” Alexei said, a little winded.

They had come downslope from Galatasaray, but were now climbing again past the Italian hospital.

“And the police?”

“They think I did it.”

“You?” Alexei said, surprised. “Why?”

“I was there.” Leon paused. Why not say? Even Gülün knew. “I’m sleeping with his wife.”

Alexei peered at him, at a loss, then grunted. “You should have told me before. Now they’re after both of us? That’s twice the risk.”

“Only for a few hours. Then we’re gone.”

“And where now? Another flat?”

“No. I figured you could use a bath. After all the exercise.”

They stopped at a wooden door with a list of services posted alongside.

“A public place?” Alexei said.

“You can sit here for hours and nobody’ll even notice you. Just a man in a towel.”

The
hamam
wasn’t old, probably turn of the century, but it had been modeled on the historic baths in Sultanahmet, the entrance hall a large rotunda with a fountain where men sat drinking tea, cooling off from the steam in the hot room. They were given towels and slippers and changed in the cubicles surrounding the courtyard, then went through the temperate room, Alexei adjusting the towel around his waist. A tight, wiry body with dark scars on one side that Leon realized might be bullet wounds, little flecks elsewhere. Knives? Nine lives, eight of them gone.

They walked into a wall of steam in the
hararet
and for a second Leon’s eyes started to water, stung by the heat. He could feel the wet air pushing down into his lungs, a searing, like standing too close to a fire. A man was being kneaded by a masseur on the marble slab in the center and attendants were scraping a few others with coarse mitts, but everyone else just sat lazing on benches with their eyes
half closed, like lizards in the sun. They took in Leon and Alexei, then went back to the heat, chests glistening. Leon looked around the room once, scanning faces, indistinct in the steam, then joined Alexei leaning back against the wall.

“Of course, sometimes it’s a matter of opportunity,” Alexei said, brooding, back in the earlier conversation. “You don’t have to plant someone—he’s already there.” He was quiet for a minute. “And then he has to protect himself. You’re lucky.”

“You think so,” Leon said, offhand.

“You’re looking for him, yes? He must know. But he shoots the Russian desk first.”

“Maybe Frank found him. I haven’t. That’s not why I’m there, remember? I’m supposed to find who killed Tommy. I’m looking for myself.”

Tangling again, like the calligraphy in the tiles around them.

Alexei smiled. “An interesting board. But how do you win it?”

“You’re going to win it for me. I just have to get you out alive.”

“With the Russians looking. Now police. Not just me anymore. You. Easier to identify.” He closed his eyes again. “Someone who sleeps with the wife.” He shook his head, then sighed out loud, giving in to the steam. “It feels good, the heat. Women. Turkish baths. I should have come to the Americans sooner.”

“But you were busy.”

Alexei lifted an eyelid. “That’s right. Busy.”

He wiped sweat off his upper arms then got up and went over to the basin, pouring water over his head and chest. The man getting the massage moaned. Everything hidden in the steam, the street outside miles away.

“How did you get that?” Leon said, nodding to the scar on Alexei’s side.

He sat down again. “Stalingrad. I was lucky. If it had been deeper—sepsis. No field hospital. You died right away or you died later.”

“You were at the front? I thought intelligence—”

“Antonescu liked to put us in the forward units. To make sure. No deserters, no defeatist talk. The Russians did it too.”

“He’d risk intelligence officers that way?”

“Think how many he killed himself. Why not let the Russians do it.” He wiped his forehead. “You’re surprised? It’s what they are, these men. Look at Stalin. Never safe. Sooner or later, everybody goes. So the trick is to go later.”