by Joseph Kanon
“I mean, who’s supposed to be watching?”
Who would be? Altan must have someone. Would Melnikov risk a meeting alone? Barksdale, still not sure of him? The barman? The waiter? The Turkish woman with the hat?
“I don’t know,” he said again, hearing himself this time, the absurdity of it. “Everybody. All the time. If you keep doing it. Someone always is. That’s what it’s like. All the time.” A conversation with himself now. You’re part of this.
“You’re going to bend that spoon.”
He looked down at his hands, his thumbs pressing against the thin neck of polished steel.
“You do that. There’s nothing in your face, and then I hear a snap and I see something’s been going on all the time.”
He dropped the spoon, looking away, someone caught.
“Tell me what you were thinking. Just now. Don’t make something up. What you were really thinking.”
He picked up the spoon again, staring at it.
“Tell me.”
“What do you do,” he said, still looking down, as if he were reading, “when there’s no right thing to do. Just the wrong thing. Either way.”
She said nothing for a minute, not expecting this.
“And you can’t avoid it anymore. Doing something.” He looked up. “What do you do?” Not really a question, not even to himself.
“I don’t know,” she said, stalling, then met his eyes. “Are you talking about me?”
“What? No,” he said, moving his hands over, catching a spill. “I didn’t mean—” He stopped. “Not you,” he said softly.
“Oh,” she said, just a sound, her face flushing, surprised again. She reached over, covering his hands. “Then what?”
Drawing him in, as if they were in bed, no secrets.
He looked at her for another second, then shook his head. “Nothing.”
“We could get up, right now, and walk out of here,” she said, still clutching his hand, her eyes fixed on him. “Just keep going. Before there’s anything more. We could do that.”
Through the doors, past one of Gülün’s men, on Altan’s leash, past the consulate. I’ve explained you. Altan waiting.
“I can’t,” he said, moving his hand away.
She kept hers on the table. “Why not? One last thing. What last thing?”
Well, what?
“We can find out who killed Frank.”
“Frank?” she said, thrown, pulling her hand back. “How? What do you mean? That’s what he’s coming here for?”
“No.”
“Are you doing this for me? Don’t. What does it matter who? Somebody, that’s all. It doesn’t change anything.”
“And next time it’ll be somebody else. Maybe me.”
Her eyes flashed, then looked away, a backing off. She drew on her cigarette to calm down.
“You think a Russian did it,” she said.
“Not this Russian. Smile again. He’s here.”
Over her shoulder, he could see Melnikov hesitate at the door, an entrance, then head straight for them. He did everything he was expcted to do—his surprise at seeing them, remembering Kay from Lily’s party, not wanting to intrude but persuaded to stay—but all of it done so clumsily that only his awkwardness made it seem authentic. Leon thought of Lily, gliding through her guests. Melnikov ordered vodka. Then, having exhausted his script, he sat waiting for Leon, a silence anyone in the room would notice.
“I’ll be right back,” Kay said. “Powder room. You’ll excuse me?”
Melnikov stood as she left, formal, then turned to Leon. “Where is he?”
“Safe. We can do it this afternoon.”
“How much do you want?” Blunt, not the playful ritual of the Bazaar.
“A trade. Your man in the consulate.”
“What man?”
“The one who killed Frank.”
“There is no such man.”
“Yes there is. Frank found him, that’s why he’s dead. So will we. Now that we know he’s there. But we’d like to speed things up. They’re both damaged goods now. An even trade.”
Melnikov thought about this. “How do I know you have him?”
“You’ll see him. I bring mine, you bring yours. Don’t come empty-handed. It’s a one-time offer. Pick the place.”
“And no money. Not even a tip for you.”
“Maybe next time.”
Melnikov stared at him, not sure how to take this.
“This isn’t hard. Take it or leave it.”
“And if I leave it?”
“Then we get both of them. Bad arithmetic for you.”
Melnikov shrugged. “But he’s already talked.”
“Only to me. Or he’d be in Washington now. He likes to wait for the right move—a chess player. But you know that. He said you were a little slow. So I guess his information’s still good.”
Melnikov sat back, annoyed.
“We’re wasting time. You’ll want guarantees. So do we. Can you bring him today?”
Melnikov hesitated, running the tip of his tongue between his lips, a wolf’s anticipation.
“I think you may be surprised,” he said finally.
Leon looked at him. Done. A life discarded in a second. Enver slipping in the bath.
“Only if you don’t show up.”
Melnikov snorted, then picked up his glass, draining it.
“You pick the place,” Leon said again.
“Well, goodness, here you are, big as life. I’ve been wondering. I thought maybe you’d gone home.” Barbara King, Ed Burke trailing behind.
Leon stood, kissing the cheek she offered.
“I hope you’re coming to my party. I left about a hundred messages.”
Now turning to be introduced to Melnikov, Ed hanging back, as if the physical presence of a Russian was upsetting, the bogeyman real.
“Isn’t it a little early?” Barbara said, noticing the glass. Then Kay was coming back. “Kay,” she said, stretching the syllable. “I’ve been meaning to call. Those first few days, I know what it’s like.”
And suddenly it was the crowd outside Sirkeci, everyone in motion, trying to get out of each other’s way. Melnikov wary, suspecting tricks. But about what? Kay slightly panicky, someone who’d left her post for a second and now saw people rushing through the gate. Ed flustered for no reason at all, embarrassed maybe for Leon, his interrupted tryst. Only Barbara blithely enjoying herself, eyeing Kay’s dress, taking the confusion for some kind of evidence, a vindicated house detective.
“Ed, have you met Ivan Melnikov?”
Ed now reluctant, barely managing to get through a handshake, Melnikov just as publicly diffident so that for a second Leon wondered if in fact they already knew each other. Melnikov’s face a mask, giving nothing away. I think you may be surprised.
Leon looked at the other tables, people talking to each other, or pretending to. Try not to leave the hotel, Altan had said. But how could they stay now?
“Not even one drink?” Barbara was saying. “A citron pressé? I never see you.”
“I’m late already,” Kay said, fluttering.
“But can’t it wait? Ten minutes.”
Leon could see her thinking, a movement in the back of her eyes.
“Not the hairdresser,” she said.
“Women and their hair,” Melnikov said, indulgent, as if nothing more could be said.
“And us. I’m sorry,” Leon said.
“You’re going to the hairdresser too?” Barbara said, playing.
“The consulate.” He turned to Melnikov. “I promised we’d be there by—”
“To meet the new guy?” Ed said, interested now. “They say—but you must have seen him. First thing. I mean he’d want—” He stopped. “What’s he like?”
Melnikov looked at Leon. Presumably his new boss, someone Leon would know.
“He’s from Washington, Ed,” Leon said, trying to be light. “You know. I think they even get their suits from the same pla
ce.”
And then they were in the lobby, Ed and Barbara left in the bar but still looking at them, everything a question mark.
“Well, now I’d better have it done,” Kay said, brushing the back of her hair.
“Mrs. Bishop,” Melnikov said, taking her hand. “A pleasure.”
Not lingering, someone keeping an appointment. He moved back so Leon could say good-bye.
“Thanks for the tea,” Kay said, one eye to the bar.
Leon took her hand. “We’ll do it again,” he said, something for Melnikov and the bellhops. Then low, only to her, “Wait for me.”
She shuddered, as if a draft had just swept through the door.
“What?”
Her eyes wide, then darting across his face. “I just had the strangest feeling.” She put her hand on his arm, holding him in place.
“What?”
She glanced toward the door, Melnikov waiting. “I don’t know,” she said, her fingers still gripping him. “Just a feeling.”
Leon looked back over his shoulder. “He’s watching.”
She dropped her hand. “All right,” she said, then caught his sleeve. “Wait. I know. What you said before. Two wrong things. They’re not the same. They can’t be. You have to decide.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You wonder,” she said, not listening to him, “did I do the right thing? But at least you made the choice.” Her voice intense, as if no one else were in the room. Then she lowered her head. “Well, listen to me.” She let go his sleeve. “Did I do the right thing?”
“Kay—”
“I still don’t know. You’d better go,” she said, glancing to Melnikov again.
Leon looked at her, disconcerted, wanting to touch her, the room full of eyes, the clock beginning to tick again. “Wait for me,” he said, code for everything else.
“An attractive woman,” Melnikov said in the street. “No, this way.” Up to Tünel, the route already picked out. “And now a widow.”
“Yes.”
“You were close to him?”
“Not particularly.”
“I knew him. A careful man. But not with our friend Jianu. I never understood that. We didn’t know—I admit that to you. It should have been easy for you. So what happened? A man so careful.”
“He trusted the wrong people.”
“But it was you he trusted,” Melnikov said, the way it made sense to him. “And with his wife. Twice wrong, I think. And now you ask me to trust you.”
“You won’t come alone. Neither will I. We can trust each other that much. Like a time-out.”
“Time—”
“When you stop the game. A little truce. To make the trade. Then it starts again.”
“But no money,” Melnikov said, still brooding. “I thought you were keeping him for that.”
“Maybe he’s more valuable to us this way.”
“Us. And how is it more valuable to you?” He looked at Leon. “A man of many loyalties, our Jianu. And you?”
“Only one,” Leon said, not biting.
“Stars and Stripes,” Melnikov said, still looking, skeptical, his voice almost a sneer.
And what was that? A Saturday Evening Post cover. But that was before. Now it was someone ordering a trade.
“You’ve tried this already. With Georg. I don’t want any money.”
“So it was something else. To make you give up your prize.” Noting it, filing it away for the future. But not Leon’s, almost out of it. Just play out the hand.
“Maybe he isn’t worth as much as we thought.”
Melnikov looked at him for a moment, calculating again, then started walking, almost at the square now, the scraping sound of a tram being turned around.
“You don’t know how to talk to him,” he said flatly.
“But you do.”
“Yes. He’ll talk to us.”
Leon looked at the square, sunny, a break in the clouds, and felt the chill of a dripping basement. There’d be screams. Everybody screamed finally. Everybody talked.
People were pouring out of the funicular station.
“Just in time,” Melnikov said.
“Where are you going? We need to—”
“Have you noticed? People always take it coming up. A jeton? A small price, to avoid the hill. But down? So mostly empty. Private.”
The few people boarding were heading to the front car to be off first.
“You see?” Melnikov said, getting into the last car. “No one. A good place to talk. No ears.”
Except the man who just then got in, standing by the window until he caught Melnikov’s eye and backed out again, going to the next car, an almost slapstick retreat. One of Melnikov’s own, too eager, or just somebody off the street? The buzzer rang, doors sliding shut, and they started down through the tunnel, old concrete and bare bulbs, what the way to Melnikov’s basement might look like. Just the two of them.
“Now it’s safe,” Melnikov said. “How many men will you bring?”
All business, negotiating a contract, as if they were in one of the banks on Voyvoda Caddesi at the foot of the hill. Guarantees. Procedures. Handing over someone to be killed. Meeting the funicular cars going up, at the halfway point, then swallowed up again by the narrow passage, Melnikov’s eyes never leaving him, someone who’d killed his own men. Means to an end. But what was the end now?
At the bottom, he stopped himself from rushing out, waiting for the doors to slide all the way open.
“Six o’clock then,” Melnikov said.
And it was done, over, the claustrophobic ride, Melnikov’s eyes. They crossed Tersane, dodging cars, suddenly back in real life, everything opening up before him, the smells of the Karaköy market, the amateur fishermen dangling poles off the bridge, trams and cars and peddlers and the minarets beyond, the scene he’d known a thousand times before, but bathed in an unnatural light now, the city wonderful again because it was done.
“You have not said where,” Melnikov said.
“You pick.”
Melnikov spread his hand, turning the choice back to Leon. “Somewhere with people,” he said.
Leon flipped through mental postcards. Not Haghia Sophia, gloom and frescoes. Taksim, cars waiting close by? A tram was coming across from Eminönü, another from this side, like seconds marking out paces, crowds streaming by, oblivious. He stopped, almost laughing at the obvious.
“Here,” he said, pointing. “Galata Bridge.”
They left early, Alexei in a life vest this time.
“More boats,” he said, but not the creaky fishing trawler, one of Lily’s motorboats, sleek with wood trim.
“I hope you’re not afraid of flying too,” Altan said.
The story was a drive to the airport, army transport out, what should have happened days ago.
“Then why the boat?”
“The airport’s on the European side,” Leon said. “We can’t risk the car ferry. They watch it.” Keeping him safe. “Relax.”
Alexei made a resigned grimace, the boat slapping hard against whitecaps, pitching up and down.
After they passed the Dolmabahçe Mosque, Leon looked up the hill, trying to find his window. There’d be mail waiting, curious Mr. Cicek, wondering what the police had wanted. Alexei was taking everything in, his first real look at the city, spilling over its hills in the weak afternoon light. Leon checked his watch. Almost dark, but at this time of year a lingering dusk, light enough for Melnikov to see them on the bridge.
They swung into the Golden Horn, then idled just far enough away from the bridge to keep it in sight, the cranes and drydocks of the shipyards ahead.
“They won’t expect us to come down the Horn,” Altan said, indicating the factories and oily water farther along. He was scanning the bridge through binoculars.
“Who?” Alexei said. “The Americans?”
“No,” Altan said, catching himself. “Anybody. Force of habit.” So feeble that it passed as an excuse.
“How do you know?”
“I looked. When we passed under. You don’t need those if you know how to look. They say a lion can sit, looking at grass, and then for one second something’s not right, a movement, one second, and he knows.”
Altan made a face. “Aslan,” he said wryly. Lion.
Leon looked at the bridge. Could anyone really see that way? A second’s movement in a place perpetually in motion? The iron arches, the pontoons at their feet, people crowding onto the jetties from the ferries, the lower level of fish restaurants and stalls, trams sliding overhead, the sprawling market—all the same to him, nothing out of place. How much longer now? He turned and gazed toward the docks, trying not to look at Alexei. Around the curve was Kasim Paşa and then the yards where the Victorei had waited in quarantine.
“Any news of the ship?” he asked Altan.
It took Altan a minute. “Oh, the Jews. No. How would I hear? We don’t follow them to Palestine.”
“I’d like to know,” Leon said, a request.
“You know it was said there was typhus?”
Leon nodded. “A miracle recovery. It cost ten thousand dollars. Turkish medicine.”
Altan stared at him, more embarrassed than offended.
“How many? On the ship,” Alexei asked.
“Four hundred,” Leon said. “A few more.”
“You saved four hundred Jews,” Altan said to Alexei, an ironic taunting in his voice.
“And I only owed you one life,” Alexei said to Leon.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Leon said quickly.
Alexei put his hand to his chest, an abbreviated salaam. “Bereket versin.”
“You know Turkish?” Altan said, surprised.
“A few words. You pick things up.” He looked at Altan. “Aslan.”
Altan turned back to the bridge.
“Why are we here?” Alexei said to Leon. “What happens now?”
“It’s not time yet. There’ll be a car,” Leon said, nodding to the Eminönü side. Where Melnikov must be waiting, in the big square filled with buses and stalls frying mackerel from the boats tied up alongside. “I’ll walk you over. And then we’re done.”
Alexei kept looking at him, not saying anything.
