Stardust

by Joseph Kanon

  “I ran into Gus Hoover. Socony’s sending him home. You still can’t get a boat, though, so what do you think? They’re putting him on the clipper. Hell of a lot of money, but I guess they’ve got it to spend. Can you see Reynolds doing it for me? Not that I want to go. But you always wanted to, didn’t you? See New York.” He paused, leaving time for an answer. “Maybe when you’re better. We can’t really move you now. Like this. And I can take care of you here.” He motioned his hand to the room. “You could get better here.” He paused again. “Maybe if you’d try. Obstbaum says it isn’t a question of that. But what if it is? You could try. Everything could be the way it was. Better. The war’s over. All the terrible things.” Knowing as he said it that they weren’t over- people still in camps, boats still being turned around, everything she had gone away to escape still happening. What was there to come back for? Him? The drawer he shouldn’t open. Was it my fault? Another casualty of the war, Obstbaum had said, but what if she had left the world to leave him? Something only she knew and wasn’t coming back to answer. Not ever. Gus would fly home, all the others, and he would still be here, talking to himself while she stared at the garden. “You have to be patient,” Obstbaum had said. “The mind is like an eggshell. It can withstand tremendous pressure. But if it cracks it’s not so easy to put it back together.” A Humpty Dumpty explanation, as good as any other, but it was Leon who was sitting here, his world that had been cracked open.

  “I have to go soon. Tommy wants to have a drink at the Park. On a night like this. Not that rain ever kept Tommy from a drink. Still. You know what occurred to me? He wants to bring me inside. Run my own operation. I mean, a job like this tonight, it’s not messenger work anymore. There’d be money in it. It’s about time he-” Babbling, filling time. “Do you have everything you need?”

  He got up and went over to the bed, putting his hand on the dark hair fanning out beneath her. Lightly, just grazing it, because there was something unreal about physical contact now, touching someone who wasn’t there. And there was always a moment when he flinched, apprehensive, expecting her to reach up and snatch at his hand, finally mad. He passed the back of his hand over her forehead, a soothing motion, and she closed her eyes to it, looking for a second the way she used to after they made love, drifting.

  “Get some sleep,” he said quietly. “I’ll be back.”

  But not tomorrow. In the beginning he’d come every night, a kind of vigil, but then days slid by, filled with other things. Because the worst part was that, without even wanting to, he’d begun to leave her too.

  Outside, he walked through the village to the shore road, glancing at parked cars. But he wouldn’t see them, would he? Not if they were any good. After a while you developed an instinct. The Turkish police had been clumsy when Anna worked with Mihai. They’d park someone in the lobby of the Continental, where Mossad had its office, a bored policeman in a business suit who must have thought himself invisible behind the cigarette smoke. The work had been open- arranging visas for the weekly train to Baghdad, the overland route to Palestine. Just a trickle of refugees, but legal. The police watched Anna go to the Red Crescent offices, watched her check the manifest lists at Sirkeci, watched the transfer to Haydarpasa, a pattern so familiar they never thought to look anywhere else. When the illegal work began, Mihai’s boats, they were still following Anna to Sirkeci, still smoking in the lobby.

  Later, her work became a cover for Leon too. It was the Jewish wife working for Mossad who needed watching, not her American husband. Once he’d been playing tennis at the Sumer Palas in Tarabya when a man he assumed to be police wanted a quiet word. His wife. No doubt well meaning, but her activities were attracting attention. Turkey was a neutral country. They were its guests. It was a husband’s duty to watch over his household. Nobody wanted to be embarrassed. Not the R.J. Reynolds Company. Not the Turkish government. Leon remembered standing speechless in front of the old hotel, staring at the famous hydrangea bushes, a silence the man took for alarm, trying not to smile, to savor the unexpected gift. Anna suspect, not him.

  But that had been the locals. The Emniyet, the security police, were something else, never obvious, part of the air everyone breathed. Playing the home advantage. When Macfarland had been station head he was convinced they’d planted somebody inside, which would mean they might know about Leon too. Even unofficial, off the books. Tommy didn’t just pull the money out of his pocket. Where would they find him? Miscellaneous expenses? Jobs Tommy wanted to freelance out, like tonight.

  The square was empty, no tram in sight, just two women huddled under umbrellas waiting for a dolmus. And then, improbably, there was a single taxi, maybe out here on a run from Taksim. Leon stopped it, glancing over his shoulder as he got in, half expecting to see headlights turning on, a car starting up. But no one followed. He looked out back. Only a thin line of traffic, everyone chased inside by the rain. In Arnavutkoy a car pulled in behind, then went off again, leaving them alone. No one. Unless the taxi was Emniyet. But then the driver started to complain about something, the details lost in the swoosh of the windshield wipers, and Leon gave that up too. So much for instinct. Maybe he hadn’t had to do any of it- sneak out of the clinic, meet Mihai in the road. Maybe no one watched anymore. Maybe Mihai was right. It had become a habit.

  Tommy had already had a few by the time Leon got to the Park, his face red, cheeks shining with it. His broad shoulders still had the strong lines of someone who’d once played for Penn, but the rest of him had gone slack, pudgy from years of sitting and extra helpings.

  “Christ, you’re soaking. What’d you do, walk? Here, take the chill off. Mehmet, how about two more of the same? We’ll have them over there,” he said, lifting himself off the stool with a little grunt and heading for a small table against the wood-paneled wall.

  There were more people than Leon had expected, probably hotel guests who didn’t want to go out, but still plenty of empty tables. The long outside terrace, with its view of the Stamboul headland, had been closed for weeks. Leon remembered them both full, waiters with trays darting in and out like birds, people talking over each other, looking around to see who was there. What the Stork must be like.

  “Sorry about tonight,” Tommy said. “Didn’t know myself till I got the message. There won’t be any problem about the place, will there?”

  “No, I’ve got it for the month. I didn’t know how long he’d-”

  “The month? How much is that going to run us?”

  “It’s in Laleli. Cheap. You can afford it.”

  “Laleli. Where the fuck’s that? On the Asian side?”

  Leon smiled. “How long have you been here?”

  Tommy shrugged this off. “And what do we do with it after we move him?”

  “You could take your women there. Nice and private.”

  “Yeah, just us and the fleas. Ah, here we are,” he said as the drinks arrived. “Thank you, Mehmet.” He raised his glass. “Blue skies and clear sailing.”

  Leon raised his glass and took a sip. Cold and crisp, a whiff of juniper. Mehmet put down a silver bowl of pistachios and backed away.

  “Christ, imagine what he’s heard,” Tommy said, watching him go. “All these years.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t listen.”

  “They all listen. The question is, who for?”

  “Besides us?”

  Tommy ignored this. “They used to say every waiter in this room got paid twice. And sometimes more. At the same time. Remember the one used to send little love notes to von Papen, then turn around feed the same thing to the Brits?” He shook his head, amused. “Six months he pulls this off. You have to hand it to him.”

  “What good did it do? Anybody ever say anything at the Park that you wanted to know?”

  Tommy smiled. “You live in hope. You live in hope. Anyway, that wasn’t the point, was it? Point was to know. What they were saying, what they weren’t saying. Might be useful to somebody. Who could put the pieces together.”

>   “You think there was somebody like that?”

  “Christ, I hope so. Otherwise-” He let it go. “I’ll tell you something, though. It was fun too, this place. Goddam three-ring circus. Everybody. Same room. Packy Macfarland over there and that Kraut who kept pretending he was in the navy right next to him. Navy. And the Jap, Tashima, remember him, with the glasses, a spit of fucking Tojo. At first I thought it was him. And Mehmet’s listening to all of them.”

  “The good old days.”

  Tommy looked up, caught by his tone.

  “Come on, Tommy. It’s a little early for last rites at the Park. Mehmet’s still listening. God knows who else. For what it’s worth.”

  Tommy shook his head. “It’s finished, this place.”

  Leon looked around, feeling the drink a little. “Well, the Germans are gone. And Tojo. That’s what we wanted to happen, right?”

  “I mean the whole place. Neutral city in a war- everybody’s got an interest. Turks coming in? Staying out? What’s everybody up to? Now what? Now it’s just going to be Turks.”

  “You’ve still got me meeting boats,” Leon said, finishing his glass. “We’re still here.”

  “Not for long.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Tommy looked away, then raised his hand to signal for another round.

  “You’re going home?” Leon guessed.

  “We need to talk.”

  “That’s why we’re having the drink?” Not a new job.

  Tommy nodded. “They’re rolling up the operation.”

  Don’t react. “Which operation?”

  “Here. All of us. Well, most.”

  “You?”

  “Washington. You know, September they handed us over to the War Department. Couldn’t get rid of Bill fast enough, I guess. What G-2 wanted all along. R amp;A went to State. Whole unit. Now they’re Research Intelligence. Office of. But the field? What’s the War Department going to do with field officers? War’s over.”

  “Tell that to the Russians,” Leon said.

  “That’s Europe. Not here. Christ, Leon, you didn’t think we’d just keep going here forever, did you? After the war?” he said, his tone slightly defensive. “Ah, Mehmet.” Making room for the new drinks, some banter Leon didn’t hear as he watched Tommy’s face, the red cheeks moving as he talked. Knowing it was coming, arranging his own transfer, taking care of business. A desk at the War Department? Or something closer to the Mayflower bar? He looked down at the fresh drink, his stomach queasy. Now what? Back to the desk at Reynolds, days without edge.

  “When does this happen?”

  “End of the month.”

  Just like that.

  “What about me?”

  “You? I thought you’d be glad it’s over. You never wanted- I had to talk you into it, remember? Though I have to say you took right to it. Best I had. You know that, don’t you? That I always thought that.” He moved his hand, as if he were about to put it on Leon’s, but stopped. “I could put in a word for you- I mean, knowing Turkish, that’s something. But they’re closing the shop here. Everything back to G-2 and you don’t want to join the army, do you?” He looked over the brim of his glass. “It’s time to go home, Leon. OWI’s already packed up. Everybody’s going home.”

  “I haven’t been back to the States in- what? Ten years now.”

  “You don’t want to stay here. What’s here?”

  My life.

  “Get Reynolds to transfer you back. Be a big shot in the tobacco business.”

  Would they? An office in a long corridor of offices, sharing a secretary, not his own corner overlooking Taksim. A house in Raleigh with a small yard, not the flat on Aya Pasa looking all the way to the Sea of Marmara. Anna where?

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to move Anna. She’s doing so well now. Real progress. A move now-” The lie effortless, one of the reasons he’d been the best.

  “She’d do even better in the States, if you ask me. They could do something for her there. Hospitals here-” He stopped. “You look all funny. What is it? The money?”

  “The money?” Leon snorted. “What you pay? That’s not enough to notice.” Just enough to make a difference. “It’s the drink, I guess,” he said, pushing it away. “I’m beat. All the waiting around.” He looked up, feeling Tommy staring at him, alert behind the glassy eyes. “I never did it for money, you know.”

  “I know. I appreciate that.”

  “I’m surprised we’re pulling out, that’s all. Be a little dull. Pushing paper at the office.”

  “Want to push some more? They’re going to need somebody at Western Electric. Middle East account- the whole territory. Guy in charge now is leaving.”

  “For Washington?”

  “So I hear.”

  “You had someone at Western too?”

  “Now, now.”

  “Like to keep your bets all over the table, don’t you?” Separate drawers, separate secrets.

  “Safer that way.”

  “You’ll be running out of covers soon. No more Lend-Lease. No more OWI. Western Electric. Even the guy in the tobacco business.”

  “What guy?”

  Leon smiled. “I’m going to miss you. I guess. When do you go?”

  “As soon as we can arrange air transport. For our friend. The one who got seasick tonight.”

  “You’re going with him?”

  “We don’t want him to travel alone. He might get lost. We just need to park him here for a day or so. Then all your troubles are over. But while you’ve got him- well, I don’t have to tell you. It’s not as if you’ve never done this before. Just be careful.”

  “Always.”

  “With this one, I mean. Lots of people want to talk to him. So all the old rules. He doesn’t go out. He doesn’t-”

  “I know the rules, Tommy. If you’re that nervous, why don’t you pick him up yourself?”

  “Spread the bets, Leon. This time, I’m not even at the table. Nothing to see, nothing to connect me. I just pack up my bags and leave. You run into people on the plane, that’s all. But I can’t put him there. The board would light up. I’m not invisible here.”

  “And I am.”

  “You’re freelance. They won’t be expecting that. Not for him.”

  “What’s he got, that you have to take him to Washington yourself?”

  “Leon.”

  “You owe me that much.”

  Tommy looked at him for a minute, then downed the rest of his drink. “Lots,” he said finally, nodding. “Up here.” He touched his temple. “Also a very nice photo album.”

  “Of?”

  “Mother Russia. Aerial recon. The Germans photographed everything, when they still could. Valuable snaps now.”

  “And he got these how?”

  “That I couldn’t say. Fell off a truck, maybe. Things do. Want another?”

  Leon shook his head. “I’d better go. Start being invisible. Here, finish this.”

  “Well, since I’m paying-”

  Leon stood up. “Some evening.”

  “Tomorrow then. One more and you’re a free man.”

  Leon looked at him, disconcerted by the phrase. “Who is he, Tommy?”

  “He’ll answer to John.”

  “As in Johann? German?”

  “As in John Doe.” He glanced up. “No funny business, okay? Let Washington ask the questions. Just do your piece. There’ll be a bonus in it, if I can talk them into it.”

  “I don’t care about that.”

  “That’s right. Good of the country. Still. Think of it as- I don’t know, for old times’ sake.” He turned his head to the room.

  “You coming?”

  “I’ll just finish this. Give the place one last look. Goddam three-ring circus, wasn’t it?” he said, his voice drooping, like his eyes, maudlin.

  Leon picked up his damp coat. “By the way,” Tommy said, sharp again. “Separate pieces, but where the hell’s Laleli?”

  “Past the un
iversity. Before you get to Aksaray.”

  “Christ, who goes out there?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  Kanon, Joseph

  Stardust

  PRAISE FOR STARDUST

  “In Stardust, Kanon rescues postwar Los Angeles from noir cliches.

  … Hovering over it all, like a freakish fog off the Pacific, is the shadow of the Holocaust, its enormity only now becoming apparent.

  … [Kanon] operates with an intelligence that briskly evokes the atmosphere of a vanished era.” — The New York Times Book Review

  “A delicious synthesis of menace and glamour, historical fact and rich imagination… Among the real movie people making appearances here is Paulette Goddard-just one element of a perfect setting for a story in which nothing is obvious.” — The Seattle Times

  “Spectacular in every way… wonderfully imagined, wonderfully written, an urgent personal mystery set against the sweep of glamorous and sinister history. Joseph Kanon owns this corner of the literary landscape and it's a joy to see him reassert his title with such emphatic authority.” — Lee Child

  “Stardust is sensational! No one writes period fiction with the same style and suspense — not to mention substance-as Joseph Kanon. A terrific read.” — Scott Turow

  “STARDUST is the perfect combination of intrigue and accurate history brought to life.” — Alan Furst