At the bottom of the steps Yashim bore around to the right: he had a vague idea that they could follow the shoreline and cut back up later.
“There he is! Get him!”
The Maltese were on the steps.
Preen stumbled and screamed.
Yashim caught her by the arm again and wrenched her around the corner.
The wall on their left dropped away: they were on the quay. Ahead he could see the upright poles of the landing stage, with a single caique resting between them.
If they could just make it to the boat—
A man came out from an alley to the right and walked toward the caique.
“Wait!” Yashim bellowed.
The man did not look around. He stepped into the caique. The rower put his hand to the oar.
Yashim and Preen were twenty yards off. The caique started forward with a lurch.
“Wait! Help!” Yashim shouted. “Help me!” he shouted in Greek.
He flung an arm around the mooring pole. The caique was ten feet out. The rower looked at Yashim, then back along the quay to where the Maltese had just appeared.
The man in the caique glanced around. He nodded to the rower and the caique slid back. Preen and Yashim rolled aboard.
As the caique shot forward again, the Maltese slowed. They jogged along the waterfront, shaking their fists.
“Baby killer!”
Yashim looked up to thank the man, and to apologize.
“We need to get a watchman here,” he said.
The man shrugged.
It was Alexander Mavrogordato.
43
“THANK you for stopping.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for some people,” Yashim said.
Mavrogordato glanced back at the quay. “You found them, it would seem.”
“They were the wrong people.” Yashim rubbed his forehead and took a breath. “You took me off the case.”
The young man shrugged. “Mother did.”
In the dark it was hard to tell if he was lying.
“Lefevre was already dead,” Yashim said. “You couldn’t have known that, could you?”
“Why should I care? A man like Lefevre.”
Yashim heard water dripping from the scull. “It was a coincidence, then?”
“You are in my caique,” the young man pointed out. “That looks like a coincidence, doesn’t it?”
“Perhaps. But then—I was looking for you, too.”
“You—you followed me?”
“No. But I heard that you came down here sometimes.”
“That’s not true. Who said so?”
“It’s true tonight, isn’t it?”
Alexander Mavrogordato did not reply. If he’d been smoking, Yashim thought, he sounded calm.
“Who owns the
The fragile boat rocked as it crossed the wake of a fisherman’s boat.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Is it one of your father’s boats?”
“Listen, friend.” Alexander leaned forward. “I don’t know the old man’s business. In six months I will be out of here, God willing.”
“Out of here? Why?”
