about him.” He looked up. “Always have something to trade.”
Leon stood still for a second, as if he were balancing himself, testing his footing. Alexei’s eyes, gray and clear, insistent. Which hadn’t seen anything at the abattoir. He said. Holding up his bargaining chip.
“Let’s start with the gun then,” Leon said. “One less complication. I’d better have it back.”
“The gun?” Alexei said, not expecting this. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Get rid of it,” Leon said, picking up the empty food bag.
“And how do I protect myself here?”
“Use the one you brought with you,” Leon said, looking at him. “You’d have to have one. You just wanted this for a little insurance. And maybe to see if I was dumb enough to give it to you.” He held out his hand. “It’s a murder weapon now. Evidence. You might use it to put me there. In Bebek. If things don’t go well. Right?”
Alexei looked at the open hand, then reached into his pocket and took out the gun, smiling a little. “A quick learner.” He handed it over.
“You’re right about the plane,” Leon said, putting the gun in the bag. “I’ll arrange something else.” He started for the door. “Just stay put. You’re safe here.”
“And that’s my protection now,” Alexei said, nodding to the lock. “A door.” He looked at Leon. “And you.”
Leon reached for the knob.
“By the way, it matters to you? What happened at Straulesti? I wasn’t part of that. What they did. If your friend says yes, he’s lying.” Making a case now, reassuring. “I wasn’t part of that.”
Leon turned. “That must be a comfort.”
On the ferry back, Leon stayed out on the lower deck, dropping the bag over the side halfway across, even the sound of the small splash covered by the grind of the motors. Ibrahim the Sot had drowned his whole harem here, sewn into sacks. The gun was easier. Just another secret in the Bosphorus. Nothing to connect him now to the quay, nothing to connect Mihai. Not even Alexei once he could pass him along the chain Tommy had tried to break. His new partner. He looked down at the dark water, uneasy again. The gun would be settling on the bottom, lodging itself in the silt, too heavy for the current. Except there were two currents in the Bosphorus, he’d read somewhere, the surface current flowing south and a deep undercurrent
Inside the cabin, the tea man was handing a tulip glass to a man in a knit cap, the kind Mihai had worn. A dockworker? A thief? Who was anybody? Tommy ordering drinks at the Park, every second a betrayal. Years of it. You can’t trust anybody now, Alexei had said, asking Leon to trust him.
3
THE FUNERAL WAS HELD at Christ Church, near the Galata Tower, with a reception to follow in one of the private rooms at the Pera Palas. It was the same service Tommy would have had however he had died-the same hymns, the same homily about a man taken too soon, the same teary handkerchiefs. But he hadn’t just died, released from illness. He’d been killed, the violence of it disturbing, somehow shaming, as if he’d been complicit in his own death. So people said comforting things to Barbara and fidgeted in their seats, wondering.
Leon sat to the side, watching people take their places. Ed Burke was next to Barbara as chief mourner, with the staff of Commercial Corp. filling out the pew behind. The business community had come out and most of the consulate, an almost official gathering, except for a sprinkling of unknown faces, part of Tommy’s wide social net. Near the back were a few Turks secular enough to risk being in a church and two burly men Leon assumed to be police, scanning the crowd, their faces expressionless.
Frank Bishop had come from the embassy in Ankara, stiff and formal in a black suit and owlish horn-rimmed glasses. He had brought his wife, a woman Leon hadn’t met, his dealings with Frank usually a drink at the Ankara Palas or an early dinner at Karpic’s, just long enough to leave papers. She kept her head half bowed, so Leon had to crane slightly to see her face, or the part of it not shadowed by her hat. Pale skin, just a hint of makeup, reddish hair, younger than Frank. Next to them, the Liggett & Myers rep was handing out candy to his restless children. A committee from the club had sent a wreath. Barbara wept during the reading of the Twenty-third Psalm. The minister spoke of Tommy’s open heart and concern for others. No one in the solemn, drafty room, Leon realized, had known him at all.
Afterward, they clustered at the door, hugging or shaking hands, then started the steep climb up. A taxi had been ordered for Barbara, its width almost filling the narrow street, but everyone else went on foot, wives clinging to their husbands’ arms, careful of their heels on the paving stones.
“Christ, I don’t know how the
“You know, stevedores, whatever you call them. Who carry things. You see some of the loads, you don’t know how they can stand up.”
“It’d be mules this far up,” Leon said.
“I don’t think you know my wife, Katherine,” Frank said.
“Kay,” she said, almost fiercely, as if she were angry about something. She was wearing dark glasses against the winter sun, her eyes no more visible that they’d been in church.
“Nice of you to come,” Leon said, taking out a cigarette. “It’s a long trip, Ankara.”
“Could I have one of those? Do you mind? Or isn’t it all right? On the street, I mean. I never know what the right thing to do is in this country.” Not anger, more a general impatience, waiting for everyone else to catch up.
“You’re among friends,” Leon said, lighting hers.
“Katherine, I wish you wouldn’t,” Frank said, her name some pointless tug-of-war between them.
“Oh, I know. Set an example. Just two puffs. Those
“Katherine-”
“All right. Not appropriate.” She dropped the cigarette and ground it out. “Sorry,” she said to Leon. “I didn’t mean to waste it.”
Leon smiled. “I’ve got plenty. I’m in the business.”
“What business?”
“I buy tobacco. For export.”
“I thought you were with the consulate. Like everyone else,” she said, dipping her head toward the others.
“Only when I need a permit.”
“There’s Barbara,” Frank said. Her taxi had now reached the square and was waiting for the tram to turn. “At least we’ll get decent grub at the Pera. And it’s right by the consulate.”
“Convenient,” his wife said.
“Mm. Tommy’s second office. Funny to think of having his wake there.”
The tram moved and they started across.
“Ted,” Frank said to the man ahead of them. “Katherine, do you mind tagging along with the Kiernans? I need to have a word with Leon. We’ll catch up.”
She lifted her head, about to protest, but Ted had already taken her elbow, so she settled for being annoyed, not bothering to say good-bye.
“Do you have another?” Frank said, nodding to Leon’s pack. “We need to talk,” he said while he lit it. “Walk with me.” A self-satisfied boarding school voice, used to getting his way.
They started up the Istiklal Caddesi.
“This is a real mess,” Frank said.
“Tommy, you mean.”
Frank nodded. “And I don’t have a lot of time. What did you do for Tommy? Besides the courier job, I
