“Oh, Ed. He never said five words to me, and now every time I turn around there he is. Maybe he thinks I’m a rich widow. Ha, not that rich.”

“But you’ll need a lawyer. Did Tommy leave a will?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t found one anyway. You don’t expect-at his age-” She trailed off, beginning to tear up again.

“Here you go,” Ed said, coming up from behind with a fresh drink, exchanging it for the empty glass in her hand.

“Thank you, Ed,” she said, voice quavering, a new mood. “You’ve been so wonderful.”

“Chin up,” he said, raising his glass.

“Don’t let me get tipsy. That’s all I’d need.”

“You won’t,” he said. A friend of the family, even more attentive now, wanting a seat at the table, a curiosity he couldn’t contain.

“Excuse me, Mrs. King?” The hotel manager with a question about the champagne.

“Well, I thought I said with dessert, but if people are asking for it,” she said, following him.

“You meet Frank Bishop?” Ed said.

“Just to shake hands. In Ankara.”

“He’s the sheriff, don’t you think?” Ed said, leaning forward, confiding.

“How do you mean?”

“This must have set off some pretty loud bells. The minute they hear, he’s on a plane.”

“I’m not sure I’m following, Ed.”

“For a desk holder at Commercial Corp.” He raised his eyes, a knowing look.

“Who’s that he’s talking to?” Leon said, looking across. A man he recognized but didn’t know, one of those people you saw at parties but somehow never met.

“Al Maynard. Western Electric. You don’t know Al?”

Leon shook his head. Tommy’s man.

“Too late now. He’s going to Washington.”

“Mm. Tommy mentioned it.”

“He did? Why? I mean, if you don’t know him.”

“Well, not him, the job. He thought I might be interested in his job.”

“Funny how things work. Al might get Tommy’s now. The new one, in Washington. Somebody will. Look at him sucking up to Frank.”

“What did you mean, he’s the sheriff?”

“They don’t trust the police here. They sent their own man. They know it wasn’t a robbery.”

“How do they know that?”

Ed nodded toward Frank. “Then why send him?”

“Ed.”

“I’m just saying what everybody in this room is thinking. Everybody in the room.”

Were they? Leon looked around. The indistinct hum of social conversation, but a tension too, people shooting side glances at Frank, lowering their voices when Barbara went by, speculating, buzzing with it, everybody with his own idea. But no one knew. Leon felt the tingling at the back of his neck again. No one knew.

Frank had moved on to someone else now. Another link in Tommy’s network? Maybe you could follow him like a diagram around the room, point to undercover point. But what did they all do now? It had started with watching boats, the traffic in the Bosphorus. Drinking at the Park, hoping for an indiscretion. No one got shot. But that war was over. In the new one you brought out murderers and kept them safe. So they could tell you about other murderers. With a job in Washington at the end. Now open again. Waiting for a new Tommy.

“Could I cadge one more?” Kay Bishop said, suddenly next to him. “Or don’t they like it inside, either?”

He blinked, coming back.

“Smoking,” she prompted.

He took out a pack and turned to introduce Ed, but Ed had gone. How long had he been standing here, watching the room?

“I think you can risk it,” he said, putting on a party smile. “This crowd.”

She had taken off her dark glasses and now he saw her eyes for the first time, shiny and alert, so bright they seemed to have drained the light from her pale skin, leaving a sprinkling of tiny freckles. They looked directly into his, steady, without fluttering movements to the side, and the effect was an easy familiarity, as if they already knew each other and were simply picking up the thread of an ongoing conversation. Then the eyebrows went up slightly, a question, and he realized he’d been staring.

“They’re green,” he said. “Your eyes. Like the song.”

“Just flecks. They’re really brown. It’s a trick of the light.”

“Some trick.”

“Is that a pass?”

“Sorry,” he said, surprised, “did it sound like one?”

“How would I know anymore?” she said. “I’m in Ankara.”

“They don’t make passes in Ankara?”

“If they do, I missed it.”

“What do they do?”

“The wives play cards. The men, I don’t know. Try to stay awake, mostly. Anyway, no passes.”

“Government town. It’s always like that. Saves trouble later.”

“And the Turks-”

“Ah.”

“No, worse. They just look. Like you’re something in a candy store.”

“It’s new for them, men and women mixing. They’re not used to it.”

“But they’re married. Don’t they talk to their wives?”

He smiled. “Maybe that’s why they don’t talk to you.”

She raised her glass in a touche gesture.

He smiled again, feeling suddenly buoyant, the first time since Bebek that he felt himself, his mind clear, not twisting around anything. Then she tilted her head, “what?” and he shook his in reply, “nothing”, embarrassed now. Flirting. Here, of all places. With Frank’s wife. Not even especially pretty. Except for the eyes. Aware of her perfume.

“There’s one, for instance. He’s been staring at me for five minutes.”

Leon followed her gaze, then froze. Not staring at her, staring at him. The man in Marina’s building, on the tram, only one coincidence allowed. A thin moustache, something Leon hadn’t noticed before.

“How do you know he’s a Turk?” he said, quickly turning back. “He could be anybody.” Making conversation. The buoyancy gone, weighted down again with uneasiness. A flicker toward the man. Still there.

“The way he looks. Like you’re a specimen. But he’ll just look. So I guess that leaves you. Let’s see. Eyes. Anything else you like?”

“Everything,” Leon said, looking at her for a second. “But Frank probably does too.”

She stopped, a ball suspended in midair, then looked down. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I was just-passing the time. You get to learn how to do that.”

“In Ankara,” he finished for her.

She took a sip from her glass. “People don’t talk like this there.”

“Like what?”

“Back and forth.”

“Tell Frank to take a furlough. Stay for a while.”

“He has to go back. But I’m here for a few days. Right here, in fact.” She looked up, as if they could see through the ceiling into her room.

“Your first trip?”

“One day when we got here. Right off the train. We saw Topkapi. The big church.”

“Haghia Sophia.”

“Then another train. Then Ankara. So what should I see?”

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