“And who knows? I might say something one day you could use. In a weak moment.”
“You think I would do that?” she said.
“Maybe. Isn’t that why they came to you? You make a good recruit. People tell you things all the time.”
She turned to him, stung. “That’s right. All the time. Wonderful things. Do you want to hear? Do this. More. Let me see you like that. Yes, open your legs,” she said, everything in a rush, spilling over with it, louder. “Oh, you don’t want to hear? Why not? Wonderful things. All my life. Just to have this,” she said, her hand to the room. “Emniyet doesn’t want to hear, either. Tell us what he says. What do they think men say to a whore?”
The bedroom door opened. Just a head, face unshaven, and the top of an undershirt. A quick exchange in a language Leon didn’t understand, Marina telling him to go back inside. Glowering at Leon, unsure, then closing the door. Marina looked over at him, saying nothing, the mood now slightly deflated, interrupted.
“What was that? The language.”
“Armenian,” she said.
“A specialty?”
“He likes it, yes,” she said, defiant now. “It makes it better for him. His language. Would you like to know what he tells me in it?”
Leon turned away, then caught his reflection, someone unfamiliar, as tarnished as the mirror itself, mottled with age, brown spots spreading around the edges. Wearing out. A place he’d found erotic, dust in the window light, a sheen of sweat, now just a tired room, a surly Armenian behind the door, a thin girl in a wrapper, waiting to please him, what her life was really like. He stared at himself for another minute, unable to move, the same hollowing out he sometimes felt after sex, the man in the mirror looking straight back, undeceived.
Marina came over to him, touching his arm, tentative, sensing his withdrawal. When he looked down he saw her differently too, more rouge brushed over the cheekbones, maybe the way the Armenian liked it. For a second he had the feeling, a strange jarring, that he had made her up, that all the visits here, those afternoons he’d waited for, had really taken place in his head.
“Come Thursday. Altan, it’s nothing. I tell him nothing. He wants to know about Bayar, not you.” She paused. “And I wouldn’t, you know? I wouldn’t tell him. It’s just-he likes to know who comes here. Come Thursday.” A half smile, squeezing his arm. “We don’t have to talk at all. If you don’t want.”
She moved her hand higher, to draw his head down, but stopped, both of them aware that something had happened, had broken whatever spell the room used to cast, like a crack in the mirror.
“Would you do something for me?” he said.
She raised her eyes, waiting.
“Don’t tell him I know he comes here.”
“Why not?”
“Maybe someday I will tell you something. That he’d want to know.”
“And he’d believe it. Because I told him. You’d use me for that.”
“It wouldn’t be a lie.”
“No? Then tell him yourself. You’re alike, you two. You want to do what he does.”
He moved to the door.
“I don’t sleep with him,” she said, as if it made a difference.
“Yet,” he said.
He took the Istiklal tram to the office and went through messages with Turhan, then got a
Alexei opened the door, a half-filled chessboard behind him. “Nothing hot?” he said, looking into the bag Leon had brought. He was clean shaven, his shirt pressed, military crisp. Leon thought of the grizzled Armenian.
“Heat up a can of soup.”
Alexei opened the cigarette carton, tearing the cellophane off a pack. “The food isn’t much, but your cigarettes are excellent. They’re easy to get here, American cigarettes? In Bucharest, like gold.”
“I have a good source.”
“So,” Alexei said, taking a puff. “Why the face? There’s trouble?”
“I’ve just been to a funeral.”
“Ah, your friend? How did that feel?” he said, almost amused.
“Then I had a visit from the Emniyet.”
“Why you?”
“They’re seeing everybody who knew Tommy.”
“And?”
“They’d like to find you. So they can play us off against the Russians. Odds on the Russians this time. You’d be a kind of peace offering.”
“Feeding the beast to keep him quiet. And my new friends?”
“You’re Topic A with them too. The embassy just sent a man from Ankara. The name Bishop mean anything to you? If it does, I need to know.”
“To protect me?” Alexei said, smiling a little, then shook his head no.
“He canceled your plane.” Alexei looked up. “There are a few ways to think about that. Depends whether you feel like trusting him.”
Alexei waved this off, not worth answering. “And your Tommy? No one suspects?”
“They still think he died in the line of duty. Keeping you from the Russians.”
“Who now have me?”
“Except they’re offering money for you, which Frank’s bound to hear. I did. So, no.”
“Then it’s as before.”
“Not exactly. He wants to bring me inside to take over Tommy’s desk. Find out who shot him.”
Alexei raised his eyebrows at this, then looked over to the chess game. “A complicated board now. Every move.” He stood up. “Every time you take your fingers off a piece. Very dangerous for pawns. Would you like some tea?” He moved over to the stove. “So now we’re careful. That’s how you survive. There’s a leak in Turkey. Somebody told the Russians I was here.”
“Well, Tommy would have.”
“But that’s the interesting thing,” Alexei said, sitting down, sipping tea. “I don’t think he did.”
“What?” Leon said, a delayed reaction.
“There were no Russians there that night. Just him. One man. Not even a good shot. The Russians don’t work that way.”
“Go on,” Leon said quietly.
“You leave me here alone all day, so what is there to do but think? Turn things over. Your Tommy was the Istanbul link? Think how this works.” He took another sip. “He knows the fishing boat is bringing me to Istanbul. He keeps me here, he puts me on a plane. Nothing before, nothing after, so the chain is secure. Everyone works this way. But why shoot me in Istanbul? So public. Always a risk of being seen. Why not the coast? Not one night there, two. A delay in the weather. If they wanted to kill me, or take me away, why not there? He knew where we were. He called to see if we were coming. How easy to make another call. Have his Russian friends take care of things then. When everyone is inside, keeping out of the rain. But he waits for Istanbul. An odd decision, no?”
“But he came. With a gun.”
“Alone. You can believe me, the Russians aren’t known for restraint. So what does it mean?”
Leon waited, silent.
“They didn’t know. They never would have handled it that way.”
“But you agreed he must-”
“Yes, so I thought about it. Prisoners have time to think. Why here? The fishing village, a perfect moment. Bebek, still possible, but not as good. And not alone.”
“Then why pick it?”
