Wheeler smiled. “She says you might as well be in Omaha. But at least the streets are safe. Hell of a thing, a man getting shot like that. An American.”
“Jack, I’ll see you later,” Dorothy said, picking up a pad.
“Isn’t she something? All business. Well, that’s right, I guess. Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking hands again. “Sooner you wrap things up here, the better I’ll like it. You take good care of my girl here.”
“Jack-”
“We’ll do our best.”
“Hell of a thing, right in the streets. You knew him, I guess?” Wheeler said, looking at Leon.
“Just from around,” Leon said. “Everybody knew Tommy.”
Wheeler waited, expecting more, then nodded. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair. Later,” he said, a two-finger salute to Dorothy.
“I have the list you wanted,” she said to Leon, barely nodding at Wheeler, shooing him out with her eyes. “I’m not sure what you meant, though, by Athens. Mr. King never called Athens.”
“His embassy contact there.”
“There was no embassy. Greece was occupied,” she said. “Well, not now, of course.”
“He had no contact there?” Someone for Alexei, once he was over the border.
“I can get the general number if you need to talk to somebody. Is that it?”
“I thought there’d be a liaison. To this office.” Using the same cover.
“Not that I know of. We deal with Turkey, that’s all. He went to Ankara, sometimes. Izmir, once, to look at companies. But not Greece. Not as long as I’ve been here.” She paused, her hands fluttering, brushing back a stray hair. “Can I ask why you’re asking? I mean, I’m not sure I understand what you’re doing here. Everyone’s nervous as a cat since the-since Mr. King died. The police asking questions and Mr. Bishop coming in and now-” She stopped.
“And now me. Have a seat. I’m not sure I know what I’m doing here, either. Snooping, I guess. That’s what Frank wants anyway.”
“On Mr. King? He was the victim.”
“But not of a robbery. You know that. So I need to know anything that might-” He looked at her. “I need your help. You knew him better than anybody.”
“What makes you think that?” she said suddenly, head flying up, so unguarded that for a moment their eyes met and he knew, both of them silent with surprise. They looked at each other, bargaining. Another piece of Tommy’s secret life. Weekends somewhere? Here in the office? Tommy, of all people. Leon imagined her without her glasses, taking the pins out of her hair. Or did she regret it? Some moment of weakness that now threatened to blow up in her face. Shooing Wheeler away.
“Working with him, I mean,” Leon said. Safe, between us.
She looked away.
“Both jobs.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. Your husband’s on the embassy staff. He’d have security clearance. So you’d be vetted too. It was a natural fit.”
“I was an American wife with time on my hands. And I can type eighty words a minute.”
He held up his hand before she could say more. “Don’t. I worked for him too. Or did you already know that?”
They exchanged looks again, then she crossed her arms over her chest, a truce.
“You seem to think he-confided in me. It wasn’t like that. I did the work, that’s all. We didn’t talk about it.”
“Never?”
“Never,” she said, meeting his glance, setting a boundary.
“But you wouldn’t have to. Everything would go through you.”
“Not everything. He kept some things to himself.” A faint smile. “He was like that.” She looked up, making a decision, a direct stare. “What do you want to know?”
“We were bringing someone out. You knew that?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“Who else did?”
“I don’t know. No one.”
“But someone must have.”
“Mr. Bishop took the operation file. You could look there.”
“I did. How about an appointment book?”
A sly smile, almost conspiratorial. “He never asked for that.”
“In my office, Turhan’s got my whole life there. Day by day.”
“I’ll get it,” she said, standing up.
“And a key for this by any chance?” he said, pointing down to the locked drawer.
She nodded then turned to go, taking off her glasses at the same time. Pleasant, no more, an ordinary woman, with enough sense to know better. Then Tommy had made her feel special. The mysteries of other people.
She came back with the calendar and a pink telephone slip.
“Mrs. King called,” she said with a straight face. “Wants to set up a time. To go over his things.”
“Okay.”
“He never kept anything at home, you know,” she said, slightly disapproving. “Said it was safer here.”
Leon took the appointment book.
“We locked the files at night. So the cleaning staff- He was strict about that. I know he liked a drink, but he didn’t talk, not even to me. Not about the work.”
“What did he talk about,” Leon said, leafing through pages. Hour after hour, all the scheduled appointments, but not random meetings in the hall, or a late drink at the Park.
“What do you mean?”
“The war? Politics?” he said easily, an idle question.
“Politics?” she said. “Tommy? I don’t even know whether he was Democrat or Republican. It never came up. You mean here? In Turkey? Well, it’s just one party, isn’t it, so there’s not much to say. I don’t think he cared about any of that. This office, you couldn’t. You have to deal with all kinds.”
“Mm.” He moved his finger over the page, shaking his head. “Look at this. He knew everybody in the building.”
“Well, the commercial department, you do,” she said, smiling a little. “But that was him too, what he was like.”
“The groom at every wedding.”
“What?”
“An expression.”
She started to turn away, suddenly at a loss. “Don’t forget to call Mrs. King,” she said, then handed him a key. “For the drawer.” She waited while he opened it.
“As I thought,” he said, bringing up a bottle. “He must have pouched this one in. You can’t get it here, since the war.”
“He brought it with him. I never saw him drink it, though. Too expensive. He was careful about money. His, anyway. Expense account-that was something else. I brought that too, by the way.” She indicated another folder. “Mr. Bishop didn’t ask for that, either. Maybe you’ll find something there. Well, I’ll get back to the phone.” She fingered the expense folder, stalling. “You asked what we used to talk about? The house, sometimes. The one they were going to have when they got home. Him and Mrs. King. Big. With a powder room downstairs. He said it gave a house class, a powder room. You didn’t have to go upstairs. That’s what he used to talk about. To me.”
Leon looked up, caught by the break in her voice.
“So I guess he was saving it up for that,” she said, nodding at the bottle. “Anyway.”
“What are these?” Leon pulled some folders from the back of the drawer.
Dorothy opened one. “So that’s where he put them. I wondered. He didn’t want them with the rest of the files.”
