“Why?” Leon said, rifling through. “Cross-refs to the Joint Distribution Committee? War Refugee Board?”
“He said one day they’d be history, but right now they were-not illegal exactly, just classified. He was proud of these. You know, people thought they knew what he was like.” She looked over at him. “But there was more to him than that. The side he didn’t let people see.”
Leon raised his head.
“Mr. Hirschmann, from the War Refugee Board, brought a boatload of children out. Tommy got the transit visas for the train. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been allowed to go. Strictly speaking, the ambassador wasn’t supposed to ask for something like that, so Mr. Hirschmann got Tommy to do it. Three hundred dollars each. I never forgot that. Imagine, selling children. He helped them lease some Turkish ships too. That’s how he knew about you. Your wife was working for one of the groups getting refugees out. Is she still doing that?”
“No.”
“But that’s how he heard. That you went to Ankara.” She nodded again at the expense folder. “Good luck with this,” she said, looking straight at him, her voice lower. “He wasn’t always the most sensitive man in the world, but he had this side too. He didn’t deserve to be killed.”
Leon waited, feeling a burning in the tips of his ears, not sure how to answer. “Nobody does,” he said finally.
“No, that’s right. Nobody does.”
He suddenly imagined her entering a jury box, next to Barbara, next to Frank, all of them looking at him, taken in. The lies got easier, one leading to the next until you believed them yourself. The way it must have been for Tommy, lying to all of them too.
A few minutes later Frank came in, looking pleased.
“Take a look. Gulun actually came through with something. They’ve traced the other gun.”
“What other gun?”
“Tommy had two on him. Now why the hell he needed two never made any sense.”
“No,” Leon said carefully, seeing Tommy plant them, one in Alexei’s dead hand, one in his.
“And look. It turns out it’s Romanian.”
“The one he fired?”
“No. That was Turkish.”
“Turkish? He didn’t have his own?”
Frank nodded. “But a Turkish gun couldn’t be traced back here. No American connection, if anything happened.”
“Where did he get it?”
“Gulun says it’s like buying a pack of cigarettes. Not this baby, though,” Frank said, poking his finger at the police report. “Not so easy to pick up a Romanian gun.” He looked up. “Unless you happened to be meeting a Romanian.”
“So you think it’s Jianu’s?”
“Don’t you? Maybe Tommy frisks him-he should have-and, oh, look, maybe we’ll just hold onto this until- Too bad, in a way. Meant Jianu was unarmed when the Russians got there. They plug Tommy and the guy hasn’t got a chance.”
Leon listened to him fill in the scenario in his head, detail by plausible detail.
“So where does that get us?”
“Not very far. But not wondering about two guns anymore, either. So one less thing.” His eye caught the open folder on Leon’s desk. “Oh, the kids,” he said. “He kept copies? He wasn’t supposed to.”
“You can read upside down? Quite a talent.”
“The letterhead. Hirschmann had his own.” He picked up a sheet, glancing at it. “So now you know. Not that it matters anymore, I guess.”
“Now I know what?”
“What you were carrying,” Frank said easily. “Tommy always used you for the Hirschmann deals.”
“These?” Leon said. “Why? Why not use the pouch?”
“He never explained? Distance the ambassador. You send it by pouch, it’s official. Logged in. Distributed. This way Steinhart could say he never knew. What did you think you were carrying? The Allied invasion plan?”
“No,” Leon said, looking away, oddly embarrassed, remembering the train, alert in his compartment, feeling important. He picked up a folder. “War Refugee Board? He had to be distanced from that?”
“You have to remember what it was like last year. The Bulgarians, the Romanians-Hitler doesn’t look like a winner anymore. Everybody wants some way to look good to the Allies, for after. You know even Eichmann approached us? Wanted to trade trucks for the Budapest Jews. That didn’t go anywhere-sending war materiel to the Nazis?” He touched the folder, reminiscing. “But Hirschmann got a waiver from Morgenthau in Treasury. Otherwise, he’d be trading with the enemy-which is what it was, technically, you’ve got money changing hands. So he could make deals. He says he got fifteen thousand out. Maybe less, he likes to exaggerate. But we’re not supposed to know. Nothing in the pouch. So Tommy sends you. No embassy connection, and if anybody finds out, well, you’ve got a wife in the business. It’d be natural, you being involved in this.”
“For her,” Leon said, trying to keep his voice neutral. Tommy using Anna too. “And if the Turks-”
“We would have protected you,” Frank said. “What the hell, you were doing it for humanitarian reasons.”
“Whether I knew it or not.” He stared at the folders. “So that’s all it ever was? What I did?”
“No,” Frank said, looking at him. “Not all. But you were perfect for this, what with your wife-”
“He thought of everything,” Leon said, brooding. “All this, just to cover Tommy’s ass.”
“Well, Steinhart’s. The embassy couldn’t go near this.”
“Why not?”
“The Russians. As usual. The minute Steinhart talks to anybody on the Axis side, the Russians think we’re trying to make a separate peace. Before they get there. Which is probably what Antonescu did want, but all we’re asking is to let some kids out. Hirschmann, the Russians are suspicious because they always are, that’s what they’re like. So the grunt work, it’s better if it’s somebody they do know, who won’t make them nervous.” He opened his hand. “Tommy. They know what he does and it’s not negotiating peace.”
“They know him? How?”
“When we first set up here, there was some crazy idea we’d exchange information, you know, ally to ally, but that turned out to be a one-way street, the way it usually does with them, so there wasn’t a hell of a lot that got exchanged. But everybody kept pretending it did. Anyway, Tommy was our side. So they knew him.”
Leon’s cheek jumped, an involuntary tic. “He met with the Russians? On a regular basis?”
“At first. Then off and on, just to wave the flag, pretend we’re all working together. He’d give them stuff. German minefield chart once, for Sulina harbor. That was a big deal. We got our hands on it and no use to us, so let’s help the Russkies. Not that we ever got anything out of them.”
“Tommy talked to the Russians,” Leon said flatly, letting this sink in. Authorized, no need to meet in secret on a park bench or at a ferry railing, one eye looking back.
“Well, during the war. Now nobody talks to anybody. But it made him a good cover for Hirschmann. Hirschmann knew a lot of people in Washington. FDR even. The kind of guy puts the right word in somebody’s ear, and all of the sudden you get posted back stateside. I suppose I shouldn’t say, I mean he’s dead, but you know how Tommy always wanted Washington. So he probably thought Hirschmann was his ticket back. Was, too. Until the Russians got in the way the other night.”
“There’s a rumor around town they’re still looking for Jianu,” Leon said, floating it, something Frank was bound to hear anyway.
“There’s a rumor about everything,” Frank said, dismissive. “Smoke screen. They’re good at that. They have him. I want the one they don’t have. Who ratted Tommy out. He’s here. I can feel it.” Frank glanced at his watch. “I’m late for the consul. Walk with me.”
In the hall, Leon couldn’t let it go. “These meetings he had with the Russians. They keep minutes? What was said?” Some proof.
“Minutes?” Frank said, smiling. “This stuff? You had lunch maybe. A drink at the Pera. By accident. You didn’t take
“But he’d tell you later. What was said.”
