Palas?”
Leon looked up.
“A joke,” Alexei said. “One minute. My razor, that’s all,” he said, heading toward the bathroom.
“I met your buddy Melnikov tonight,” Leon said.
Alexei stopped. “Be careful with that one. A friend of Beria’s.”
“Meaning?”
“He does what he likes. Kill first. He can afford to make mistakes. Is that why we’re moving?”
“No. It’s time, that’s all. He’s still trying to buy you back.”
“How much am I worth now?” Alexei said, coming in with a Dopp kit. “Have I gone up?”
“I didn’t ask. That everything?”
Alexei put on his jacket and woolen sailor’s cap. “You go first,” he said, suddenly in charge. “The street that goes to the big mosque. I’ll use the back. Give me five minutes. If anything seems wrong, come back here. You forgot something.”
“But you’ll be out there.”
Alexei shrugged. “How far is the car?”
“We’re walking.”
Alexei looked at him, then took out a gun and put it in his jacket pocket. “The lights,” he said, nodding to the switch.
Outside, Leon headed past the high walls of the university grounds. He could hear his footsteps. No one else around. Two men in jellabas and skullcaps, lost in their own conversation. He slowed, giving Alexei time, forcing himself not to look back. You could see the great dome from here, a weak milky light in the square facing the mosque. The night, so clear at Lily’s, had turned misty, the cobblestones slick. Alexei would have left by now, slipping through the streets, some route he’d worked out when he should have been inside.
And then he was there, a shadow suddenly turned solid, walking with him, the mosque getting closer, filling the end of the street. Some voices in the square.
Leon felt the hand on his sleeve, Alexei looking back over his shoulder then jerking them off the street, wedging them into an arched doorway on the narrow side street, backs flat against the wood. He took the gun from his pocket and held it, waiting. Leon slowed his breath. No voices, a soft indistinct sound behind, maybe footsteps if you were listening for them. He glanced over at Alexei. His face was rigid, the wool cap covering his short, receding hair, so that the head seemed almost skeletal, like a death mask. As still as Georg had been, and just for a second Leon saw him the same way, already dead. Even if he got him out. Once he said whatever he had to say there’d only be some half existence, listening for sounds. Assuming he got there. Now he was breathing again, fear pumping life back, and Leon could feel his shoulder move and realized they were breathing together, the same adrenaline rushing through them.
Real footsteps now, then a shadow moving down the street, backlit by the streetlamps. It stopped at the side street, as if it were listening too, then started again, a shuffling sound, not trying to be quiet, the shadow weaving slightly. Maybe a drunk. But someone who’d been behind them. They waited, Alexei’s gun close to his chest, following the footsteps down to the square until they were out of hearing. Another minute, nobody coming back up the hill to find where he’d lost them, then another to make sure, and Alexei nudged Leon toward the street.
They walked quickly, making up time, still not talking, but Leon felt shaken, the mask still in his mind. Contours of bone, the shape of a head, lifeless. Suleyman’s Mosque and its outbuildings bulked up ahead, but all the details were lost in the dark. The old
He led them past Sinan’s tomb and down the steep streets of broken cobbles littered with clumps of garbage. On Galata Bridge a few fishermen were still tending rods.
“Where are we going?” Alexei said.
“You wanted the Pera. Not far from there.”
The lighted cars of the funicular would be a risk, but Alexei was already winded and climbing the hill seemed worse. Leon looked at him on the platform. A man in a wool cap with a duffel, some sailor docked in Karakoy, out for a good time. No one followed them on top.
Marina opened the door in the silk kimono Leon thought she wore only for him.
“It’s you,” she said, a question.
“Are you alone?”
“It’s late,” she said, another question, noticing Alexei.
“I need a favor. A bed. For a friend. Just the bed.”
She looked past him. “Who is he? He’s trouble for me?”
“Just a customer. Who wants to spend the night. You have customers like that, don’t you?”
She stared at him.
“I’ll give you the going rate.”
“What a bastard you are.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“No?”
“You have no idea who he is. He paid for the night, that’s all. You can show the money. If anybody asks.”
“Who? Police?”
Leon shook his head. “Anybody. But nobody will. One night.” He paused. “A favor.”
She looked at him, then opened the door. “Don’t stand in the hall.”
Alexei dumped the duffel bag inside, looking around the room, then at Marina. “Much better,” he said.
“What’s he done?” Marina said, lighting a cigarette.
“Nothing. He’s a customer. That’s all you know.” He looked down at the kimono, her breasts half showing.
“And you? What have you done?”
“Nothing. I wasn’t even here.”
“If anyone asks,” she finished.
“That’s the favor.”
She snorted, then turned to Alexei. “There,” she said, pointing to the bedroom door.
“I appreciate this,” Leon said. He took out his wallet. “How much?”
“I’ll let you know,” she said, waving the cigarette.
“Then here’s fifty. On account.” He held out the bills.
“Fifty,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “And it’s not police.”
“In case you need to show. That he paid.”
“You think I’d do this for fifty?” she said, slipping the bills in her kimono pocket.
“Then how much-”
“No, this.” She opened her hand to the room, the risk, everything.
He met her look. “Thank you.”
Alexei was standing in the bedroom doorway smoking, his eyes half shut, fixed on her. He took off his cap, running his fingers through his flattened hair.
Marina put out her cigarette, then shrugged. “Does he speak Turkish?”
“No. German. A little English.”
“All right. Anything special? What does he like?” Her voice wearily matter of fact, taunting him.
“Just the room. I’m not asking you to do that.”
“No,” she said, raising her eyes to him. “Other things.”
The hall light operated on a timed switch but he ignored it, feeling his way instead toward the dim landing. In the dark, the usual wet plaster smell seemed even stronger, feline. He waited at the outside door for a few seconds to see if anyone was in the street, then turned left down the hill for a block and circled back up. No footsteps behind.
In Tunel Square the tram had been turned around and was waiting for the conductor to start, a few passengers slumped in their seats. The whole square seemed motionless in fact, opaque in the misty air, and for a moment Leon imagined them all dead too, the conductor’s hand frozen on the controls, every face like Georg’s and Alexei’s,
