“Yet.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Nothing. He doesn’t have to say a word. There’s a smell, when you run.”
“What’s going on?” Alexei said, coming out of the bedroom, dressed, neat and shaved, nothing rumpled.
“There’s a hitch. One more day.”
“Some trouble?”
“No. We just need a day.” He turned to Marina. “All right?”
“But tomorrow it’s finished. I don’t care-”
Leon nodded. “How much for the Armenian?”
She made a brushing motion with her hand. “It’ll be all right. There’s a room upstairs. He doesn’t take long. What’s wrong with you?” she said to Alexei, catching his expression.
“Nothing,” he said, turning back to the bedroom.
“Where do you think you are?” Marina said to Alexei’s back, her voice flat, a kind of apology. She watched him go into the bedroom. “They all want to think it’s something else,” she said. “Even with the money in their hands, they think it’s something else.”
Mihai was yelling into the phone in what Leon took to be Hebrew, getting nowhere. An eruption of words, then silence, finally a grunt.
“What?” he said to Leon, hanging up. “I thought you weren’t coming here anymore.”
“I wasn’t followed.”
“The expert.”
“I need something. Two things.”
“Two, why two? Why not seven? Four hundred. See down there, by the Koc docks? Four hundred waiting. All with passports. End visas. Everything paid for. And the boat sits.”
“What happened?”
“Quarantine. Suspicion of typhus.”
“Is there?”
“My friend, do you think if there was typhus the Turks would keep them here? They would tow them to sea. Let them die out there. Anywhere. But not here.”
“So what-”
“What is it always? Something for the harbormaster, the public health inspectors. Then a miracle recovery. We’re still buying Jews out. Still. But I don’t have so much here, so it has to come from Palestine. We wait. And meanwhile they’re taking turns to go on deck, just to breathe. So how long before dysentery, a real disease? Bastards.” He stopped, looking up. “What do you want?”
“A car. On the Asian side.”
“What’s wrong with yours?”
“I can’t put it on the ferry. They might be watching.”
Mihai grunted. “More games.”
“Doesn’t your cousin have one? In Kuzguncuk?”
“I don’t involve family.”
“He’ll get it back. A few days.”
“A few days? You’re driving to Palestine maybe? Take a few of my Jews. The overland route.”
“I’d pay him.”
“Pay me. Ten thousand dollars, so I can get them out.”
“That’s what they want? Christ-”
“It’s explained to me, a fair price. Twenty-five dollars a head. During the war it was more. Now practically a tip. A little baksheesh, to help speed things up. So much work to examine the ship.” He made a noise in his throat. “When do you need it?”
“Tomorrow. Can you do it?”
“There’s a garage in Uskudar that maybe has a car. Not family. Nobody, in fact. No registration. If you get stopped, it’s your problem, understood?”
Leon nodded.
“What’s the second thing?”
“A contact in Antalya.”
Mihai took a minute, turning this over. “You’re going to drive all the way to Antalya,” he said calmly. “Over the mountains. On those roads. And stay where on the way? The Ritz, maybe? Might I ask, what’s in Antalya? Dates? This time of year? Oranges?”
“A boat to Cyprus.”
“Cyprus. Where they send the Jews who don’t make it to Palestine. Back to camps.”
“I’m not trying to get to Palestine.”
“With your passenger? No, not advisable. If you want him alive. What’s in Cyprus?”
“The British, not the Greeks. I can pass him on there. You must know a boat in Antalya. You got people out there.”
“From people like him.”
“Any boat. That doesn’t need a passenger list. We were never there. No one will know.”
“And where were you all this time?”
“Ankara. On business. The embassy will say so, if anybody asks. They’ll have to, if this works.”
“If.”
“Nobody’s expecting it. Nobody here. Nobody on Cyprus. Nobody’s looking for him there. Or in Antalya.”
“No. Who makes such a trip? In winter?”
“He’ll die if he stays here.”
“That’s nothing to me.”
“Then don’t do it.”
Mihai looked over at him.
“I’ll get another car.”
“The element of surprise,” Mihai said, dismissive. “An overrated strategy. A car’s a valuable thing in Istanbul.”
“You can have mine if I don’t bring it back.”
“And you’ll be here to give it to me.”
“I’d trust you with my life. You can trust me with a car.”
“Oh, your life. When did I become such a person? That you’d do that?”
“When,” Leon said, not worth answering. He waited. “It’s just a car.”
Mihai looked at him for a minute, then began writing something on a piece of paper. “Don’t play that card too often,” he said, writing. “It loses value, you do that.”
“Not if it’s life or death.”
“His life.”
Leon said nothing.
“You know Uskudar? Halk Caddesi. The first big intersection up from the ferry, where the road splits. On the right after the post office. The garage is in the first block. If you reach the mosque you overshot it. Give them this. In Antalya, the old port. The cafe across from the boat basin, the big one. Ask for Selim. I’ll make the call.” He handed him the paper. “Don’t ask again. For him. If he dies-” He waved his hand.
They looked at each other for a second, not saying anything.
“Take extra gas. In the mountains not so many pumps. Mules. If you get to the mountains.
“How long will they have to stay?” Leon said, looking over his shoulder to the ship.
“Until I can pay. Aciman sends food, so they don’t starve, but the conditions-like vermin. We only have the ship till the end of the month. The lease. Then what? Tell them to go back to Europe? To that hell?”
“You don’t own it?”
“Nobody sells ships since the war. And who has that kind of money? So you lease. Not so cheap, either. Fifty-
