Istanbul Passage

“And how do I know what price you get?”

A faint smile. “Efendi. A certain amount of trust is required in business. Mr. King never complained. May I?” he said, reaching for the passports.

“Later,” Leon said, stopping them with his hand. “I need them for a little while.”

“Need them? With his picture?”

“Don’t worry, they’re not going anywhere. You can start looking for customers. Who would that be, by the way?”

“An American passport? Many buyers. But the best prices? During the war, the Jews. What price do you put on your life? Now still, I think. Still the best prices with them.”

Leon felt his stomach move. “You and Tommy sold passports to Jews?”

Manyas looked at him. “Who needed them more?”

The ship was being unloaded and Leon, his head somewhere else, followed the noise down the street. Gears and cranes, people shouting over them. He watched a load swinging up out of the ship and over the pier, guided to its receiving area with furious hand signals, hamals rushing over to break it up. Some of it would simply disappear. Things had been falling off ships for thousands of years in Istanbul, heads turned, something slipped into the hand, as natural as breathing. Did Tommy skim the consulate accounts too? Fond of petty cash, payments to sources who were just initials. Doing business with Enver Manyas. Baksheesh was part of life here. A ship with missing cargo. Expense accounts with something added in. Everybody did it. And then drew their own personal lines. This, but not that. Where had Tommy drawn his? Fleecing Jews. The same desperate people who then crowded onto Anna’s ships. How much could it have been worth, crossing that line? Making them pay for their lives. While he was arranging their rescue, the last person anyone in the consulate would suspect. But you didn’t make fifty thousand dollars selling a few passports. What would he have done for that kind of money? If he’d already crossed a line for a few hundred. Something that valuable to the Russians. Leon frowned, watching another load being landed onto the pier, men carrying sacks away. Not just a piece of cargo. Fifty thousand. In dollars. Who had American dollars? Leon stopped, following the question, then not wanting to get there. Americans.

There were police cars in the consulate courtyard, as many as there’d been after Tommy had been found, drawing the same crowd of onlookers outside the gate.

“What’s going on?” Leon said to the marine as he showed his ID.

“They got the cops here again.”

“What, asking questions?”

“Yeah, they-”

“Corporal! They’re coming down. Give us a hand here. On the double.”

He waved Leon in and started running toward a group of people near the elevator, two full cars at least. Leon headed up the stairs instead, taking them two at a time. More questions about Tommy. Hours he didn’t have to waste, Alexei waiting. Enver’s papers in his pocket.

Upstairs there was an odd quiet, no typewriters clicking, as if everyone were on coffee break. Dorothy had stepped out too, all the lights on, a sweater draped over the back of her chair. Leon went through to Tommy’s office, rummaging through the top drawer for Tommy’s appointment books. May, last year. Donald Price had supposedly entered the country in April and needed, or knew he would need, the box in May. He flipped through the pages, midmonth, then further, then went back. Routine appointments. But the others would hardly be the sort of meetings he’d record. Look for the money instead. He opened the bottom drawer and pulled out the files he’d gone through before, looking for something else now. Mr. King was proud of these. Having it every which way, crossing the last line.

“Oh!” Dorothy stood in the door, her hand raised to her chest in a cartoon movement. “You’re here. You gave me a turn. Thank heavens. The police have been asking.”

“In a minute. I just want to see-”

“What?” she said, noticing the files.

“Last spring. Did Tommy take any trips?”

“Trips?” she said, the idea itself implausible.

“Out of the country.”

“Last year? During the war? No. Mr. Bauer, the police. They’re down in the conference room. You’d really better tell them you’re here. They’ve been phoning the Reynolds office.”

“Reynolds? Why?”

“You don’t know?” She started fingering the button on her blouse. “It’s Mr. Bishop. He’s dead.”

“Frank?” Leon said, not taking this in.

“Last night. Well, I suppose last night. That’s what they’re asking about anyway. Where everybody was last night.”

“Asking here?” Leon said, still trying to make sense of this. “But he was in Ankara.”

“No, here. In the consulate. They found him this morning. Poor Mary. Just opened the door and- They had to give her something. See a thing like that. No warning. The lights are on and she walks in and there he is. Blood, everything.” She shuddered.

“He died-here?” Leon said, as if he were feeling his way along a wall in the dark.

“Why he’d want to do it here, I don’t know. Think what it feels like for everybody.”

“What?”

“Oh god, you don’t know, do you?” she said, her voice breaking.

“Dorothy.”

“He shot himself.”

For a second he had no reaction at all, his mind blank, then a rush of pictures: Frank at Karpic’s, taking an envelope, smoking a cigarette in Tunel Square, Kay’s pale skin against the morning window, hand over her breast, Leon lying on his elbow, watching her. He felt blood leap to his face. Had Frank known? Where was Kay?

“Mr. Bauer-”

“Shot himself,” he said dully. “In his office?” Maybe there when Leon had come for the passports, one of the lights pouring through the transoms into the hall. But how could he have been? “Mrs. Bishop?”

“She’s downstairs. With the police.”

Leon started for the door, a file still in his hand, just following his feet. Frank sitting at his desk with a gun. Writing a note?

“Mr. Bauer-”

Not hearing her, already walking down the hall. There were police photographers in Frank’s office, flashbulbs lighting up the pushed-back chair, a small overnight bag, a few files in the outtray, no note on the blotter, no signs of any disturbance at all, except for the dark stain on the carpet where he’d bled. Two policemen with measuring tape and plastic bags were going through the rest of the room. Leon walked over to the desk. Personnel files, Frank hunting to the end, but leaving a clean desk, tidying up loose ends before he picked up the gun. Had he called the Pera Palas?

“Don’t touch anything,” one of the policemen said in Turkish.

Leon moved his hand back.

“No one’s allowed here,” the policeman said, cocking his head to the door.

Leon looked at the chair again, trying to imagine it. Had he slumped over on the desk or been thrown back against the chair? Did it matter? A policeman wearing gloves. Kay downstairs.

There were a few consulate people waiting in chairs outside the conference room talking in low voices. Leon brushed past the police guards, barely noticing them.

“Mr. Bauer.” Gulun, the burly policeman who’d been on Tommy’s payroll, looked up from the table, a stenographer next to him, one of the consulate secretaries being questioned across from him. “A late start this morning.” His cheeks dark with stubble, maybe called out too early to shave.

Kay was at the end of the table, a coffee cup in front of her, face white and vague, like someone who’s been sick.

“I just heard,” Leon said.

“You can go,” Gulun said to the secretary. “Mr. Bauer-”