Istanbul Passage

“Remember the real one?”

“King. Like King Carol. They use that for a name in English.”

Leon took a breath, his stomach dropping again, finally there. “Tell me about the meeting in Edirne.”

Alexei peered at him, not sure where this was going. “You know that? How?”

“Twice, right?”

Alexei nodded.

“The first time he had Hirschmann with him.”

“I never knew the other one’s name.”

“Big guy. From the Jewish Committee. You were making a deal for Antonescu. Selling Jews. How many?”

“Three hundred. A few more. From the Transnistria camp.”

“How much,” Leon said flatly.

“Three hundred dollars a head,” Alexei said. Merchandise. “We had used this price before. We delivered them to Constancia. The Jews had to pick them up. The mines, any German ship, that was their risk.”

“They give you money at the first meeting?”

Alexei nodded. “Half. That was the purpose of the meeting. The arrangements had been made. Why are you asking this?”

“Tell me about the second meeting.”

“Only King this time,” Alexei said, then stopped, waiting.

“Let me guess. He was supposed to bring the other half, fifty thousand dollars, but he didn’t. Why not? Did he say?”

“Your government stopped the exchange. They said the money was supporting the enemy. Of course this was foolishness, the money was for Antonescu only. He was like Carol, he wanted to take the treasury with him. So, Jews for dollars, why not? The American Jews would pay. But you stopped it.”

“No,” Leon said quietly, “he said you did. Took the money and then betrayed him. What happened to the people?”

“They were sent back to the camp. No one was coming now to pick them up. There was no deal.”

“Or any others after that,” Leon said, running his hand over the top of the briefcase. “They stopped. No more exchanges.”

“Without the money? He was not, you know, humanitarian, Antonescu. And anyway now the Russians were there. He didn’t have time.”

“But these people would have been saved. He would have made good on that.”

“They were already in Constancia.” He looked down again at the passport. “You’re looking for him? That’s why you’re asking this?”

“No, he’s dead. He was the man we shot on the pier. You would have recognized him. You knew about him. The only one who did.” He looked down again at the briefcase, seeing Tommy’s pink face. Not just one ship. All the others that didn’t follow. “To do something like this. For fifty thousand dollars.”

“You’re surprised? People do worse for less.”

Leon looked up. “Not worse.”

“And they believed him? This story?”

“It was easy to believe. The Romanians? Look what you’d already done.”

Alexei tapped Tommy’s passport, then handed it over to Leon. “And you.”

There was no one following on the tram back to Taksim, but to make sure Leon got off just before the French Consulate and used side streets to approach Denizbank from behind. The same manager, still eager to help, not surprised by Leon’s explanation of a mix-up in his notes. Ergin again waited outside the door. Leon hesitated for a second, staring at the neat stacks in the box. He glanced up to see if anyone was watching. No one. He snatched up the bills in batches, slipping them into his briefcase. Another second, looking at the empty box, then he closed it, taking a deep breath. Now robbery, a criminal act. But stealing from whom? Blood money.

He called Ergin and watched him turn the key to lock the box. Would the weight of it feel different? When he thanked the bank manager, he felt his briefcase somehow glowing, the stolen money like a light inside that everyone could see, waiting to set off an alarm at the door. He imagined tellers with their hands in the air, getaway cars, police waiting. But no one in the street seemed to notice him, know that a crime had taken place. He took a taxi from a hotel rank.

He turned and looked out the back window as they left the square, down the sweeping curve of Aya Pasa. The usual traffic. How much time did he have? He had to get Alexei out of Marina’s by nightfall. And stash him where? Now past the Park Hotel, the old German Consulate, the island of plane trees curving toward the Cihangir Apartments where Mr. Cicek listened to ringing phones. He thought of his picture window, the water view, and wondered suddenly if he would see it again. Something he hadn’t imagined before, not being able to come back, the door closed behind him. Was anyone watching? Some car across the street with a bored policeman, smoking? Not even looking twice at the taxi, a man in back with twenty-five thousand dollars in his lap. Crossing another line.

6

BUYUKADA

MIHAI WAS OUT OF the office, down at the Haskoy docks, but Leon had kept the taxi and they were there in minutes.

“Just wait. I shouldn’t be long.”

“With the meter? You’d be better off with an all-day rate.” A higher fare.

“All right,” Leon said, not wanting to argue, someone with money in his pockets. He looked down the street. No cars idling. Unless the taxi itself were the tail, now tracking his every movement. But it had been a random pickup, hadn’t it? What it felt like, always looking over your shoulder.

There were health quarantine signs posted, but no barriers. The Victorei, listing slightly, was eerily quiet, as if everyone on board really was sick or some ghost ship had drifted into the Golden Horn. There were patches of rust on the hull and makeshift clotheslines strung up across the top deck, laundry flapping like ragged sails.

“It’s not permitted.” A harbor policeman, coming from behind. “Passengers are not permitted-”

“I’m not a passenger,” Leon said, flashing the front of Tommy’s passport. “Captain’s expecting me.”

The magic of an American passport. The guard nodded to the gangplank. Leon started up, noticing the garbage in the lapping water alongside, peels and eggshells that hadn’t yet flushed away. There were sounds now, ropes creaking and voices from inside the ship, a baby, but still subdued, saving strength, the lassitude of a hospital ward. Up top, people wrapped in shawls and blankets were huddled on benches, facing the weak winter sun. There was a flutter of interest when they saw Leon, someone from the outside, maybe news. Sitting up, but their posture still wary, people who knew everything, who had been in the camps. Sallow skin, drained and skeletal, the faces Anna used to see.

Mihai was with the captain and a boy volunteered to get him. While he waited, Leon walked across the deck. Low murmurs in a language he didn’t know, presumably Polish, open stares. On the other side of the water, Suleyman’s Mosque rose up the hill in a cluster of swelling domes, the old picture-book city a kind of mirage. The end of the Black Sea crossing, everything foreign now, home gone for good.

“So. What’s so important you risk typhus?” Mihai said.

“They look all right,” Leon said, nodding to the passengers.

“You should see down below. We send them up in shifts, so everyone gets some air. Down there it’s-so never mind. What do you want?”

“Is there somewhere we can go?”

“What, here?” Mihai said, looking at the deck. “For a kaffeeklatsch? Find a square inch.” He checked his watch. “They go back down in fifteen minutes. Just try moving them early.”

“I’m serious. Off the ship, then.”