Istanbul Passage

“Pig.”

“For Christ’s sake-” Leon started.

“Don’t waste your breath. She’d sell you out too. How much, I wonder,” he said, looking at her.

“For you?” she said. “Not much.”

“All right,” Leon said, ending it. “You ready?”

Alexei made a thank-you flourish to Marina and went out to the hall.

“What was that all about?” Leon said to her.

“He wanted it for free. After he ran out of money. For a man like that? Don’t think the best of that one. Get rid of him.”

“But you wouldn’t take the money before?”

“To hide him? Then it’s a crime. They ask, I say no, I never helped. Just money to fuck me. How did I know who he was?” She looked up. “I still don’t.”

Leon leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”

She flinched. “Don’t think the best of me, either. I took what he paid. Go,” she said, shooing him out. “Before the landlord.” She paused. “Maybe you’ll come see me again. Like before. When it’s over with him.”

“I’ll buy you a drink at the Park.”

She raised an eyebrow, then smiled. “Go,” she said, closing the door.

They walked single file down the stairs, just the sound of their footsteps and the faint dripping of water, the familiar cat smell. At the door, Leon looked out, then steered Alexei left, around the hill.

“That was a hell of a thing to say,” Leon said. “A girl saves your life.”

“She’s a whore.”

“And what does that make you?”

Alexei said nothing, following him. They passed the Dervish Lodge, then the church where Tommy’s funeral service had been. Kay sitting ahead, face hidden by her hat.

“So this business with your Mr. King. Who kept the money. He’s just a thief. That’s your thinking? Not with the Russians?”

“No.”

“So it’s safe, the consulate?”

“Not exactly. Somebody was shot there last night.”

Alexei stopped for a second, looking over at him. “One of your people?”

“From Ankara. Head of the Soviet desk.”

“But he’s killed in Istanbul. So there is someone here,” he said, beginning to walk again, thinking. “But why? The embassy, yes, they’d want someone inside. But a consulate? Passports?”

“You can pick up a lot here. Tommy’s group was here, don’t forget.”

Alexei shook his head. “The war, it was different. The cable traffic’s in Ankara. That’s where you want your people. How many can they have? Americans are hard for them to recruit. Usually locals. So maybe a local here too.”

Saydam the guard, gone for a smoke.

“Or maybe to make you look here. Not in Ankara. Your man was here alone? No one came with him?”

“Just his wife. A few days ago.”

Alexei grunted. “His wife. Well, not her.”

“No.”

“It’s something a Romanian might think of. Not the Russians. Not Melnikov.”

“They’re not all Melnikovs.”

“Yes, all. They think with this,” Alexei said, making a fist, then smiled a little, amusing himself. “But think how perfect for her. To have the Russian desk in bed.”

Lying side by side on pillows. Some other face, not hers. But they must have.

“These hills,” Alexei said, a little winded.

They had come downslope from Galatasaray, but were now climbing again past the Italian hospital.

“And the police?”

“They think I did it.”

“You?” Alexei said, surprised. “Why?”

“I was there.” Leon paused. Why not say? Even Gulun knew. “I’m sleeping with his wife.”

Alexei peered at him, at a loss, then grunted. “You should have told me before. Now they’re after both of us? That’s twice the risk.”

“Only for a few hours. Then we’re gone.”

“And where now? Another flat?”

“No. I figured you could use a bath. After all the exercise.”

They stopped at a wooden door with a list of services posted alongside.

“A public place?” Alexei said.

“You can sit here for hours and nobody’ll even notice you. Just a man in a towel.”

The hamam wasn’t old, probably turn of the century, but it had been modeled on the historic baths in Sultanahmet, the entrance hall a large rotunda with a fountain where men sat drinking tea, cooling off from the steam in the hot room. They were given towels and slippers and changed in the cubicles surrounding the courtyard, then went through the temperate room, Alexei adjusting the towel around his waist. A tight, wiry body with dark scars on one side that Leon realized might be bullet wounds, little flecks elsewhere. Knives? Nine lives, eight of them gone.

They walked into a wall of steam in the hararet and for a second Leon’s eyes started to water, stung by the heat. He could feel the wet air pushing down into his lungs, a searing, like standing too close to a fire. A man was being kneaded by a masseur on the marble slab in the center and attendants were scraping a few others with coarse mitts, but everyone else just sat lazing on benches with their eyes half closed, like lizards in the sun. They took in Leon and Alexei, then went back to the heat, chests glistening. Leon looked around the room once, scanning faces, indistinct in the steam, then joined Alexei leaning back against the wall.

“Of course, sometimes it’s a matter of opportunity,” Alexei said, brooding, back in the earlier conversation. “You don’t have to plant someone-he’s already there.” He was quiet for a minute. “And then he has to protect himself. You’re lucky.”

“You think so,” Leon said, offhand.

“You’re looking for him, yes? He must know. But he shoots the Russian desk first.”

“Maybe Frank found him. I haven’t. That’s not why I’m there, remember? I’m supposed to find who killed Tommy. I’m looking for myself.”

Tangling again, like the calligraphy in the tiles around them.

Alexei smiled. “An interesting board. But how do you win it?”

“You’re going to win it for me. I just have to get you out alive.”

“With the Russians looking. Now police. Not just me anymore. You. Easier to identify.” He closed his eyes again. “Someone who sleeps with the wife.” He shook his head, then sighed out loud, giving in to the steam. “It feels good, the heat. Women. Turkish baths. I should have come to the Americans sooner.”

“But you were busy.”

Alexei lifted an eyelid. “That’s right. Busy.”

He wiped sweat off his upper arms then got up and went over to the basin, pouring water over his head and chest. The man getting the massage moaned. Everything hidden in the steam, the street outside miles away.

“How did you get that?” Leon said, nodding to the scar on Alexei’s side.

He sat down again. “Stalingrad. I was lucky. If it had been deeper-sepsis. No field hospital. You died right away or you died later.”

“You were at the front? I thought intelligence-”

“Antonescu liked to put us in the forward units. To make sure. No deserters, no defeatist talk. The Russians did it too.”

“He’d risk intelligence officers that way?”

“Think how many he killed himself. Why not let the Russians do it.” He wiped his forehead. “You’re surprised?