“Wait for me.”
She shuddered, as if a draft had just swept through the door.
“What?”
Her eyes wide, then darting across his face. “I just had the strangest feeling.” She put her hand on his arm, holding him in place.
“What?”
She glanced toward the door, Melnikov waiting. “I don’t know,” she said, her fingers still gripping him. “Just a feeling.”
Leon looked back over his shoulder. “He’s watching.”
She dropped her hand. “All right,” she said, then caught his sleeve. “Wait. I know. What you said before. Two wrong things. They’re not the same. They can’t be. You have to decide.”
“It’s not like that.”
“You wonder,” she said, not listening to him, “did I do the right thing? But at least you made the choice.” Her voice intense, as if no one else were in the room. Then she lowered her head. “Well, listen to me.” She let go his sleeve. “Did I do the right thing?”
“Kay-”
“I still don’t know. You’d better go,” she said, glancing to Melnikov again.
Leon looked at her, disconcerted, wanting to touch her, the room full of eyes, the clock beginning to tick again. “Wait for me,” he said, code for everything else.
“An attractive woman,” Melnikov said in the street. “No, this way.” Up to Tunel, the route already picked out. “And now a widow.”
“Yes.”
“You were close to him?”
“Not particularly.”
“I knew him. A careful man. But not with our friend Jianu. I never understood that. We didn’t know-I admit that to you. It should have been easy for you. So what happened? A man so careful.”
“He trusted the wrong people.”
“But it was you he trusted,” Melnikov said, the way it made sense to him. “And with his wife. Twice wrong, I think. And now you ask me to trust you.”
“You won’t come alone. Neither will I. We can trust each other that much. Like a time-out.”
“Time-”
“When you stop the game. A little truce. To make the trade. Then it starts again.”
“But no money,” Melnikov said, still brooding. “I thought you were keeping him for that.”
“Maybe he’s more valuable to us this way.”
“Us. And how is it more valuable to you?” He looked at Leon. “A man of many loyalties, our Jianu. And you?”
“Only one,” Leon said, not biting.
“Stars and Stripes,” Melnikov said, still looking, skeptical, his voice almost a sneer.
And what was that? A
“You’ve tried this already. With Georg. I don’t want any money.”
“So it was something else. To make you give up your prize.” Noting it, filing it away for the future. But not Leon’s, almost out of it. Just play out the hand.
“Maybe he isn’t worth as much as we thought.”
Melnikov looked at him for a moment, calculating again, then started walking, almost at the square now, the scraping sound of a tram being turned around.
“You don’t know how to talk to him,” he said flatly.
“But you do.”
“Yes. He’ll talk to us.”
Leon looked at the square, sunny, a break in the clouds, and felt the chill of a dripping basement. There’d be screams. Everybody screamed finally. Everybody talked.
People were pouring out of the funicular station.
“Just in time,” Melnikov said.
“Where are you going? We need to-”
“Have you noticed? People always take it coming up. A
The few people boarding were heading to the front car to be off first.
“You see?” Melnikov said, getting into the last car. “No one. A good place to talk. No ears.”
Except the man who just then got in, standing by the window until he caught Melnikov’s eye and backed out again, going to the next car, an almost slapstick retreat. One of Melnikov’s own, too eager, or just somebody off the street? The buzzer rang, doors sliding shut, and they started down through the tunnel, old concrete and bare bulbs, what the way to Melnikov’s basement might look like. Just the two of them.
“Now it’s safe,” Melnikov said. “How many men will you bring?”
All business, negotiating a contract, as if they were in one of the banks on Voyvoda Caddesi at the foot of the hill. Guarantees. Procedures. Handing over someone to be killed. Meeting the funicular cars going up, at the halfway point, then swallowed up again by the narrow passage, Melnikov’s eyes never leaving him, someone who’d killed his own men. Means to an end. But what was the end now?
At the bottom, he stopped himself from rushing out, waiting for the doors to slide all the way open.
“Six o’clock then,” Melnikov said.
And it was done, over, the claustrophobic ride, Melnikov’s eyes. They crossed Tersane, dodging cars, suddenly back in real life, everything opening up before him, the smells of the Karakoy market, the amateur fishermen dangling poles off the bridge, trams and cars and peddlers and the minarets beyond, the scene he’d known a thousand times before, but bathed in an unnatural light now, the city wonderful again because it was done.
“You have not said where,” Melnikov said.
“You pick.”
Melnikov spread his hand, turning the choice back to Leon. “Somewhere with people,” he said.
Leon flipped through mental postcards. Not Haghia Sophia, gloom and frescoes. Taksim, cars waiting close by? A tram was coming across from Eminonu, another from this side, like seconds marking out paces, crowds streaming by, oblivious. He stopped, almost laughing at the obvious.
“Here,” he said, pointing. “Galata Bridge.”
They left early, Alexei in a life vest this time.
“More boats,” he said, but not the creaky fishing trawler, one of Lily’s motorboats, sleek with wood trim.
“I hope you’re not afraid of flying too,” Altan said.
The story was a drive to the airport, army transport out, what should have happened days ago.
“Then why the boat?”
“The airport’s on the European side,” Leon said. “We can’t risk the car ferry. They watch it.” Keeping him safe. “Relax.”
Alexei made a resigned grimace, the boat slapping hard against whitecaps, pitching up and down.
After they passed the Dolmabahce Mosque, Leon looked up the hill, trying to find his window. There’d be mail waiting, curious Mr. Cicek, wondering what the police had wanted. Alexei was taking everything in, his first real look at the city, spilling over its hills in the weak afternoon light. Leon checked his watch. Almost dark, but at this time of year a lingering dusk, light enough for Melnikov to see them on the bridge.
They swung into the Golden Horn, then idled just far enough away from the bridge to keep it in sight, the cranes and drydocks of the shipyards ahead.
“They won’t expect us to come down the Horn,” Altan said, indicating the factories and oily water farther along. He was scanning the bridge through binoculars.
“Who?” Alexei said. “The Americans?”
“No,” Altan said, catching himself. “Anybody. Force of habit.” So feeble that it passed as an excuse.
