Istanbul Passage (18 page)

“What’s so urgent?” he said outside. “Now I have to go to Bebek. And on a day there’s so much to do.”

“I couldn’t think of anything else. They know you visit Anna. Why else would I come see you?”

“My conversation? What’s wrong?”

“I had a talk with the Emniyet.”

“Welcome to the club. What’s so remarkable?”

“At Tommy’s funeral. They want to know what happened. They know Alexei is here.”

“So they talked to you?”

“Not only me. A little warning, I think. They also warned me not to get involved with you. Aliyah operations. They thought because of Anna—”

“That you might actually help, instead of making difficulties? How little they know you.”

“You don’t seem very concerned.”

“The Emniyet and I are old friends. Sometimes they take an interest, sometimes not. Right now they’re taking an interest. The English insist. So Istanbul is becoming difficult. We have to send the convoys to Italy. Then all we have to do is get past the Mediterranean Fleet and the Coastal Water Blockade. A piece of cake—RAF expression,” he said wryly. “During the war it was easier. They had other things to do. Now they can turn all their attention to stopping the Jews. Let the Poles finish them off. But not these four hundred.”

“With Honduran visas.”

“Most. Some others. All good.”

“You don’t happen to have a spare.”

Mihai looked at him. “They’re already made out.”

“I need another. A fresh passport.”

“For him? The butcher? You’re asking me that?” He leaned against a chain link fence enclosing the scrap metal yard behind them, dull gray and rust. “A killer of Jews.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“No, easy. Why are you here? I thought—no contact. If the police—”

“It’s not just the police now. It’s Emniyet.”

Mihai stopped, quiet.

“I thought you’d better know—where things are. It’s not easy. It’s complicated.”

“So tell me.”

There were no taxis waiting at the Koç yards, so they walked toward the Hasköy ferry stop, Leon talking, trying to put everything in order, like tidying a desk. Mihai said nothing, just listened. The ferry for Karaköy was docking when they got to the pier so they followed the crowd on and went out to the open stern to talk, everyone else huddling inside to stay warm. Mihai scanned the empty pier as the boat pulled away, spewing brown lignite smoke.

“No one behind,” he said. “You’re not being followed. They’ll come and go. Now that they’ve made contact. It’s a way they have. To make you think they’re always there. You’ll get used to it.” He turned back, looking at Leon, as if he were still sifting through what had been said. “He’s a killer of Jews,” he said finally.

“But that’s not all he is. I need papers.”

“Not from me.”

“Just an address. Who do you use.” He waited. “We have to move him. You know that.”

“Not Mossad. We can’t. Not this man.”

Leon nodded. “Not Mossad. Me.”

“You. One man.” Mihai thought for a minute. “Get out of this now. Or you’ll never get out.”

“Get out how? I’ve just been telling you—”

“A man like this? Give him back to the Russians. Then no one ever knows. Any of it. Just give them the address and it’s over. He disappears.” He stopped. “And we’re safe.”

“He’d be killed. You’d do that. Kill him.”

“I wouldn’t have to. They’ll do it.” He rubbed his palms, a washing.

“No,” Leon said quietly.

Mihai looked away, not meeting his eye. “So. Make another knot. Tie yourself up. A Houdini. How are you going to do it? Get him out?”

“First I get him papers.”

Mihai took another minute. “You don’t need me for that. You’re Tommy now. You can make all the arrangements, right under the Americans’ noses.” A half smile. “While you investigate yourself.”

The taxi to Bebek took half an hour. Leon talked to the nurses, so that their arrival would be noted, then went to Anna’s room. She was dressed, sitting in a chair by the garden doors, a cardigan draped over her shoulders. Mihai took her hand and looked into her eyes.

“Hello, lovely,” he said, then to Leon, “She blinked. She knows my voice.”

“Maybe.”

“We found a boat,” Mihai said to her, his voice easy, making conversation. “Did Leon tell you? For four hundred. From the Greek. The one who sold us the
Ida
, remember? Ari says in pretty good shape. Panamanian flag. So we’ll see. Mostly from Poland. From the camps. You know some went back to their homes and the Poles—pogroms, after the camps.” He stopped. “But that’s over. In Constancia now. So we have to hurry. When you get better, you’ll see how much work. Bigger boats. In Italy they have one for two thousand. Imagine, two thousand at a time. The work, just to get them on board.” He trailed off, looking at her, then got up. “It’s always like this? No improvement?”

“But no regression. The doctor says that’s the important thing.”

Mihai stared at the garden. “Sometimes I think it’s my fault. That work. I thought she was like me. But really only a young girl.”

“It’s nobody’s fault.”

“I know. If this hadn’t happened, if that hadn’t happened.” He paused. “I knew girls like her. Everything for the family. The good dishes for Passover. My mother had a tablecloth—for once a year, special. She was like that. A daughter. That’s why she did it, I think. Somewhere in her mind she was saving her parents. And then the night the children drowned—it started then. But not all at once, remember? A little at a time, like turning out the lights. Until the house
is dark.” He shrugged, his eyes suddenly moist. “No regression. What does that mean? From what, this? I remember when you came here. Both of you. The way you looked at her.” He faced the garden again for another minute, the room silent. “And what happens to her? If anything happens to you?”

Leon said nothing, another knot being tied into place.

Mihai turned back. “For a killer of Jews.”

“I knew they’d bring someone in,” Ed Burke said, the pouches under his eyes pulled taut, anxious. “They think one of us did it.”

“Nobody said that, Ed. They just asked me to go over the books.”

“But they think it. Why not promote Phil?”

Leon shrugged.

“And why is Frank still here?”

“He’s going back to Ankara. What’s the problem, Ed? They didn’t ask me to go over your books,” Leon said slyly, almost a tease.

“Just Tommy’s. All right, don’t tell me.”

“Ed, how long have you known me?”

“It’s just a funny time for an audit.” He looked down at the folder in Leon’s hand. “The embargo list? That’s during the war. How far back are you going?”

“Just getting to know the files. People have different systems. I still don’t understand the expense claims. You don’t have just one?”

“Depends who’s authorizing the money. The consulate, use the white forms. If it’s direct from Washington, they have to go by pouch. The yellow ones.”

“But it all gets paid out of the same office here.”

Ed nodded. “Welcome to the US Government.”

Leon got up and went over to the wall of file cabinets, pulling out a few more folders.

“You think it’s one of them? Somebody he turned down?”

“I don’t think anything yet,” Leon said, looking down at the file, then back up, a new thought. “Anyway, you said it was someone here.”

“I said they thought so. Why else would the police be here?”

“Still?”

“All morning. Right through the consulate. ‘Where were you—?’ Alibis.”

“Did you have one?”

“Very funny.”

“Come on, Ed. It’s just routine. To talk to coworkers.”

“It gives you the creeps. Thinking it’s someone here. Walking down the hall or something, and you don’t have any idea.”

Leon looked at him, not saying anything.

An hour later, Frank called him into his office to meet Detective Gülün, a heavyset man in a gray suit, shiny at the cuffs, with what seemed to be a permanent five o’clock shadow. By that time Leon had had the filing system explained by Tommy’s secretary and had gone through every drawer, looking for anything not officially connected to Commercial Corp. But Tommy had evidently taken that part of his cover seriously—his other work had never existed, at least on paper. There were only a few personal items in the desk drawers, a datebook, check stubs, the white expense chits, breath mints, anybody’s desk. The bottom drawer was locked but shallow, just enough room for a bottle for an after-work drink. Would he keep records at home, vulnerable to theft? There had to be something. Maybe coded within the other files, memos that meant something else, trails that would take weeks to unravel. Money, however, was
always accounted for. Tommy had paid his outside people. It had to come from somewhere.

“I told Detective Gülün that you were helping us.”

Leon nodded. “Anything yet?” he asked Gülün, who seemed startled by the question, defensive. A murder in the European community, the last thing any policeman would want. Angry diplomats demanding answers, calls from Ankara, people you weren’t supposed to intimidate. That was Altan’s world, full of resources and foreigners. Gülün was the kind of policeman more comfortable with car thieves in Taksim.

“Some witnesses in the café.”

“Witnesses?”

“The car only. Unfortunately too dark to identify.”

“But a car, not a taxi?” Leon said. “That narrows it a little, doesn’t it? Someone who can afford to run a car. With the gas shortages. I haven’t taken mine out in months.”

A diversion, Gülün eager to take it.

“As you say. Someone who can afford. Maybe black market connections.” Taking it even further away.

“You’ve talked to people here?” Leon asked.

Gülün nodded. “Of course we have to check their stories.” Hours wasted.

“But nothing suspicious?”

“No. But, you know, I didn’t expect—” he said, a deference. “I apologize if it’s inconvenient.”

“No, no, you have a job to do. We want you to do it. If you think it’s someone here—”

“As I said, I don’t expect that. A matter of procedure only. The likely explanation is a robbery, but the difficulty is the money. Mr. King still having it.”

“And nobody in the café saw anything? How many there were?”

“Just the car. It’s possible there was only one. Scared off, perhaps,
before he could take the money.” Already preparing his Unsolved folder.

“But if it wasn’t, then it’s something more serious.”

“More serious?” Gülün said.

Frank looked up, slightly alarmed, wondering where he was going.

“A thief, that’s one thing.” Leon stopped, hesitating, looking down at the folder in his hand. “What I keep wondering is, what if it wasn’t accidental, what if there was a motive, some reason.”

“Some reason,” Gülün said, a monotone.

“It’s just an idea I had,” Leon said. “Do you know what Tommy actually did here?”

Frank raised his eyebrows.

“Commercial Corp. was set up by the Board of Economic Warfare.” He glanced at Gülün, already lost in the bureaucratic chart. “His job was to buy up things so the Germans couldn’t—chromium, mostly. A good thing for Turkey, by the way—he’d pay top dollar just to keep it out of German hands. And to steer American business to friendly firms. He could also embargo unfriendly ones,” he said, dropping his voice.

“Embargo them,” Gülün said, waiting.

“That’s right. Stop doing business with them. If he thought they were too cozy with the Germans. That could be tricky—companies wanted to sell to both sides. Sometimes they had to, to keep going. An Allied embargo could put you out of business.”

“Ruin you,” Gülün said.

Leon nodded. “What occurred to me was, what if it’s somebody Tommy put out of business, somebody with a grudge.”

“I see,” said Gülün, familiar with grudges.

“Or somebody he was going to—”

“But the war is over, Bauer Bey.”

“But not all the embargoes have been lifted yet. And now, who else is there to sell to? Somebody’s just getting by and Tommy wouldn’t— well, it’s just an idea.”

“No, it’s possible.” Involving Turks, people Gülün was more comfortable investigating.

“If you like, I’ll make a list for you.” He held up the folder. “Any business that was affected. Might have a grudge. Or maybe would find it convenient to get Tommy out of the way. Would that be useful?”

“Very useful,” Gülün said, dipping his head. “A kindness.”

“Well, we want to find out who did this. Anything to help—”

For an instant, he felt ashamed of his own smoothness. Gülün and his force grilling hapless businessmen, piling up reports. But not just any businessmen after all—German sympathizers, people who still deserved a little police scrutiny.

“I think we’re getting someplace here,” Frank said, a dismissal. “How long to put together a list?”

“Give me a day or two,” Leon said to Gülün. “A preliminary anyway.”

Gülün dipped his head again. He picked up his hat as Frank started for the door. “His files,” he said to Leon. “They’re for these businesses only? Nothing else?”

“Like what?”

Gülün took a second. “Personal business, perhaps. Some other business,” he said, floundering.

Leon shook his head. “Just Commercial Corp. Tommy kept a very clean desk.”