The Sixth Station (21 page)

Burqa clerk studied my face and grimaced. I couldn’t tell if she thought I was full of it or was just disgusted by my marital state. She called over one of the other clerks, and both compared my license to my passport.

“Ah, like I said, ‘divorced.’”

Eventually she handed me a set of keys and the paperwork with the parking-spot location of my car and said, in impeccable English, “Thank you, Miss Zaluckyj,” she said, pronouncing it correctly. “We have the credit card on record already. There is a GPS in the car. Drive safely.” She immediately leaned over and whispered something to one of the other women, who all stared at my hair and started giggling—but hardly discreetly.

Whose credit card was on record?

I forgave Dona or Donald for the ridiculous Italian messages and was amazed anyone could have gotten some bogus credit card numbers preapproved.

If it was Dona, perhaps she used her own credit card to secure the car. Or better yet, a family member back in merry olde England.
Angel.

I found the car in no time—
nice, an Alfa Romeo!
—and hopped in. But the car was automatic. Not a stick shift after all.

I was desperate to get out of there (where I was headed, I had no idea), but the message had been so adamant, so surely it was for a good reason. Was it a warning that if the car was anything other than a stick shift that someone had played around with it?

I went over the message in my mind again. Or tried to. When I couldn’t retrieve it in my brain, I knew there was no choice but to open Sadowski’s phone and get up an Italian translation site.

I typed in “
Informazioni importanti dentro l’automobile manuale
” and it translated not to “Information on how to drive a manual car,” but “Important information inside the car manual.”

Of course!

I opened the glove box, took out the manual, and took out the thick envelope tucked inside. Holy good God!

A French passport in the name of Alazais Roussel, but with
my
photo—albeit with a long blond curly ’do that made me look like I belonged on an old Fleetwood Mac album cover.

How in hell had she done that? Or was it Donald’s work? It had to be Donald. He was the one who knew how to pay off anyone anywhere anytime.

No time to worry about it. I’d simply ask them when I was somewhere safe enough to use the Internet again. Anyway, unsure of where to go next, I realized that Sadowski’s phone must be filled with contacts. If I turned off the 4G and simply scoured his contacts list, perhaps I could scare up some names.

The people the “simple” parish priest had (supposedly) known was astounding. There were phone numbers for everyone from movie stars to the pope.
Sadowski has the private numbers of Pope Benedict, Prince Charles, Justin Bieber—and are you kidding me?—Maureen Wright-Lewis?

He had never indicated to me that he knew her. What there wasn’t, however, was a contact for the only person I
wanted
to find in Turkey, Father Paulo Jacobi.

Maybe you should call Maureen and ask why Father Sadowski had her phone number. It’s an old one, though. It’s a 212 exchange. What the hell
?

There were too many names and numbers to study at that point, and I was nervous about any kind of satellite trace, even though he’d said it was untraceable, so I turned it off, tucked it into my bag, and started up the car—no explosion—and set the GPS to English.

I hit the display for “lodging” and booked a room at the Arena Hotel near the Blue Mosque. I plugged in the address and headed toward the signs that read
ISTANBUL
.

If you’ve never been to Istanbul, or worse, driven through it, just know there are more one-way streets there than there are in Manhattan, and more crazy drivers than on Queens Boulevard (aka Boulevard of Death!).

I checked in under the name of Alazais Roussel, went up to my sparkling clean room, and stood under the hot shower until I thought my skin would peel off. Unfortunately, I seemed to not have done the dye job all that well and red color was still running off and lining the tiny shower stall.

I got out, dried myself off with a genuine Turkish towel, plopped down on the comfy single bed, turned on the TV, and flipped to CNN International. Marietta Tomasina was in front of the United Nations doing her stand-up. The din of the crazed crowd nearly drowned out her report, which had been filmed earlier in the day.

“The fourth day of the trial of Demiel ben Yusef has been nothing short of shocking, with the prosecution presenting survivors of the so-called ‘Unholy Day bombings,’” she said.

“The Reverend Bill Teddy Smythe riveted the entire courtroom when he testified. Because this is a tribunal and not a trial per se, he was allowed to be both a spectator
and
a witness for the prosecution.

“The Reverend Smythe testified that he had been visiting his NYC branch of the megachurches he founded, the Light of God Tabernacle on Staten Island, that day. He left not five minutes before the church was bombed. He rushed back to find the tabernacle in ruins and many parishioners who volunteer there badly wounded. Two people, a visiting pastor from Texas and a young woman, died in the explosions, and Reverend Smythe brought the chamber to tears describing how he ministered to the sick and particularly to the two who had died that fateful day.”

There’s something more than just being a media hound about that phony bastard.…

The rest of the report went on to describe the day’s proceedings and ben Yusef’s refusal to acknowledge the judge or even his attorneys.

“Newly released sermons that were apparently secretly recorded of Demiel ben Yusef lecturing to a small band of followers have recently surfaced on the Internet and are available and unedited at CNN dot com slash benyusef.”

There were additional links listed, and I turned on my tablet, which I had plugged in the night before.

Thank you, Hotel Arena, for supplying the free converter plugs.

I opened up a search engine with the intention of getting up the old bastard’s testimony, but instead I was riveted by the name of tomorrow’s witness. His name? Dr. Mikaeel Hussein.

19

I reached into my bag and switched on the phone to “contacts.” Nothing under the name Mikaeel Hussein. It wasn’t under “M,” “H,” or “Dr.” although—
damn!
—if under the “Dr.” section he didn’t list every famous TV medical expert you ever heard of including, I swear, Dr. Phil
and
Dr. Oz.

Why the guy had acted all wide-eyed and naive I couldn’t imagine. Or had he? Maybe since he was youngish and sweet-faced, I’d simply assumed he was naive and wide-eyed.

Idiot. The guy was priest to the stars or some crap like that, and you’re thinking he was impressed to meet a couple of reporters. He probably hung out at Gramercy Tavern and played poker with rappers. He’s probably got “Russo” under “N” for naive. Damn!

And what about this Jacobi guy? Could these two bizarre priests have known one another? I tried, “Father,” “Jacobi,” and even “Paulo”—nothing. Then I tried “P. J.” and got a number with 90+212+335+6941.
What the hell?
I tried it. A voice-mail message picked up and said in Italian, “
Ciao. Non sono qui in questo momento, ma se lasci i tuoi dati ti richiamo.”
I figured it meant the usual, “Hello. I’m not here right now, but I’ll call you back if you leave your blah, blah, blah.” No name.

The chances I’d gotten it right were slim and none, and I’d probably called Italy or maybe even
Little
Italy, but I took a shot. I spoke in English because the guy had been in the United States and seemed like a mover and shaker so chances were great that he spoke English better than I did. “Hello, Father Jacobi? I am a friend of Father Sadowski. Or was. I’d very much like to speak with you. Please return my call. I don’t have the number, but hopefully it will come up on your phone. If you have Father Sadowski’s cell phone number, you can call me back on that number.”

I decided that the best thing I could do for myself now was to get one of those famous Turkish steam baths to clear my head.
The Things to See in Istanbul
booklet in my room recommended the Cağaloğlu Hamam (bathhouse), built in 1741, because it was “the last hamam to be built after a long period during the Ottoman Empire.” It was also located within walking distance of the hotel, so I had the front desk call and book a bath for me, although when I arrived at the ancient building and walked inside, I realized that I may have been the first person since Sultan Mahmut to make a reservation.

It was bizarrely empty, and the stone walls and floors echoed with every footstep. It was also magnificent, although you’d never know it by walking in the front door. There was a little window where you picked what services you wanted and then were directed to an upstairs changing area.

I entered a tiny wooden common changing room with a door where I stripped, placed the thick towel around myself, locked my stuff in a foot locker with the key (yeah, good luck with that move), and walked out into the giant steam room with its gorgeous domed ceiling and marble slabs.

I was holding on to Sadowski’s phone like an eighty-year-old man holds on to his Viagra when he’s got a hot date. The steam was so dense it was like standing inside a hot geyser—albeit one with a vaulted ceiling, gorgeous stonework, tiled floors, and risers upon which I was supposed to—what?—lie down?

Within thirty seconds a big, fat, topless woman, wearing just bikini bottoms, appeared or seemed to in the thick fog and indicated for me to lie down on the towel on the slab. I did, and she then threw a giant bucket of hot water on top of me and left.
What?
I just stayed there all wet and miserable on my soaking-wet towel. Other women on the round, raised marble slab didn’t act like anything was amiss so I just stayed there pretending I wasn’t weirded out.

Fatty Topless came back about ten minutes later, and proceeded to beat the hell out of me. Okay, it was with wet leaves, and buckets of hot soapy water, but still. Then she began scrubbing me down—hard. My God. Yes, it hurt like hell, but it was just what I needed, or so I was thinking, when the phone blasted me back to reality.

The massage lady was not pleased and quickly indicated that phones were
izin verilmez,
which sounds like “definitely not allowed” in any language. Trying to excuse myself while attempting, at the same time, to wrap back up in the towel, I ran for the exit, hoping it wasn’t the exit to the street.

It wasn’t, but it was worse—it was the men’s changing room. But I didn’t care. It’s not like I haven’t seen one before.

But in reality it wasn’t anything like anything I had ever seen before. Not exactly,

The two startled men in there were in unusual states of undress, and they were galabia-wearers, so it looked like they were in the middle of removing long lady-dresses. In America I would have thought I’d wandered into a gay bathhouse. Their protests about my sudden appearance fell on deaf ears, while I tried to get them to shut up by making gestures with my free hand about the importance of my phone call.

“American insolence,” I heard one clearly mutter.

The caller was male—no particular accent I could discern other than, say, international mash-up.

“Miss Roussel? It is my understanding that you are requesting a meeting with Father Jacobi.”

I couldn’t believe my luck. I would have been thrilled with a phone call, but I was getting a full-on meeting! My luck must be changing!

“Yes, yes, that’s correct,” I answered, trying to hide my excitement.

“As it turns out, the good father is in Istanbul, and he will see you in one hour.” He told me to jot down an address and phone number. I wasn’t exactly prepared with a pen, so I told him to hold on while I tried to key the info into Sadowski’s contact list under the “P. J.”

“I want to read this back to you, ah, sir. I’m sorry I didn’t get your name.…”

“It’s Mr. Cesur,” he replied.

“Thank you, Mr. Cesur.” I read it back to him.

“Yes. Any cab can take you.”

Making my apologies to the half-naked men, and tipping the masseuse generously for the half massage, I got dressed and was out of the hamami as quickly as I could. My terrible red hair was stuck to my head, making me look like I’d been scalped while getting steamed. Worse, the fat lady had washed it with god knows what in that bucket.

I handed the woman at the front desk the cell phone with the address, and in perfect English she told me it wasn’t far. In fact it was very close, but I wasn’t about to try to navigate the streets and possibly miss the appointment. So she offered to have one of the workers there walk with me. We walked for no more than ten minutes along the lively streets. I was glad to have an escort, because we were assaulted by salesmen selling everything—but mostly carpets—literally every two feet.

That world quickly slipped away when he led me into the Grand Bazaar, however. “The address has to be just a few doors in,” he said. I tipped him and he walked away. “It’s right inside. No problem.” Right.

If you’ve been to New York and you’ve seen how the world literally changes from block to block, it’s nothing compared to the way the world changes inside a souk in Turkey. And it’s no wonder that it does. After all, this is a country bordered by both Europe and Asia.

The bazaar smelled of spices and leather and animals and humanity. I didn’t see any spices, but I did see hundreds and hundreds of store stalls selling more beautiful jewelry than I ever saw on Forty-seventh Street in the jewelry district.

The smells alone immediately slammed me back in time to that day in Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza when I was heading innocently enough to the tribunal of ben Yusef. Had it really only just been, what—four days earlier?

The Grand Bazaar is so massive it’s hard to comprehend. It takes up sixty-one covered streets with over 3,000 shops. I was lucky to be somewhat near the entrance in the twisting and turning cavernous place. There were hawkers, thieves, and people hawking me to buy everything I could ever imagine for any price I could afford to pay.