Dancing for the General

by Sue Star

  “Is there something specific that you are looking for, efendim?” Ozturk Bey lifted his rag from the pot he was polishing and narrowed his eyes.

  Yaziz scowled and continued snooping through the shop. The merchant had not cooperated from the first moment of his forced greeting. The broken beads could’ve come from his shop, he’d agreed, or from a hundred other places as well. His evasiveness made the detective wonder if there was more than just opium that was hidden somewhere on the premises.

  What were the other absent nephews doing now, a work day, away from the shop? Delivering more packages of opium to locked apartments for their uncle?

  It was a little faster than he wished to proceed, Yaziz thought, but he had many more duties to fulfill before his day was done. So he leapt into the heart of the reason for today’s visit. “I regret, Ozturk Bey, that I must bring you information of the unfortunate news of last night.”

  Yaziz’s colleagues at headquarters, despite their grumbles in tracking down the information first thing this morning, had told Yaziz that Emin’s name was not among the list of those in trouble with the Press Law. Therefore, Yaziz could inform the old man—for now—that Emin’s death was the result of tragic, natural causes.

  But Yaziz knew better. His instincts seldom failed him.

  Still, an accident, he told Ozturk Bey. The young man’s heart had given out unexpectedly. Sometimes it happened, even in one who appeared so young and healthy.

  The tactful caution Yaziz used didn’t seem to matter, as no surprise registered on Ozturk Bey’s face, nor in the tilt of his head. He revealed no remorse at losing one of his boys. Instead, he went back to work with his cloth, rubbing the same spot on a piece of brass until it gleamed a fierce gleam.

  “Did you know about his other work,” Yaziz asked, “as a photographer?”

  Ozturk Bey shrugged. “He was a journalism student.”

  Yaziz gave up his examination of the merchandise and pulled his worn notebook from a pocket. He flipped it open and pretended to study a page. “Emin worked here part-time. He also attended school, and he photographed American parties. What else did he do?”

  “I think he was stealing from us.”

  “You think?” That would explain the absence of his remorse, Yaziz thought.

  “He used his camera to photograph information, which he then sold to those who would be interested.”

  “Such as?”

  The ends of Ozturk Bey’s mouth turned down. “Here, it was designs that my artisans use for their finest work. Who knows what he stole someplace else? Practice, he claimed it was when he took his pictures. But my son-in-law was watching him all along.”

  “Then, I should speak with him. Where is your son-in-law?”

  “Helping my wife in the other shop.”

  “No, she is there alone.”

  Ozturk Bey shrugged again. “The young. Who knows what they do?”

  Yaziz frowned. “I understand you also employed Umit Alekci. Was he one of your nephews, too?”

  Ozturk Bey dropped the pot he was shining with a loud clang and wheeled around to disappear into the back room. Yaziz followed, limping, and repeated his question.

  “No. Of course not.” The old merchant gave an angry tick of his tongue, smacking off the roof of his mouth. “That one was gypsy.”

  “But you gave him work at times?”

  “Some of my customers asked him to go to their homes and take care of the copper and brass that they bought from me. It was their choice, not mine. I have no more dealings with a gypsy than that.”

  “Nothing more?” Either Yaziz was wrong that Ozturk Bey had been protecting the Alekci family or else the old merchant was hiding something. His opium trade?

  Ozturk Bey shrugged, his shoulder rising up to his ear. “I pass along what my customers tell me they want, and everyone is satisfied.”

  “Who is satisfied the most? Which of your customers was most interested in Umit Alekci?”

  Ozturk Bey lifted an eyebrow at the detective, then fussed over a pile of rags, a stack of newspapers, and a row of jars reeking of polish. But he remained stubbornly silent.

  “The same ones,” Yaziz persisted, “who asked Emin for his photographs?”

  “No, no, that is a different matter.”

  “But an important one in finding the killer of Umit Alekci.” Perhaps the same one, Yaziz thought, who’d produced the “natural causes” of Emin’s death.

  Bumping sounds came from the front of the shop, along with footsteps. Ozturk Bey glared once more at Yaziz, then pushed past him and rushed to greet his customer with smiles creasing his face and a gush of welcoming words. Yaziz trailed along behind. Miss Riddle had finally decided to give up her sight-seeing and follow him inside the shop.

  Ozturk Bey fussed over the unfolding of a chair and insisted that she sit.

  “No, really, it’s quite all right,” she said, waving him away. “I’m not staying.”

  Ozturk Bey ignored her protests and held up only two fingers to one of the coffee boys patrolling outside. It was an intended slight for Yaziz. Then he dragged a table from the back, placing it in front of his customer.

  “Without your purse,” Yaziz told her, “you will have to open an account here.”

  Ozturk Bey picked out a copper samovar, a brass bowl and some cups, which he arranged atop the table in front of his customer for inspection. Then he surveyed his shop, selecting more pieces for display.

  “I didn’t come to buy anything.” Yet, she oohed and ahhed, admiring the copper and brass before her.

  Yaziz limped to the back of the store where the old merchant balanced atop a crate. He was reaching for some trays on a shelf high above their heads.

  “It does not look good for you,” Yaziz said in Turkish, which the American did not understand, even if she could overhear. “Two of your boys died under suspicious circumstances in the last two days. Will I have to take you in for further questioning? I have colleagues who will be happy to interrogate you for me, and I warn you that they will not be pleased if you do not tell them something interesting.”

  Hopefully, an interrogation would confirm Yaziz’s suspicions—that Ozturk Bey used unskilled youth to smuggle his opium for him.

  Suddenly, a brass coffee grinder tumbled off the shelf above. Yaziz ducked to one side, and the hand crank caught the rim of his glasses, then stung his arm. He grunted, swallowing the pain.

  “A thousand pardons,” said Ozturk Bey, jumping down from the crate.

  A welt throbbed on his arm where a bruise already took form. Yaziz doubled over, cradling his arm.

  His tinted glasses lay broken on the floor.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Behind a barricade of brass and copper, Anna spied one certain large pot, covered with a lid, sitting on the floor in a far corner of the shop. It looked like the one Anna had seen the day before, the one that held the package Ozturk Bey had tried to pass to Priscilla.

  A surprise, Priscilla had called it. A package of spices for Fededa, but Anna had spoiled the surprise.

  Now, Anna glanced at the beaded curtain to the workroom, where Ozturk Bey and Yaziz had disappeared. They were nowhere in sight. Anna rose from her stool and tiptoed across the shop, threading her way around tables displaying copper and brass. She knelt down and lifted the lid. Inside, there was—

  “What have you found now?” said a woman’s voice in English from behind her.

  Anna glanced over her shoulder and stumbled to her feet. Fran! “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Obviously.” Fran nodded at the copper lid Anna still clutched. “What have you got there?”

  “Nothing.” She peered into the pot. There was nothing inside it today.

  Fran snorted. “You expected to find something.”

  “Yesterday, Ozturk Bey kept something inside this pot. I’m pretty sure it was this one. He wanted to give it to Priscilla.”

  “It didn’t belong to him,” said Fran.

  “H
ow would you know that?”

  “I don’t. I’m guessing. What did it look like?”

  “It was a small package, about the size and shape of a pocketbook, wrapped in newspaper and tied with string. Fededa kept one like it in the broom closet at home.”

  Fran’s gaze flickered past Anna. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it for you.”

  Anna started to protest that she wasn’t helpless, but just then, something crashed in the workroom that connected Ozturk Bey’s two shops. Sounds of metal clattered. There was a yelp of pain followed by a breath of silence. Then, a rush of voices.

  Anna dropped the lid back onto the copper pot with a clang, and then ran to the cramped space of the workroom. She blinked a few times to adjust to the dim light filtering through the thick glass of a narrow window.

  “Fededa!” Ozturk Bey was shouting and waving his arms. He hovered beside Yaziz who doubled over, waving away any assistance. Ozturk Bey shouted a stream of Turkish, either at the detective or at his absent wife, who failed to appear. Anna didn’t know.

  “Hayir,” Yaziz mumbled, among other mumblings. He flung his arm up to block his head. His sunglasses were missing. Without them, his face looked naked. The twisted frames lay on the floor, and their tinted lenses sprinkled in pieces beside a brass coffee grinder. Spots of blood speckled the back of his hand as he shielded his face.

  “You’re hurt!” Anna said.

  “No, it is nothing.” Yaziz waved her away and squinted hard, keeping his eyes closed. He groped his surroundings as if he were a blind man.

  “But you got hit with a piece of brass,” Anna said, shuddering. “That’s what happened to me.”

  “In this case, no one hit me. This was an accident.” Yaziz broke free of their attention and dropped to his knees. He picked up shards of glass and stuffed them in his jacket pocket.

  “Let me help,” Anna said, kneeling next to him.

  “It’s done.” He rose, pulled his handkerchief from another pocket, and dabbed it against his brow. Crushed, blue beads spilled to the floor from his handkerchief.

  Anna scooped them up. “Are these the same beads you showed me the other night?”

  “They came from here. That’s what I was asking about when that brass fell off a shelf and conked me on the head.”

  Ozturk Bey shouted once more for Fededa, who finally pushed through the beaded curtain from the trinket shop. She jabbered something back at him in a scolding tone of voice and passed a damp rag to Yaziz.

  Fran swept aside the strings of beads hanging in the doorway of the copper shop and stood there, watching.

  Ozturk Bey snapped out instructions to his wife, who glanced nervously between Anna and Fran and muttered something in return. She scurried away, back into the trinket shop.

  Ozturk Bey jerked his head backwards and ticked his tongue. He glared at Yaziz, then bowed a greeting at Fran and fussed over selecting a chair to unfold for his new customer. Still bowing, he carried the selected chair into the copper shop, set it up next to Anna’s, and motioned the women into their seats.

  Anna lingered in the workroom, trying to examine the cut on Yaziz’s forehead, but he kept dodging her efforts. At least it didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore.

  “It took me a while to find a place to park,” Fran said, “but I see that I’m in time. The gang’s all here. What’s wrong with your face, Detective?”

  “An accident, I regret.” He broke away from Anna and limped past Fran into the copper shop.

  “All in the line of duty, I presume,” Fran said with a deep chuckle. “Did you come seeking more information, or was it merely to break the sad news to Emin’s employer? I see that he’s heart-broken.”

  “I have a job to do, Miss Lafferty. Perhaps you will tell me what brings you here?”

  “To shop, of course.” She trailed after him. “This is a shop, is it not? And I always buy something from my favorite shopkeeper. How can I make amends? I feel responsible for Emin’s untimely death, since I’m the one who talked him into being the photographer last night.”

  “Doesn’t the embassy have its own cameras?” Anna asked, remembering the equipment she’d found in Mitzi’s hatboxes.

  Fran stopped next to a stack of trays and whipped her attention from Yaziz to Anna. “Why on earth do you ask such a thing?”

  Anna tried to keep her voice steady. “I found an old camera at home and thought it might have come from the embassy. Perhaps it was misplaced.” She didn’t want to confess that she’d been snooping. Hatboxes seemed an odd place to store a camera. Now, Fran’s sharp reaction made her suspicious, but Yaziz cleared his throat and interrupted.

  “Why did you offer him the job?” the detective asked.

  “My boss, Paul Wingate, wanted me to find someone. Everyone else that the embassy uses was booked, as it turned out. It was all rather last minute. Then I remembered Emin.”

  “How convenient that he was available,” Yaziz said.

  Ozturk Bey held up another finger to the coffee boys crowding the doorway. Then he rearranged copper pieces and dragged another table beside the chairs where he intended his customers to sit.

  “Yes,” Fran said, lifting an eyebrow as she watched Ozturk Bey bustle around the shop. “Our friendly shopkeeper here was planning to dismiss him, you see.”

  A hush fell over the room, and Yaziz looked up. Now Anna saw the problem requiring sunglasses. The detective had one brown eye and one blue eye. “You are in his confidence to know such a plan?” Yaziz said.

  “Naturally, Detective.” Fran gave a sigh of exasperation. “On account of the opium he was smuggling.”

  Anna gasped. “Opium?”

  “That package you saw. It was a cube of raw opium. Paul and I suspect that’s how your sister got her supply.” She turned to Yaziz. “Well, Detective, go ahead. Aren’t you here to arrest him?”

  * * * * *

  Anna felt ill. Her knees gave out, and she wanted to collapse into the nearest chair, but Fran grabbed her, holding her upright.

  “I’m all right,” she said, grateful for Fran’s support. The initial shock had come the night before, learning of her sister’s addiction.

  Fran steered her out of the shop, into the blinding sunlight of the street, leaving Yaziz to deal with Ozturk Bey. The sounds of wavering voices and clip-clopping hooves swam around Anna, hammering her head.

  Now she understood why Paul had wanted her to fire Fededa, who’d been the link between Mitzi and Ozturk Bey’s opium. Were there still more hidden packages somewhere in the Burkhardts’ house?

  Anna’s concern focused on her niece. There was nothing she could do to help her sister. Henry was taking care of her. Meanwhile, Anna had to make sure Priscilla remained safe. Steeling herself, she allowed Fran to drag her along. She stumbled over cobbles as they wound their way along side streets to Fran’s parked car.

  “Why couldn’t Henry have warned me of all this before they left?” Anna said as Fran opened the passenger’s door for her and guided her inside.

  “Maybe he thought that if he removed Mitzi from the scene, there would be no further complications.” Fran slammed the door behind Anna and then crossed around to the driver’s side.

  But Rainer was already here, Anna thought, charading as Viktor Baliko. Henry had known. He should’ve expected complications.

  All along, she could’ve asked Henry about Rainer’s fate after the war.

  “Thank you for telling me last night,” Anna said, once Fran climbed in behind the wheel. “You didn’t have to say anything about Henry and Rainer, that they’d worked together during the war, but you did, and I’m grateful. What I don’t understand is why Henry never told me. He knew Rainer and I were to have been married. Why didn’t he say anything?”

  “I believe it has something to do with guilt,” Fran said. “Besides, none of them ever knew the real names of the people they worked with, people on whom their lives depended. Maybe he never realized who his partner was.”

&
nbsp; Anna didn’t believe it.

  “Anyway,” Fran said, “it’s all classified.”

  “It couldn’t have been very classified, not if he told you about it.”

  Fran concentrated on starting the car and pulling out into the street. She said nothing.

  “You’re one of them too, aren’t you?” Anna asked.

  But Fran continued to pay attention to her driving. She steered past an ox and cart, like the unattended one filled with rugs that had annoyed Ahmet.

  “Classified,” Anna said. “Right? You can’t tell me.”

  Fran smiled and looked in the rearview mirror. Anna glanced over her shoulder, too, but she didn’t see anyone following them.

  Anna sighed. “You don’t think you can make me wait until Henry returns, do you? Because you can’t. I’ll confront him, you know, whether I have to take Priscilla and go track them down in Switzerland myself, or whether I wait until they come back on their own. No matter which, I’ll force him to tell me all about his association with Rainer. So if you know anything about it, you might as well tell me right now. He won’t keep that kind of information from me much longer.”

  Fran opened her mouth to speak, but Anna beat her to it and said, “Don’t tell me it’s classified. I have some rights, too. Besides, after all these years, it shouldn’t still be classified, should it?”

  “Whoa,” Fran said. “I’ve already told you all that I know.”

  “No, not what you know. You’ve only told me what you think you’re permitted to tell me. There’s a whole lot more than what you’re letting on.”

  “You’re imagining things.”

  “No, I’m not one to imagine very much. I overheard you with Paul Wingate last night, and I can put two and two together. There’s talk of a revolution, and that photographer knew something he wasn’t supposed to know. Now he’s dead. Henry is still spying, that’s why he’s been assigned here to Turkey. Is he spying on this revolution that’s in the works? Or is he just spying on the Soviets who are geographically so close? Maybe the revolution has to do with the Soviets? Anyway, regardless of what it’s all about, I can guess why Henry hasn’t said anything about it. If he confessed about an association with Rainer, a known spy, that would blow Henry’s cover here. Right? That’s why it’s classified information. And you can’t talk about it, not because you don’t know, but because you’re a spy, too. I’m right, aren’t I? Never mind, you can’t say.”