Istanbul Passage

by Joseph Kanon

  “Petty cash would. I’d need a voucher.”

  The fisherman was sitting in the outer office, fiddling with his cap, impatient.

  “My secretary is going to get your money,” Leon said, signing the form Dorothy had put in front of him. “Two hundred, right?”

  “I didn’t know there would be police,” he said, still uneasy about Altan. “Now they’ve seen me.”

  “Don’t worry. It’s not about this. Something else.” He handed the voucher to Dorothy, then waited until she’d left. “Sorry about the delay with the money.”

  “Well, you did say—”

  “The man who used to arrange the money died. So things got lost.”

  “Died? The one they said was shot?” Alert now.

  “Yes.”

  “And now it’s you,” he said, looking at Leon.

  Leon glanced toward the door. “Tell me something. Do you have your boat?”

  The fisherman nodded.

  “You interested in another job?”

  “What, another one from Romania?”

  “No, here. One night. Five hundred.”

  The fisherman’s eyes widened. “To the Black Sea?”

  “I’ll tell you tonight. Not far.”

  “But five hundred.” Suspicious.

  “There could be police.” He waited while this sank in. “Like last time.”

  The fisherman thought for a minute. “Well, that’s always the risk, isn’t it? That’s what you pay for.”

  “And you’re good at it. One night. Five hundred.”

  “In advance?”

  “On the boat. All of it.”

  He twisted his hat, thinking. “Where?”

  Well, where? Not in town.

  “The same place,” he said. “You remember?”

  The fisherman nodded.

  “As soon as you get the money here, go to the boat and take it out on the Bosphorus. Anybody asks, you’re going home. Go right up, Sariyer, anywhere up there, and put in until tonight.” He took out his wallet and handed him a hundred liras. “Extra. For dinner. No raki. Then come back and pick me up. The same place as before.”

  “I’m taking you?”

  “Two of us. Then you drop us and go home. One night.”

  “What time?”

  “Late.” Leon did a mental calculation. “Say, eleven. Okay?”

  “Five hundred?”

  “On the boat.”

  The fisherman looked at him, then nodded. “Five hundred.” A verbal handshake.

  “Good. Here’s Dorothy with the money. Count it, make sure it’s right.”

  “Mr. Woods wasn’t thrilled about this. It’s a lot of petty cash.”

  “I’ll talk to him. All there? Good, I’ll walk you down.” He started to lead him out, turning to Dorothy. “I’m going to take Mrs. Bishop to the hotel. I’ll be back later.”

  “Why are they asking questions?” she said, blurting it out to catch him on the run. “If he did it himself?”

  Leon stopped.

  “He didn’t, did he? It’s just like Tommy. Two now. It gives you the willies. Here. Down the hall.” She caught herself, then glanced over at the fisherman. “How do you want this charged? The petty cash req. We have to charge it somewhere.”

  “It’s one of Tommy’s. The payment accounts with the initials. I’ll do a memo when I get back.”

  “Oh,” she said, interested, the fisherman part of Tommy’s world.

  Tommy, who still had to be explained. If Leon got the chance.

  “That reminds me,” he said, taking a file out of the desk drawer and putting it in a briefcase with the others. “Look,” he said to Dorothy, “if it bothers you—about Frank—go home. I’ll be out most of the day anyway.”

  “You’d think there’s nowhere safer, wouldn’t you? Marines and gates and everything. And now look. In his office. And you know the way people talk.”

  “What way?”

  “Well, Tommy, now Mr. Bishop. And you knowing both of them.”

  “So I did it?” he said easily, dismissing it. “Dorothy.”

  “I didn’t mean— But you were here?” Troubled, wanting to know. “Mr. Burke asked if you were still here. When I left. He thought I’d been with you.”

  “You were here late?”

  “Not here. Jack’s office. You know, my husband. He has to go back to Ankara. So I waited around.”

  With access to the files. Already in the building.

  “Well, I was probably long gone.” He looked at her. “Don’t start imagining things, okay? We’ve got too much to do.”

  Keep moving.

  “By the way, when Hirschmann was here, when they were getting people out, how did they pay?”

  Dorothy looked blank for a second, dazed by the quick switch. “To hire the ships, you mean?” she said, feeling her way. “Liras if they could. If they were paying Turks. Otherwise gold. Gold sovereigns.”

  “Not dollars.”

  “Not the ship owners,” she said, still uncertain what was being asked. “They’d have problems explaining where they got it. Government agents, it didn’t matter. They had foreign currency reserves. So if we were sending a ship to Burgas, we’d probably have to pay the charter in gold.”

  “But the Bulgarians on the other end in dollars? And the Romanians?”

  “Sometimes. Antonescu got paid in dollars. Why are you asking this?”

  “I think some of it may have gone missing.”

  “No, Tommy would have said. He was very careful about money. You had to be. You couldn’t trust the Romanians. They’d take the money and not send the people. You’d have to arrange it like that—part on delivery.”

  Leon stared at her, his mind racing ahead, his stomach dropping. Not the Russians. Something worse.

  “Is that what you wanted to know?” Dorothy said, tentative, really asking why.

  Tommy’s secretary. More. Had they talked in bed? Never about this. How could you live with yourself knowing? But Tommy could. Planning powder rooms.

  Outside, the fisherman kept his face down as they passed the police cars still idling in the courtyard. Leon hadn’t bothered introducing Kay, still stunned, her face empty, off somewhere.

  “Take a taxi,” Leon said. “Go straight to the boat.”

  “Efendi.” Tolerant, almost amused. “Me? In a taxi?” He dipped his head to Kay, awkward. “At eleven,” he said to Leon. “Perhaps something in advance?”

  “On the boat.”

  And then, like some trick in a vanishing act, he slid away between two parked cars.

  “What was he saying?” Kay asked.

  “He was thanking me.”

  “No he wasn’t.”

  “You feel okay?” he said, not answering.

  “I don’t know,” she said, half to herself. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel. To see somebody like that. The blood. You want to wipe it off and then you don’t want to touch it. And then you think, it’s my fault.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “You think it, though.” She lowered her head. “You think it.”

  He took her arm to lead her into the hotel, but she shied away, an involuntary reaction. “You want to come up? Now?”

  “And then leave. I want them to think I’m there. I have some things to do.”

  “What things?”

  “Do you think I killed Frank?”

  “What?”

  “Well, they do. Or they’re going to.”

  “But you were with me. I said.”

  “There’s something else. I have to get out. I don’t want you to get involved in this. Just go up the elevator with me so they think I’m with you.”

  “Get out. Of Istanbul? If you do that, they will think—”

  “I can explain it somewhere else. Not here.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Look, if you don’t want to do this, I’ll go. Maybe that would be the right thing anyway. But we can’t just stand here.”

  �
�You’re so sure somebody’s watching.”

  “It’s Istanbul.” He took a breath. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay. I’ll figure something out.”

  “That’s right. That’s what you do. You and Frank.” She looked up, alarmed. “Whoever did it, he’s going to try to kill you too? The same work—”

  “No,” he said quickly, then stopped, disconcerted. What if he’d taken Frank’s call, knew what file he was going to pull? He’d be a threat, the next target. Move. “He won’t have to if the police get me. They think I did it. Kay, I can’t stay—”

  She slid her hand through his arm. “Now this,” she said, to herself again, her lips grim.

  They were quiet in the lift, eyes forward on the art nouveau grill-work, then aware of the elevator boy watching them go down the hall.

  “What are we supposed to be doing?” she said inside. “Going to bed? With Frank there? Is that what they think of us?”

  “Maybe. Or we’re going over our stories, making sure they match.” He looked over. “Or we’re wondering how this happened. What’s next.”

  She lit a cigarette, quiet. “That’s something to think about, isn’t it?”

  He opened the briefcase, starting to riffle through the Hirschmann file.

  “You brought work?” she said, thrown.

  “I just want to check something. To be sure.”

  She drew on the cigarette, thoughtful. “You’re really going away? Where?”

  He looked up at her, not saying anything.

  “You think I’d give you up to the police?”

  “If you don’t know, you won’t have to.”

  “For how long?”

  “Not long.”

  “And what’s your plan for me? What do I do? Wait? While you run from the police? My god, I never even talked to the police until now.”

  He touched her arm. “I’ll be back.”

  “If the police don’t get you.”

  He looked at his watch. “Stay in for a few hours, okay?”

  “With my lover,” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Who tells me nothing.”

  He looked at her. “I’ll be back.” He turned the knob.

  “What if they’re already here?” Her voice like a hand, trying to stop him.

  “They’ll be in the lobby watching the elevator. The stairs. Having coffee. Some dates, this time of year. They won’t be on the fire stairs.”

  They weren’t. He took a backstreet down the Kasim Paşa side of the hill, then circled up, avoiding Tünel. Marina was in her kimono, putting on nail polish.

  “It’s about time. You said one more night only,” she said, holding her fingers out to the air.

  “We’re leaving?” Alexei said, ready.

  “Not yet.”

  “Yes, one night only,” Marina said. “You’ll make trouble for me.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll get him out today.”

  “You think it’s a hotel here.”

  “No, better,” Alexei said, looking at her.

  “Better for you,” Marina said.

  “Had any visits?” Leon asked. “From our friend?”

  She shook her head, blowing on her fingers. “The landlord comes tonight.”

  “We’ll be gone.”

  Leon took out Alexei’s new passport and handed it to him.

  “Barouh,” Alexei said, looking at it. “What kind of name is that?”

  “A Jew,” Marina said, blowing on her nails again.

  Alexei grunted, shrugging this off.

  Leon brought out one of Tommy’s passports. “Recognize him?”

  Alexei looked at it carefully. “It’s a different name.”

  “Remember the real one?”

  “King. Like King Carol. They use that for a name in English.”

  Leon took a breath, his stomach dropping again, finally there. “Tell me about the meeting in Edirne.”

  Alexei peered at him, not sure where this was going. “You know that? How?”

  “Twice, right?”

  Alexei nodded.

  “The first time he had Hirschmann with him.”

  “I never knew the other one’s name.”

  “Big guy. From the Jewish Committee. You were making a deal for Antonescu. Selling Jews. How many?”

  “Three hundred. A few more. From the Transnistria camp.”

  “How much,” Leon said flatly.

  “Three hundred dollars a head,” Alexei said. Merchandise. “We had used this price before. We delivered them to Constancia. The Jews had to pick them up. The mines, any German ship, that was their risk.”

  “They give you money at the first meeting?”

  Alexei nodded. “Half. That was the purpose of the meeting. The arrangements had been made. Why are you asking this?”

  “Tell me about the second meeting.”

  “Only King this time,” Alexei said, then stopped, waiting.

  “Let me guess. He was supposed to bring the other half, fifty thousand dollars, but he didn’t. Why not? Did he say?”

  “Your government stopped the exchange. They said the money was supporting the enemy. Of course this was foolishness, the money was for Antonescu only. He was like Carol, he wanted to take the treasury with him. So, Jews for dollars, why not? The American Jews would pay. But you stopped it.”

  “No,” Leon said quietly, “he said you did. Took the money and then betrayed him. What happened to the people?”

  “They were sent back to the camp. No one was coming now to pick them up. There was no deal.”

  “Or any others after that,” Leon said, running his hand over the top of the briefcase. “They stopped. No more exchanges.”

  “Without the money? He was not, you know, humanitarian, Antonescu. And anyway now the Russians were there. He didn’t have time.”

  “But these people would have been saved. He would have made good on that.”

  “They were already in Constancia.” He looked down again at the passport. “You’re looking for him? That’s why you’re asking this?”

  “No, he’s dead. He was the man we shot on the pier. You would have recognized him. You knew about him. The only one who did.” He looked down again at the briefcase, seeing Tommy’s pink face. Not just one ship. All the others that didn’t follow. “To do something like this. For fifty thousand dollars.”

  “You’re surprised? People do worse for less.”

  Leon looked up. “Not worse.”

  “And they believed him? This story?”

  “It was easy to believe. The Romanians? Look what you’d already done.”

  Alexei tapped Tommy’s passport, then handed it over to Leon. “And you.”

  There was no one following on the tram back to Taksim, but to make sure Leon got off just before the French Consulate and used side streets to approach Denizbank from behind. The same manager, still eager to help, not surprised by Leon’s explanation of a mix-up in his notes. Ergin again waited outside the door. Leon hesitated for a second, staring at the neat stacks in the box. He glanced up to see if anyone was watching. No one. He snatched up the bills in batches, slipping them into his briefcase. Another second, looking at the empty box, then he closed it, taking a deep breath. Now robbery, a criminal act. But stealing from whom? Blood money.

  He called Ergin and watched him turn the key to lock the box. Would the weight of it feel different? When he thanked the bank manager, he felt his briefcase somehow glowing, the stolen money like a light inside that everyone could see, waiting to set off an alarm at the door. He imagined tellers with their hands in the air, getaway cars, police waiting. But no one in the street seemed to notice him, know that a crime had taken place. He took a taxi from a hotel rank.

  He turned and looked out the back window as they left the square, down the sweeping curve of Aya Paşa. The usual traffic. How much time did he have? He had to get Alexei out of Marina’s by nightfall. And stash him where? Now past the Park Hotel, the old German Consulat
e, the island of plane trees curving toward the Cihangir Apartments where Mr. Cicek listened to ringing phones. He thought of his picture window, the water view, and wondered suddenly if he would see it again. Something he hadn’t imagined before, not being able to come back, the door closed behind him. Was anyone watching? Some car across the street with a bored policeman, smoking? Not even looking twice at the taxi, a man in back with twenty-five thousand dollars in his lap. Crossing another line.

  6

  BÜYÜKADA

  MIHAI WAS OUT OF the office, down at the Hasköy docks, but Leon had kept the taxi and they were there in minutes.

  “Just wait. I shouldn’t be long.”

  “With the meter? You’d be better off with an all-day rate.” A higher fare.

  “All right,” Leon said, not wanting to argue, someone with money in his pockets. He looked down the street. No cars idling. Unless the taxi itself were the tail, now tracking his every movement. But it had been a random pickup, hadn’t it? What it felt like, always looking over your shoulder.

  There were health quarantine signs posted, but no barriers. The Victorei, listing slightly, was eerily quiet, as if everyone on board really was sick or some ghost ship had drifted into the Golden Horn. There were patches of rust on the hull and makeshift clotheslines strung up across the top deck, laundry flapping like ragged sails.

  “It’s not permitted.” A harbor policeman, coming from behind. “Passengers are not permitted—”

  “I’m not a passenger,” Leon said, flashing the front of Tommy’s passport. “Captain’s expecting me.”

  The magic of an American passport. The guard nodded to the gangplank. Leon started up, noticing the garbage in the lapping water alongside, peels and eggshells that hadn’t yet flushed away. There were sounds now, ropes creaking and voices from inside the ship, a baby, but still subdued, saving strength, the lassitude of a hospital ward. Up top, people wrapped in shawls and blankets were huddled on benches, facing the weak winter sun. There was a flutter of interest when they saw Leon, someone from the outside, maybe news. Sitting up, but their posture still wary, people who knew everything, who had been in the camps. Sallow skin, drained and skeletal, the faces Anna used to see.

  Mihai was with the captain and a boy volunteered to get him. While he waited, Leon walked across the deck. Low murmurs in a language he didn’t know, presumably Polish, open stares. On the other side of the water, Süleyman’s Mosque rose up the hill in a cluster of swelling domes, the old picture-book city a kind of mirage. The end of the Black Sea crossing, everything foreign now, home gone for good.