Maria Hudgins - Lacy Glass 02 - The Man on the Istanbul Train

by Maria Hudgins

  The stench in here was overpowering. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she made out a row of buckets and trashcans in an alcove about the size of a minivan. Her boots stuck in the sloppy, wet, muddy result of merchants’ disposal of rotting produce in a place no one expected the public to ever see. Holding her breath as long as she could, Lacy endured until her brain started to suffer from lack of oxygen. Then, her eyes adjusting slowly to the dark, she spotted a staircase. Narrow and leading to God knew where, a staircase was the precise thing she hoped to find.

  She climbed the stairs and found a hallway that extended both left and right and to several doors in both directions. A couple of windows on the far side let in light, so she could actually see doorframes. She rubbed the grimy haze from a patch of glass with the heel of her hand and peeked through. Beyond the window lay a wide expanse of roof dotted with domes and vents. The bulk of the covered market, she reasoned, lay on this side so the other side must open onto a single row of stalls, their backs to a city street. A door on the hall to Lacy’s right stood open. She crept closer to check it out. The wooden floor in this hall probably dated back to the Ottoman Empire, she thought, with big gaps between planks shrunken with age some spots creaking so loudly Lacy hoped the cacophony in the market below would disguise the noise. The open door proved to be a doorless doorframe leading to a room, about 9 by 12 feet. It was piled high with derelict shelving and broken chairs. A grimy window in the exterior wall let in a bit of light. This room would be approximately above the closed-up stall down below, she figured.

  Moving back down the hall, Lacy tried doors and peeked in. They all seemed to be unlocked, except one. The first door—it would be over the fishmongers’—had a padlock. An actual padlock, dangling from a metal hasp, but the shackle was swung away from the case, obviously unlocked. She removed it and pushed on the door, which refused to budge until she gave it a good thump.

  This room was larger than the previous one, about 15 feet by 20, and essentially empty except for a couple of chairs and a small table in one corner. On the table sat three of those little curvy glasses the Turks used for tea, three saucers, and a few plastic forks and spoons. Right now she could use a cup of Turkish tea, served hot and on a saucer with sugar cubes beside the glass. Lacy walked toward the table, releasing a cracking noise from one of the planks—a crack so loud the plank must have been saving up the tension for years. She paused for several seconds, listening for evidence from below that the noise was getting a reaction.

  In one corner sat a wastebasket. Sticking close to the wall on the theory that these planks might be less likely to creak, although she wasn’t sure why, she knelt beside the wastebasket and examined its contents: Gyro wrappers, dried-up banana skins, salt and pepper packets—lots of them, torn open and empty—two empty soft drink cans, five one-pint water bottles and their plastic caps. Napkins. Okay. Why am I doing this? What do I say when a fishmonger from down below walks in and finds me kneeling beside his wastebasket and holding a banana skin? It seemed as if someone were living here. Or maybe was this simply the leavings of the fishmongers? They might bring their lunches in here.

  The two chairs, though, gave her pause. Both wooden, straight-backed types, one stood against a wall, but the other lay in the middle of the room on its side. Why would someone sit in the middle of a large room? Why was it turned over? Lacy stood and picked up the chair.

  Fear!

  The seat and the back of the chair gave off a slight scent—the same sickening smell she’d encountered on the clothes in the gendarmerie station. The wood held the scent, although quite subtle, and a nose less keen than hers might not notice it at all. She carried the chair to the grimy window and looked at it. From one of the front legs she pulled a silvery thread caught behind a rough, splintered spot.

  Duct tape. She recognized the way duct tape tears along the threads of its fabric, with bits of glue and silver backing clinging to it. She found more sticky remains on the other front leg but nothing on the back legs. She felt sure someone had been taped to this chair. But there were no other signs of restraint. How long ago? Everything was dried up, the banana peels, the water bottles, the tea glasses with a brown coating in the bottom of each.

  She held up the silver thread to the window again. Looking out, she saw the fig shop. Unlike the fish stall beneath her, it had no awning but it did have a window much like the one at which she stood. She looked past the fishmongers awning and her heart leaped in her chest.

  There, talking to one of the vendors, stood Jason Rennie—or whatever his name was—the New York cop from the train. Same pink shirt, same hair, same broad shoulders. As soon as she recognized him, she ducked back, then leaned forward again. She saw only the top of his head as he slipped beneath the awning. Might he have entered the alley between the stalls? It would take him no more than a minute or two to find her, even if he checked all the other rooms first.

  Now what? Well! Hello again, sounded like a particularly bad idea. She had no time to think. She flew back to the window and threw up the sash in one giant heave, looked across the way, and saw, directly opposite, that other window was open. But what was beyond it? She had thought those shops backed onto a city street. Could she possibly leap from here to there? And if she did, where would she land? In another storeroom like this one? She couldn’t leap that far without a running start, but if she could do it like diving into a pool, prone, and with arms outstretched, she could grab the sill of the opposite window without actually jumping anything like the whole distance between windows. More like a circus performer flying from one swing to another. Feet leave one, hands grab the other. From there, she might make her way down and out of the market by a back route.

  She could simply drop from this window to the ground, but Jason would catch her. He obviously had a friendly relationship with the fishmonger. Who else could have tipped him off?

  All this went through Lacy’s head in a few seconds. She heard a board creak in the hall behind her. The problem with jumping was that when she grabbed the sill on the other side, her entire weight would be borne by her fingers. She couldn’t possibly pull herself up. She had to drop, but it might be better to jump to one side and avoid the awning altogether. She leaned out, trying see what lay directly beneath the seamed edge of the canvas awning.

  The decision was taken out of her hands by an unseen pair that lifted her up by her boots and flipped her out the window. She fell straight through the awning, scraped along the ice-filled fish display, and landed on her head.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Darkness. Lacy didn’t know where she was, or why, or anything at all except that her head hurt worse than it ever had in her whole life. Throbbing with every pulse, her eyeballs and teeth hurt, as if her brain had swollen and was pushing eyes, teeth, and even hair follicles out to make room for itself. Her mouth was parched. She felt she was lying on her right side and tried to raise her arm to cushion her head with her hand. Her arm wouldn’t move.

  She couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or not. Using the muscles that normally opened and closed them, she tried a few times and found that the open option produced a rectangle of bluish light. She decided she was lying on a hard floor, facing a window and it was dark outside. She tried again to move her arms, but she couldn’t feel them. Where were her arms?

  She must have drifted off again because the next time she opened her eyes, she could see the grid of a wooden window frame and the light was a little brighter. Her head felt as if her brains might fall out if she tried to lift it, but she tried it anyway and looked down. Saw her knees. Where were her hands? Looking down across her cheekbones, she saw a corner of the silvery tape stretched across her mouth. She was bound and gagged with duct tape. Her legs would only move, mermaid-like, as a unit. Her hands were taped behind her back.

  Wriggling around in a circle, she determined that she was alone in a bare room. A room with one window and one door. Oh yes. And one small table, and two chairs and a wastebasket. Her rea
son for being here escaped her. Not a clue. Her best guess was that she lay in a back room of the biology building at Wythe University. Not in the basement. The basement had no windows. Wood floor. Not the biology building after all.

  She sensed that Job One was getting free. That couldn’t hurt no matter where she was. Hands taped together at the wrists. Legs taped around calves. Was she wearing shoes? Were her hands taped tightly or loosely? Palms together or palms out? She couldn’t answer any of these simple questions because her arms and legs were numb. Wait. She could answer the shoe question by bending her body at the hips, into a V. She did so and saw boots. At least three wraps of duct tape held her calves together. She sat up and inched herself to the wall using her butt and heels. Easy, except for the sitting up part which, incredibly, made her head hurt even worse.

  Lacy thought she could maneuver her bound hands to the front of her body by throwing her shoulders out of their sockets although she hadn’t actually done that since she was ten years old. That thought made some sort of connection in her mind. Something recent, but the connection broke a split second later. She could bring her arms forward either of two ways. Over her head or under her hips. In this case, not knowing how tightly bound her hands were, her best bet was under the hips. It would help if she didn’t have these bulky boots on, though.

  Seeing that one of the laces had come untied, she rubbed that boot against the wall, the laces against the leg of the nearest chair, over and over until it loosened and she slipped a foot out, then rubbed the sock off. More twisting, more rubbing, and she managed to untie and remove the other boot. Lacy sat back against the wall, panting from the effort, and prepared for the hard part. For once in her life she was glad to be thin enough for her nickname, Twigs. Any additional padding on her hips and thighs would have made it impossible for her bound hands to slide under. Sensation, like a thousand tiny needles, was returning to her arms now and she could tell they were bound no higher than the wrists. Hunching forward, she maneuvered one shoulder out of its socket, then the other, lengthening her arms an extra inch or so. Up onto her knees. One huge, painful, twist and her hands slid under her thighs.

  Lacy stopped and panted. She may have done permanent damage to her shoulders but the rest of the escape was a piece of cake. Her taped hands now in front of her, she made short work of the tape on her mouth, and used her teeth to peel the tape from her wrists. Legs freed, she stood and tried the door. Unlocked. Outside, a dim narrow hallway. Where am I and why was I tied up?

  A look out one of the hall windows told her where she was. Istanbul. Slowly, memories started coming back. The lingering smell of fish. She remembered a fishmonger’s stall. In the Egyptian Spice Market. She had sneaked up here. Looking for what?

  She placed her forearms against one wall and rested her exploding head on them. She wanted so badly to lie down in the hall and go to sleep but she mustn’t. Think. Think. At last, she recalled seeing the New York cop, feeling threatened, and falling out a window. She wobbled back into the room, pulled her boots on, made it to the window, and looked across the passage. Oh shit! I remember thinking about jumping from here to that window? Was I crazy?

  Given the fact that she had not come to in a hospital but in this room, bound and gagged, Lacy knew she wasn’t totally delusional. The awning below the window hung in shreds from its frame. I did that. She knew somehow that she had fallen through that awning. No. She hadn’t fallen. She was thrown.

  Now what? She couldn’t stay here. That guy—Jason somebody—would be back. Who was he? She heard a clunk like the slamming of a truck door. The shops below would open soon. What time was it? Her wristwatch was gone. What day was it?

  Prioritize. First, get out of here. And go where? Who cares? Anywhere. He knows you’re here, so anywhere but here. Why had he left her here alone? Had he left for only a short time? Might he be back any minute? Lacy looked around the room for her belongings but there were none. She slipped into the hall, down the stairwell, through a horrid, stinky alley and out into the morning light. To the left, she saw an arched entrance to the spice market that reminded her somehow of hairy cheese. To the right beyond the produce stalls, an open plaza. Too risky. If he was waiting for her, if she was being watched, an open plaza would be like saying here I am, shoot me.

  She went left through the arched entrance and ducked into the first niche she saw, a narrow space with a fire extinguisher attached to the wall. Two men were coming her way. She held her breath. They turned before they reached her and one applied a key to a shop front. Merchants, opening up for the day. She didn’t have long to decide what to do next. Within minutes, more vendors would arrive. If she could hold out until the market opened to the public, she could get lost in the crowd. She’d be home free.

  Could she avoid detection until then? Walk boldly down the hall, as if she were a vendor? Fat chance. Long blond hair, cropped pants and boots? Legs and arms bloody with multiple scrapes? She wondered what her face looked like. Black eyes? Bruises? Her head throbbed. Her shoulders felt as if they’d been shredded.

  No watch, no mirror. No backpack. What else? She raised her hands to her ears. Aha. She still had her hoop earrings and they were real gold. What else? That was about it. Hiding in the dark niche, Lacy tried to plan her next move and her knees jellied. She heard her mother saying, “You’ll get yourself into something you can’t get out of!” And her answer, “I can take care of myself. Let me go!” This time she may have fulfilled her mother’s prophecy.

  What would her mother say if she knew Lacy was in Istanbul, hiding from a would-be abductor? The mother who assumed Lacy was still a virgin, had never exceeded the speed limit, or even smelled pot. It might be time, she thought, to quit pretending and be honest with Mom. But not right this minute.

  She had no passport. No money. No credit cards. No phone. Her wristwatch was gone. Even her aspirin was gone. No water. What would she give for a bottle of water? She couldn’t let herself think about that now.

  Technically, she still had a hotel room. She could walk there from here. No she couldn’t. What if Jason was waiting for her? She recalled the woman with strange eyes and bright orange hair she’d seen twice near her hotel. That woman, at least, knew where she was staying because they had shared the shuttle bus that had let Lacy off in front of the hotel. If the woman was indeed tailing Lacy, going to the hotel wouldn’t be safe. And Jason would have her room key.

  She peeked out of her cubbyhole and saw no fewer than a dozen people, opening stalls and dragging out their wares. Lacy prided herself on never having stolen anything in her life, but today was a special case. As soon as a man arranging piles of scarves on a display table turned his back, she slipped over, grabbed a navy blue one, and stuck it inside her shirt. As casually as she could, she walked out the arched entrance, down the cobbled walk between produce shops, and into the morning light of the plaza, her blond hair now hidden. The scarf turned out to be wonderfully large, and by holding one side under her chin but not tying it, she managed to cover her arms and upper torso as well.

  Not a penny in her pockets, she had no choice but to walk. She hiked southward down a long boulevard toward the Grand Bazaar, where she hoped to find a pawnshop and trade her earrings for cash. She might have found a pawnshop at the Spice Market as well if she’d waited around until opening time, but she couldn’t risk running into Jason. Wishing she knew more about surveillance and how to tell if someone was tailing you, she paused now and again to check out her surroundings.

  The Grand Bazaar, about a mile down the boulevard, was a maze of passages and alleys, some blind, some dead ends, and the pawnshops were not well marked. Although she had visited shops there a number of times, she’d never done business in a pawnshop or paid attention to where they were located. By the time she arrived at the glitzy emporium, all the stalls were open and the place was bustling. She asked directions at a candy shop and got a curious stare from the proprietor. She pulled the scarf tighter around her face and tied it. She rea
lly needed to find a mirror.

  The pawnshop proprietor, a short, grey-haired man, stiffened when he saw her but said only, “Evet?” She plonked her earrings on the counter and started the dreaded haggling ritual. Turks love haggling. Lacy hated it. At least she knew she not to take his first offer.

  “Seventy lira?” The earrings had been a gift, so she didn’t know what they’d cost. The price of gold was high at the moment, but she still had no idea of their worth. They arrived at one hundred twenty lira as a price they could both live with.

  She found a coffee shop and, ignoring stares from her waiter, placed her order and slipped into the ladies’ toilet. Removing her scarf, she gasped at the sight in the mirror. Dried blood all down the side of her right cheek, and a bruise on her cheekbone that looked like Macy’s new fall colors: eggplant, citrus, and mahogany with flecks of habanero chili. Her right eye resembled an olive floating in a sea of tomato juice. The toilet had no paper towels, only a wall-mounted blower, so she scrubbed her face with her hands, plopped one foot at a time in the sink, and dryed off as best she could under the blower.

  After a hasty breakfast of roll and coffee, she found a notions shop where she bought a small box of aspirin and a bottle of water. A pair of cheap sunglasses would have been nice, but she couldn’t afford to waste the money. So far, she’d spent fifteen of her one hundred twenty lira.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lacy took the tram (1.5 lira) around the historic district, constantly scanning her fellow passengers and people on the sidewalk for any sign of Jason or the woman with bright orange hair. She hopped out on the far side of the Galata Bridge and walked toward the Pera Palace Hotel.