Read Online Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon - Free Book Online Page A

was about this, not about Alexei or Mihai, how the job had gone wrong, but about this, killing a man, a line he’d never expected to cross. The sound of the shot was still in his head, an echo. Life gone in a minute, that easy.
    He caught a taxi at the station and took it to the Park. A few minutes just to establish his presence, pretending to look for someone in the big art deco dining room, waving at Mehmet in the bar, then using the men’s room off the lobby, spotted by regulars who would say, vaguely, that they’d seen him there that evening.
    A few minutes later he was back out on Aya Paşa, past the now dark German Consulate, down to his building, sliding the key in the door, then freezing, the door already unlocked. He pushed at it gently, listening for sounds. No light, but the smell of tobacco, a cigarette burning, still here. He felt for the gun in his pocket, then remembered it wasn’t there. He took another step, a faint creaking. Not a burglar, something he knew without knowing why. Someone waiting for him.
    “Turn on the light, for god’s sake.” Mihai’s voice in the living room. “It’s only me.”
    Leon flicked on the hallway switch, then walked into the room. Mihai was sitting by the window smoking, the only light the glow of his cigarette tip.
    “How did you get in?” Leon said.
    “A child could get in.”
    “What are you doing here?”
    “Thinking.”
    “About what?” Leon said, turning on a table lamp.
    Mihai winced at the sudden light. “What you know. What you don’t know. Whether you’re a fool. Or something else.”
    Leon nodded to his bandaged hand. “You think I knew? I wouldn’t have asked you—”
    “Not that,” Mihai said, waving his hand toward the drinks tray. “Make yourself a drink.”
    “I just had one.”
    “Oh yes? With Alexei?” he said, his voice curling around the name. “A celebration?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “And how did you find him? Good company?”
    “Worried.”
    “Ah. Pour me one, will you?”
    Leon poured two, handing one over.
    “A natural reaction,” Mihai said. “To being shot at. I don’t feel so wonderful, either.”
    “Not just that. Worn out.”
    “A sympathetic figure. And now such a helpful friend.” He took a drink. “Who sent you? Tonight?”
    “You know I can’t tell you that.”
    “Scruples, at such a moment. If the bullet had got me, would you have told me then?”
    “Does it make any difference, who? What’s this all about?”
    “Trading with the enemy. A drink with the devil,” he said, holding up his glass.
    “He’s not the enemy anymore.”
    Mihai looked at him, then down at his glass. “So I wondered, is he a fool? Now I know. Sit down.”
    “You’ve got something on your mind?” Leon said, taking a chair.
    “My mind, yes. Not on my conscience. Yet. I thought, he doesn’t know. He should know.”
    “Know what?”
    “Who he is. Your Alexei. Shall I guess what you think? The Romanians. Well, they sided with the Germans. How could they not? The expedient thing. Our friend too. What choice? Then Stalingrad, the Russians push back. And push. Into Romania. Now Germany’s losing and who’s coming? So why not make a deal with them? Throw out the fascists. Fight with the Russians instead. The new expedient thing. But meanwhile some people get caught in between. Our friend, for example. The Russians don’t forgive him. They’re going to put him on trial. Like Antonescu. So he runs. And he has something to sell. Things he knows. I’m right so far, yes?”
    Leon nodded.
    “Only one bidder in this deal. And better not to ask too many questions. The whole Romanian army was fascist, so, yes, he was a fascist, but now the Communists are after him, a recommendation in itself. In such a situation you take what you can. All right. An opportunist. But our opportunist. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
    “I haven’t thought. I don’t know.”
    “But I do. I recognized him. Before I took a bullet for him. You