The Innocent Bystanders c-4 Read online

  "You're still fighting," she said, and yawned. She couldn't help it. "Where are you taking me?" "This fellow knows a place," he said, and she remembered the laughter, and willed herself not to blush. "It's quiet and it's clean, and the food's good," he said. "I'll wake you when we get there."

  But in fact she woke long before, as they drove into the racket of the new suburbs, and the even worse racket of the old city: old cars, even older buses, horse-drawn carts, mules, and people, once even a small, bunchy herd of sheep that threaded their way through streets that grew narrower and narrower, past tall, shuttered houses, with now and again a glimpse of the dome and minaret of a mosque, until at last they turned a corner, and in front of them was the Golden Horn, blue and gleaming, the ships bobbing on it like birds. She looked and cried out, "My God, it's marvelous."

  "You should have brought your camera," said Craig. The driver abandoned his war with the radio and turned to grin at her, then flung out a hand as if offering the blue water, the purple-hazed hills beyond, white houses embedded in them like pearls. He spoke again, and again Craig laughed.

  "He says it was a Greek city first," he said. "And in many ways it still is."

  He settled back as the car just scraped through a narrow cobbled street, turned a corner, and stopped at last in a tiny square, one side of which was a long building of wood that seemed to have emerged at the whim of generations of owners. Parts of it seemed wholly isolated from others. There were three roofs and four entrances, and everywhere tiny, shuttered windows. It was painted a fading green, but the white of its balconies still dazzled. There was a charm about the place that she found hard to define. It certainly didn't lie in its design or proportions—only there was a Tightness about it; it belonged there, opposite the tiny Orthodox church and alongside the great warehouse that looked like a Sultan's palace. Their driver picked up the canvas bag and led them through an entrance, past a sign that said, in Turkish and Latin script, Hotel Akropolis.

  They were in a cool room then, low, dim, marble-tiled, with a battered desk and a fat woman behind it who could only have been the driver's sister. Craig signed the register, and handed over his passport. Nobody asked for Miriam's and the fact annoyed her even as it consoled. Then an aged crone appeared, and led them through a maze of corridors, and flung open a door with a flourish. Inside was a huge room with an enormous canopied bed, more marble flooring, and a vast wooden fan like the paddle of a steamer that stirred the sluggish air when the crone pressed the switch. Off the bedroom was a bathroom with a copper bath built on the same scale as the bed, and a huge copper shower suspended above it. The crone looked at it in wonder that people should waste so much time in being clean, then went back to the bedroom again, prodded the mattress, and grinned. Here at least was luxury that made sense, and she said so to Craig. It cost him a quarter to get rid of her.

  Miriam watched him take off his coat. The gun harness was still there, but the gun was in the waistband of his trousers. He took it out, checked it, laid it on the bedside table. The time was four thirty, and she was dizzy with fatigue.

  "You want to bathe first?" he asked. She nodded. "Go ahead."

  "Are we sleeping together?" she asked.

  He looked at the bed. "Looks like it," he said. "Don't worry, Miss Loman. I'll control my bestial desires."

  She flinched at that and went into the bathroom. When she came back, she wore a towel tied round her like a Hawaiian pareu, covering her from shoulder to thigh.

  "Very pretty," he said.

  "I've washed my dress."

  "Tomorrow I'll buy you a new one. Which side of the bed d'you want?" She got in on the left. The gun was close to her hand. "I'll bet it isn't loaded," she said.

  "You'd win," said Craig. "Little girls shouldn't play with loaded guns. They go off."

  "Please," she said. "I'm not a child. Don't treat me like one. It's bad enough being here-■"

  "You're on your honeymoon," he said. "That's what I told them downstairs. You're nervous and shy, and you might try to run away. Don't try it, Miss Loman. Nobody speaks any English for miles around. They'd just bring you back and embarrass you."

  She began to cry then, and still crying, fell asleep.

  When she woke it was daylight, and she was alone. She got up quickly, and the towel fell from her. She ran to the door—it was locked—and then to the bathroom. Her dress was dry, and she put on bra, panties, and dress with clumsy haste, then prowled the room. There was no sign of the gun, no sign that Craig had ever been there. She had no memory of him in the bed. The thought should have been a comfort to her. She wondered what Ida would say if she knew how her Miriam had spent the night, and the thought made her smile, until she remembered Marcus, and the look on his face when Craig had taken her away. She loved Marcus as he loved her, un-questioningly, without reservation. A fat, middle-aged milliner had no business to possess such a capacity for love. It was a wonderful thing, no doubt, but one day it would destroy him.

  She went out on to the tiny balcony and looked down. The Bosphorus was below her, the ships tied up to the stone quays, the racket of the port unending: stevedores, lorry drivers, even policemen milling about, and not one she could talk to, not one who could understand a word she said, even if she could escape from the hotel. She picked up her handbag and looked in the change purse. A five-dollar bill, three dollar bills, two quarters, and seven pennies. And Craig must be carrying thousands of dollars. Suddenly there was the sound of music, American music, below her. She leaned over the balcony and looked down. A small, dark man was washing the windows of the floor below. There was a transistor radio hooked to his ladder, and it was playing "Stardust" very loud. It had to be loud to compete with the racket of the port, but the volume couldn't mar the clean drive of the trumpet. She began to feel better.

  When he came back, his arms were filled with parcels. She lay on the bed, not sleeping, and he looked so like

  Hollywood's version of the wholesome American husband at Christmas time that she smiled.

  "There should be a sound track playing 'Jingle Bells,'" she said.

  "I bought you some clothes," he said. She sat up then, angry.

  "Did it ever occur to you I might like to choose my own?" she asked.

  "Perhaps you'll like these, Miss Loman," he said. "It's possible."

  She opened the parcels, adored everything he'd bought her, and hated him even more.

  "I'm hungry," she said.

  "Lunch is on its way up," he said.

  The feeling of frustration grew inside her. She had never known anything as hateful as this massive and very British competence.

  Lunch was moussaka, grilled swordfish, salad and cheese, and a white wine she decided she detested, then drank three glasses of. After it, she felt well and wide awake for the first time since she'd left the aircraft.

  "You're looking well," said Craig, and again the intuitive competence enraged her. She watched in silence as the crone poured Turkish coffee from a battered brass pot and left them.

  "This food will probably make me ill," she said. "You know what we Americans are like—if the food's not flown in from home we go down with a bug."

  "Ah," he said. "I'm glad you reminded me. I bought you some pills for that."

  She slammed down her coffee cup.

  "I hate you," she said.

  "That's obvious—but it doesn't matter, so long as we don't let it get in the way. You ready to go?" "Now?"

  "We haven't a lot of time," he said. "And Kutsk is five hundred miles away. Are you frightened?"

  "Horribly," she said. He nodded.

  "Me too," he said, and caught her look of surprise. "No matter how often I do it, I'm always frightened. So are all the others—except the nuts, and they don't last very long. Being frightened's part of the game, Miss Loman." "This isn't my game," she said.

  "Poor little innocent bystander," said Craig. "Get your things together."

  The Greek taxi driver had found Craig a Mercedes, a battered 200
S that had nothing to recommend it except its engine, but that was astonishing. He drove Craig to the outskirts of the city, and again the girl had glimpses of the other Istanbul, the five star dream world of the tourist —Haggia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Dolmabace Palace —that gave way too soon to the narrow caverns of streets, first shops, then houses, then the dusty wastelands that fence in all big cities: abandoned cars, billboards, the first ploughed field. The driver pulled up at last by a bus stop and made another speech. At the end of it, he shook hands with Craig, then got out.

  "He hopes we'll be very happy," said Craig. "That's nice of him," the girl said. "He's not to know it's impossible, is he?"

  When she looked back, the driver was waving to them, teeth flashing.

  Turkey turned out to be mostly dry hills and plains, waiting for water. That, and terrible roads that the Merc took with more philosophy than she did. And mosques of course, mosques in every village and town, built of everything from mud to marble. There were almost as many mosques as sheep. The car ate up the miles to Ankara— this was Turkey's main highway, the one they kept repaired—and Craig drove quickly, yet with caution, saving his strength for what was to come. When darkness came the girl drowsed again, and woke to more street lights, and Istanbul was nearly two hundred miles away. Craig drove slowly now, following the directions the Greek had given him, and stopped in a wide avenue, lined with olive trees that whispered softly even in that still night. He led the drowsy girl to the doorway, rang the bell, and again there was the babble of Greek, another crone, another vast bed with cool, white sheets. Then supper came: olives, lamb kebab, rice and fruit, and a dark, acrid wine that Craig drank freely. The whisky stayed in his bag untouched. Then after supper came Turkish coffee, and the sound of the crone running a bath. She took the first bath without asking. This time there were bath salts, the talc he had bought her, and a dressing gown, a scarlet kimono he had chosen that did a lot for the plumpness of her body, made her taller, more elegant. She went back to the bedroom.

  He was standing, half turned away from her, practicing with the gun, drawing it, aiming, the muzzle a pointed, accusing finger, then putting it back in the holster, repeating the process over and over, then switching, the gun in the waistband of his pants, pulling it, aiming: and the whole thing so fast that the gun seemed to unfold in his hands into the hardness of death. He saw her, but didn't stop until he was satisfied, the sweat glistening on his face, pasting his shirt to his body. The girl thought of boxing champions she had seen on television, the endless training sessions devoted to just such a skill in hurting the man who faced you.

  "You work so hard at it," she said.

  "I'm still alive."

  He left her then, and this time took the gun with him to the bathroom.

  He'd bought her a nightgown, yellow like her dress. It lay on the bed, and she picked it up, looked at it. Pretty. She pulled the cord of her kimono, felt the smooth silk slide from her, felt her naked body react to the coolness of the room. She was sleepy again, but sleep was a luxury and her world was poor. Her world was two hard hands and a terrifying speed with a lightweight Smith and Wesson .38. And beyond that the certainty of danger, probable pain, the possibility of death.

  I'm twenty-three years old, she thought. It can't happen to me. It mustn't.

  She turned, and the mirror on the wardrobe showed her a pretty, plump girl, her nude body in a showgirl's pose, holding a splash of yellow to bring out the honey gold of her skin. She jutted one hip and admired the result. In twenty years she would be fat—maybe in ten— but now she was, not beautiful maybe, but pretty. And desirable. Surely she was desirable? She put a hand to a breast that was firm and rounded—and cold. The cold was fear.

  He came in from the bathroom wearing pajamas, carrying his clothes. This time the gun went under his pillow. "Who can hurt us tonight?" she asked. "The Russians," he said. "My people. Yours." "Mine?"

  "Not the CIA," he said. "They're not bad, but they're not up to this one. For this, your side will use Force Three." He frowned, trying to explain it to her. "Look, the Russians have the KGB. But for really nasty jobs— like this one—they use the Executive. That's blokes like me. And Force Three—that's me too, ten years younger, in a Brooks Brothers suit."

  "All to find Marcus's brother?"

  "You know what he did," said Craig.

  She pulled the sheet more tightly around her.

  "Betrayed the Revolution," she said. "They sent him to Volochanka. But he escaped, so they want him dead."

  "They have the easy job," said Craig, and she shivered. "Your people want him alive."

  "Marcus wants him alive."

  "Because he's his brother. The Americans want him alive because he can perform one miracle." "Only one?"

  "It's a good one," he said. "He can turn sea water to rain water. Cheap. He can make the desert blossom. He's America's present to the underprivileged world."

  "And why do you want him alive?"

  "So that I can stay alive too," said Craig. "If I've got him, everybody will be my chum."

  "With all that opposition—you think you can do it?"

  "It's not much of a chance, but it's the only one I've got."

  He put the light off and got into bed. Before he could turn from her, her arms came round him, her body eased against his. He put up his hands and found that she was naked.

  "Miss Loman," he said, "you're making a big mistake." Her mouth found his, her hands tore at his pajama jacket, then she found herself pulled away from him. He

  was gentle about it, but his strength was too much for her.

  "Please," she said. "Please, Craig."

  He got out of bed, switched on the light again, and looked down on her, her bare breasts tight with love, then he lit a cigarette and his hands were shaking.

  "Miss Loman," he said. "What the hell are you playing at?"

  "I don't love you," she said. "I never could love you. But I may die tomorrow. That scares me—it scares us both." She wriggled out of the sheets, her body supple in youth, but the logic she offered was ageless. "We need each other. Now," she said. "It's all there is." He turned away from her. "Am I that hard to take?"

  "No, Miss Loman, you're not," he said. "But my interest in women ended a year ago. They have a machine that does that. All very modern. It gives you electric shocks."

  "Oh, my God," she said.

  "Maybe I'm wasting my time staying alive, Miss Loman." "Who did it to you?"

  "A man who hated me. In our business, we stir up a lot of hatred. I nearly died. They tell me I was crazy for a while. Then they patched me together—the surgeons and psycho experts—and sent me after the man who did it."

  "Did you kill him?"

  "No," he said. "He had to live. But he wanted to die. Very much." He came to her then, and he looked at her body and smiled. His hand reached out, smoothed the hair from her brow.

  "I'm sorry, Miss Loman," he said.

  "Couldn't you just hold me?" she said. "I'm so alone, Craig."

  He put the light off. She heard the rustle of cloth as he removed his pajamas, then he lay on the bed beside her, took her in his arms, kissed her gently. Her hands moved across him, and her fingertips told her of what he had suffered, the knife wound, the two gun shots, the flogging. His body was marked for life, but the strength inside him had overcome everything that had been done, until the last, most appalling pain had left him alone, uncaring, with only one emotion left, the fear of death. Her hands moved down, over the hard belly. Her body rubbed soft and luscious against him.

  "I'll make you," she said. "I'll make you want me."

  There was a compassion in her hands and lips that went beyond the ruttishness of fear, a gentle understanding that knew nothing of the game without rules he'd played for far too long. Even now, in the very offering of herself, this girl was on the side of friendship, of life.

  His mind loved her for it, but his body would not respond. Could not. She touched him, and his flesh remembered the
pain and only the pain, but he willed himself not to cry out, or move away. She was offering him compassion: the least he could do was accept it. Suddenly Craig decided that, whatever happened, Miriam Loman wouldn't be killed. Her compassion was too rare, too precious a commodity to be squandered before its time. And with that realization, the memory of the pain receded, and she became not just the embodiment of a virtue but a woman too, and Craig realized, as he needed her at last, that his frigidity had become a kind of necessary selfishness, a protection against the involvements women always demanded, this one not least, and yet how could one repay such compassion except with involvement? His hands grew strong on her, and she rolled back, then pushed up to meet him, brave in her passion.

  "There, my darling, you see?" She said, then, "Yes. Oh, please. Please."

  When they had done, they bathed together, then lay down cool on the rumpled sheets. She smiled at him then, a grin of triumph.

  "You didn't believe it was possible, did you?" she said. "And I made you."

  "You made me."

  "That's something isn't it? After what they did to you? You ought to say, Thank you, Miss Loman." "Thank you, Miss Loman."

  "That's a good boy." She kissed his mouth. "A very good boy. You can call me Miriam." She stretched out, feeling the hardness of his leg against hers. She felt marvelous: relaxed, fulfilled, yet still engrossed in her body's responses to his. There was just one thing-

  "I don't want you to think I do this sort of thing all that often," she said. "I don't."

  "You mean I wasn't much good?"

  She made a joke of it, but the anxiety to please was there, would always be there.

  "You were perfect," he said. "That's how I know you didn't do it often."

  "Just one man," she said. "One nice Jewish boy. I adored him. And he went to Israel."

  "Does Marcus know?"

  "I hope not," she said. "I never told him. He'll never know about you either. You bastard. You drag me here, kidnap me, then let me rape you. And tomorrow you'll probably get me killed."

  "No," said Craig. "You won't die, and it wasn't rape— or kidnapping either."