The Sixth Station(61)

Ignoring them as only a New Yorker can do, I instead found a reasonable-looking woman, dressed unreasonably in what had to be the best knockoff Chanel I’d ever seen, manning a knockoff-purse stall. I asked where I might find the address of Mr. Cesur. Forget three stalls in, it was actually past leather and over in carpets.

She directed me “two aisles down on the left.” The address was not what I had expected, but what I should have anticipated: Istanbul Carpets II by Mustafah Cesur.

Oh, crap. It’s a carpet shop! I’ve seen Midnight Express—how could I have been that naive?

I paused outside the shop. The call had been a come-on, I realized.

The SOB wants to sell me a freaking rug. Sadowski’s “contact” is a damned rug shop! I knew this was too good to be true.

A thin, wiry man opened the glass door to the shop while I was still trying to figure out what to do. “May I ask you to step inside and enjoy a glass of tea, madam?”

“Thank you, but the last thing I want or need right now is a rug.”

I could feel we were being watched, as everyone watches everyone in that market.

“Ah, but I only offer tea. I don’t expect you to purchase anything.”

“Right.”

“Perhaps you care to see Istanbul’s only real magic carpet?”

“Perhaps not,” I snapped. “And perhaps I have no time and no money for a rug. And perhaps I don’t appreciate that you tricked me into coming here,” I continued, clearly forgetting that I was in Turkey and not New York, where I could get away with that kind of smart-ass lip.

“Father Jacobi isn’t in there, is he?”

“Yes, of course he is.”

“What’s he doing? Sitting on the magic carpet?”

I turned on my heel, indignant, as though I had somewhere to go and as though I didn’t have a price on my head. My short fuse had gotten the better of me again, and although I knew I was standing inside an ancient souk full of men who I thought looked like they’d sell their sisters for a good price, I still couldn’t help mouthing off.

Shut up! You’re a skanky-looking redhead with a price on her head who is now probably worth her weight in gold. And after all the baked goods you consumed over the last few days—your worth must be escalating faster than the gold market in 2011.

The mild-mannered rug salesman grabbed me by the arm from the back and jerked me hard, against my will, into the dark interior of the shop. Rugs were rolled and folded in giant piles, and he expertly pushed me through a small pathway down the middle of them all. I could feel them and smell them more than I could actually see them—it was that dark.

With my arm held tightly behind my back, I was shoved down onto a small wooden chair, and the rug man released his grip. As I groped the wooden table in front of me, a hand grabbed mine from the opposite side and held it tight. A black shadowy figure in a hooded cloak leaned in close. “Oh shit,” I heard myself say. The grim reaper.

I couldn’t see much as my eyes tried adjusting to the dimness inside. It got even darker when Cesur pulled the curtains shut around the display window in the front of the shop. He then pulled down the louvered metal gates and it became pitch black inside.

Locked in!

Cesur lit a candle and then walked around the shop pulling ceiling-lamp chains down to lower glass lamps, lighting the candles inside, giving the room the appearance of a deliberately set scene. One in which I was the heroine who needed rescuing.

“Goddammit, let me out, you freak!”

“Somehow one would expect the Chosen One to be a bit more refined,” the dark figure said, his voice old and with an affected international air to it, as he put his cold hand on top of mine. His bony fingers tightened around my right hand in what felt like a death grip. “But, ahh, Headquarters never fails to surprise, do they, Miss Russo?”





20





“Who?” I rasped.

“Headquarters,” the man repeated as he leaned in closer. I got a look at him, and he at me. Cesur, or the man I assumed was Mr. Cesur, pulled down the last chain on a candle lamp hanging over the table and lit it. He then set down what appeared to be a silver tray upon which sat a silver teapot and two glasses. The smell of boiled apples filled the already spicy-fragrant air of the carpet shop.

I could almost make out the man across the table from me now, who still had the death grip on my hand. He finally released it, leaned in, and said, “May I offer you some apple tea, Miss Russo? It’s quite good.” He poured us each a small glass.

That again!

“Excuse me, but you know who I am, but I’m afraid I don’t have the privilege of knowing the name of the person offering me tea after nearly having my arm broken. And you sir, are…?”