“Sorry about tonight,” Tommy said. “Didn’t know myself till I got the message. There won’t be any problem about the place, will there?”

“No, I’ve got it for the month. I didn’t know how long he’d-”

“The month? How much is that going to run us?”

“It’s in Laleli. Cheap. You can afford it.”

“Laleli. Where the fuck’s that? On the Asian side?”

Leon smiled. “How long have you been here?”

Tommy shrugged this off. “And what do we do with it after we move him?”

“You could take your women there. Nice and private.”

“Yeah, just us and the fleas. Ah, here we are,” he said as the drinks arrived. “Thank you, Mehmet.” He raised his glass. “Blue skies and clear sailing.”

Leon raised his glass and took a sip. Cold and crisp, a whiff of juniper. Mehmet put down a silver bowl of pistachios and backed away.

“Christ, imagine what he’s heard,” Tommy said, watching him go. “All these years.”

“Maybe he doesn’t listen.”

“They all listen. The question is, who for?”

“Besides us?”

Tommy ignored this. “They used to say every waiter in this room got paid twice. And sometimes more. At the same time. Remember the one used to send little love notes to von Papen, then turn around and feed the same thing to the Brits?” He shook his head, amused. “Six months he pulls this off. You have to hand it to him.”

“What good did it do? Anybody ever say anything at the Park that you wanted to know?”

Tommy smiled. “You live in hope. You live in hope. Anyway, that wasn’t the point, was it? Point was to know. What they were saying, what they weren’t saying. Might be useful to somebody. Who could put the pieces together.”