*
The room went quiet, the snarl of traffic on the road outside the only sound to intrude on my thoughts, for Otto Schmidt was the best friend I was ever likely to have, despite the difference in our respective ages. We’d met shortly after my arrival in Porto Alegre, bumping into each other in the Je Reviens Bar. He was a German who had come to Porto Alegre after the war and established a thriving restaurant, the top eating place in a city renowned for its food. This had meant there was more than the generation gap for our friendship to surmount, as my social status was way down the scale. Surprisingly enough, neither factor had mattered, simply because we’d enjoyed each other’s company, and, by the time I’d left for Santos, we’d become all but inseparable.
Friendship apart, I was deeply in Otto’s debt. Some of my dealings had brought me into contact with local political figures, not all of them wisely chosen. When Goulart had been overthrown, Porto Alegre, one of his main centres of support, had become a very dodgy place to be in if you’d associated with the wrong people. I had, and my name figured prominently on the shortlist of undesirable aliens. Otto had refused to tell me how much it had cost him when he’d arranged to have it removed, but I knew it must have been a substantial amount. I certainly owed him a favour in return, just so long as I didn’t have to return to Porto Aegre.
‘Go on,’ I said to Reece. ‘I’m interested now.’
Although he hadn’t shown it Reece must have been tense because now he visibly relaxed.
‘How much do you know about Schmidt?’ he asked.
‘I haven’t seen him since I left PA but I think I know him as well as anyone.’
‘I’ll rephrase the question. What do you know about Schmidt’s life in Germany before he came to Brazil?’
‘Nothing,’ I answered immediately. ‘Otto never talked about Germany and I didn’t ask any questions. He gave me the impression that he’d had a rough time during the war.’
‘You could say that.’ Reece flashed a wry grin. ‘Among other things, he was an officer in the SS and, under his real name of Franz Gottfried, he was listed by the War Crimes Commission. Part of his trouble is that the Israelis are on his trail.’
Part of Reece’s trouble was that he was an incurable optimist. As a mental exercise I tried to reconcile the Otto Schmidt I knew and liked with Franz Gottfried, war criminal, but the two images just didn’t tally. Otto undoubtedly had secrets in his past, everyone had them, and I’d have wagered my life savings that being a Nazi war criminal wasn’t one of them. Apparently Reece thought I was so dazzled with the amount he’d dug up about me that I’d accept any crap he was prepared to offer. Later he was due for a grave disappointment, for the time being I wanted to hear what else he had to say.
‘You said the Israelis were part of his problem,’ I prompted. ‘What’s the rest of it?’
‘All in good time. To start with, I’d better explain that I represent the British Treasury.’
I’d noticed before how fond Reece was of significant pauses. He popped one in now to see how impressed I was by the information and my off-key whistled rendition of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ seemed like an adequate answer.
‘You don’t believe me?’ Reece was surprised.
‘Of course I do,’ I assured him. ‘All the Civil Servants I know wear guns. Or perhaps you were planning to rob the Banco do Brazil while you’re here, just to ease the balance of payments situation?’
Reece reached into his inside jacket pocket, bringing out a small, red plastic wallet which he handed to me. Inside there was a natty little card, complete with photograph, informing me that Paul Reece worked for the Investigation Branch of HM Treasury.
‘Very nice,’ I said admiringly. ‘I can’t think of more than a dozen places in Santos where this might have been made. I’d rather see your passport, and your Carteira de Identidade if you have one.’
With a shrug of his shoulders Reece delved into his pocket again, producing the documents I’d requested. Both of them bore out what he’d told me, otherwise he wouldn’t have allowed me to see them, and from his passport I learned he’d arrived in Rio three days previously.
‘OK,’ I conceded. ‘Let’s pretend you really are a Treasury official. What’s the connection with Otto and the Israelis you say he has on his tail?’
‘It’s quite straightforward,’ Reece explained, making me grin in anticipation. ‘For nearly a year we’ve known there’s been a high-class counterfeiting ring operating somewhere in South America. The bulk of the forgeries have been American 10 and 20-dollar bills, with only a few forged five-pound notes coming on the market, probably because sterling isn’t a very popular currency over here. Naturally US Treasury and FBI men have been swarming all over the place, and we ourselves have been investigating on a more modest scale, but until recently we didn’t even know which country the forgeries were coming from. They were being passed across the counter in every large South American city and there wasn’t a single substantial lead to help us. As you can imagine, it was a worrying situation, especially as the forgeries were of such a high quality. Whoever is behind the operation wasn’t being particularly greedy but month by month the total mounted. We eventually managed to stop the flow through the banks, then, three months ago, forged currency started to turn up on the eastern seaboard of the United States and the counterfeit bills indubitably came from the same source. None of the phoney fivers have been spotted for some time but we’re not kidding ourselves. Unless we locate the plates it won’t be very long before they do.’
When Reece had finished I didn’t bother to stifle a yawn. I’d stopped believing in fairy tales at the age of five, just as soon as I’d realized the wicked witches and ogres didn’t stand a chance,
‘Absolutely fascinating,’ I commented. ‘Wake me up when you reach the relevant part.’
‘I’m coming to the point. Four weeks ago an envelope was hand delivered to the Embassy in Rio. Inside was one of the counterfeit fivers and a note saying that if we were interested we should place an advertisement in the next day’s edition of the Estado de Sao Paulo. The exact wording to be used was provided. We inserted the ad as specified and the would-be informant contacted the Embassy again, by phone this time. It took a week for both sides to establish bona tides and guarantees, then our informant identified himself — Otto Schmidt. He wanted a British passport, secure passage to the destination of his choice and five thousand pounds in cash. In return he would supply sufficient information to smash the counterfeiting ring.’
‘And Otto casually mentioned the Israelis were after him?’ I asked, still wondering how gullible Reece thought I was.
‘He did,’ Reece agreed, insulting my intelligence a bit more. ‘I told you that we spent a week establishing bona fides. Everything he told us checked out.’
‘All right. Just where do I come into the picture?’
‘Schmidt specified you as go-between, otherwise there was no deal. As a close friend of his you could visit him without arousing any suspicion and he said you owed him a favour. In fact we were about to contact you two weeks ago when we had a setback.’
‘What was that?’ I asked.
Unless I prompted Reece with the obvious questions I was afraid I might hurt his feelings.
‘Schmidt disappeared, completely vanished. He may have gone into hiding, the Israelis could have grabbed him, though that seems unlikely, or his forging friends may have become suspicious. We just don’t know.’
There was yet another pause, presumably to build up what Reece imagined to be suspense.
‘You’re the man we want to go to Porto Alegre and find out what’s happened. You know your way around down there, people will remember you as Schmidt’s friend and you’re the man he wants to see. If he’s dead or languishing in Tel Aviv jail you’ll be earning your money for nothing and we’ll have to saturate the area to run down Schmidt’s contacts. Before we do this we want to make absolutely sure that the original deal can�
�t be swung.’
Reece stopped and watched me expectantly, waiting for me to jump at his offer. Either he was deranged, naive or had a misplaced faith in his own persuasiveness. Personally I thought he’d pushed so much bull it was a wonder his eyeballs hadn’t turned brown, and I’d read books by Enid Blyton which had been a hell of a sight more convincing. The only solid fact to emerge was that Otto had to be in trouble, and, regrettably, there was nothing I could do to help him. He was my friend and I owed him a lot, there was no denying this, but I didn’t owe him my life. This was exactly what I stood to forfeit if I ever returned to Porto Alegre.
‘It’s not on,’ I told Reece. ‘You yourself admitted I might have a little intelligence and intelligent people don’t become involved with gangs of international forgers, not to mention Israeli agents. You could offer me ten thousand pounds, with an autographed photograph of Ted Heath thrown in, and I still wouldn’t be interested. Either Otto fends for himself or you’ll have to persuade someone else to look for him. And that’s final.’
For a moment Reece sat motionless, then he smiled, a slow smile which made my toenails curl. He slipped his hand inside his jacket but instead of a gun his hand reappeared holding nothing more dangerous than a manilla envelope. Casually he skimmed it along the table, aiming at my left elbow.
‘Earlier I told you I didn’t intend to use blackmail to force you to work for me,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I’ve just changed my mind.’
Reluctantly I looked inside the envelope. It contained the Photostat of a cheque, drawn on the Banco Nacional de Minas Gerais and payable to me, all innocent enough except for one small detail. The cheque had been signed by A. F. Barras.
Chapter 2
Forty-five minutes later I picked up a taxi outside the villa and directed the driver back into Santos. There was £250 sterling in a trouser pocket and Reece’s explicit instructions contained in my head, along with the bitter knowledge that I was finished in Brazil. Much as I disliked Reece I had to admit he was a marvellous blackmailer and, quite frankly, I couldn’t understand how on earth he’d come up with the Photostat. Caution being my watchword, I’d taken only one real risk in all my years in Brazil and, curiously enough, Otto had been involved in this incident as well. A couple of months or so after he’d smoothed over the deportation threat, a time when my funds had been at a drastically low ebb, Otto had told me he knew of something he could put my way if I was interested, a man who’d been connected with the Goulart administration and who wanted to be slipped over the Uruguayan border. Normally I wouldn’t have touched the job with a disinfected barge pole and I was even less inclined to take it when I realized who was involved. Barras had been one of Goulart’s top men, a power behind the throne, and the military junta responsible for the revolution were all set to lock him away for the odd century or two once they laid hands on him. Eventually the amount of money I was promised proved too great a temptation and, with grave forebodings, I agreed to deliver him to Montevideo. Unexpectedly, the trip turned out to be a doddle, with no hitches until I tried to collect my rake-off, the payment for services rendered consisting of 150 dollars in American currency and a cheque for the balance drawn on a Brazilian bank. It was a beautiful swindle. Barras had lived up to the letter of the agreement, only we both knew the cheque was absolutely worthless. The first thing the new regime had done was to start checking the bank accounts of all Goulart’s known associates and I couldn’t afford to become involved. For some time I’d kept the cheque, on the off-chance Barras would return to favour, but when the newspapers began citing him as the author of various guerrilla raids in Rio Grande do Sul I’d promptly destroyed it. The Photostat in Reece’s possession showed I’d delayed the precaution for too long. Despite the years that had elapsed, I knew the Brazilian authorities would still feel plenty of ill will towards the man who’d helped Barras out of the country.
Faced with such a potent threat I’d had no alternative to accepting Reece’s proposition, hence the £250 and the instructions. Basically I didn’t have many objections, especially as doing as Reece wanted would mean the Photostat wouldn’t be used and I’d be able to stay in Santos. Brazil was my adopted country, the country I’d chosen to live in and the one I wanted to continue living in. Moreover Otto was my best friend and I’d have liked to bail him out of the trouble he was in. The snag was the man in Porto Alegre who, at our last encounter, had done more than hint at how unhealthy it would be for me to set foot in the city again. This had been no idle threat and the prospect of being killed didn’t appeal to me any more than a prolonged spell in a Brazilian jail. My mind was made up. Caracas was a town I’d always had a yen to visit, especially as I’d never heard of anyone being extradited from Venezuela.
However, there was too much at stake for me to go off at half cock. Now I knew how dangerous Reece could be a few precautions didn’t seem out of order and I had the driver take me down the Ana Costa, through the tunnel and into the centre of Santos, making him drive slowly. The tactic didn’t gain me much. There was a steady stream of traffic into the city, three-quarters of the cars on the road being Brazilian-made Volkswagens, and it was impossible to tell whether I was being tailed or not. In the Praca Maua, which was within easy walking distance of my apartment on the Frei Gasper, I paid off the taxi, using the excuse of buying a newspaper to have another look around. The result was still inconclusive and I strolled across the square in the direction of Lojas Americanas, the Brazilian Woolworths. The store was ideal for my purposes, the ground floor jam-packed with shoppers, and, once inside, I abandoned all pretence of being casual, trampling old women and children underfoot as I made for the exit on the far side of the shop. Through the doors I ignored the passing stream of taxis, ducked into the entrance of the office building twenty yards down the street and ran up the first flight of stairs. There was a comfortable-looking, green leather couch in the corridor and the building was air-conditioned so I sat down to smoke a couple of cigarettes.
By the time I’d finished the second my shirt had dried out nicely. The effects of my early morning Benzedrine were beginning to wear off as well, not tempting me to rush around in the blazing, noon-day sun. Accordingly, I took the stairs at a more leisurely pace before walking down into Lojas Americanas. On this return visit I oozed sociably through the crowd, patting
small children on the head and smiling at the attractive negress assistants, until I reached the last counter before the Praca Maua entrance. Although my precautions were probably superfluous by now I was taking no chances and I radiated relaxed insouciance as I examined the selection of plastic handbags, none of which would have gone with my hand-stitched shoes.
There was a gaggle of customers coming through the door when the first open-sided tram went by but I had a clear run at the second. It had to slow down to take the comer leaving the square and I started off like a greyhound, covering the ten yards or so at top speed before I leaped lithely on to the step running the whole length of the tram. Round the next corner, some two hundred yards away, I dropped off again, ignoring the angry shouts of the conductor who’d been struggling towards me, intent on collecting my fare. Less than thirty seconds later I was in a taxi heading back to the beach. Anyone who was still with me deserved a medal and Reece couldn’t possibly know about my second apartment on the Rua Maranhao.
Miguel, the zelador of the apartment building, sat comfortably at the top of the steps and watched me cross the pavement towards him, eyes bulging over the litre bottle of cerveja he was draining. With a last gurgle he killed the bottle and was wiping his thick lips with the back of his hand when I reached him.
‘Hallo, gringo,’ he said, putting heavy emphasis on the second word to make sure I wouldn’t miss the insult.
‘Cut it, you black ape,’ I answered. ‘If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head I’ll have to have a word with the landlord.’
‘I’m sorry, Senhor Philis,’ he said penitently, all contrition.
We both l
aughed. Miguel owned the whole shebang, right up to the fifteenth floor, and had enough money in the bank to keep me in luxury for the rest of my life. The reason he didn’t indulge himself more was
that he was too bloody idle. He preferred to spend twelve hours a day basking in the sun as nominal concierge, doing a job he could have hired someone else to do for a handful of cruzeiros. The other twelve hours he spent shacked up in his penthouse with his wife, the kind of lush Copacabana mulatto that has the tourists flocking to Rio.
‘Have you kept the flat nicely aired?’ I asked.
It was more than a month since I’d last used it.
‘I have,’ he answered. ‘A woman cleans up a couple of times a week and I make sure she doesn’t walk off with anything. Your visitor should find everything spick and span.’
‘My visitor?’ I said blankly, doing a double-take.
‘Your English friend,’ Miguel explained patiently. ‘He’s been waiting in the flat for more than half an hour.’
Reluctantly I chalked up another point to Reece. He’d not only unearthed my bolt hole but he’d correctly anticipated my reactions. The man was beginning to frighten me a little. Although I knew I was brighter than the average bear Reece had me outgunned all along the line. So far anyway.
‘Miguel,’ I said with commendable calm, ‘my English visitor isn’t a friend at all. I wasn’t expecting any callers.’
Miguel’s face fell tragically. I could see he felt he’d let me down.
‘I’m sorry, Philis,’ he said miserably. ‘He let himself straight into your apartment. I thought you must have given him the spare key.’
‘Not to worry,’ I said quickly, patting him on the shoulder. ‘There’s no real harm done.’
As I explained what I had in mind Miguel brightened up considerably. In fact he was so enthusiastic he didn’t resent leaving his comfortable seat and hiking all of five yards to the lift.
The Fall Guy Page 4