When Carla described her thief, Paulo said in almost a whisper, “O Lobo. Both of you must be careful. And stay away from me. Is dangerous for either of you to be with me.”
“Remember, I have this.” Maria reached down and patted her right boot at the ankle.
“Pah! That is nothing for someone like him. He is criminal.” Paulo yanked the door open, then froze.
Carla followed him outside, curious.The man she’d nicknamed Boris Karloff was twirling the postcard rack, regarding Paulo. “Who is he?” she asked Paulo in a low voice.
Without answering, Paulo took off running. He sprinted across the street toward the beautifully landscaped triangle of Campo das Hortas with its velvety lawns, sculpted boxwoods, and sixteenth century stone fountain carved with grotesque animals. Narrowly missing a white Polo, he veered left onto Rua da Cruz de Pedra, then right, running past the Moreira house where tomorrow’s auction was going to be held, and disappeared around the next corner.
The stranger stood watching, his lips quirked in what must be his grim version of a smile. With an almost courtly manner, he nodded to Carla, then to Maria, who had come outside; then he strolled back through the arch in the direction of Praça da República.
Carla rested her hand on Maria’s shoulder. “Exactly what do you know about Paulo?”
Maria’s mouth settled into an angry line. “Not very much, I think.”
“Then you’d better go to the police before you’re in as much trouble as he is. You’ll be safer, too. This O Lobo really is dangerous,” she said, remembering the mug shot and Fernandes’s words the night before.
“Yes. All right. I will go.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, I will do this alone.” Maria rubbed her forehead. “But there is one thing I don’t understand.”
Carla smiled in spite of herself. “Only one thing?”
“Who told the police Paulo was in my uncle’s shop?”
“Senhora Gonzaga.” At Maria blank look, Carla said, “The proprietress of the café.”
Maria looked even more puzzled. “She cannot have seen him. The chica, the girl, was at the register when Paulo went in and came out. Senhora Gonzaga is confused.”
“Senhora Gonzaga must have seen him,” Carla said. She almost mentioned her visit to the café, then decided to leave it as though Senhora Gonzaga had only talked to the police. “Paulo didn’t deny going into your uncle’s shop several times, did he?” she pointed out.
Maria swallowed as if her throat hurt. “Maybe I am confused. Maybe I only want that he was inside for a short time. Maybe she went back to the quarto de banho, the bathroom, and I didn’t see her return. And then I was seeing that man, O Lobo, take your bottle.” She pulled at a lock of her hair. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Tell the police the way you remember it,” Carla advised. “It’s their job to figure it out. But please call me after you’ve talked to them, okay?”
Maria nodded, her expression bitter.
Carla started to head toward the arch, then stopped. “What was that business in there about your boot?”
“Business?”
“You mentioned something in your boot and patted your ankle. When Paulo said—”
“Oh. That!” A weak smile flitted across Maria’s face. “It is the knife I carry.” She reached down, peeled back the hem of her jeans, and unclasped a small leather holster at her ankle, holding up a short knife with a thin blade.
“Very small, very thin, but it can, as you say, do the job.” She held her hand out, clasping it tight, and twisted the blade back and forth as if skewering something.
Carla was speechless.
“My friend, Joaquim gives it to me, to make sure I am safe,” Maria said as she sheathed it in the ankle holster and turned her cuff down again. “He is my neighbor in my village. He cares for me very much. He is probably better for me than Paulo, but . . ..” Maria raised her palms.
Yeah, yeah, bad boys are more fun. Carla found her voice. “But Braga is supposed to be one of the safest cities. Why did he think you would need a knife?”
“It is a city, yes? My uncle is dead. You say the thief who took your bottle is dangerous. And Paulo fears two people. Joaquim gave me good advice, I think.”
“Do you actually know how to use that thing?”
“Of course. I see my father do our matança do porco every fall.”
“Matança do . . .?
“The pig-slaughter. This fall I will take you to see it.”
“That’s not necessary,” Carla said quickly.
“Really, Carla, you must come. You will like it very much. We have a big feast afterward. My mother makes such good sausages. They collect the blood in a bowl—”
“From the slaughtered pig?” Carla closed her eyes, then opened them again, trying to shut out the vision of a pig spurting blood everywhere.
“Of course. And you will meet my family. Everybody has wonderful time.”
The animation left Maria’s face. “But now I must go and do, as you say, the right thing, and then go to class. I will call you tonight and tell you what the police say.”
With a flutter of her fingers, she turned and walked in the direction Paulo had run, a slight lift in her step suggesting she might recover from heartbreak.
Carla stood at the door of the museum, lost in thought. Why was Paulo afraid of Boris Karloff’s look-alike, when it was supposed to be O Lobo who frightened him? If Paulo had any sense, he’d run right over to the police station, since it seemed everyone was after him.
With a prick of guilt, she realized whoever was shadowing her would have seen Paulo with Maria. He could give his own description to Fernandes now—a description that would be close to Senhora Gonzaga’s description. On the other hand, if the proprietress had been as informative with the police as she had with Carla, Fernandes would already know “the chico” was the boyfriend on Rua Jorge Araullo. Fernandes was playing cat and mouse with me last night. It’s only a matter of time before Paulo’s picked up.
At least Maria was on her way to the police station. Fernandes could thank her for that.
He won’t.
Suddenly Carla felt tired of everything: Costa’s death. Spying for Fernandes. Strange people popping out of nowhere. Stolen bottles. Thieves. Shadows. She checked her watch. Eleven forty-five. A good time to check out shoes, one of her more mundane pastimes, beckoning now with the promise of escape, if only temporary, from what felt like a steady drip of ominous unknowns.
Chapter Eleven – A Threatening Message
A few minutes later Carla stood under RCC Lux’s red sign, admiring a stiletto-heeled sandal in the window. Black and turquoise straps crisscrossed over the instep. A turquoise strap went over the heel. She imagined a turquoise belt to pick up the color. Or a scarf, knotted at the throat. In Braga, scarves were easy to find.
Inside the store, the pretty sales clerk she’d talked to before was ringing up a sale at the register for an older woman. Carla was content to browse while she waited. She had always admired RCC Lux’s decor—white walls, white display shelves, white floor, all working together to highlight colorful shoe displays. Someone had good decorating sense.
Three other pair of shoes appealed to her, including a pair of strawberry pink stilettos, but after trying them all on when the clerk was free, Carla settled on the turquoise and black and emerged from the shop with a light step. The walk home would be just enough to break them in. Her other shoes swung in the bag at her side.
To the left, two doors down on Rua de Janes, the aroma of coffee wafted from Café Faz Favor. Mmm, good. Carla walked over, sat at one of the outside glass-topped tables on the esplanade, and gave a harried waiter her order for a small espresso. As he rushed off, in spite of her earlier desire to forget recent events, the scene at the museum pulled at her.
Paulo. How is he involved in all this? He’d been seen at the wine shop, the scene of the crime. He’d been there before, too, witho
ut telling Maria. His visits had upset Senhor Costa, according to Senhora Gonzaga. And something he’d done made him frightened of more than one person.
Not your business, kiddo.
The waiter brought her espresso, and Carla took a grateful sip, savoring the gritty texture on her tongue, the velvety feel of it at the back of her throat. Between sips, she rotated her ankle, admiring the new sandal through the table’s glass top.
Suddenly a shadow fell over her table, and a worn, black suit loomed at her side. Looking up and seeing Boris Karloff ‘s doppelganger, Carla nearly choked.
He pulled out the gray, metal chair next to her as lightly as if it were made of cardboard and sat down. Even sitting, he conveyed an air of height. Carla put both feet on the ground, straightened her spine, and forced herself to give him a chilly look, despite the fact that his eyes were higher than hers.
“Yes?” she said in as cold a tone as she could muster.
“I have a message for your waiter friend,” he said, startling her with a clipped, British accent edged by slightly rolled r’s.
He poked his fingers in his breast pocket. Carla half expected him to pull out a small scroll with an edict. But no, it was an old-fashioned pocket watch. He wound it, tapped its glass face, regarded it a moment, then turned his attention on her, his bushy gray brows drawing together over a stare that made her fully appreciate the term “penetrating gaze.”
“Tell him we want the bottle,” he said. “The real one.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Carla gave what she hoped was a dismissive shrug.
“It seems there are more floating about,” he said. “Tell him my employer wishes an explanation.”
“Tell him yourself,” Carla said, pretending her stomach wasn’t doing flip-flops.
“He doesn’t seem to want to talk to me.”
Carla tapped her nails nervously on the table top. “Who are you, anyway?”
“Geoffrey Walsh. He’ll know the name. Tell him we have figured out how he obtained it, and we want it back. And any other copies. Soon.”
“Well, Mr. Walsh. I doubt I’ll ever see him again.”
“We haven’t given his name to the police yet,” Geoffrey Walsh continued, as if she hadn’t said anything. “If he returns the bottle, or bottles, nothing will be said. If not—” Walsh smiled the terrible smile Carla remembered from outside the museum.
“I told you, I’ll probably never see him again.”
And the police probably already know who he is, duh.
“Otherwise,” he said, “I will handle it my way.”
His message delivered, he rose and held out his hand.
Carla folded her arms. “I don’t shake hands with people who threaten me.”
“The threat is for your waiter friend, not for you.” He dropped his hand. “Tell him I mean business.”
He turned and walked slowly away without a backward glance. Carla watched him continue up Rua Francisco Sanches, past the bright awnings and linden trees, his dark, retreating figure still managing to look sinister even from behind and from a distance. As soon as he turned the corner, she whipped out her cell phone and called Detective Fernandes.
He answered right away. “Yes, Senhora Bass?”
“I just had a visit from someone who seems dangerous.”
“Where are you?”
She told him.
“Stay right there. I’m at the National Bank on Praça da República. I will be finished in five minutes. Sit outside where I can see you.” He hung up before she could say anything.
“Okay,” she told the silent phone and put it away. She looked around. What if Walsh came back? What if O Lobo showed up? Five minutes suddenly felt very long.
Where the heck was her shadow? She doubted he was the sweaty-faced, slightly obese man in the Hawaiian shirt at the next table, nursing a beer. Policemen didn’t drink on the job, did they? But the beer bottle could be a front. What about the middle-aged man walking the German Shepherd? She hadn’t noticed any dog before, though. Did undercover agents change props for different locations? Maybe her shadow was the bearlike man in khakis, polo shirt, and straw hat, eyeing the liquidation sign in the shop window next door. Or the younger, thirty-ish fellow on a skateboard who kept skating back and forth, first on one foot, then another.
She was debating whether to flag the waiter down for a second cup of coffee, when she spied Fernandes’s dapper figure coming from Rua do Souto. Sunlight glinted off his glasses. He wore a light gray suit and was carrying his black leather briefcase. If she didn’t know who he was, she’d think he was a businessman. He held his phone to his ear, nodding to his caller, said something, listened, and nodded again. He pocketed the phone as he came up to her and sat down in the chair Walsh had vacated. Setting his briefcase at his feet, he rested his elbow on the table and his chin on his fist.
Without so much as a “bom dia,” he said in that quiet voice of his, “Tell me about your dangerous visitor.”
Chapter Twelve - Carla Tells All and Learns a Few Things
“He said his name is Geoffrey Walsh.” Carla described him, adding, “He’s British.”
Fernandes rubbed his chin, his expression hard to read. “Senhor Pereira’s butler.”
“Butler!”
“The family butler, as was his father before him, and his father before him.”
“Was his father as scary-looking as he is?” Carla asked. “Like, did Pereira need therapy when he was growing up?” It was hard to tell if the tiny uplift to one side of Fernandes’s mouth meant he was amused. That stone face probably worked well with criminals. “Shouldn’t Walsh have more of a Portuguese accent by now?” she added.
“There are relatives in London, I understand. All his vacations are taken in England. And a few others of Pereira’s staff are English.”
“You know all that about him!”
“It is my job, senhora,” Fernandes said patiently. He leaned back. “By the way, Chefe Esteves just called me. I understand you convinced Senhorita Santos to go to the station. She admits she saw her boyfriend, Paulo Sousa, go into the shop shortly before Senhor Costa died. Many thanks for your help.”
“I tried to get Paulo to go, too, but Pereira’s cheery butler scared him off.”
“Start at the beginning, please.”
Carla gave him an edited version of the morning’s events, making it sound as if she had only just learned about Paulo’s woes and evasions when she was in the museum, rather than when she and Maria went to his apartment.
“Those were Senhor Walsh’s exact words? ‘I will handle it my way?’” Fernandes squinted his eyes. “Senhor Walsh has no history of violence. No doubt he is bluffing, but . . ..” He ran a finger over his lower lip in thought.
Walsh’s gaunt face loomed in Carla’s mind. “He didn’t sound like he was bluffing,” she said. “The bottle Pereira has now is a fake, isn’t it? And not the only fake, right?”
“There is no need for you to concern yourself with those questions,” Fernandes murmured.
“Aw, c’mon, detective. Can’t you tell me just that much? I’ve done everything you asked me to do.”
Fernandes’s pale blue eyes behind the wire frames appraised her. “When did I ask you to visit Senhora Gonzaga?”
She stared firmly back. “I wanted to find out exactly what Senhora Gonzaga saw so that I could compare stories.” That was true enough. “I felt I could advise Maria better. She seems a little . . . naive.” Carla tried not to think of the ankle knife in Maria’s boot.
When he didn’t reply, Carla said, “You have to admit, visiting Senhor Gonzaga helped me persuade Maria to go to the station.”
“Yes. I suppose that was good thinking.” Fernandes steepled his fingers.
“So, about the bottle . . . Walsh as much as said there were other fakes.”
“You are a difficult woman.”
I’ll take that as a compliment. “How many fakes are there?” Carla asked.
With a tsk of annoyance, Fernandes said, “I will answer this one question, and then there will be no more questions, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Yesterday the specialist to whom Senhor Pereira submitted his bottle confirmed it is a forgery. It was also the second such bottle they have examined. The first was from an agency acting on behalf of someone who remains anonymous. It, too, was a forgery.”
“Wow. How long did it take to find that out?” At his frown, Carla said, “It’s part of the same question.”
“Senhor Pereira’s man sent his bottle for inspection two weeks ago. I assume the other bottle was sent at a similar time.”
“You knew all that when you visited us last night.”
“Of course.”
“And the bottle O Lobo stole from me isn’t the second bottle the specialist examined.”
“No. That wouldn’t be possible.”
“Two forgeries, and a third bottle everyone wants.”
“Yes.” Detective Fernandes tapped his fingertips together. “So,” he murmured, but kept the rest of that thought to himself.
“O Lobo stole the bottle from me, but Walsh thinks Paulo has it,” Carla said. “I wonder why he would think that. Senhor Walsh kept calling Paulo my ‘waiter friend.’ Maybe Paulo was a waiter at one of Pereira’s parties, switched bottles, and took the real one.”
“And how did Senhor Costa get the bottle?” Fernandes asked. His eyes turned a deeper blue. Was that a look of sincere interest? Challenge? Amusement?
“He probably won it in a card game,” Carla said, and saw him startle to attention.
“You know about his scams?”
Scams? How interesting! “He was kind of a gambler,” Carla said, hoping her own surprise didn’t show. “Maria told me he tried to cheat at cards a long time ago to keep from losing an expensive bottle of wine. He got caught and had to pay up. If he tried that once, he’d try it again.”
“It was more serious than occasionally cheating. Senhor Costa was what in America you call a card shark. He was a swindler in many ways. We have been investigating his financial records.” Fernandes’s voice turned brisk. “And now you know much more than you need to know, and I must be on my way.” He rose.
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