by Tom Gabbay
“Is she dead?” Lili held her breath.
“No. At least, not as far as I know.”
“Then you haven’t found her?”
“No…”
“What then?…Come on, darling. If she isn’t dead and you haven’t found her, what could it be?”
“You won’t like it.”
“For God’s sake, Jack…”
“…It, ah…It looks like she’s been working for the Germans. As some kind of spy.”
A curious look came over Lili’s face, and I wasn’t sure what would happen next. After a long moment, she forced a snicker, turned her back to me, and crossed the room. She swung around and faced me again from a distance, leaning precariously against the drinks cabinet.
“You can’t be serious…” She laughed nervously. “If it’s a joke, it’s not at all funny.”
“It’s not a joke.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“She was seen by the Brits.”
“Seen doing what?”
“With the head of German intelligence—”
“Nonsense!” she scoffed.
“They’re pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure?! It’s quite an accusation to make if you’re only pretty sure!”
“I’m telling you what they told me.”
“That they saw her with someone?”
“With Kleinmann.”
“Who?!”
“The guy they found in the trunk of Eddie Grimes’s car. He was head of German intelligence in Lisbon.”
“It’s absurd!” she snapped. “They saw her with a man and suddenly she’s a Nazi spy?!”
“They saw her more than once.”
Who’s saying this?!”
“Somebody who has no reason to lie.”
“Everyone has a reason to lie, darling.” She started pacing back and forth on the far side of the room, like a caged panther.
“Maybe she killed him,” I said, trying to look on the bright side.
“I hope she did!” Lili’s eyes flashed.
“Sure, why not?” I continued, trying to be helpful. “They could’ve had a falling out, a quarrel…”
She stopped pacing and threw me a look.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing…” I tried to backtrack. “It’s not important.”
“But not nothing…”
“It’s just that…well…” I wished I’d kept my mouth shut, but it was too late now. “Eva was sleeping with this guy. With Kleinmann.”
Lili just stood there, eyes fixed on me. There was a very odd expression on her face and I felt I’d better say something.
“So maybe it didn’t have anything to do with him being a Nazi. Maybe it was just good old-fashioned sex…”
In one swift, spontaneous move, Lili exploded across the room and threw her brandy hard in my face. I stood there, frozen in shock, taking in the look of utter contempt that was on her face.
“You’re talking about someone who—” She clammed up.
“Look, Lili, I—”
“Get out!” she said in a voice that sent a shiver up my spine. “GET THE HELL OUT!”
There was no point in trying to sleep, even if I’d wanted to. After rinsing my face and taking a few laps around the rug, I decided to get some air. I walked down to the lobby, slapped Javier’s ten-dollar bill onto the front desk, and headed out into the night, away from the casino lights. I couldn’t really see where I was going, but that didn’t matter. The point was to be moving.
I wondered if the storm would blow over or if that was gonna be it for Lili and me. I’d seen her explode a couple of times before, but I’d never been on the receiving end. It was unsettling, those piercing eyes flashing with honest-to-goodness rage. Maybe it would pass, probably not. From what I’d seen, there was no going back when she got like that. Oh well. I was fond of Lili and I enjoyed the perks, but if that was how she wanted it, I wasn’t gonna cry any tears. I only had to pack my bag.
Eva Lange had some kind of powerful hold on her, that was for sure. Or at least the memory of her did. It was as if she was the last vestige of something Lili didn’t want to lose and saving her was the last hope she had of salvaging it. The past, I guess. Her youth. It was fading fast and now history was steamrolling over the remnants. Everything had changed, she’d said, even the people. But Eva wasn’t just anyone. She was the shy protégée who she had taken under her wing, the beautiful cellist who’d played like an angel on their last night in Berlin. How could she be recast as a Nazi agent, much less a Nazi’s lover? It just wasn’t in Lili’s script.
That’s the problem with the past. You have this picture of what it was, but, of course, it’s nothing more than an illusion, a series of flickering images playing out on the back of your brain, like a Saturday matinee. Made to order in your very own dream factory, with all the filters and soft focus you care to add, and all the bad takes left on the cutting-room floor. It’s whatever you want it to be. Or need it to be. Comedy, romance, adventure, tragedy, it’s all rolled up in a neat little package that you can play whenever the sharp edges of the day get too pressured or frightening or downright boring. The problem is that it’s all light and shadow, with no substance. Expose it to the outside world and it disappears, washed out by the harsh reality of the midday sun. Lili existed in the moving pictures, and when they started to fail her she found refuge in the past. If the past failed her…
I felt myself slowing down. I must’ve been cruising at a hefty clip because when I turned around the lights of the casino and the hotel looked a mile away. I stood there in the dark looking back at them. I had to laugh. I could still smell the forty-year-old cognac I’d taken up the nose. Only Lili would come up with that. It was like a scene out of one of her films.
Damn!
I shook my head and started back toward the hotel. There was no walking away, of course, even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t, not really. The thing was under my skin now and I guess the real truth was that I cared more about Lili than I’d realized. Anyway, I’d have to be a real jerk to leave the lady in the lurch over a spilt drink.
A set of headlights appeared in the distance, puncturing the darkness of the empty highway. Nothing sinister about that, I thought, but still—something didn’t feel right. The road was wide open, yet the car was crawling along at ten, maybe twenty miles an hour. A bit late to be taking in the scenery. I moved onto the left shoulder and stood there, watching the vehicle approach.
The driver spotted me at thirty yards. He flicked on his brights, gunned the engine, and veered sharply to the right, burning rubber as he cut across the asphalt, coming straight at me. It was too late to get out of the way, so I sprinted toward the oncoming car. Vaulting up and over the hood, I rolled onto my shoulder and came up against the windshield, which cracked under my weight. The momentum carried me over the top, across the trunk, and down hard onto the pavement. I rolled into a ditch, and lay there, face down, head spinning and heart pounding.
The car pulled onto the verge about twenty yards along, and sat there, idling. I tensed up, wondering if I could move if I had to. I was about to try when the car suddenly spun out across the gravel, found third gear, and accelerated up the road. Its red taillights quickly receded into the distance, then vanished into the night.
I stood up, brushed myself off, and checked for damage. My right shoulder was pretty sore, but it was functioning. Other than that, and a few scratches, I was in good shape for a guy who just went head-to-head with a speeding Buick.
When I got back to the Palacio, I had Javier phone Alberto, in spite of the hour. I was in the mood to get to the bottom of this.
The Alfama was spooky at this hour, the narrow streets still and silent and full of shadows. My steps bounced off the empty cobblestones and echoed into the distance, where a dog barked at the unwelcome trespass.
I’d left Alberto in the car while I walked the hundred paces up the hill to find the crumbling edifice that Popov called home. Har
ry Thompson had said he moved around a lot, like a rat, and from the look of things he lived like one, too. The place needed a wrecking ball.
I took the scrap of paper out of my pocket, turned it toward the light and examined it again:
RUA DAS TAIPAS, N. 35
TOP FLOOR
This was it, all right. I stepped back and checked the uppermost floor. Dark, like the three levels below it. I wondered if coming down here in the middle of the night had been such a good idea after all, but it was too late to worry about that now.
The entranceway was a few steps below street level, an old door decorated with a hundred years of peeling, faded paint. It appeared to be out of use until I got closer and saw it had been padlocked from the outside. A new fitting, recently installed. Apparently my rat was in residence but was out on the scrounge at the moment. I’d come this far, I might as well wait, I thought. If Popov didn’t show in a couple of hours, I’d go to Plan B. In the meantime, I’d try to figure out what the hell Plan B was.
Alberto came to life with a start when I opened the door and slid into the backseat.
“Sim, senhor…?” he grunted.
““Go back to sleep,” I said, and he happily complied, pulling his cap down over his eyes and falling into a noisy snooze almost immediately.
The stiffness in my shoulder was setting in. I didn’t doubt that the asshole in the Buick was the same asshole who’d tried to break into my room the night before, and it was pretty clear now what he had in mind. He was almost certainly a hired hand, but whose? My first thought was Ritter. If Eva was really a German agent, like Stropford said, then maybe he…
Ridiculous. Even if the major wanted to get rid of me, the Gestapo didn’t hire guys to run you down in the middle of the night. They weren’t that subtle. It was possible, of course, that Eva herself wanted to bump me off, but that didn’t make much sense, either. She might not want to be found, but I wasn’t the only person in Lisbon looking for her, and I certainly wasn’t the one she needed to worry about.
I was tired and out of ideas. Guessing was a waste of time, anyway. There was nothing to go on. I settled back into the seat and began my vigil. I’d find out soon enough who had it in for me. Assuming, of course, that I didn’t turn up dead first.
It was starting to look like dawn when I spotted Popov rounding the corner. Alberto peeked out from under his cap, but he didn’t seem bothered when I stepped onto the sidewalk. He grunted softly and turned over.
The Slav was walking quickly, head down, hands stuffed into the pockets of a dark raincoat, even though there hadn’t been the slightest hint of precipitation since I’d arrived in Lisbon. Aside from an Arab-looking man who was opening the metal shutters on his shop while his wife washed and swept the pavement, we were the only two on the street. I kept a reasonable distance up the hill, even though Popov didn’t seem to be aware of anything but his feet. He was furtively removing the padlock from his door when I caught up with him.
“Remember me?” I said.
“Sure, sure,” he said. “Of course I remember. Jack Teller. How you’ve found this place?”
“Tough to keep anything a secret around here,” I said. “Shall we go up?” I had my fist jammed into my jacket pocket so he couldn’t be sure if I was asking or telling. It wasn’t lost on him.
“Why not?” Popov tried a smile and failed. He looked terrible. White as a sheet and wrung out, he was suffering from some kind of skin rash, especially around the eyes, making them red and puffy. Pulling the door open, he led me into a pitch-black hallway that smelled of damp plaster and, for some reason, onions. I held the door open as he struck a match against the wall and used it to light an oil lamp that was hanging on a rusty nail. He pointed me toward a dark stairwell.
“After you,” I insisted.
The steps moaned and creaked under our weight and the wooden banister was hanging by a thread, but we made it to the top landing. Popov removed another padlock and pushed the door open. It was too dark to see much of anything, so I waited by the door while he crossed the room and opened the rear-window shutters, allowing the soft early-morning light to filter in.
The first thing I saw was the paintings. Dozens of them, all shapes and sizes, stacked against the dingy, crumbling walls. I was no expert, but I’d wandered through enough museums to be able to spot a Rembrandt, and I saw two of them right away, matching portraits of an old man and his wife. There was a Frans Hals, too, and what I thought was a Cézanne still life. The space itself, a large rectangle with high ceilings and long, shuttered windows, looked like some forgotten old museum attic. Antique furniture, gold-plated clocks, porcelain figures, stacks of fine china, rolls of carpet, a half-dozen bronze statuettes, and even a medieval tapestry were strewn around the place like so much junk. A mountain of silver picture frames—minus the family photos, of course—was heaped carelessly in a corner. It was Popov’s private warehouse of plundered treasure.
“Impressive,” I said.
“People want sell, I buy,” he said defensively. “If not me, somebody else does.”
“What do they get in return?”
He thought about it a moment. “A chance.”
“I guess that don’t come cheap,” I said, and he shrugged it off.
“Do you intend to rob me?” Popov cast a suspicious glance at my fist, which was still impersonating a gun. I laughed out loud, which he didn’t appreciate, then revealed my bluff. I took aim at him with my index finger, cocked my thumb, and fired.
“Bang!”
“Very amusing,” he sneered.
I wandered over to the stack of paintings and started flicking through them. Most were unexceptional family portraits or nondescript landscapes, but there were a few gems, like the Pissarro landscape that depicted an apple tree in full snowy blossom against a vibrating blue-and-violet sky.
“I can make you a good price.” Popov sidled up beside me. It was a handsome painting, but taking it with me was out of the question. I’d never stop wondering what had happened to the rightful owner. Besides, I certainly didn’t need a lifelong reminder of Popov.
“No, thanks,” I said, setting the painting aside. “You shouldn’t stack them up like that, you know. They’ll get scratched.”
Popov made a face, indicating that he didn’t much care. “You have come because you reconsider my offer?” he said. “Regarding this girl.”
“I heard that sometimes you can do more than bullshit.”
“The situation has changed since we spoke,” he said, ignoring the compliment or insult, whichever it was. “Now she is suspected in the murder of—”
“A thousand bucks,” I interrupted, not wanting to waste time. I could see that Popov was impressed. He’d probably been hoping for half that, but he tried to play it cool anyway.
“What will you expect in return?”
“Eva Lange.”
“She is quite valuable,” he said coyly. “There are others who would like to find her…”
“If you’ve got a better offer, take it. Otherwise, I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”
“May I ask of what importance is she to you?”
“No.”
He folded his arms tightly across his chest and paced back and forth a couple of times before stopping abruptly and turning to face me.
“If certain parties were to learn that I have given assistance in this, I would be forced to leave Lisbon very quickly. This would be quite inconvenient…”
I removed the roll I still had in my pocket and peeled off a crisp bill. “A hundred now, the rest when I have her.” I could almost hear his greedy little heart beating in anticipation.
“And if she is reluctant? What level of force may I use?”
“I’d go for persuasion if I were you,” I said. “I don’t know about this Dr. Kleinmann character, but Eddie Grimes was no pushover. And you know how it turned out for him.”
“You have a suggestion?”
“Tell her you’re taking her to see Lili
Sterne. Say that she’s arranged safe passage out of the country.”
“This is true?”
“Do you care?”
“No,” he shrugged. “Of course not.”
“Good,” I said, offering him the hundred. He reached out and, with a skulking grin, wrapped it up in his palm.
Alberto tapped his horn, swung into the opposite lane, and floored it, punching past the slow-moving tram that was struggling to make it up the hill. A lady bicyclist swerved to avoid us, but I saw in the back window that she managed to stay upright. This part of Lisbon reminded me of San Francisco, with its steep cobbled streets and colorful trolleys. Of course, I’d never been to San Francisco, so I could’ve been off the mark.
The black sedan carrying the two not-very-secret secret police that I’d spotted outside Popov’s place wasn’t behind us anymore, so I figured we’d lost them. They looked to me like local guys, probably Catela’s, and Alberto agreed. I must’ve led them right to Popov, which was kind of inconvenient. I didn’t know if the Slav could really deliver Eva, but if he did and Catela’s guys were in the picture, they’d snatch her right out from under my nose. I had to get them out of the way for twenty-four hours.
We found the German embassy on a quiet, tree-lined street at the top of the hill, an unimposing white Neoclassic building two stories high with black wrought-iron balconies outside the upper-floor windows. I left Alberto parked by a small square at the end of the road and approached on foot. Entering through a heavy wooden door with shiny brass handles, I found myself in a tiny anteroom with a window that looked onto an entrance hall of pristine white marble. A uniformed guard, probably in his forties, looked up from behind a table that he could barely get his legs under.
“I’d like to see Major Ritter,” I said in German.
He smiled politely. “Document?”
I handed him my passport and he carefully copied down the name and number in his logbook before picking up the phone and dialing through. After a brief exchange with a secretary, he hung up and told me to take a seat, someone would be with me shortly. He explained that I could pick up my passport on the way out.