by Tom Gabbay
He hesitated. “I, of course, have complete trust in you, but—”
“But not really?”
He shrugged and grinned nervously. “After I show you, maybe you’ll think you don’t need to pay.”
“You’re confusing my scruples with your lack of them,” I said.
“Still…” he said
I reached for what was left of my bankroll. “Here’s four hundred,” I said, peeling them off. “With the hundred I gave you yesterday, that’s half. I’ll give you the other half when I see her.” He shrugged and happily stuffed the bills away.
“Come,” he said. “I take you.”
The shops were closed for lunch, the streets more or less deserted. Popov took his time, leading us on a twisted route through a maze of cobbled lanes and fragrant alleyways. He kept glancing over at me, like he was building up to something.
“This woman…” he finally ventured. “Eva Lange…”
“What about her?”
“The interest is personal or—”
“It’s private,” I said.
“Sure, sure,” he nodded. A woman hanging laundry out a second-story window watched us closely as we passed. “Lili Sterne…” he persisted. “She knew the girl in Berlin…?”
“That’s right.”
“They were friends…?”
“Like I said, Roman, it’s—”
“Yes, private, I know. But I wonder…Why does a big star like she make such a big effort now to find her friend? Why not before?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Only curiosity,” he mumbled.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said. “You get your money and she gets her friend. Everybody’s happy.”
“I’m not so sure of this,” he said uneasily.
“Why not?”
He stopped walking and looked up, across the narrow street. Following his gaze, I realized that I knew this place. I’d been here three days earlier, standing in the same spot in front of the same dreary facade of the Imperial Hotel, the place Eddie Grimes called home in his last sleazy days, where Eva Lange found him in a state of sweaty perversion on the night he fell into the jaws of hell. It took me a minute to get it. Then I realized why Lili wouldn’t be happy—Popov wasn’t looking at the hotel. He was looking at the building next to it.
“She’s dead,” I said, and he nodded. “I understand now why you wanted to be paid in advance.”
“You don’t pay the rest…” It was more of a statement than a question, but I answered anyway, just to be sure there wouldn’t be any misunderstandings.
“No, I don’t.”
“You didn’t say that she must be alive.”
I wasn’t interested in arguing the point, and he didn’t really expect me to give him another five hundred for handing over a corpse. “How did she die?” I asked him.
“You can talk with Senhor Baptista. He expects you.” Before I could object, Popov had slipped away, disappearing into an alleyway.
As I walked through the door of the funeral parlor, I felt sick to my stomach. Maybe it was the sweet perfumed air mixed with the bitter taste of formaldehyde that made me want to gag, but it didn’t help knowing that I’d have to face Lili with the news.
“I wasn’t sure that I’d see you again,” she said, looking uncharacteristically chastened.
“Here I am.”
She produced a half smile and opened the door to let me in. The room was a mess, stale from old smoke, and I wondered if Lili had been out at all in the thirty-six hours since we’d fought. It didn’t look like it.
“Want a drink?” she said. “I promise not to throw it in your face.” It was as close as Lili would get to an apology, and it was more than I’d expected.
“Believe it or not,” I said, “it’s not the first time that’s happened to me.”
“You must be doing something right.” She passed me a scotch on the rocks and looked me straight in the eye. She knew why I was there.
“You found her…”
“Yes…”
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Yes.”
Lili didn’t react at first. Nothing. She just stood there looking at me, stuck in the moment. She looked tired and alone and vulnerable. I wished there was something I could do for her, but Lili wasn’t the type you could wrap up in your arms and make everything all right.
“Did you see her?” she said, the edge back in her voice.
“Yes.”
“Are you certain it was Eva?”
“She was using her own passport.”
Lili nodded and dropped onto the sofa.
“How?”
This was the tough part. I stalled and Lili gave me a look. “How did she die, Jack?”
“She, uh…She killed herself.”
“What?”
“She killed herself.”
Lili shook her head back and forth. “How?”
“She jumped…from a window.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Last night,” she repeated in a whisper, then lowered her head, supporting it with her right hand as it massaged her brow. I was standing over her, wondering what I should do, when the phone rang.
I picked it up. “Yeah…?”
“Capitan Catela would like to see Miss Sterne.” It was the concierge.
“Is he here?”
“Standing in front of me.”
“He’ll have to come back,” I said. “Miss Sterne is—”
“I’m afraid he is quite insistent, senhor.”
I drew a deep breath. It didn’t take Catela long to get here, I thought. I wondered how much Popov had made on that end.
“Send him up in ten minutes.” I replaced the receiver and turned to Lili. “Catela’s here,” I said. She pulled herself off the sofa and found herself looking into a mirror.
“I need a new face,” she said softly.
Standing in the hallway, hat in hand, commiseration plastered across his worried brow, Catela wasn’t too happy to see me. He dropped the sad countenance and pushed his way in.
“Where is she?” he said curtly.
I offered him a drink, which earned me a sharp look.
“Please inform her that I am here.”
“She’ll be out in a minute…Scotch?”
He didn’t try to hide his pique at finding me in the middle of his big scene. “I’ve come on official business.”
“Well, I’m gonna have one,” I said. Heading for the bar, I refilled my glass while Catela stood in the center of the room.
“Hello, Captain…”
Catela’s face lit up as Lili swept in, once again the image of beauty and grace, in complete control of the room. It was a remarkable transformation.
“You should have given me some warning,” she said, breezing past to retrieve a cigarette from the rosewood box that sat on the coffee table. “Instead of surprising me like this.”
“I’m sorry, I…” His face fell back into mourning. “I’m afraid I have the unpleasant duty to inform you of some very unfortunate news…I have information regarding your friend…”
“You really must remember her name, Captain. It’s Eva. Eva Lange.”
“Yes, of course…I…”
Lili placed a cigarette between her lips. Catela reached for his lighter, but she turned to me.
“Give me a light, darling.”
I lit her up and she swung back around on Catela.
“Jack’s already told me that she’s dead,” she said, turning a sneer into a cold smile. Catela threw a look my way. He must’ve trusted Popov more than I did.
“But thank you for coming all this way to deliver the news,” she continued. “I’m sure you must have more important things to occupy your time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must make arrangements to leave Portugal…As soon as possible.”
“Please accept my condolences,” Catela whined. “I have come myself because I would like to consider y
ou a friend and of course, as such, I am concerned of your feelings…”
“How very sensitive of you,” Lili mocked.
“But there is another reason, as well,” he confessed. “I…I’m afraid I must ask that you come with me…”
“For what purpose?” she said, taken aback.
“As you know, your friend…er, Eva Lange…was wanted for questioning in the murder of a diplomat at the German embassy. I’m afraid, therefore, that I must ask you to identify the body.”
Lili froze.
“Is that really necessary?” I said, stepping forward.
Catela gave me a butt-out look and addressed his response to Lili. “You are the only person in Lisbon who knew her. If there was any way in which to avoid it, I assure you—”
“All right,” Lili cut him off. “When?”
“If you please, I will take you with me now…”
“Jack will take me.”
“I would prefer…”
“Thank you, Captain, but Jack will take me.”
“Of course,” he relented. “I can meet you there in one hour.”
“As you wish,” Lili said, dismissing him with a puff of smoke. Catela performed an awkward bow and backed his way out the door.
“Bastard…” she snarled as the door closed. I was sure he heard it, and I was even more sure that Lili meant him to.
We were two hours late. Lili made sure of that by ordering room service and sending it back twice—once because the steak was undercooked and then because it was overseasoned, which was a pretty good trick on her part because she didn’t even pretend to taste it. I nibbled around the edges and flipped through magazines while she soaked in the bath to the mournful sounds of Billie Holiday on the Electrola. When Lili finally reappeared she was stunning in black from head to toe.
It was a long, silent drive into Lisbon. Lili stared out the window at the gathering dusk, lost in her past, I presumed, while I mulled my future. There wasn’t much to think about, really. I was free to go anywhere and do anything I wanted, but I had no real desires on either score. Hollywood had come to an end, that was clear, and it wasn’t because I was afraid of Charlie Wexler, either. I figured that I’d fallen off enough horses for one lifetime, and it was time to move on. But where? Damned if I knew. Hell, I thought, I hadn’t planned anything in the first twenty-five years of my life, why start now? The future would find me soon enough.
“She wouldn’t have…” Lili whispered.
“What?”
She turned to face me.
“She wouldn’t have jumped. Eva would never do that.”
Senhor Baptista and his parlor had undergone a makeover, too. A small, nervous man in his midfifties with jet-black hair forming a perimeter around a shiny bald top, he’d changed from his day wear into a trim black suit and tie with a white carnation carefully displayed in the lapel. The previously drab room, which Eva had shared with four other unfortunate souls when I first saw her, was all hers now and decked out with an arrangement of fresh white orchids and a couple of dozen candles. Her pine box had been replaced with a polished oak casket lined with white satin.
Lili betrayed no emotion as her eyes fixed firmly on her dead friend’s face. Baptista had used all his talent—along with a fair amount of lipstick and rouge—to put some life back into the poor girl, but his efforts had produced the opposite effect. She was like a porcelain doll, with features painted on cold, hard glass, and thick auburn-colored hair that looked dull and brittle. It was hard to imagine this lifeless form, cold and empty, as the spirited young girl whose picture had been taken in a rowboat on a sunny, summer afternoon fifteen years earlier.
Lili approached the body. As she stood there, head bowed, gazing onto the casket, time seemed to stand still. Baptista lowered his head, too, and folded his hands over in prayer, but he kept glancing up at Lili, unable to keep his eyes off the famous actress. Catela simply watched. After some time, Lili pulled her veil back, leaned forward, and kissed the girl’s forehead. When she turned toward us her eyes glistened in the candlelight, and a tear fell across her cheek.
“Yes,” she said softly. “This is Eva Lange.”
“I extend my most heartfelt condolences,” Catela said, stepping forward. He tried to take her hand, but she pulled away, meeting his plaintive gaze with a sharp, penetrating look. You could sense the venom rising inside her and for a moment I thought it would spill out in a blistering rage, releasing all the bitter contempt and worldly scorn that she kept bottled up behind her matinee idol smile. But it didn’t come. Instead, Lili drew a long breath and, in a little-girl-like gesture, wiped the tear off her cheek.
“She deserved better,” she said. “I only wish…” She trailed off, unwilling to reveal a quivering voice.
“You must not blame yourself,” Catela said gently. “It is a sad result of the times, I’m afraid.” He seemed genuinely moved by Lili’s tears. She nodded and offered her hand now, which he held tightly.
“If there is anything I can do…” he said. “Anything at all…”
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s very kind of you.” She dabbed her eyes with a silk kerchief. “Please accept my apologies if I was harsh with you earlier…It was…”
“There is no need to explain.” He bowed chivalrously and kissed her hand. “I am forever your servant.”
She nodded and looked to me. I took her by the arm and escorted her to the car, which was waiting outside.
“I’ll look into the next passage to New York," I said once we'd put distance between us and the funeral parlor.
“Not yet,” she said as she lifted her veil and provided me with an impish smile. “How was I?”
“What…?”
“Do you think I overdid it?”
“Overdid it?”
“I was going to do angry, but my instincts took over and led me into heartbroken. I was worried that the tears would be too much, but I think it was quite effective, don’t you?” She leaned back and smiled. “Yes, I was good. I was very good.”
“Lili…?”
“But damn it, Jack!”
“What?”
“The best performance of my life and there’s not a camera within miles! That should have been my Oscar!”
“Lili…Are you saying…?”
She handed me her purse. “Light me a cigarette, will you, darling?” I removed the pack of Rothmans, lit one up and gave it to her.
“Let me get this straight,” I said. “Are you saying that that woman—”
“I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
I fell back into my seat, grinned, and shook my head. “I’ll be damned,” I chuckled. Lili was right. It was an Oscar-winning performance.
I’d certainly gone for it. Hell, we’d all gone for it. Hook, line, and melodramatic sinker.
I told Alberto to stop the car.
CHAPTER 12
Senhor Baptista wasn’t expecting company. The front door was locked with the shades drawn, so I slipped down the back alley and in through an open window. I found the undertaker, along with his doltish assistant, in the middle of moving the Eva stand-in (so to speak) from her temporary eternal resting place back into the more modest accommodation of a pine box. Baptista gasped when he saw me and threw his arms up, letting his end of the poor lady hit the floor with a thud. The auburn wig tumbled across the tiles, revealing the impostor’s short black hair.
“Senhor…!”
I stepped into the room and picked up the wig. “I guess she won’t need this anymore,” I said. The assistant was dumbstruck, standing there with a empty look on his face, hanging on to the dead lady’s thighs while the top half lay splayed out across the floor. It would’ve looked risqué if she hadn’t been so dead.
“Please, senhor…” Baptista retreated toward the wall as I moved toward him. “I can to explain…” He was starting to sweat.
“Don’t you think you’d better pick her up first?” I said.
“Sim, Sim… yes, of co
urse, senhor…” He gingerly moved forward and, after some fumbling around, was able to slip his hands under the lady’s armpits and gather her up off the floor. He looked to me for further instructions.
“Put her away,” I said.
He nodded, passed the instruction on to the dolt, and they carried her over to the waiting box. Baptista was grunting and sweating so badly now that the dye in his hair was starting to run down his forehead. Pitiful.
Once they’d finally dropped her into the coffin, Baptista wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief, staining it black, then turned to the dolt and mumbled something. I didn’t get the specifics, but I understood enough to know that it wouldn’t be a good idea to let the guy disappear, so I grabbed him by the back of the shirt as he tried to pass and yanked him back into the room. His legs flew out from under him and he fell into a heap of gangling knees and elbows.
Baptista tugged on his collar, cleared his throat, and let out a nervous chuckle. “How may I be helpful, senhor?”
“Who was she?” I said, looking over at the anonymous corpse.
“Er…No one in particular…Just a lady…” He flinched at the sudden movement of my arm coming toward him. I was just offering him the wig, which he accepted once he realized that he wasn’t under attack.
“You did a good job,” I said. “Fooled me, anyway.” He accepted the compliment with a nervous smile. “You must’ve been well paid, to risk lying to the Guarda Nationale…What do you think would happen to you if Captain Catela found out?”
“Oh, senhor…That would be—”
“Were you paid in advance?” If they’d made arrangements to meet afterward, there was still a chance I could get my hands on the weasel. But Popov had covered that base.
“Sim, senhor…In advance.”
My first instinct, after putting Lili in a taxi back to the hotel, had been to go after the little shit, but I told Alberto to change course when I realized it was pointless, he’d be long gone. You had to give the guy credit—the idea of using a corpse to pose as Eva showed a creative flair that I couldn’t help admiring, in spite of wanting to wring his scrawny little neck. It was a simple enough ruse. All he needed was a passport and a cooperative mortician—which was why I’d decided to drop in on Baptista.