The Lisbon Crossing (10 page)

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.

A
lberto 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.

The only seating was a hard wooden bench set off to the side. I sat down, lit a smoke, and tried to look comfortable, without much success. It seemed a long time before a dwarfish woman in a gray suit and a personality to match appeared and motioned for me to follow. She led silently through the entrance hall and up a broad staircase to a corner office where I found Ritter posing behind a big desk.

“Where did you learn to speak German, Herr Teller?” He didn’t bother to get up.

“I was born in Berlin,” I said.

“Fascinating,” he said insipidly. “I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

“It’s been a long time.”

He motioned me into a chair, leaned back in his, and offered up a sickly smile. “So, then…What may I do for you?”

“Actually, I thought there might be something I could do for you.”

“Such as?”

“Well…” I paused, putting on a worried look. “May I speak frankly?”

“Please.”

“The truth is that I…Well, I had a falling-out…an argument…with Miss Sterne.”

“I’m so sorry to hear of it,” he said, perking up. “But perhaps she will forget it. It is often so with a woman.”

“She tossed a brandy in my face.”

Ritter couldn’t help chuckling. For a moment I could imagine him out of uniform, as a husband or father or lecherous uncle. It made him seem almost human. Almost.

“Did you deserve it?”

“I told her something she didn’t want to hear,” I explained.

“A cardinal error. You must always tell a woman exactly what she wants to hear. Especially a beautiful woman.” He clearly considered himself an expert on the subject and I was happy enough to play along if it was gonna make things easier.

“Next time I’ll know.” I smiled.

“But you didn’t come here to take my advice regarding the female sex,” he said, a few degrees above freezing now.

“No,” I agreed. “I came to offer my services…Now that I’m a free agent.”

“Services?”

“Yes.”

“What type of services?”

“You want to get hold of Eva Lange, right?” Ritter leaned forward ever so slightly without realizing he was doing it.

“Do you know where she is?”

“Yes,” I said, then let it hang there for a moment. The major searched my eyes, as though, if he looked hard enough, he’d be able to see into my head and determine if I was lying.

“It is a matter for the local authorities,” he finally said. “This woman is suspected of—”

“Sure,” I interrupted. “I can talk to Captain Catela if you want. I was just worried that he might, well…If you have confidence in him, that’s fine. Who am I to say?” Ritter furrowed his brow and stubbed out his cigarette.

“Do you have her in your custody at this moment?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“You are one hundred percent certain of this?”

“Yes.”

“How can you be sure?”

“It’s been arranged. She thinks I’m going to take her to Lili, who will use her friends at the American embassy to get her out of the country.”

“This is true?”

“That depends on your answer, Major.”

Ritter gave me a lengthy look, then stood up, went to a window, and studied a passing cloud.

“In welchem Statdteil sind Sie aufgewachsen?”
He was asking me what part of Berlin I grew up in.

“The address was Schonestrasse, number forty-seven,” I responded in English. He turned to face me.

“Ah, yes, I know the street. In Siemensstadt, is it not?”

“Weissensee,” I corrected him. “Just off Rennbahnstrasse. I remember there was an ice-skating rink on the corner. I used to go there every Saturday afternoon.”

“Yes. I recall it now.” He sat against the edge of the desk, arms crossed, and looked down at me.

“Have you still family in Berlin?”

“My father was killed in the last war and my mother died in 1927.”

“No other family?”

“I was an only child,” I said. There was no point in mentioning Josef. I hadn’t seen my younger brother in sixteen years and I hadn’t heard from him in almost as long. I couldn’t say if he was dead or alive, let alone where he was now.

“Tell me.” Ritter leaned forward slightly and narrowed his eyes. “What is your feeling about Germany?”

“In what sense?”

“If you were forced to choose between your mother country and your adopted one, where would your allegiance lie?”

“In Switzerland, where they have all those banks.”

Ritter cracked a smile. “A very good answer. Because I wouldn’t have believed you if you had told me that you want to help due to love for the fatherland.”

“Five thousand dollars is what I had in mind,” I said. The major stopped smiling and retreated back behind the desk. “That’s how much Lili was going to pay me,” I added.

“Of course, I don’t believe you,” he said. “But I will not bother to negotiate with you. If you are telling the truth, it will be worth
the cost. I will pay the equivalent amount, in deutsche marks, and only when I have Eva Lange in my possession.”

“How about an advance?”

He grinned. “Certainly not.”

I didn’t expect one, but I thought he’d expect me to ask, so I did. Then I snuck in the real reason for my visit.

“I’ll need you to call Catela off for twenty-four hours,” I said. “I don’t want him to scare her away.”

“I have no authority over Captain Catela,” Ritter said with a straight face, quickly adding, “but I don’t expect he will present a problem.”

“Fine.” I got up and offered my hand across the desk. “Then we have a deal.”

Ritter stood and gripped my hand, a little too vigorously I thought. Making a point, I guess.

“I’ll be in touch,” I told him.

I
was dead tired, but I was hungry, too. I asked Alberto to take us somewhere for a hot meal and he knew just the place on the way back to the hotel. It turned out to be his cousin’s small olive and fruit farm, which was a twenty-minute detour up the side of a mountain, but that was fine with me. The food was good, Fabio and his wife, Rosalina, were friendly, and the afternoon drifted pleasantly away. On the way back to the hotel, Alberto swung by his own small house to tell his oversize wife that he would be home for dinner after all, but I think he really wanted to show off his four-year old twin daughters. I gave them each a dollar and we set off again. By the time I walked into my room, it was late afternoon. Still time for a snooze before Santo’s car turned up.

I kicked off my shoes and loosened my tie as I went to pull the drapes across the balcony doors, which I’d left open to air the room. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and before I could move…

POP! POP! POP!

I dropped to the floor, spun away, and lay there, hugging the carpet while I got my bearings. There was plaster dust on the floor and three bullet holes now decorated the ceiling above my bed. The shots had come from outside, in the garden. Edging back toward the door, I took a deep breath and leaned across to have a peek outside. The half-dozen or so guests who were gathered around the swimming pool seemed unaware that anything had happened, and the only other person in sight was one of the hotel gardeners, who was scurrying across the lawn toward the back gate.

Bastard!

I stepped onto the balcony, and before I knew what I was doing, I’d climbed onto the iron railing. I teetered there for a couple of seconds—just long enough to realize that three stories is a long way down—then I pushed off. Looks like the deep end, I thought as I sailed through the air, but as everybody knows, water can distort things, make distances—and depths—seem bigger than they are. I hit bottom hard.

Pushing off, I bounded out of the pool and raced toward the back gate, leaving behind a very startled group of sunbathers. I stepped onto the narrow service road just in time to see a late model Buick sport coupe pull away and disappear down the bottom of the lane.

T
he concierge with the stick up his ass wasn’t too impressed when I squelched through his lobby in my stocking feet, walked up to the front desk, and asked for a spare key. He gave me a long, sickly look, but I wasn’t in the mood, so I gave it right back to him. He got the message and looked the other way.

I went upstairs, got undressed, and toweled off. I didn’t expect to be able to sleep now, but I got into bed anyway. It felt great to have my eyes closed, and it wasn’t long before I found myself sailing across the ice on a bright winter afternoon at the old rink on Rennbahnstrasse. Everything was vivid and clear and full of detail—except for the faces. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out who the hell anybody was.