The Fall Guy

by Ritchie Perry

  ‘Out,’ Gordinho ordered his minions, jerking his thumb towards the door.

  They responded to the command with alacrity, patently relieved not to have had an arm or leg shot off. Once they’d gone Gordinho strolled to the bar with his habitual, purposeful tread, aiming for a bar stool three away from mine.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me sitting down,’ he said when he’d made himself comfortable.

  ‘Not at all,’ I answered, resting the Colt on my knee and keeping the business end aimed at his navel, ‘but I would take it as a personal favour if you’d have a word with the men you sent round the back. Just thinking about them gives me a nervous tic in my trigger finger.’

  For the first time Gordinho’s face registered more than an active dislike for me, the fractional lift of his eyebrows indicating his surprise. Nonetheless he was prepared to be co-operative and turned to tell the two men lurking in the shadows of the adjoining room that everything was under control. He also told them not to move too far away, a gentle reminder to me that it would be wiser not to try anything clever.

  ‘You’ve grown up fast,’ he said emotionlessly, returning his attention to me. ‘How did you know they were there?’

  I shrugged modestly.

  ‘Common sense,’ I told him. ‘You obviously picked the other three characters straight out of the gutter on the way over here. The man who tailed me from the Broadway didn’t come in with you, nor did your chauffeur. They had to be round the back.’

  It was a nice fable, crediting me with plenty of cool, logical deduction, far better than admitting I’d caught a brief glimpse of the two men reflected in the mirror behind the bar. Even so Gordinho wasn’t impressed.

  ‘Why did you come back here?’ he asked. ‘I thought I’d made my attitude plain at our last meeting.’

  ‘You did,’ I assured him, fingering the small scar above my left eye which was a momento of the occasion. ‘The present you sent me last night showed you hadn’t changed your mind. I must admit I was impressed with the speed your boys picked me up.’

  ‘I like to know who’s in town,’ he said in a matter of fact voice, left cold by my delicate flattery. ‘And I’m still waiting to learn why you’ve returned to Porto Alegre. Surely you’re not stupid enough to think you can start up here again.’

  ‘No, I’m settled in Sanots now. I came here to ask you to leave me alone for three days, then I’ll be gone.’ Gordinho sat impassively on his stool, no hint of his thoughts reflected in his face. He’d have made a great poker player.

  ‘Why should I?’ he enquired, keeping strictly to the point.

  ‘Do you know Otto Schmidt?’ Gordinho nodded his head to show he did. ‘He’s a friend of mine and, from all accounts, he’s in a spot of bother. I came back to Porto Alegre to see if I could do anything to help.’

  ‘Very commendable,’ Gordinho said, ‘but of absolutely no interest to me.’

  This brought us to the point of no return and I drew a deep breath.

  ‘I intend to stay three days anyway,’ I told Gordinho. ‘If you refuse to play ball we may as well have it out here and now. I don’t like to threaten people but I don’t seem to have much choice. You’re obviously out to get me so it would be no more than self-defence to shoot you.’

  It was a weak, unconvincing threat and Gordinho knew it. He slowly eased his bulk off the bar stool and hitched up his sagging trousers. It could be my hard line had him filling his pants, or it could be he felt the way he looked.

  ‘Shoot me then,’ he said before turning his back to begin his stately progress towards his office.

  The sound of the shot was monstrously loud, making me jump although I was the one who’d pulled the trigger, and it was a good job I’d had a whole wall to aim at because the Colt’s recoil was more powerful than I’d allowed for. Gordinho showed he was human after all by freezing in his tracks, only his weight preventing him from leaping the six feet in the air I would have managed in his place. For a second we were frozen into a tableau, with me watching the smoke eddying from the muzzle of the gun and Gordinho halted in mid-stride, then the babble of noise from the rear of the building broke the spell. Gordinho started walking again and I raised the Colt, knowing damn well that I didn’t dare shoot him. Luckily Gordinho wasn’t in on the secret.

  ‘You’ve got your three days, Philis,’ Gordinho said without turning his head. ‘God help you if you overstay your time.’

  *

  The university park wasn’t exactly an oasis of beauty. There were more brown patches than grass, the scrubby trees weren’t likely to inspire anyone to flights of poetic fancy and the so-called zoo would have given any self-respecting member of the RSPCA epilepsy. The large, artificial lake was the only decent spot, once you ignored the bottles, ice cream cartons and fag ends wallowing on the surface, and I wandered round it while I tried to assess the implications of the confrontation at the Scirocco.

  Stripping away all the gun waving and melodrama I couldn’t see where I’d gained much. Natural optimism, reminded me that Gordinho had agreed to three days’ grace, stark common sense told me I’d promise almost anything to prevent someone putting a bullet into my back. And, once the threat was removed, I’d no longer consider those promises as binding. It was far more likely I’d actually worsened my position — shooting up the club wasn’t the kind of action designed to endear me to people.

  In any case, worrying wasn’t going to help matters. Gordinho would do whatever he felt like doing, his actions completely out of my control. My job was to find Otto and with only three days to manage it in, if that, the sooner I started the better.

  As I had plenty of nervous energy to burn I decided to walk to the restaurant, keeping a weather eye open for everything from falling tiles to men in passing cars with machine guns. Otto’s place, the Scheherazade, was on the Independencia, a thoroughfare leading directly to the city centre. I’d never discovered whether Otto had done it on purpose but I’d always suspected the name afforded him secret amusement. Not many people could boast of being the German proprietor of a Hungarian restaurant in Brazil which was named after an Arabian princess, especially with all the waiters dressed in gaucho costume. Although this was quite a combination it couldn’t obscure the excellence of the food.

  When I arrived, warm browed and slightly out of breath after the long haul up the Independencia, it was to find the restaurant virtually deserted. As it was barely half-past eleven this was hardly surprising and I sat myself down in one of the booths with a beer for company. The waiter who served me was new since I’d last been there and the other two I saw briefly on their way to the kitchen hadn’t been members of the old staff either. I’d been sitting in my seat for well over half an hour before other customers began to drift in, the vanguard of the lunchtime rush, and it was only then that the man I’d come to see put in an appearance.

  It was almost impossible to visualize the Scheherazade without Jair, the head waiter. He was as much an institution as Otto himself and my early morning gloom dispersed as he took his habitual stance in the middle of the floor, an expression of benevolent paternalism on his face. His eyes went straight past me in his initial survey of the clientele and I thought he hadn’t recognised me, then they came back and he started towards me, making no effort to hide his pleasure. I stood up to greet him, both of us indulging in a brief session of back slapping before Jair dropped into the seat beside me. The other customers were examining me curiously, wondering who the hell I was to rate such a reception. Friends of Jair automatically became members of a severely restricted elite.

  ‘How long are you here for, Philis?’ he asked, beaming all over his podgy face.

  ‘Only three days, just long enough to look everyone up. I came here first to see how you and Otto were.’

  At the mention of Otto’s name Jair’s smile tightened, a wary expression crossing his face. He didn’t seem eager to volunteer any information and I wondered why. He must have known he w
ouldn’t be able to hide Otto’s disappearance from me.

  ‘Is Otto skulking in the office?’ I asked, to help him out. ‘Or is he getting lazy in his old age and spending the mornings in bed?’

  ‘He hasn’t arrived yet,’ Jair answered, his eyes distinctly shifty.

  This hedging had me worried, was completely at variance with his usual open nature. If it had been a simple matter of Otto disappearing Jair should have been only too glad to pour out the story to an old friend. Instead he was deliberately being evasive and I had no option except to force him out into the open.

  ‘Cut the crap with me, Jair,’ I said bluntly. ‘Otto’s disappeared hasn’t he? You haven’t seen hide nor hair of him for a fortnight.’

  For a moment Jair just stared at me, pain and sadness etched into every line of his features. Still he wouldn’t talk.

  ‘They need me in the kitchen,’ he said woodenly, pushing himself to his feet. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me.’

  All the while I was eating Jair remained closeted in the kitchen and his attitude bothered me more than anything else that had taken place since Reece had walked into my life. He’d been with Otto since the Scheherazade had opened for business in 1948 and, over the years, he’d become more of a friend than an employee. Moreover his loyalty was unquestionable, something which made his reluctance to talk all the more incomprehensible. There was, of course, the possibility that Otto himself had instructed Jair not to say anything but this couldn’t satisfactorily account for the fear I’d seen in his eyes. His behaviour, down to the last gesture, suggested Jair thought it dangerous for him to discuss the disappearance with me. If this was the case it was logical to suppose it was equally dangerous for me to wander around asking leading questions. One way or another it seemed I was well and truly up the creek. And in desperate need of a paddle.

  Although the meal was superbly cooked, as all food at the Scheherazade had to be before Jair allowed it out of the kitchen, I failed to do it justice. For all it mattered I could have been eating a jam butty instead of veal gulyas. A nagging voice kept reminding me how easy it would be to pack my bags and take the first flight to Montevideo or Buenos Aires. I listened to it attentively, so attentively I didn’t realise Jair had brought my bill until he spoke.

  ‘I hope you enjoyed your meal, Philis’, he said, handing me the platter. ‘It’s been nice seeing you again.’

  Muttering the appropriate words of embarrassed appreciation I paid up and left more hurriedly than was consistent with good manners. Walking down the Independencia was a lot easier than struggling up had been and as I went I pulled the crumpled bill from my pocket. It didn’t give the slightest clue as to how much the meal and drinks should have cost but it did tell me Jair would be in the Beethoven Bar at eight that night.

  Chapter 4

  The Beethoven was on the Farrapos and I arrived there a few minutes early. This was a waste of effort, and I knew it, because lack of punctuality was a Brazilian national characteristic but the place was an old haunt of mine, with a lot of memories attached, and I didn’t mind waiting. It was a small bar, the crowded tables cramped closely together, and this helped to give plenty of atmosphere. I found a seat under the large wall bust of the kraut composer, drinking dark beer and Steinhager while I ran an experienced eye over the women, most of them from the city’s two universities. It was good to see the standard hadn’t dropped, either quantitatively or qualitatively and even the blind pianist was giving them the once over from behind his pebble-lensed dark glasses. They might be the untouchables, girls from good families who were destined to marry intact, but they were still nice to look at.

  By nine o’clock I’d given Jair up, not that his failure to show came as a surprise as the day’s investigation had made me increasingly pessimistic. So far half of Porto Alegre knew I was trying to find Otto and all I’d learned in return was that no one had the foggiest where he might be. From the Scheherazade I’d made directly for Otto’s house where I’d questioned the servants and gone through his personal papers, my search producing exactly nothing. The rest of the afternoon and early evening I’d spent with no greater success, calling on every one of Otto’s friends and business acquaintances that I could think of. Everyone professed to be delighted to see me, half of them lying through their teeth, and none of them could provide the slightest lead. Everywhere it was the same story. Yes, they were shocked by Otto’s unexpected disappearance, no, they hadn’t informed the police or tried to find him themselves. Not that I’d expected anything else for non-involvement was another facet of the Brazilian creed. Unless Jair turned up it didn’t seem as though I’d be needing the three days’ grace Gordinho might possibly be giving me.

  At half-past nine I decided it was pointless hanging around any longer. Instead I’d do a tour of the clubs, entirely for my own entertainment, and then to bed, preferably not alone. I was actually asking for the bill when Jair came through the door, looking almost blasphemously informal in the open-necked sports shirt he was wearing, a complete contrast to his splendid gaucho gear at the restaurant. He stood there uncertainly for a minute, peering round the smoky interior of the bar, and he didn’t see me until I waved my arms to attract his attention. He didn’t think of apologising for being the odd hour and a half late and I didn’t take him to task. At least he’d arrived the same day as he’d specified which was more than most of his fellow countrymen would have managed.

  ‘Why did we have to go through the cloak and dagger routine at the Scheherazade?’ I asked after I’d set him up with a beer.

  Jair shrugged his shoulders and held out his hands deprecatingly.

  ‘It would have been dangerous to speak there,’ he said simply. ‘It’s probably dangerous just meeting you here.’

  It was the answer I’d been expecting but this didn’t make the news any more palatable. Even the liberal amount of schnapps percolating through my system didn’t cheer me up.

  ‘Tell me all about it,’ I said, displaying remarkable sang-froid. ‘Exactly what has Otto got himself involved in.’

  ‘I just don’t know, Philis, and I haven’t the slightest idea where he is either. I only wish I had.’

  ‘But you do know it’s dangerous to talk about his disappearance,’ I prompted.

  Jair sighed heavily. He wasn’t enjoying himself and was making no attempt to disguise the fact.

  ‘I’d better tell you the whole story and let you judge for yourself.’ He paused to collect his thoughts. ‘A fortnight ago, on the Wednesday, Otto told me he had to go off on a business trip and he wouldn’t be in for a couple of days. This was nothing unusual. He often left me in charge for a day or two while he was away and I didn’t think anything of it. When he hadn’t returned by the Saturday I still wasn’t particularly worried. I merely thought he’d bumped into some old flame of his and decided to make a weekend of it. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time this had happened. You know yourself how Otto is with women.’

  I nodded confirmation.

  ‘Just carry on with the story.’

  ‘Well, as I said, I wasn’t particularly surprised when Otto didn’t come to the restaurant on Saturday. Normally he sent a telegram if he was away longer than he’d anticipated but at this time of year the lines into Porto Alegre are down more often than not and the fact he hadn’t notified me didn’t mean a thing. By Monday, though, I was worried. It was the longest he’d ever been away, apart from holidays, and there was still no word from him. I decided that if I hadn’t heard from him by the time we closed I’d have to contact the police. I never had the chance. That night when we were clearing up two men came in. They gathered all the staff together and told us Otto would be away for a long while, several weeks at least. Meanwhile we were to keep the restaurant running as usual and if anyone asked we were to tell them Otto was in the Argentine on holiday. We were also to let them know about anyone who persisted in their enquiries. To show how serious they were they picked out one
of the waiters for a demonstration. He’s still in hospital.’

  ‘And you let them get away with it?’ I asked.

  I wasn’t condemning Jair in any way. After all, there were certain similarities to the manner in which I’d allowed Gordinho to push me around.

  ‘What else was there to do?’ Jair said bitterly. ‘I owe a lot to Otto but I’ve a wife and family to think of. Even if I took the risk and went to the police what good would it do? I think Otto is dead.’

  I didn’t contradict him, the possibility already having occurred to me. What Jair had just told me made it far more of a probability.

  ‘The two men,’ I said. ‘Did you know them?’

  Jair shook his head sadly.

  ‘They were from out of town and I didn’t recognise either of them. One was a German, a big man, about your size, with crew-cut hair and a broken nose. The other man was smaller and fatter. The thing I remember about him was the way he smiled all the while they were hitting and kicking poor Ignatio.’ Jair shuddered perceptibly. ‘That one’s a killer, a real sadist.’

  They sounded a lovable couple and if I had the misfortune to bump into them I hoped I’d see them first.

  ‘How do you keep in touch with them? Did they give you a phone number or an address?’

  ‘No. Someone rings up the restaurant every morning and I think they must keep an eye on the Scheherazade as well.’

  The conversation died a natural death and we sat sipping our drinks. The descriptions were no use at all, I could spend a lifetime in a city the size of Porto Alegre without bumping into either of the two men and my life expectancy there was only a little over two days, if that. Against my better judgement I was committed now, intent on discovering what had happened to Otto, and, to my frustration, all the obvious lines of enquiry appeared to be blocked.