“What do you know about this painting?” Rebecca asked her.
Mona stared with fish eyes. “It’s very nice,” she said.
“Have you seen the rest of Mr. Vogel’s collection?”
“You mean at home?” she said. “Once. A while ago. He’s a very private man.”
“Did you see this painting there?”
Mona’s eyes clouded with confusion. “A painting? I — I don’t know. It was a long time ago. I mostly remember silver things. Why are you asking this?”
Outside the store, Rebecca and Nesha strode past the food stalls, searching the streets for a hint of Vogel. The newly-killed ducks and chickens still hung upside down, their necks dangling. Smells fought with each other as they passed a butcher’s, a bakery, another fish shop. They struggled through the shoppers down one street, then another.
What were they to make of the new information Mona had tossed out, that Vogel and Feldberg had been in the same camp during the war? If Feldberg was a Nazi, what did that make Vogel? His prisoner?
Further into the market, people jostled them on all sides as they headed toward eggplants and five different kinds of lettuce. Surprising even herself, she halted in the middle of the sidewalk like a stone in a stream, prompting the flow of irritated traffic to swirl around them and onto the road.
“We’re not going to find him here,” she said. “It’s his territory. I’ve got to go back to the hospital to check on Iris.”
“I’ll meet you later, then. I’m not going back there.”
By the time Rebecca returned to the hospital, Iris was in intensive care. When she opened the door, Joe and Martha stood on either side of their mother. Martha, the larger of the two, was a stout, unglamourous though blonde version of Iris in baggy jeans and a sweatshirt. Her older brother, his hair a dark contrast, hid a smaller, more delicate frame under a navy sports jacket and tie. Both their faces were drained of colour and carried that glazed distant look she recognized in people confronted by the possible loss of a loved one.
Joe acknowledged her with a slight nod. Martha barely looked up. “What’s going to happen to her? Will she be all right?”
“We won’t know till she wakes up,” said Rebecca.
She stepped to the foot of the bed and gazed at Iris. Her head was tightly wrapped in white bandages. She looked not at all like Iris without the uplifted waves of blonde hair to soften her round face. Her skin was transparent; Rebecca could almost see the workings of the bones beneath. The human being reduced into body parts. The IV bag hung in the air above the bed, the solution silently dripping, dripping down the tube into her arm. A plastic tube snaked into her nose and down to her stomach, a precaution against aspiration.
“We’ll be outside,” Martha said, moving toward the door, motioning to her brother to follow.
She was her mother’s daughter, after all, sensing Rebecca’s need, she thought. Once they were gone, she covered Iris’ hand with her own and watched the closed eyelids. “Iris,” she said leaning closer. “You hold on, Iris. You’re strong and you can do it. You’re going to come out of this, Iris. I need you to get better.”
It wasn’t until she was walking away down the hall that she realized how much she needed Iris. She wiped her eyes quickly, hoping Joe and Martha could no longer see her.
She had barely reached the waiting-room when her pager went off. Her answering service passed on a message from Nesha to call him. The number was unfamiliar.
“Yitz’s Deli,” said a man’s voice.
“Could I speak to Nesha?”
“Hold on.”
She had to smile.
“How do you like my new office?” he said when he had pulled himself away from his kishka platter or whatever morsel he was dispatching.
“You must be paying with American money. They’re not usually that compliant.”
“Don’t be cranky. You’re probably hungry. You want to come up and have a bite before we go to Isabella’s?”
“You’re going too fast for me.”
“Feldberg hasn’t come back. I’ve checked. I also checked his machine while I was there. Isabella left three messages. Very weepy. It seems he hasn’t called her and she’s worried. He must’ve skipped. That’s what I was afraid of. That something would scare him off. She’s our best lead.”
“But if she doesn’t know where he is....”
“Maybe she knows something she doesn’t realize she knows.”
“Alright,” Rebecca said, checking her watch. It was almost five. Isabella wouldn’t have left for work yet. “But we should also talk to the Capitán at the Spanish club I told you about.”
“Will they let me in without a tie?”
chapter thirty-one
The stretch of Bathurst Street north of Eglinton must have had the most traffic lights per inch of roadway in the city, one suspended like a winking eye over each block. Staid brick apartment buildings lined both sides of the main street while tonier highrises, chaste in the white brick beloved of the early sixties, towered over the narrower side roads, throwing shadows. According to the address Nesha had found at the back of Feldberg’s ledger, Isabella Velasco occupied one of the apartments on Mayfair Avenue, an elbow of a side street between Eglinton and Bathurst that Rebecca sometimes used as a shortcut.
Rebecca was walking toward the highrise after parking her car when she came upon Nesha leaning against his rented Olds. With his cracked leather jacket and lean insouciant pose, he looked like a character out of West Side Story, only twenty-five years later. He held a paper bag out to her. The deli-grease aroma of french fries wafted on the air. She kept away from fried foods as a rule, but the gesture, the smell, were seductive.
“Live dangerously,” he said when she hesitated.
She took the bag, which held a carton of vinegar-soaked fries, and speared them with the plastic fork he gave her.
“I didn’t think you were a ketchup girl,” he said, watching her wolf down the potatoes.
Apart from some sugarless ginger ale and an apple from the market, she hadn’t eaten that day.
He grinned as she finished the box. “I knew I should’ve brought you a hamburger.”
With her mouth full she said, “I never eat hamburgers.”
He reached through the open window of the car and brought out a can of Coke. “Here,” he said.
“I never drink Coke,” she said smiling as he popped the tin. She took a swig.
They stood inside the front vestibule of a genteel-shabby apartment building. She found Isabella’s name on the list displayed beneath a sheet of glass. There was no suite number, just a dial-in code. Rebecca tried the inside door. It was locked. She picked up the in-house phone and was about to dial the code.
“Wait,” Nesha said, taking the receiver from her hand and replacing it. He pulled her back out the front door.
Taking her arm, he strolled her down the pavement. When a young couple turned to go into the building, he steered Rebecca around and followed them. He waited until the couple was buzzed in by the people they were visiting, then casually caught the door before it closed.
“I’d rather surprise her,” Nesha said.
“I’m assuming you have her apartment number.”
“Follow me,” he said.
The foyer must have been grand once, marble floor and rounded columns. But the weave of the two chesterfields was smooth where it should have been nubbly and the Chinese area rug had been crunched under by too many feet.
They took the elevator to the fourth floor. The geometric broadloom in brown and blue triangles felt prickly with static. Rebecca followed him down the hall with misgivings. What could they possibly say to Isabella that would convince her to let them in? Nesha stopped in front of Isabella’s door. Voices were barking inside. Glancing around, he brought his ear to the wood.
He didn’t need to; she could hear them from two feet away. A man and woman were bellowing at each other in Spanish.
“Those messages she left
on his machine were fake,” he whispered. “She’s a good actress. Why didn’t I think of it before? He’s here! He’s really here!”
His eyes widened and his mouth turned down; Rebecca hardly recognized him.
He began to pound his fist on the door. “Open up! Open the door!”
The voices inside stopped. Isabella, still combative, asked, “¡Quien es! What do you want?”
“Open up now! You can be charged with harbouring a fugitive. We’ll call the police if you don’t let us in now!”
The door flew open. Isabella, reeking of liquor, wavered in the doorway in red silk pyjamas and bare feet. Without her heels she was much smaller than Rebecca remembered.
“Who are you?” she said looking at Nesha.
Rebecca pulled her attention away. “We met at the club a few nights ago.” It was enough for him to push past Isabella into the apartment.
“Where is he?” Nesha cried.
Isabella stared at him, dumbfounded. Her oily black hair hung thin and limp around her shoulders. Old mascara smudged the skin beneath her eyes.
“Who?”
“Who do you think? Your boyfriend. We heard you outside.” He began to head toward a closed bedroom when the door opened. A man stepped out.
“I think we are all looking for the same person,” said the Capitán.
“Who the hell are you?” said Nesha, poking his head into the empty bedroom.
“Capitán Diaz, at your service.”
Nesha observed his well-oiled dark hair and suavely-cut suit. “You’re the guy who runs the money-laundering operation.”
A shadow passed over the Capitná’ s eyes. “You are mistaken, sir. I run a legitimate establishment. Leo would tell you so if he was here.” He stepped toward Isabella.
“But he isn’t here. So where exactly is Leo?”
“If I knew where he was, would I come here? I have a business to run. People want to get paid. He must write the cheques. But he doesn’t come in for two days on a weekend, when everyone is standing at my door with their hands out.”
He reached into an inside pocket of his jacket.
Nesha, wound up like a coil, swung his arm around his back and whipped out the gun.
Diaz froze. He held the pose in a tableau, one arm fixed across his chest like a street-corner mime, fingers curled around a package of cigarettes.
They all watched the gun, waiting.
“A smoke!” said Diaz. “I just wanted a smoke.”
Isabella stood precariously, one hand gripping the frame of the red velvet sofa, the other holding a cigarette that threatened to nosedive into the carpet.
“As you can see,” said Rebecca, “my friend’s a little irritable. It might help if you told us what you know about the paintings.”
“If he puts away the gun.”
Rebecca caught Nesha’s eye. He lowered the gun but held it at his side.
“May I...?” Diaz lowered his gaze toward the mannequin arm.
Nesha gave an impatient nod.
“What do you want to know?” said Diaz, taking out a cigarette.
“Where’s the money coming from?” Rebecca asked.
“What money?”
“The money that the club is a front for. The money you’re laundering at the restaurant.”
Diaz stared sullenly at her. “I just run the club. It’s Leo’s place. Leo’s business.”
“What business?”
Nesha’s hand began to rise slowly.
“Art,” he said finally. “Stolen. You wouldn’t believe how big it is. Even the Mafia’s doing it.”
“Stolen from where?” she asked.
“Anywhere. Galleries, private collections. Museums are harder, unless they’re small. Most of the big museums have modern safeguards. You’d be surprised how casual most people are about paintings hanging in their homes.”
“The club isn’t just a front, is it?” Rebecca said, “He also finds clients there, Argentinians who came with money, or maybe something to sell...?”
“Business is where you find it.”
“What about the paintings in his apartment?”
“A lucrative sideline. Leo only deals with people he knows for those.”
“He must have a hot little black book,” Nesha said. “What do you know about the Edelweiss Club?”
Diaz sighed. “Sometimes he meets clients there. It’s a small place and they respect his privacy.”
Rebecca questioned Nesha with her eyes.
“They wouldn’t give me his number,” he answered. “And I wouldn’t give them mine. It was a stand-off.”
“Why do all the people selling the paintings live in Argentina?” Rebecca asked.
“Those are his connections. They trust him, he knows them. The paintings are very valuable. They can’t sell them to galleries because they were stolen. From before.”
“They’re looted, aren’t they?” she said. “From the war.”
“This is an old story,” he said. “Everyone steals during war.”
Nesha said, “A lot of Nazis went to Argentina after the war. These people selling the art are Nazis, aren’t they? Selling art they stole from Jews.”
Diaz blew smoke out of his nose, but he was thinking. He seemed surprised at the turn of the questioning. “Nazis, yes. Maybe they’re Nazis. Nazis are respected in Argentina.”
“You don’t care, do you?” said Nesha. “As long as you make your money, you don’t care who you’re dealing with.”
“I’m a businessman, sir. I must make my money where I can. I must live, like everybody else. You have no idea how hard....”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your business. Your partner is a murderer, a war criminal. Your partner murdered my family. That’s all I care about.”
“Leo is many things, but he is not what you say. You are mistaken.”
“Does the name Johann Steiner mean anything to you? Oberscharführer Johann Steiner?”
Diaz shrugged, shook his head.
“All the SS had their blood type tattooed under their arm.” He turned to Isabella who had fallen into the Spanish sofa. “Have you seen a tattoo like that?”
“You are loco!” she said. “He was in a camp during the war. He’s a Jew and he suffered like all of them. And I can prove it.” She closed her kohl-stained eyes to emphasize the point. “I happen to know he’s circumcised.” She picked up a glass of whiskey that had been sitting on the coffee table and took a delicate sip.
Rebecca and Nesha looked at each other. “That doesn’t prove anything,” he said.
“Leo is a gentle and generous man,” Isabella said. “But strong, too. He has to be strong for business. And what he has with that wife, he has to be strong. He suffers because of her.”
“What happened to her?” Rebecca asked. “Why did she break down?”
Isabella had found another cigarette and was trying to light it with shaking hands. “She couldn’t understand that he had to make a living. She’s a weak woman, a selfish woman. She found out what he was doing and she couldn’t take it. She called it blood money. But it paid for the food in her mouth. He told her if he didn’t sell the paintings, somebody else would. The Jews who owned them were dead anyway. What difference did it make?”
Was that really it?
“Is that why he killed Goldie,” Rebecca asked. “Because she found out?”
Isabella gaped at Rebecca. “He is not a killer. You don’t comprehend him.”
“Where is he? Did he run back to Argentina?”
Diaz grimaced a no. “He made too many enemies there. He would never go back.”
“Was he involved in the terror?” Rebecca said to Diaz. “Did he have anything to do with Goldie’s abduction? Did you?”
Nesha watched, not giving away his surprise but she sensed it.
“You are accusing without proof. Where is your proof?” said Diaz.
“The police would be very interested in the way you run your business,” she said. “We’ve
got your expense book. It reads like a novel. All fiction.”
He leaned on the arm of an upholstered chair, subdued for the moment. “I had nothing to do with Goldie. I only knew her son because he was a friend of Isabella’s boy and Leo was involved with Isabella. Carlos helped us sometimes. We had a different business then. Drugs. He helped with exchanges. You know. But the boy didn’t understand how it worked. He thought if he kept a little for himself, no one would know. Sometimes he kept some money, sometimes some drugs.”
Rebecca made a wild stab. “You were the one who informed on them.” He didn’t deny it, only stared into space, puffing on his cigarette. “You were losing money so you told the death squad where they were hiding. You didn’t care if they killed Goldie’s son, too. He had nothing to do with your business.”
Diaz glanced uneasily at Isabella. “Many were killed. For less reason.”
Isabella exploded out of her seat. She threw the glass of whiskey into his face with vehemence. He appeared stunned, wiping the liquor from his eyes. But before he could move she launched him from his perch on the chair arm and sent him flying onto the floor.
“¡Asesino!” she screamed. The red silk arms flew around her body, unattached to reason or will.
Without warning she leaped toward Nesha and snatched the gun from his hand. Diaz had barely enough time to lift himself onto his elbows when she positioned herself above him. Holding the gun with two hands she pointed it at his head.
“My boy died because of you! All this time I blamed her...” Her hands began to shake and she appeared to take aim.
“Isabella..., ” said Rebecca, who started toward her.
Nesha held his hand up like a traffic cop. “Excuse me, lady,” he began. “I agree with you one hundred percent. The bastard deserves whatever he gets. But I’m sorry to say it won’t be with that gun. Take a closer look. It’s just for show. It’s an antique.”
Isabella looked down at the Luger as if for the first time. That was when Nesha stepped forward and gently but firmly plucked it from her hands.
Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle Page 20
