by Tom Gabbay
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 ver
y 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.
The 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.
CHAPTER 10
I didn’t notice that the car wasn’t heading toward Santo’s place until the driver made a left turn off the coast road and we began a steep ascent into the mountains. I was about to ask where we were going but changed my mind. I’d know soon enough.
The road wound its way north up the slope until we reached a peak that provided a soaring view across the Atlantic, pink-and-yellow sky reflecting off the calm waters of the Tagus estuary, Lisbon’s lights sparkling through the silky dusk beyond. We continued to climb, making a series of hairpin turns, through the cobbled streets of a quiet old hill town, then onto a narrow lane that cut a straight line through a lush wooded area. I felt refreshed after my nap and the cool mountain air was like a drug. Settling back into my seat, I wondered what Santo had in mind for our meeting. He’d certainly picked an out-of-the-way spot.
A few minutes later the car slowed to a crawl and made a left turn through a stately iron gate. It was pretty dark by now, but I could make out the lights of a large estate at the end of a very long approach, although as we got closer I could see that the word estate didn’t quite cover it. Palace was more like it, with a capital P. I thought I’d seen lavish, but this place made the biggest, most overdone Hollywood pretense look like the wrong side of the tracks.
The facade, painted a pale coral, featured imitation Corinthian columns, flowing floral cornices, a classic Greek pediment, and a gallery of pure white marble gods and goddesses posing along the roofline. It looked like a giant pink wedding cake that had been decorated by a band of mad pastry chefs.
The car followed the road around to the left, along one of two single-story wings that unfolded from the main body of the building, extending outward at right angles to embrace a formal garden of patterned hedgerows, tall cypress trees, and myriad ornately carved fountains. There was even a canal, lined with brightly lit lapis tiles that glistened out across the darkness. We pulled up in front of a grand staircase where a young man in a green jacket and feathered cap was standing at attention. He stepped forward, opened the door, and performed a deep bow as I descended onto the gravel.
“Nice place you got here,” I said, but he was poker-faced.
“Follow me, please, sir,” he said. I complied, trailing up the steps onto a vast empty terrace lit by a series of gas torches, flames flickering gently in the summer breeze. We continued through a decorative arch, where the air was steeped in the perfumed scent of night-blooming jasmine, and then along a lengthy colonnade that deposited us in front of a discreet entrance at the back of the palace.
My impassive guide was apparently not house-trained because he was very careful not to cross the threshold as he opened the door and ushered me inside. I stepped into an expansive hallway that was a bit like entering one of those “House of Mirrors” at the local carnival, except that those mirrors aren’t framed in twenty-four-karat gold. Waiting for me was another escort, this one in black tie and tails but equally deadpan. He mutely led the way along the mirrored corridor for a while, our images bouncing back and forth between the walls, then we changed course and entered a series of interlocking rooms that seemed to have little or no function other than to display objects of art, mostly from the Far East. Chinese vases, silk tapestries, that sort of thing. Several twists and turns later we came upon a set of double doors that seemed to be our final destination. Yet another domestic was waiting there. Silver-haired, with ridiculously good posture, he gave me the once-over and wasn’t very impressed.
“Call him ‘sir,’” he instructed in the King’s English, “…and remain standing until he invites you to sit.”
“And keep my elbows off the table,” I added, but Jeeves didn’t appreciate my brand of humor. He stepped aside and let me pass without comment, unless you call a sneer a comment.
The door closed, leaving me alone in a small private dining room, oval-shaped, with red velvet walls, no windows, and soft, subdued lighting. An egg-shaped table, echoing the shape of the room, was set for three. Very elegant, from the silver candelabra to the ivory napkin holders. It hadn’t hit me that I’d be dining with the Duke of Windsor until somewhere along the hall of mirrors, so I hadn’t been able to think it through. I’d listen politely, nod a lot, and say as little as possible.
“Hello, Jack.” Espírito Santo entered through a door I hadn’t noticed because it was covered in the same red velvet as the wall. I was about to respond when the familiar royal figure appeared, cigarette in limp hand, traditional bemused smirk on his face. Santo pulled me forward.
“Your Royal Highness,” he said. “Allow me to present Jack Teller…”
“Hello, Jack.” The duke smiled affably and offered a warm handshake. “Thanks so much for coming.”
“My pleasure,” I said, remembering at the last minute to add a “sir” on the end of the sentence.
“I do hope we haven’t kept you waiting.”
“No, sir, I just got here.”
“Good,” he said. “Excellent. Well then…Shall we?”
He slipped into his place at the head of the table. Santo and I waited behind our chairs, facing each other until the duke was settled, at which point he impatiently waved us into our seats.
“Sit down, for God’s sake,” he said, as if he hadn’t noticed our deference. “We needn’t stand on ceremony.”
We took our seats and Santo turned to me.
“I apologize for the secrecy, Jack, but it is important that His Royal Highness is not compromised in any way. I’m sure you understand.”
I told him I did, but it occurred to me that if the duke was going to be compromised, it would be because he was hanging out with a guy who was doing business with Adolf Hitler, not because he was having dinner with Jack Teller.
The hidden door opened again and a waiter in white gloves appeared with a bottle of chilled white wine in hand. Assuming the manner of a matador about to face the most celebrated bull in the land, he ceremoniously planted himself at the head of the table and presented the bottle to the guest of honor. The duke had a good long look before giving the go-ahead, at which point the matador, with great aplomb, produced a corkscrew from his vest pocket and extracted the cork. Snapping to attention, one arm fixed rigidly behind his back, he poured a measure of wine into the duke’s crystal goblet. The duke took equal care with his part of the performance, holding the drink up to the light, swirling it around a couple of times, and giving it a good sniff before finally bringing the glass to his lips, gently sucking air over the top of the liquid as it decanted onto his tongue. After a moment of intense gustatory scrutiny, the duke nodded and pronounced the vintage “very nice indeed.” The waiter took a bow in the form of an almost imperceptible nod of the head, then proceeded to fill the remainder of the glass. After making his way around the table, pouring mine and Santo’s with a lot less aplomb, he made a smooth exit.
“I understand it has quite an interesting history,” the duke said, sipping the Chablis. Santo hesitated for a moment, not sure what he was talking about. “The palace,” Windsor clarified.
“Ahhh, yes…” Santo stumbled to catch up. “Yes, yes indeed…It does have quite a hi
story. In fact, it was no more than a modest hunting lodge, perhaps ten rooms, when Dom Pedro the Third commissioned it as his summer palace…”
“A wedding gift for his fiancée, I believe,” the duke interjected.
“Exactly so,” Santo confirmed.
The duke shot me a knowing look and raised a strategic eyebrow. “Who also happened to be his niece,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he was making a comment on the good old days when kings could marry whoever they pleased, but I took it that way. “That’s the sort of history one can get their teeth into,” he added with a thin smile.
“I’m impressed with Your Royal Highness’s knowledge,” Santo soft-soaped. The duke batted the compliment away with a flick of the royal wrist and turned back to me.
“Tell us about yourself, Jack.”
“There’s not much to tell,” I said, hoping I could leave it at that.
“I don’t believe it, not for a minute,” the duke grinned. “Any man with the good fortune to accompany Lili Sterne halfway round the globe must have a story to tell.”
“Lili and I are just friends,” I explained.
“She’s an extraordinary woman. Absolutely extraordinary.”
“Yes, sir, she certainly is.”
“How did you two meet?”
“A couple of years ago,” I explained. “On the set of one of her pictures…”
“Which one?”
“A very bad western called Ride the Wild Wind…”
“Starring Errol Flynn,” the duke proudly declared.
“Yes, sir, that’s right,” I said, more than a little surprised that he was familiar with a movie that even the critics had mercifully forgotten. “Now I’m the one who’s impressed.”
“Oh, I’ve seen all of Lili’s films,” he said.
“I’m not sure she would’ve wanted you to see that one.”
“Mmm, she was given rather short shrift,” the duke mused in all seriousness. “And the film was the worse for it, too. But then I’m a terrific fan, you see. I love all her pictures, no matter how dreadful. There’s something about her that I find hard to describe. Something quite magical. Very elusive…Perhaps it’s our shared ancestry.”
