It was seven fifty-six in
the morning when I heard the outer office door open. I heard it with my forehead on the cool desk surface, with
the reminder of last night’s whiskey pounding my head. Seven fifty-six is too damn early to
conduct business, but in my line of work, if a client wants to meet you at
eight, you show up at eight.
Through the frosted glass
on my door I saw good ‘ol Polly, my secretary, stalling as long as polite but
it would only be minutes before my door opened and I would have to greet the
client. Drinking the glass of water
and taking the aspirin Polly coupled on my desk, I rubbed my eyes and hoped I
didn’t look too bad. A stick of
Black Jack and thirty seconds later, I was taking in a tall and well-dressed
dame who called herself Gabriella Domingo.
“Marco
Rossi?” she asked.
“The
same,” I answered in my perfect Spanish.
“American?”
she asked.
You can never fool
Argentines, no matter how well your pronunciation is.
“Have
a seat, Mrs. Domingo.” I motioned
to the only other seat in the room and nodded for Polly to leave the two of us
to talk.
Pulling out and opening a
cigarette case that would cost me two months’ work, she extended it and I took
one. I lit hers first and then
mine and we sat smoking until she was ready to talk.
“My
husband, Mr. Domingo, I have been worried he is into, what you Americans call,
shady dealings, yes?” she said in English.
I’ve a soft spot for a broad
with an accent. Ask me sometime
and you’ll hear how I ended up in a cheap office in the middle of Buenos Aires,
the little Europe of South America.
Gabriella was a looker, pouty mouth, doe eyes, and legs that went all
the way up. The dead animal that
kept her warm must of set Mr. Domingo back a few.
“How
long have you suspected? Or did
the mink keep you from wondering until now?”
She
gave me a look that would scare a parlor maid so I flashed her a smile and we
kept smoking.
“Until
a year ago my husband worked for the government. He was a bioengineer researcher before that and I believe he
was head of a department that specialized in warfare. We’d be invited to la Casa Rosa regularly for galas and such;
we were on the elite circuit. One
day he came home severely agitated.
Ranting and raving about how the world was run by bad men with demons
inside. I’ve never seen him this
way before! It was like he could
see the devil in his head; do you know what my meaning is? Possessed. After convincing him to bathe and nap, he came back
downstairs as if nothing had happened.
When I tried to talk to him about this, he laughed at me, saying I was
the crazy one. That he came home
after a luncheon of spirits and must have just been drunk. But I know, Mr. Rossi, I know there was something wrong.”
Her
worry seemed genuine but a drunken husband wasn’t anything new, not to me
anyways.
“Was
that the only time or did it happen again?” I asked her.
She nodded once, before
taking a long pull on her cigarette.
“Yesterday.” She paused and took another drag off
her smoke before continuing.
“After the first episode we
were no longer invited to La Casa Rosa for anything and we did not go to the
parties and events we used to. He
got cross with me when I was upset at our not being invited anywhere. He told me we were lucky to have our
lives at all.”
“You understand?
My world went from an invigorating social life to that of a hermit’s
wife.” Gabriella practically spit
out the last few words, so clear was her anger.
“He still worked for the
government at this time?” I asked.
“I believe not. I asked him once. Angrily he told me not to worry about
how the money came in, that was his job.
Mine was to enjoy the fruits of his labors. What enjoyment did I have Mr. Rossi? When all my friends have treated me
like a leper, when my days have been spent looking out of the windows, not
going outside because I cannot take the silence and stares? But yesterday, oh Mr. Rossi, yesterday
was even worse than the time before!”
Gabriella’s eyes glittered
with the threat of tears and it was almost too much for my aching head to
bear. It was too damn early for
clients and much to early for crying dames. Lucky for me, Gabriella knew how to compose herself and did
not let the tears spill. Made me
feel like a heel, sitting across from the prettiest face I’d seen in a while,
and wincing at the idea of comforting her.
Gabriella nodded and took
her time taking out another cigarette.
I took one of my own but lit hers first, again, and again we sat in
smoking silence. The telephone
rang in the outer room and we sat listening to Polly prattle on with whomever was
on the other line. Polly hung up
and walked to my door, the click of her heels loud next to our silence.
She didn’t bother to knock;
she never did, but opened the door and poked her head through.
“Mr. Rossi, that was Inspector
Franz on the horn. He requests
your presence immediately.”
I motioned with my hand at
Gabriella, to indicate that I was in the middle of something, but Polly just
shrugged.
“He didn’t make it sound
like a invitation,” she said.
Polly shut the door behind
her and I stood up. I felt like
weights were sewn into my clothes and all I wanted was my bed, but Inspector
Franz was a good friend to have, and one didn’t keep good friends waiting.
“Mrs. Domingo, I just don’t
see what I can do for you. There’s
no case for me here.”
Gabriella stood up, her doe
eyes meeting mine. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Rossi.”
She gracefully walked out
of my office, and my life. Or so I
thought.
The body was in a boat, one
those little rowboat types, nothing fancy. It was found floating by itself along the waterfront of
Puerto Madero.
For as gruff as Inspector Franz
can be, and next to him I’m a charmer if that gives you any idea, he was also
smart. He’d observed the questions
I routinely asked the first few times we worked together and so had learned to
anticipate them. He stood, one
hand in his pocket, one holding his cheap cigar. He didn’t need notes and never carried a pen.
“Body was discovered by
that young man over there,” he said and nodded to a man speaking with a uniform.
“He didn’t touch anything
and called us right away. We
touched him to turn him face up.
And that’s when I called you.”
Inspector Franz didn’t call
on me unless there were oddities.
It had to do with the fact that I had worked medical in the war. Forget that I didn’t finish
school. He knew I kept up on the latest
medical journals and in his mind it meant I knew something. Never mind that I was a nothing more
than a gumshoe in an adopted country.
The body. It was swollen but not water
logged. It reminded me of a kid in
the war. The way his lips swelled
once when he accidently ate peanuts.
Lucky for him, he wasn’t in the trenches and we could attend to him
right away. His lips though, I’d
never seen that before. There are
lots of things I saw in the war that I hadn’t seen before, but that’s for a
different time.
That’s what this face
looked like, puffed up from allergies.
But also there were marks, like a big cat had taken his paw and
scratched the man’s face from top to bottom.
I bent closer to get a good
look. He wasn’t wet. The scratches weren’t deep. His suit was expensive. He wore a wedding ring that could have
paid my rent many times over. His
fingernails had dirt and something else under them. Without my microscope I couldn’t be sure but I had a
hunch. He scratched his own
face. What would make someone do
that? I didn’t know. Gently turning his head I saw his hair
matted with something. I took out
my handkerchief and patted the area.
It was blood; a hard blow to the head. Was it enough to kill him? I wasn’t sure.
Finally I reached into his
breast pocket and took out his wallet.
I handed it to Inspector Franz.
This wasn’t my case, not yet anyways, and I didn’t want to muscle in on the
Inspector.
Franz opened it carefully. No water had touched it and so the
paper was intact. That’s how we
found out who the body was.
“Gregorio Domingo,” read
Inspector Franz.
I stood up, the surprise
written on my ugly mug.
“That name mean something
to you?” he asked.
“Would you believe me if I
said no?” I replied.
“No.”
I scratched the back of my
head and for the tenth time that morning, wished I wasn’t awake.
“How do you feel about
having an unofficial partner on this one?” I asked.
“I thought you’d never
ask.”
It was a phone call that shooed
Gabriella out of my office but it was that same phone call that propelled me
into her life.
The house was set back from
the street; an iron gate with a buzzer and a high concrete wall hid the house
from passersby. The maid had
buzzed us in when the Inspector explained who he was and we walked through the
short courtyard. Nicely kept, lots
of plants, wide steps and a big wooden front door that opened right as we
reached the top step. The maid
stood by to let us in after Inspector Franz flashed his credentials and we
waited in the parlor until Gabriella came to join us.
She was surprised to see
me. She looked just as good as
when I’d seen her earlier that same morning and her smile unsettled me the way
a pretty smile always does.
“Mr. Rossi, an unexpected
pleasure. And Inspector?” Gabriella said this in English as she
extended her hand towards Franz.
“May we sit?” said Franz, taking over and keeping the
conversation in Spanish.
“Of course. Where are my manners? Would you like a drink?” Gabriella
offered.
We shook our heads no and
the seriousness of our visit must have sunk in because she stopped smiling.
“Mrs. Domingo, we’ve found
your husband,” Franz said.
She looked at me puzzled.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t
realize he was missing. He is at work,
no?” Gabriella was trying not to
sound worried.
“Mrs. Domingo,” I said,
“Your husband was found dead this morning.”
She did not say anything
but stood and from a drawer in a small table pulled out a pack of
cigarettes. They weren’t in a
fancy case, just in their cellophane and paper wrapper. She did not offer any to us and did not
give us time to pull out our lighters.
After her first drag she leaned against the table and looked me dead in
the eye.
“I told you there was
something wrong.”
“Mrs. Domingo, this was the
call that pulled me out of the office.
Even if I’d taken your job…it wouldn’t have changed the outcome.”
Gabriella shoved off the
table and walked to the window. I
wasn’t sure if she was upset or confused.
“I’m sorry. I’m mad at myself. I knew I should have spoken with
someone earlier. Maybe if I had,
he’d still be alive.” She turned
to us again and her smile was the ghost of happiness.
“What now?” she asked.
“We’d like to ask you a few
questions. Now would be best but
if you’re too upset we could wait.”
Franz said this and I knew he wondered the same thing I was. How did Mrs. Domingo really feel about
her husband’s death?
Gabriella sat down again.
“I’ve already told him what
you told me this morning, is there anything you want to add?” I asked.
Just then the maid came in
with an unmarked envelope. The
look on her face was one of fear and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was
listening in or because she knew what was in the envelope.
Gabriella thanked her and
took it with trepidation. Seemed
she knew what was in the envelope.
Gabriella closed her eyes
and rubbed her forehead.
“Gentlemen, I don’t feel so
well. May we continue later?”
Franz and I looked at each
other. Was she hiding something? What was in the envelope?
“If you wouldn’t mind
giving us any contact information on Mr. Domingo’s associates? An address book or schedule?” Franz
asked.
Gabriella nodded and stood
up. She began walking towards the
door.
“I’ll show you to his
study. Feel free to take whatever
you may need. And then I hope you
will excuse me.”
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