The Job: A Fox And O'Hare Novel Part 11

"Yes, sir," Ryerson said, not sounding all that happy.

Modern downtown Lisbon, the Baixa, lies in a valley that runs south to the Tejo riverfront, where it ends at the Praca do Comercio, once a scenic spot for public executions. The royal palace also stood there before the earthquake, tsunami, and fire of 1755 wiped it away in what many at the time believed was a heavy-handed message from G.o.d.

The hill on the east edge of the city is topped by the restored ruins of the Castelo de So Jorge. Sloping away from the castle, the Alfama district is a tightly packed medieval maze of crooked buildings. The buildings lean against one another like staggering drunks trying to keep their balance on the steep cobbled streets. Laundry lines hang across the streets, and the air is thick with the smell of cooking fat.

On the hill to the west is the Bairro Alto, the "upper district," which is no less densely packed, but is substantially wealthier. Its narrow streets are laid out in an orderly grid with expensive houses, restaurants, art galleries, and shops for the rich. The Bairro Alto is the bohemian and artistic heart of Lisbon, where crowds pack the tiny streets and steps at night drinking, carousing, and relieving themselves outside the countless tiny taverns and fado houses. Performers, waiters, and the hungry homeless sing loudly and mournfully in the fado houses, expressing their bluesy unending longing for what was and what can never be. The songs merge together into a sorrowful, chilly breeze of cigarette smoke and salty fish aroma that drift up to the top of Bairro Alto.

Kate took it all in while she waited for Nick outside the ornate yellow Vincenzo Palace hotel, once the opulent home of Count Vincenzo, the sardine king of Lisbon.

"Hard to believe, but you almost look happy to see me," Nick said, greeting Kate with a friendly kiss on the cheek.

"I read about fado in my guidebook, but now that I'm hearing it I don't get it."

"It's like mariachi, only the singers who come to your table are wearing black and they're joyless."

Nick led her around the corner and down the slender Rua das Flores, which ran alongside the steep Rua do Alecrim, the Bairro Alto's major north-south boulevard, all the way to the waterfront.

"The man we're seeing to help get the word out in the underworld about our treasure is a fado singer," Nick said.

"His name?"

"Diogo Alves."

"You say that like his name is supposed to mean something to me."

Nick sighed. "Don't they teach you anything at Quantico? Northwest of here, there is the Aqueduto das aguas Livres, a 213-foot-tall eighteenth-century aqueduct that spans the Alcantara valley. It used to bring fresh water to the city and served as a bridge for traveling vegetable merchants. In the late 1830s, over the course of several years, over seventy people plunged to their deaths from the aqueduct in a wave of baffling suicides."

"There must have been a fado singer on the aqueduct. What does that ancient history have to do with Diogo Alves?"

"It wasn't until four members of the same family killed themselves that authorities began to suspect something was amiss. Turns out those seventy people were robbed and thrown off the aqueduct by Diogo Alves, Portugal's first recorded serial killer and still the worst. Alves was hanged in 1841 and was considered so supremely evil that his head was chopped off and put in a jar of formaldehyde for scientific study. The aqueduct has been closed to foot traffic ever since."

As they walked closer to the waterfront, the crowds thinned, and the brightly painted buildings with elaborate ironwork and colorful flowerpots gave way to peeling paint, boarded-up windows, rusted wrought-iron bars, and graffiti-covered walls. The shadows thickened, the night became darker, and they were alone. Nick seemed cheerfully oblivious to the danger in the air. Kate wasn't. All her senses were heightened. The story Nick told as they descended into the darkness hadn't helped.

"I hope the Diogo Alves that we're meeting tonight isn't a headless reanimated corpse," Kate said.

"Diogo is a distant relative of the serial killer. He owns a sleazy bar at the waterfront, sings fado to the customers, and works as a talent agent for crooks. He makes introductions and organizes crimes for a small cut of the action. He's also known as the law among the lawless, resolving disagreements and pa.s.sing judgment on offenders."

"They're all offenders."

"There are always rules," Nick said. "If there's a killing among crooks, Diogo is the one who decides if it was justified. If he decides it wasn't, he carries out the punishment himself."

"What kind of punishment?"

"He likes to toss people from very high places."

"Lovely," Kate said.

"We'll be fine. We haven't killed anyone. We're just here to do business. If we want to get word to Menendez, Diogo is the person in Lisbon who can do it."

A few blocks from the waterfront they hit Rua Nova do Carvalho. A half block to the east, Rua do Alecrim began its ascent to Bairro Alto by bridging over a warren of seedy and dangerous-looking streets. The area once teemed with sailors looking to satisfy their desires in dive bars with names that evoked their faraway homes. The Oslo. The Copenhagen. The Texas. The Jamaican.

The crowds of sailors had faded away decades ago, and the few bars that remained catered to drunks, drug addicts, prost.i.tutes, and s.e.xual tourists. Tonight the street was deserted, the breeze kicking up bits of trash as if they were fallen leaves.

Nick gestured to the tunnel where Rua Nova do Carvalho pa.s.sed under the Rua do Alecrim. "Diogo's bar, the Slam, is through there, on the other side."

"Of course it is," Kate said, putting her hand in her jacket pocket, taking hold of a miniature telescoping baton.

Nick strolled into the tunnel, and Kate followed cautiously a few steps behind him. Before entering the tunnel she noted the dark alley to her left, and the steps up the hill to her right. Light inside the tunnel was dim to nonexistent. The sick yellow glow of a streetlight could be seen at the far end.

Kate's eyes adjusted to the darkness just as two figures peeled away from the walls, like shadows come to life, to block their path. She sensed one more man coming out of hiding behind her and Nick.

One of the men in front of them wore a white tank top and droopy jeans. All of his visible skin was tattooed. She couldn't see all of his tattoos in the lousy light, but it was hard to miss the dead goat etched across his bald head, the devil's horns on his forehead, the tears at the corners of his eyes, the tombstone on his throat, and the daggers on his cheeks. She couldn't see what the other guy looked like, only his silhouette.

Tattoo spat out some words in Portuguese that were laced with menace and the promise of violence. Nick responded affably in Portuguese as well, a smile on his face. Kate stepped up beside him, keeping her eyes on Tattoo.

"What does he want?" Kate asked.

"He wants us to pay a toll to pa.s.s, but I find the charge unreasonable. I offered to buy him and his friends a drink at the Slam instead. Or at least I think I did. My Portuguese isn't great."

"What's the toll?"

Tattoo grinned, showing off a gold tooth, and took a straight razor out of his back pocket. "His money and your body," he said in English.

"I'll make you a deal," Kate said. "You and your friends step aside now and I won't break your jaw."

Before Tattoo could reply, she yanked her hand out of her pocket and whipped open the baton, which instantly telescoped out from palm-size to twelve inches of tempered bone-cracking steel. The baton was small, but the dramatic value of simply brandis.h.i.+ng it and extending it was considerable.

Tattoo instinctively reared back in surprise, but when he saw how short the baton was, he grinned and stepped toward her.

"I'm going to take that little stick from you and-"

Kate acted before he could finish his threat. She swatted him across the face, breaking his jaw and slas.h.i.+ng his cheek open. The pain and shock made him drop the razor, which she kicked aside as she spun around to take out the man behind her, who was charging at her with a switchblade.

The thug who'd been standing next to Tattoo took a swing at Nick. Nick calmly ducked under the blow and drove his fist deep into the man's gut. The thug dropped to his knees, all the wind escaping from him like a deflating balloon.

Kate sidestepped the other a.s.sailant's blade, and whacked him in the kidney with her baton as he pa.s.sed, and then once again across his back for good measure, knocking him face-first to the ground.

She returned to a fighting stance, checking to see if any of the three men were ready for more. Two of them were on the ground and Tattoo was staggering around, clutching his bleeding face and moaning. The fight was over, about sixty seconds after it began. She turned to the wall, pressed her baton closed against it, and put the weapon back into her pocket.

"Handy little toy you have there," Nick said. "Good thing I'm secure in my manliness, or I might find you intimidating."

The Slam was only a few yards from the tunnel opening. The lightbulbs on the sign had burned out decades ago, and blue paint was peeling off the centuries-old building like flecks of dried skin.

Nick opened the door to the Slam, and they stepped inside. The bar was small, holding only a few dozen tables. The low ceiling trapped the smoke from the cigarettes, cigars, and joints so that it hung in the air like a dense fog. The walls and sagging shelves were crammed with countless knickknacks, gathered over decades, perhaps even centuries, from the bar's patrons. Wood carvings. Nautical maps. Vases. Model boats. Daggers. Snow globes. Stuffed animals. Porcelain. Old radios. Carved ivory. An Ultraman doll. African fertility idols. It was like an eclectic antiques store that also served watered-down alcohol and rancid salted cod.

The clientele were scarred, tattooed, hard-looking men and women whose faces and hollow gazes reflected lives of crime, cruelty, poverty, and bitterness. But now those eyes were all filled with tears and locked on the fadista, Diogo Alves, a short man dressed in black with a pear-shaped face and a pencil mustache, who stood in front of the long tiled bar. A slender, ghostly pale woman draped in a black shawl sat on a barstool behind him and strummed a Portuguese guitarra while staring at the floor with the emptiness of someone who no longer had a reason, or the will, to live.

"Diogo is not exactly Michael Buble," Kate said.

"Fado is less about a good voice than it is about the emotion behind the words."

"What's he singing about?"

"How love is a flesh-eating disease that slowly devours your heart but you can't stop hungering for more, even as it's killing you."

"I don't think anybody will be whistling that tune at work tomorrow."

Alves finished his song and lowered his head. He was five foot two without his lifts. All the emotion he'd dredged up for his fado had brought beads of sweat to his brow, which he dabbed away with a black silk handkerchief. The guitarrista looked like she was ready to take a guitar string and garrote herself with it.

The customers applauded and, as the applause died down, people began talking, drinking, and laughing again, like a paused recording that had been restarted to play at high volume.

"Try not to look so tough," Nick whispered. "Remember, we're greedy underwater archaeologists."

"Indiana Jones is an archaeologist and he's tough."

"He's an exception," Nick said and moved toward Alves with Kate following close on his heels.

The bartender served Alves an uma bica, a small cup of strong black coffee, and Alves drank it in a single shot.

"May I have a word, Mr. Alves?" Nick asked.

Alves glanced over at Nick. "Do I know you?"

Nick tossed a gold coin onto the bar. It was one of the Spanish doubloons they'd stolen in Cartagena, and it was still caked with concretions. "I've found three hundred tons of those, and much, much more, at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Portugal, but I don't have the resources to bring them up."

Alves picked up the coin and examined it. "You could go to the Spanish government."

"They could take it away from me and not pay me anything," Nick said. "Then we'd all lose."

"What would I lose?"

"A cool million for putting me together with the right person."

Alves sniffed the coin, as if the dead fish smell would somehow reveal its worth or the potential of the deal. "I didn't get your name."

"I'm Nick Hartley," Nick said and took Kate's hand. "This is my wife, Kate."

Alves smiled. "A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. And I do love beautiful women. It's a failing of mine. A sickness, really. I love women too much. You'd know if you understood my song. I've been married and divorced six times."

"That's a lot of alimony," Kate said.

"Not really," he said. "They're all dead."

"That's a serious divorce," Kate said.

"I believe in a clean break." Alves laughed and nodded with delight. "I like your wife, Nick. She's tough. You should hold on to her."

"I'm trying," Nick said.

Alves snapped his fingers to get the bartender's attention and then gestured to Nick and Kate to join him in a dark booth in a corner. Nick and Kate sat on one side of the table, Alves on the other, and the bartender brought over a bottle of wine and three gla.s.ses.

"What is your line of work?" Alves asked while the bartender poured wine in his gla.s.s.

"Archaeologists by training," Nick said. "Treasure hunters by trade."

Alves sipped the wine, nodded in approval, and waved the bartender away.

"How did you find me?" Alves asked, pouring the wine for Kate and Nick.

"I make it my business to know the people who can get things done wherever I go," Nick said. "Duff MacTaggert gave me your name."

Duff was Nick's former mentor, a legendary thief who'd retired to pampered seclusion on an Indonesian island that had once belonged to imprisoned financier Derek Griffin. The tropical island retreat was something Nick had arranged for Duff to repay a favor. It wouldn't be easy for Alves to reach Duff to confirm the recommendation, though Kate was sure Nick had prepared Duff for the call anyway. She was also certain that Nick's dependable tech guru in Hong Kong had prepared a thorough Web history for the Hartleys if Alves wanted to Google them.

Alves spun the gold coin on the table. "Tell me more about the treasure you've found."

"It's the Santa Isabel," Nick said.

At the mention of the name Alves caught his breath.

"You're familiar with it?" Nick asked.

"Of course. Lisbon is a city built on riches we obtained from exploring the seas. We established the spice trade, so you can thank the Portuguese for your Cinnabons, and we mined untold riches in gold and silver in the New World. So we know all about the lost treasure galleons, and the Santa Isabel is, perhaps, the most legendary one of all. She was only days away from Spain when she sank in a fierce storm with her gigantic cargo of gold, perhaps the largest bounty ever contained on a single vessel. For centuries, people have searched for that s.h.i.+p. What makes you think that you've found it?"

Nick took a sip of wine. "Because it's the only s.h.i.+p I know that went down with a one-ton table made of solid gold and a thousand-piece gold dinner set. I've seen that table and some of the dishes on the ocean floor."

"If what you say is true, then you've found an incredible fortune beyond any man's wildest dreams," Alves said. "Why share the treasure with anyone else?"

"We've searched for the Santa Isabel most of our lives. It's been an obsession. It's cost us almost every penny we have. We don't have the money to recover the treasure. And even if we did, we can't take the chance that the Spanish government will swoop in and take the gold away from us, leaving us with nothing. We want to cash out."

Alves glanced down at the coin that was still lying on the table. "What do you mean by 'cash out'?"

"We figure the treasure is worth about seven hundred million dollars today. We're well aware of the cost and risk involved in salvaging it. So we're willing to sell the location for a mere two and a half percent of the treasure's value."

"Seventeen and a half million dollars is a very large amount of money," Alves said.

"Not large enough," Kate said. "I told Nick that a ten percent commission is the rock-bottom finder's fee in most situations."

"n.o.body is going to give us seventy million in cash for a treasure map," Nick said. "We have to be reasonable, honey."

"No, we don't. We've found an unreasonably huge fortune. If n.o.body wants to pay us what we deserve, we'll pull up just enough coins to live ridiculously well, but not so well we draw attention to ourselves, and leave the rest at the bottom of the sea."

"To cash out, you'll need to find someone with vast amounts of ready cash, but also a high tolerance for risk," Alves said. "That person would also have to be enormously powerful, greatly respected, and deeply feared to have any chance of success. There are only a few men like that in Europe, and they are very dangerous."

"More dangerous than you, Diogo?" Kate asked.

"They are more likely to torture the location from you than pay you for it. I'm tempted myself," Alves said. "So even asking for two and a half percent is probably too bold."

"I have a contingency plan that takes torture off the table," Nick said, "but that's not important right now."