A Quiet Flame (49 page)

“We’re going back to Ezeira,” he said.

“I feel better already. Never was one for air travel.”

I glanced around the inside of the plane. There was a large pool of blood and something worse on the floor. Now that the door was closed, I could smell the lingering stench of fear inside the Dakota. There were some seats up front. The colonel sat in one. I got up off the floor and went and sat beside him. I leaned across his lap and glanced out of the window at the gray river beneath us.

“The people you just murdered,” I said. “I suppose that they were Communists.”

“Some were.”

“And the others? There were women, weren’t there?”

“These are enlightened times we live in, Gunther. Women can be Communists, too. Sometimes—no, usually—they’re more fanatical than the men. More courageous, also. I wonder if you could take as much torture as one of the women we just dumped.”

I said nothing.

“You know, I could always take you back to Caseros. Have my men go to work on you with that electric cattle prod. Then you’d tell me what I want to know.”

“I know a little bit more about torture than you think, Colonel. I know that if you torture a man to make him tell you lots of things, then gradually he’ll give them up, one by one. But if you torture a man to make him tell you one thing, the chances are he’ll clam up and take it. Make it a contest of wills. Now that I know how important this is to you, Colonel, I’d make it my life’s last mission to say nothing.”

“A tough guy, huh?”

“Only when I have to be.”

“I believe you are. I suppose that’s one of the reasons I like you.”

“Sure you like me. That’s why you wanted to throw me out of a plane at five thousand feet.”

“You don’t think I enjoy this sort of thing, do you? But it has to be done. If the Communists were in power, they’d do the same thing to us, I can assure you.”

“That’s what Hitler used to say.”

“Wasn’t he right? Look what Stalin has done.”

“It’s the politics of the cemetery, Colonel. I should know. I just crawled out of the one called Germany.”

The colonel sighed. “Perhaps you’re right. But I think it’s better to live without principles than be righteous and dead. That’s what I’ve learned in the cemetery. There’s this, too, that I’ve learned. If my father leaves me a gold watch, I want my son to have it after me, not some
paisano
carrying a copy of Marx he’s never read. They want my watch? They’d better kill me first. Or it’s out the door they go. They’d better know that in Argentina we practice the redistribution of health. Anyone goes around thinking that all property is theft soon finds out that all killing is not murder. The last Communist we hang will be the one who helped himself to our rope.”

“I don’t want to take anything from anyone, Colonel. When I came here, I wanted a quiet life, remember? Nothing made your business my business except you. For all I care, you can hang all the Communists in South America on your Christmas tree. All the Nazis, too. But when you hire me to be your dog and sniff around, you shouldn’t be surprised if I bark a bit and piss on your flower bed. That may be embarrassing to you, but that’s the way it is. I embarrass myself sometimes.”

“Fair enough.”

“Fair enough, he says. You haven’t played fair with me since I got off the damn boat, Colonel. I want to know everything. And when I know everything, I’m going to get off this plane and I’m going back to my hotel and I’m going to take a bath. And when I’ve had some dinner and I’m good and ready and I’ve understood how everything works, I’m going to tell you what you want to know. And when you find that I’m telling the truth, you and von Bader and Evita are going to be so damned grateful you’re even going to pay me like you all said you would.”

“As you wish, Gunther.”

“No. Just what I said. What I wish would be too much to expect.”

BUENOS AIRES, 1950

B
Y THE TIME we landed at Ezeira, I knew almost everything. Almost. I still didn’t know if Anna Yagubsky was dead or alive. I found a pay phone and called Anna’s parents, who told me they hadn’t seen her since the trip to Tucumán but that she’d left them a note saying she was going to stay with a friend.

“Do you know who this friend is?” I asked Roman Yagubsky.

“As a matter of fact, I thought it might be you.”

“If she comes back or calls, tell her I need to speak to her, urgently.”

“Always in a hurry,” he said.

“It’s the business I’m in.”

“Did you find my brother yet?”

“Not exactly.”

“What kind of an answer is that?”

“Not much of an answer, but I won’t lose any sleep over it. If you think I’ve done an unsatisfactory job, you can refuse to pay me. I won’t argue about that. But when I say ‘Not exactly,’ that’s exactly what I mean. There are rarely any definite answers in the private-detective business. There are only probablys and maybes and not-exactlys. They’re the kind of answers that are to be found in the crevices of what we’re allowed to know for sure. I have no evidence to say your brother and your sister-in-law are dead. I didn’t see their bodies. I didn’t see their death certificates. I didn’t speak to anyone who saw them die. All the same, I know they’re both dead, sir. It’s not an exact kind of knowing, but there it is. Fact is, it’s best I don’t say any more. For your sake and mine.”

There was a silence. Then Señor Yagubsky said quietly, “Thank you, young man. Of course, I’ve known they were dead for a while. If they were alive, they’d have got in touch, but a brother is a brother and a twin is a twin and you feel an obligation to find out what you can. To have someone independent tell you what you think you know already. And you’re right, of course, that isn’t an exact kind of knowing but it’s better than nothing, right? So thank you again. I appreciate your candor. Not to mention your discretion. I know what kind of people are in this government. But I’m a Jew, Señor Hausner. I’m used to it. Maybe if I had more money and I was ten years younger, I’d go and live in Israel, but I don’t and I’m not. So I say may God bless and keep the Peróns a long way from me and mine.”

“Don’t forget, sir. Tell Anna to call me. I’ll be at my hotel.”

“I know, I know. Urgently. Germans. Every time you people open your mouths, I hear a clock ticking. Hitler might still be in power if he hadn’t been in such a hurry to do things.”

 

 

 

THE NEXT MORNING, I went to meet the colonel at the Jockey Club, as arranged.

The luxury of the Jockey Club of Buenos Aires would have put any Berlin or London club to shame. Inside, there was a great, empire-style rotunda, a fine marble statue of the goddess Diana, and a magnificent staircase that looked like the eighth wonder of the world. There were Corinthian columns everywhere, and these were ornamented with onyx, ivory, and more lapis lazuli than a Russian Orthodox cathedral. I found the colonel in the library—although calling the library at the Jockey Club a library was like calling Rita Hayworth an actress. There were plenty of books, it was true, but nearly all of their bindings were tooled with a little bit of gold, so that it was like entering a long-lost burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings. And there were some members who clearly belonged in a tomb: old men with profiles you might have seen on a thousand-peso note. There were no women in that club, however. They wouldn’t know what to do with a woman in the Buenos Aires Jockey Club. Try and saddle her, probably, or, in the colonel’s case, defenestrate her.

He put down the book he was reading. I sat in the chair opposite and, curious, picked it up. I’m always interested in what mass murderers are reading.

“
Martín Fierro,
by José Hernández,” he said. “Our national poet. Are you familiar with this?”

“No.”

“Then I give it to you. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s somewhat romanticized, but I’m sure there are elements that will appeal to you. The hero is an impoverished gaucho whose house, farm, wife, and family are all gone. Destroyed. He gets himself into one scrape after another. Knife fights and other brutal combats and various affairs of honor. Eventually, Martín Fierro becomes an outlaw, pursued by the police militia.” The colonel smiled. “Perhaps this is a familiar tale to a man like you, Gunther. Certainly this book is very popular here in Argentina. Most children grow up able to quote a few stanzas from
Martín Fierro.
Myself, I know most of it by heart.”

“Assuming you have one.”

The colonel smiled almost imperceptibly. “To business,” he said.

There was a briefcase beside his leg. He laid his hand on it for a moment. “In here is one hundred thousand American dollars. Fifty from Evita and fifty from von Bader. There is also an Argentine passport in the name of Carlos Hausner. This bag is yours if you tell me what I want to know. The true whereabouts of Fabienne von Bader.”

“Let’s not forget her mother,” I said. “Ilse von Bader. Her real mother. Not Evita Perón. And certainly not Isabel Pekerman. Beats me why you went to all that trouble.”

“Originally, we thought it might add to the sense of urgency if you believed that only the girl had disappeared. A girl who merely goes away with her mother hardly needs to be found with any great urgency.”

“True. But why the Evita story as well?”

“Evita is a woman who believes in the personal touch. As I’m sure you remember. She thought that an appeal to you from her, in person, would encourage you to find Fabienne.”

“She was very good,” I said. “But then, she is an actress, after all. What will happen to them? To Ilse? To Fabienne?”

“They will be kept here, in Buenos Aires. Kept safe. No harm will come to them, I can assure you. As I told you on the plane, von Bader is the only one of the three remaining trustees of the Reichsbank accounts with a family. Therefore he is the only trustee who can be trusted to go to Zurich and do what we require him to do. Which is to sign over the Reichsbank accounts to the Peróns. Ilse von Bader feared allowing herself and her daughter to become hostages for her husband’s safe return. That is why they disappeared. Which left our plans in obvious disarray, since we could hardly let von Bader go to Zurich without some guarantee that he would come back again.” The colonel lit a cigarette. “So as soon as you tell me where they are hiding, we can pick them up and he can be on his way.”

“How much is there?” I asked. “In the Zurich account.”

“No one knows for sure. Not even the trustees. But in all likelihood, it’s several billion dollars.”

I whistled. In the Jockey Club, it sounded like a bomb falling out of a Junkers 88.

“Stolen, of course,” I said. “From millions of murdered Jews.”

The colonel shrugged. “Perhaps so. However, you’ve seen what she does with the money. She gives it away to the sick and the poor. Can you think of a better thing to do with it?”

“She’s buying an electorate.”

“Don’t be so naive. All electorates are bought in one way or another. Promises to reduce unemployment. Promises to reduce taxes. Promises to raise public spending. There’s not much difference between that and what Evita does. And who’s to say her way isn’t less wasteful, with no money used up by a bureaucracy.” He smoked patiently. “So. Where are they?”

I had little desire to help the Peróns. But it was that or the plane ride to the bottom of the river.

“They’re living with your friend Hans Kammler,” I said. “At Wiederhold, his ranch near Tucumán. Posing as his wife and daughter.”

“That’s impossible,” said the colonel.

“No, it’s not.”

“You must have made a mistake. His real wife and daughter are living at Ingenios. It was I who arranged their visas to come here from Germany. More than a year ago. I think I’d know if it wasn’t them.”

“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. I didn’t say they
were
his wife and daughter. I said they were posing as his wife and daughter. It took me a while to recognize Fabienne. She calls herself Mercedes now and has dyed her hair red. But her father, von Bader, was right. She’s still a real beauty. Only it wasn’t she who captivated Kammler. It was Ilse. She’s a beauty, too. Kammler is very much in love with her.”

“So where are his real wife and daughter?”

“Kammler’s a rich man, Colonel. He’s got a plane in his back garden. My guess is that he paid the real wife off with a nice piece of change, and then flew her and his real daughter to Chile. Set them up somewhere else. Maybe they’re already back in Germany.”

“I didn’t know he had a plane up there.”

“He’s got it all up there. Wealth. A beautiful home. A beautiful mistress. I almost envied him.”

“Kammler.” The colonel frowned. “How very ungrateful of him.” His frown deepened. “You’re sure of this?”

“Of course I’m sure. I always remember a face. Especially a pretty face. It’s names I have a problem with.”

“Yes, I think I believe you.” The colonel shrugged. “In which case, this is yours.” He patted the briefcase. “You know, it’s nice to be proved right about someone. I was right about you. In your own haphazard way, you’re a hell of a detective, Gunther.” He nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, perhaps that was it. You were the random factor that was needed in this case.”

“If you say so, Colonel.”

“Incidentally, the passport contains visas to a number of foreign countries, including Uruguay, Brazil, Cuba, and Spain. There’s also a first-class ticket for tonight’s riverboat service to Montevideo. Leaving at twenty-one hundred hours. I know how much you dislike air travel. Anyway, I strongly suggest you be on that boat. Very strongly. You can leave the car in the Compañía de Navegación Fluvial Argentina office at the ferry station.”

“Getting rid of me, is that it?”

“As I said to you before. Many times. In Argentina, it is better to know everything than to know too much. I’m afraid that now you know too much. Like Isabel Pekerman, for example. Leaving the country, for good, is the only possible solution for a man who won’t disappear.” He smiled his infernal smile. “I hope I’ve made myself very clear this time.”