The Accomplice

by Joseph Kanon

  The shower stopped. He slid the visa back into the envelope and put it in her bag. Why she had to go to the party. Something Bildener knew. Who else?

  She opened the door a crack. “You really ought to try it,” she said. “It feels wonderful.” Happy, having made love.

  And hearing her, he knew what he would do, saw the next few minutes unfold, like a preview. He’d go into the bathroom and they’d both get in the shower, their bodies soapy, rubbing up against each other, and they’d get excited again under the water, maybe even make love there or get back on the bed, not minding the damp, but maybe in the shower because they really shouldn’t and that was exciting in itself. But they’d do it somewhere because now they needed to be closer than ever. Otto was going somewhere, about to show himself.

  9

  “HE’S MOVING TO BRAZIL.”

  “Brazil? When?” Fritz turned to face him. They were sitting on a bench under the ombu tree, an early meeting, waiting for her to come out.

  “I don’t know. But she got him a visa. As Erich Kruger. So anytime.”

  “What’s in Brazil? I thought all his friends were here.”

  “But he’s supposed to be dead. Which cuts into your social life. He’ll make new friends. I think he spooked when you spotted him. And too many people here—” He let the thought finish itself.

  “A visa,” Fritz said, thinking. “So he’s still traveling on an Argentine passport.”

  “Or a German one. Or—any. Maybe an extra he’s had all along, in case he needed to run.”

  “Still, it’s a name for Goldfarb. It’s easier with a name. Erich Kruger,” he said, repeating it to remember it. “Now he knows who to look for.”

  “He’d better hurry up, then. Now that Otto’s got the visa, there’s nothing to stop him.”

  “He doesn’t have it yet,” Fritz said.

  “No. So how does she get it to him?”

  “She leaves it somewhere. He picks it up.”

  “It’s an expensive thing to leave. Look how careful so far. She pays Martínez, but no money changes hands. Nobody knows what’s in a deposit box.” He paused. “She has to give it to Otto. And that’s when we have him.”

  “If you see her do it.”

  He turned to Fritz. “We’re going to get him.”

  Fritz nodded. “All right. I’ll call Nathan.”

  “We don’t have him yet.”

  “But he’s ready to run. It’s easier for Nathan to operate in Argentina.”

  “Why?”

  Fritz shrugged. “More people on the ground here. Besides, who knows how the Brazilians will react? We need Nathan to get him out. So why wait until the last minute? I know. You want to do this yourself. Something for Max. But it’s enough, to find him. You’d already be a hero.”

  “I don’t care about—”

  “No? I do. My page one. But what if he gets away? Then nobody’s a hero. We should call Nathan. Now.”

  Aaron thought for a minute, then nodded. “I thought he wouldn’t come until we found him. No wild-goose chase.”

  Fritz smiled and put his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “I’m going to tell him we did. So bring the cavalry,” he said, a Western fan. He looked again at her building. “What time does she usually—?”

  “Not until later, but I don’t want to take any chances. Not now. She has to get it to him. You don’t want to walk around with a thing like that in your purse. She’s going to meet him.”

  But what if she didn’t? After Fritz left, Aaron sat staring at the white building. She’d be making calls now, monitored by Jamie, her usual morning. A few women trickled in, maids. What would she do today? What she always did, just another day, if you weren’t looking closely, seeing what else she was doing. Yesterday she’d gone to a party and now Otto had an escape hatch. He went over everything he’d seen in the last few days, each errand a possible cover for something else. Harrods, where she might have met someone. By accident. Dos Pescadores, arranging a boat. The office building on Anchorena. Not the watch repair. Why not the travel agent? Picking up a ticket, a matter of minutes. Nothing to see, if you weren’t looking.

  She came out a little after eleven and headed toward San Martín again, her route that first morning, when he hadn’t known what to look for. Another stop at the bank on Calle Florida, standing in line at the teller’s, so not a safety deposit box request, going down to the vault with the code and key. Just walking-around money.

  She went back up Calle Florida to the belle epoque hotel at the top of Plaza San Martín and went in, asking for someone at the desk. Aaron waited outside, looking through the window. No messages written out, envelopes left. Instead she simply stood in the lobby, waiting, until another woman got off the elevator and hurried over, old friends. They left arm in arm, and for a second Aaron was afraid they’d get a taxi, but she turned left, heading home, pointing to the ornate buildings on the plaza, a guide. The other woman was talking excitedly, catching up. A friend from New York?

  The day was pleasant, warm without the usual river humidity, and the walk through Recoleta seemed to have no plan, just a stroll through the neighborhood, the other woman barely noticing, still talking. When they reached the end of Alvear, Aaron thought they’d go up to the apartment, lunch at home, but they kept going across to the park, past the colonial church and finally to the big cemetery, passing through the Doric columns into the shady main avenue with the other tourists.

  Aaron held back, waiting. He thought for a second of Ohlsdorf, when he’d first seen her. But that had been a cemetery of green hills, an Arcadia for the dead. This was a miniature city, all stone, a grid of narrow alleys sliced by diagonal paths, all lined with elaborate tombs, thousands of them, rising in some macabre competition, the owners building higher and higher, rich inlaid marble and bronze doors, so they wouldn’t be forgotten, generals and Jockey Club presidents Aaron had never heard of.

  Hanna and her friend had stopped to sit on one of the benches, looking at a plan of the cemetery, and Aaron slipped into an alley behind. It was an easy place to follow someone, even the long straight lanes broken by niches and cross streets, a maze. And if you were spotted, there was even the plausible excuse of playing visitor. Everyone came to Recoleta sooner or later.

  They were moving now, following the map and stopping from time to time to look at the names, alone in some of the streets, an eerie quiet, the city noise out behind the high walls. What struck Aaron was how many of the tombs were neglected, forgotten even by their own, mausoleum doors with rusty padlocks, old flower vases now filled with fallen leaves, the occasional broken glass. Was there actually anything to steal? Then ladders and paving stones and piles of sand—the maintenance tools of any city.

  They were there an hour, walking one end to the other, but they didn’t meet anyone or leave an envelope on a quiet tomb for later pickup. She still had the visa.

  They had lunch at the Café La Biela across the street, under a shady gum tree, waiters in vests sliding past the close tables. More chat, the lunch stretching on, another cup of coffee, and then finally they were done, the friend taking a taxi back, Hanna heading down Junin toward Santa Fe. Different streets but the same neighborhood as before, apartment buildings and shoe shops and fruit stalls, jogging west and south, no hurry, until they were back in Villa Freud, the polished brass nameplates on the doors, the quiet streets about to fill with people as the sessions neared their ends. Aaron smiled to himself and took an outdoor table at the café on the Plaza Güemes, looking toward Dr. Ortiz’s building. He checked his watch: 3:50. The changing began, just as before, people seeping out of doorways, some headed to the café for a drink. Others began to appear, a few in taxis, everyone on time, wanting the full session, neither group looking at the other. Shall we pick up where we left off Tuesday?

  He glanced through a newspaper. The other tables were mostly singles, alone with their thoughts, maybe reviewing what they had said to their analysts. Fifty minutes was a long time. You could say
things you hadn’t meant to say. Aaron wondered if the conversation was protected, like a priest’s or an attorney’s. Would a psychiatrist report a crime? A wanted man? Or was the couch as sacred as a confessional? Where would she go afterward? A taxi. He looked across the square. A small rank to the left of the church if he needed to get one in a hurry.

  But she didn’t get a taxi. She came out on time, but instead of turning right, down Charcas, headed straight toward the café. For a second he couldn’t move. The newspaper was a prop, not a screen. She’d see him, even sense him. Do something. She was almost at the corner when the light turned. A minute. Aaron stood up, chair scraping, and ducked into the café, a blur of motion, out of the sunlight. Still just steps away from the sidewalk tables, but now part of the dark interior, not there unless she was looking for him. He stood at the bar, watching as her head appeared through the window, still moving steadily toward Salguero, passing his table now. Had he left anything there, some telltale—? But there was only the English-language paper, and she seemed not to notice it, preoccupied. He waited another minute, then went to the door to see her turning the corner. She was going up to Santa Fe. A block between them should be safe. Another minute.

  A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. He turned his head toward Charcas and saw the man coming out of Dr. Ortiz’s doorway. Maybe Ortiz himself, in a light summer suit and Panama hat, finished for the day. He looked up and down the street, then started for the café. Aaron glanced at his watch—give her another minute—then looked up again and froze. The unmistakable walk, the one Max would know anywhere, coming toward him. Not his back, what he’d seen at the Alsterpavillon, but him, full face under the brim of the hat, the picture in the visa. The walk. Aaron went still, as if any quick motion would scare him away. Still coming toward him, and for a panicked second Aaron wondered if he knew, had come to see him. But how could he know? The hat was disconcerting, tropical, and then in his mind’s eye Aaron saw the SS hat, the way he must have looked walking down the selection line, separating the fit from the doomed. Nonchalant, like this, as if he were heading for a café table.

  He took one near the street, facing across the plaza to the church, and ordered coffee and a brandy, at ease with himself, not looking into the café, uninterested in the other customers, someone else’s patients. Except he didn’t have patients. Was there really a Dr. Ortiz? Jamie had said there was. They checked. Some arrangement then. The waiter appeared with the tray. Early for a brandy, maybe a private celebration, the papers he’d been waiting for. Aaron put his hand on the bar, fingers trembling, just being this close. He was here. Now what? Fritz. Photographs. Nathan. He was here, the same café.

  “Un otro café, señor? ”

  The waiter, wondering why he was standing there. Aaron nodded, not speaking, then started back to his table, deliberate, the trembling suddenly gone, his whole body alert. When he picked up the newspaper again, he was raising a rifle, looking through the sights, that moment of perfect calm before the trigger was squeezed, the end of the hunt. Afterward things might go wrong, a mistake, some unexpected mess. But not now. Now there was only the feeling of elation. Here he is, Max. In my sights.

  Otto shifted in his chair, a glance around, as if he had sensed the invisible rifle. Aaron turned a page of the newspaper. Don’t avert your eyes. It’s perfectly natural to look up from the paper, see who had entered the café. Otto met his eyes for a second, then went back to his brandy. A man with a newspaper. Not Max Weill and all the other ghosts behind him. Here, in the café. Just when he thought it was safe.

  Otto took his time with the brandy, sipping it, keeping his hat on. When he got up to leave, Aaron went still again. Too obvious to follow immediately, but what if he went up Salguero and found a cab? But he didn’t. He went back to Ortiz’s building and went in. It was only later, still at the café, that Aaron saw the lights go on and knew he was in for the night. Not just an office then, an apartment with a receiving room for patients, just like Freud’s. In a street where nobody noticed who came and went, where Otto had gone to ground.

  * * *

  Goldfarb owned a sewing factory in Once, just a few blocks from the station. He was a short man, stooped, as if he’d been bent over one of his machines for too many years.

  “All the Jews are leaving,” he said to Aaron, waving a hand to include the whole neighborhood. “Belgrano. What’s in Belgrano? My business is here. You don’t just turn your back. It’s an honor to meet you. Max Weill’s boy.”

  “Nephew,” Aaron said, only half-audible under the noise of the machines outside the office door.

  Another wave. “You should have seen him in the camps. After the war, the DPs. I don’t think he slept. Always working.”

  “Did he ever send you a picture of Schramm?” he said, trying to steer the conversation. “To help you look.”

  Goldfarb shook his head. “We were working in the dark with that one. He had one in his files—laughing, I think, if you could imagine such a thing. But no copies. I saw it before I left Germany. So it was here,” he said, putting a finger to his head. “Anyway, he may not look like that now. We change over the years.”

  “But nothing under Kruger? No passport?” Fritz said.

  “Not yet. But if it’s Argentine, we’ll find it. If,” he said, a cautionary finger. “Anyway, if you know where he is, just photograph him now.”

  “We will. But it’s useful to have a link to the other identities, compare the pictures.”

  “So we’ll keep looking. Meanwhile, I have something else for you.”

  Fritz raised his eyebrows.

  “I was thinking. So it’s not Helmut Braun in that car accident. But it’s somebody. There’s a body. So who is it?”

  “And?”

  “I thought, a man, somebody must miss him. So I checked the Mar del Plata police records. Who didn’t come home? And I found a match, the right weight, the right height. Anyway, close enough. Here, take a look.”

  He showed them a photograph.

  “That doesn’t look anything like him,” Aaron said, impatient, not interested.

  “Forget the face. It was unrecognizable. But the body—”

  “So who recognized it?” Fritz said. “Who identified the body?”

  Goldfarb shot him a look. “Rudel. That fascist.”

  “And Bildener,” Aaron said. “Anyway, we know it wasn’t Otto.”

  “So who’s this?” Fritz said.

  “Giorgio Rinaldi. Still missing. Officially. Of course, we can’t say for certain it’s him, not now.”

  “But Bildener says it’s Braun.”

  “You notice, not the daughter. She can never be accused. Nothing to do with it.”

  “Maybe it’s true,” Aaron said. “Maybe she didn’t know.”

  Fritz looked at him. “Maybe. She does now.”

  Aaron glanced at his watch. “I thought you said Nathan was coming.”

  “He’ll be here. He’s setting up a team. To watch the house.”

  “You understand, there had to be somebody in the police,” Goldfarb said, still back in Mar del Plata. “To tell Bildener. There’s an accident. What you’re looking for. So something changes hands and Rinaldi becomes— How else?”

  There was a roar of machinery as Nathan came through the door, his bullet head shiny with sweat. The Hamburg sailor’s peacoat had been traded in for a warm-weather short-sleeved shirt that made him look uncannily like a young Ben-Gurion, stocky, with a wrestler’s chest and arms.

  “How do you hear yourself think in here?” he asked Goldfarb, clutching his arm, old colleagues.

  “I don’t think.”

  “Good sound cover, though,” Nathan said, leaving the door open. “Fritz.” Another shake. “And the hunter.” He took Aaron’s hand. “Nice work, for a desk man.”

  Aaron nodded, pleased. “I was lucky. He showed himself.”

  “So stay lucky. We have a team on him now, so you don’t go to Villa Freud. He sees you twice, somet
hing clicks,” he said, his voice gruff, in charge.

  “Assuming he comes out.”

  “He has to buy food. She never brings anything, right? She’s seeing her shrink. So.” He turned to Fritz. “And we got lucky for you. There’s a room for rent across the street. Not right across, too far for a regular camera, but a telephoto would get to the door. And if he walks down Charcas, he’d be coming to you. Just keep snapping. We still need a positive ID. I can’t get more men without it. Christ, it’s loud out there.” He faced the factory floor.

  “They wear earplugs,” Goldfarb said.

  “You get the papers? For the boys. They need something to show.”

  “You’ll get them, don’t worry.”

  Nathan touched Goldfarb’s arm. “I know.”

  “And me?” Aaron said.

  Nathan looked at him. “You? You do what you’ve been doing—stay close to her. She have any idea?”

  “No.”

  “That must be interesting.”

  Aaron said nothing.

  “Maybe you have a talent for it.”

  A sharp look now.

  “All right, all right,” Nathan said, an apology. “Just don’t get confused. Remember who they are.”

  “She’s not like that.”

  Nathan looked at him, about to say something, then dropped it.

  “She did what we wanted. She led us to him. But she doesn’t know that.” He paused. “She never has to know.”

  “We just found him by ourselves.”

  Aaron shrugged. “You’re Mossad. There’s a reputation now. He’s playing dead to get away from you. You don’t need help.”

  “But we still need her. We don’t know his plans. She does. When does he go to Brazil? How?” He looked over at Aaron. “Luckily we have an inside source. Close to her. There’s no problem about that, is there?”

  Aaron looked away. “What does it matter how he’s planning to go? Aren’t you going to—”

  “What? Snatch him in the street? Another Eichmann?” He shook his head. “You staked out Villa Freud. What did you see? People in the street. Traffic. Cafés. Kids, for chrissake, in the playground. You can’t just grab somebody there. Eichmann, it was different. He lived out of town. Nobody around. So, easy. And then what? Safe houses until we could fly him out. That’s not going to work this time. We don’t have an El Al plane warming up on the runway.”