The Accomplice

by Joseph Kanon

  Another click. Ari and Nathan at the door. A glance back to make sure Hanna had gone, then in. Now Aaron would have to imagine the rest. Second-floor front, an elevator, but better to take the stairs. Standing on either side of the peephole, out of range, a light knock. Then what? Who’s there? Or a bemused, What did you forget? Or nothing, suspicious, playing dead, waiting for some explanation with the knock.

  “They should be there now,” Fritz said, his voice nervous.

  Knocking again. Or trying the passkey, the sound rattling Otto inside. Ortiz back early? Who else had a key? Maybe opening the door a crack with a chain lock. He hadn’t planned for that, Otto checking before he opened the door. What else had he missed? It would only take Otto a second, seeing Nathan’s head, Ari’s hawk-like eyes, to know who they were. What it meant. Still, then what?

  “Who’s that?” Fritz said, raising the camera again. A click.

  “Jesus, it’s him,” Aaron said. Not strolling, shooting out the door in a panic, turning down Charcas.

  “That’s it, come to Papa. Good one.” Click.

  No one behind him. A back door? Of course he’d have an escape hatch. Fire stairs, something. Which Aaron should have planned for. Walking fast, not running, head down, not wanting to draw attention. How long before Nathan and Ari knew he was gone? Getting away.

  “Come on,” Aaron said, almost a yell. Already at the door, then starting down the stairs, Fritz clunking behind him.

  Otto kept coming down Charcas, not seeing them on the other side through the little park that divided the street. Fritz raised the camera again and snapped, the sound faint but distinct, stopping him in a second of panic. Behind him, Nathan and Ari had come racing out of the building. Now Otto started to run, no longer caring if anyone saw. Aaron dodged a car to cross the street mid-block. Intercept him. Otto, running, looked up, startled, then looked behind, Ari running now too, fast, a leopard about to bring down a gazelle, all of them panting. Another click.

  Otto swerved out into the street, barely missing a car. He was grunting now, breath coming in gasps. The driver who’d just missed him shouted something in Spanish. He looked around, Ari and Nathan still closing in, and started again for Bulnes, the café on the corner, anywhere public, no longer thinking, an adrenaline spurt. Aaron jumped, coming down on his shoulders, as if they really were animals, the kill moment. Otto fell, a sharp squeal, bringing Aaron down with him, two brawlers, what they had wanted to avoid, a scene. Otto wriggled, slipping out of Aaron’s grasp, and got up again, running back into the street, another car braking, Goldfarb’s taxi. Ari, there now, slammed him against it and opened the back door. Plan B. “Get in.” Barely words, just sounds.

  Otto pushed away, fumbling in his pocket and pulling out a gun, pointing it at Nathan, who stopped, frozen. Otto took a step away from the car, testing the waters, ready to bolt. Another click. He whirled around to the sound, an instinct, one second of distraction, enough for Aaron to chop at his wrist. Otto half-turned, trying to hold on to the gun, loose now in his hand, and fired at them, an explosion in the quiet street. Heads turned in the café. Otto swung the gun, pointing it back at Nathan. A second, nobody moving. Then Aaron chopped again, grabbing the gun as it fell out of Otto’s hand.

  “Fuck,” Ari said, clutching his leg, the blood already starting to spread. “The car,” he said, gasping.

  Otto started to spring away, one last escape, and fell into Aaron, who smashed the gun against his head. A yelp, still trying to run but blocked now. Aaron hit him again, opening the skin, a streak of blood, and shoved him into the backseat, Ari climbing in after. Another click, Fritz still snapping.

  “You go,” Nathan said to Aaron, nodding toward the front seat. He touched Fritz’s arm. “Come with me.” Pulling him away from the car.

  “What about—?”

  “Now. Here,” he said to Ari, handing him some handcuffs. “Cuff him. He’ll do anything.” He looked in the back. “What the hell?” he said, taking in Otto’s bleeding head. “He going to be all right? What about you?” he said to Ari. “You need a doctor?”

  “What, because I have a bullet in my leg?”

  “I know somebody,” Goldfarb said from the front.

  Nathan turned from Otto to Aaron. “You weren’t supposed to hurt him.”

  “He had a gun on you.”

  Nathan stared at him for a second, then nodded, a thank-you. “Tough guy.”

  A moan from Otto. “Who are you? Jews?”

  “Here they come,” Nathan said, spotting someone at the café door. “Give me the gun.” He took it from Aaron and shot it into the air. The man ducked back inside the café. “That should give you a minute. Now get the fuck going.” He handed back the gun. “Don’t shoot him unless you have to.” He closed Aaron’s door. “So. Keep it simple. Now look.”

  “We got him, didn’t we?” Aaron said, swiveling around to face the backseat, Otto slumped against it, groaning, his nose running with blood, his pale old man’s hands lying still in the cuffs.

  Nathan followed his look. “Otto Schramm,” he said, shaking his head. “The fucking master race.” He glanced back at Aaron. “Maybe he knows where Mengele is. Then we get them all.”

  10

  GOLDFARB’S SAFE HOUSE WAS in a scruffy neighborhood on the western fringe of downtown. Second floor over a storefront, good sight lines both ways, dead bolt in the back. But who was planning to attack? Otto had become a ghost again, no trace left in Villa Freud but a broken chain lock where thieves must have tried to get in. After Goldfarb’s doctor had put a few stitches in his forehead, he had fallen asleep, exhausted, a patient with a bandage. Aaron stared at the face, everything familiar, just like the pictures, except now the skin was thin and dry, the cheekbones close to the surface. Receding hair gray, some white. The face old and childlike at the same time, the way people look when they sleep. He had wet himself earlier and no one had bothered to change his pants, the wet blotch drying but visible.

  “Still out?” Nathan said.

  Aaron nodded.

  “I brought his clothes.”

  “You went back?”

  “We had to see if he left anything. That could ID him. But just this.” He lifted a small case. “The good doctor travels light.”

  “Plane ticket?”

  Nathan shook his head. “Just a wad of cash.”

  Aaron thought of her at the teller’s window in Calle Florida. Regular withdrawals, nothing to call attention.

  “You took a chance going there.”

  “Not to Ortiz’s. Nothing happened there. That anyone saw.”

  “And down the street?”

  “I had a coffee. On Bulnes. Crime is getting worse. In broad daylight now. Probably drugs. Two got away, one with a camera. That would be Fritz.” He looked over. “We’re OK. Nobody’s looking for Otto.”

  “Yet.”

  “Funny how the body shuts down, isn’t it? You’d think he’d be jumping around, all excited, but he’s out. You OK for another shift? I want to check on Ari. We can’t take him to a hospital with a bullet—”

  “Fine.” He looked up. “What about the visa? She didn’t give it to him?”

  Nathan patted his jacket pocket. “Here,” he said. “No passport, though. I figure that comes last minute with the ticket. Whoever’s helping gets it for him so he doesn’t have to show, until the plane.”

  “Careful.”

  “Seventeen, eighteen years he’s careful. And he’s still here. Even when he’s not, officially. But now—” He looked at the couch. “Now his luck’s run out.” He turned back to Aaron. “There’s coffee over there if you need some. Don’t take any chances—you want to be wide awake with him. I’ll bring some food when I come back. You’re sure you’re OK? You’re not used to this.”

  “I’m learning on the job.”

  “Huh.”

  A sound came from the couch. Nathan turned. “Good morning. Evening.” He dipped his head in a mock bow.

  “Who are you?�
� The voice full, not vague and scratchy, trying to regain some authority.

  “Your worst nightmare,” Nathan said.

  “Israeli?”

  Nathan said nothing.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “I’ll let you wonder about that. It’ll help while away the time.”

  “You think I’m Eichmann. I’m not Eichmann.”

  “No, you’re Otto Schramm.”

  Otto reached up to feel the bandage on his forehead, an awkward move in handcuffs.

  “You’re all right,” Nathan answered before Otto could ask. “Stitches come out, you’ll be like new.”

  “Do I have to wear these?” Otto said, holding out his hands. “Is this necessary?”

  “You’re a desperate character.”

  “Desperate,” he said. “And how do I go to the bathroom?”

  “You’ll figure something out. Otherwise, one of us will have to hold your dick for you.”

  Otto gave him a look of scorn, something not worth answering.

  “Want some clean pants?”

  “You’re going to kill me.”

  “Not us. So you might as well have the clean pants while you’re waiting. Aaron, give me a hand, will you?”

  Otto held up his arms, a reflex, then dropped them, resigned, as they unbuckled the belt and pulled off his pants.

  “Why not just do it? Not go through this—charade. One Eichmann isn’t enough for you? You’re going to kill us anyway.”

  “That’s not up to me. But just so we’re clear about this? I wouldn’t mind killing you, and if you try anything, we will. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And you’re not holding any cards. We have men in the street out front, covering. More in the back.” His voice steady, not looking at Aaron. “You leave this room without us, they have orders to shoot. No questions. In the room you’ve got a trained officer.” He nodded to Aaron. “Unfortunately a little trigger happy. He’s been reprimanded. So don’t make him nervous. Any quick moves, you’ll be dead—you understand?”

  “Fantastisch,” Otto said, his mouth twisted in contempt. “The great Mossad.”

  “You just keep working on how to take a piss.”

  The new pants were on now.

  “Where is the bathroom?”

  “Over there. Aaron, show him.”

  Otto got up slowly, a little stiff, then looked at Aaron. “I can do it.”

  “Not alone,” Nathan said.

  Otto shuffled across the room, Aaron following, looking down at the thinning hair. He had always imagined Otto tall, towering over his selection line in polished black boots, but he was shorter than Aaron, surprisingly slight, about Max’s height.

  Nathan waited until Otto finished.

  “I knew you could do it,” he said, a tight smile. “Get some rest. Don’t make Aaron nervous. I’ll send Fritz with some food,” he said to Aaron, then turned back to Otto. “You’ll recognize him. He’s the guy your buddy tried to kick to death in Hamburg.”

  “In Hamburg,” Otto said, thrown by this, the net wider than he’d imagined. How long had they been stalking him?

  “So don’t make him nervous either.”

  “Go to hell,” Otto said, but his voice had lost its force, deflated, and he sank into the couch. “How long am I here?”

  “Not long. So try to make the best of it. You want to start by telling us the flight number?”

  Otto looked up. “Flight number.” Marking time, waiting.

  “To São Paulo.”

  His eyes widened slightly, thrown again, not expecting this. Hamburg. São Paulo.

  “Go to hell.”

  “Well, maybe it’ll come back to you.” Nathan checked his watch, then nodded to the telephone on the side table. “It works. Call if you need anything. Fritz should be here in an hour. Herr Schramm,” he said, tipping his head. He glanced around. “Not much of a place, is it? If you hadn’t run, we could still be at Ortiz’s. Much nicer.”

  Otto watched him go, not saying anything, then sat looking at his hands, shoulders slumped, his whole body sagging.

  “I heard you before,” he said finally. “You’re not Israeli. So who are you representing?”

  “Representing,” Aaron said, turning over the word, formal and snide at the same time.

  “An American voice. So who sent you?”

  “Max Weill.”

  Otto’s head snapped up, all attention.

  “Max Weill,” he said, disconcerted. “He’s alive?”

  “No, he died.”

  “So,” he said, as if this had settled something. “When?”

  “After he saw you in Hamburg.”

  His head went up again. “He saw me?” Confused, thinking of Ohlsdorf.

  “When you took your walk by the Binnenalster. A dead man. But he knew it was you. You should have stayed home. If he hadn’t seen you, none of this would be happening.”

  Otto made a short waving motion with his hand, weighted down by the cuffs. “Who knows why things happen. So,” he said, brooding, “he’s dead.” He looked up. “And who are you?”

  “His nephew.”

  “Herschel’s boy?”

  Aaron nodded, surprised, forgetting he had known the family.

  “His blood. And now you’ve come for your pound of flesh.” A faint, wry smile. “Jews.”

  “Not your flesh. I don’t want any part of you.”

  “What do you want, then?”

  “What Max wanted. Put you on trial.”

  “Then you’re wasting your time. Do you think I would ever let that happen? Eichmann was a fool. Talk, talk, and they were going to kill him anyway. Trial. A farce. From me—you get nothing. I’ll never testify.”

  “But other people will.”

  “And what? I sit there while they point their fingers at me. What do they know about it? Any of them. Max. I saved his life. I pulled him out of the line. And what thanks? Hunting me down, like some vermin. After I saved him.”

  Aaron looked over, unable to speak, the mad rationale flowing out of Otto’s mouth like spittle.

  “He was a good doctor. You know we were at university together? So I knew. The others? To them, just another one for the ovens. But I knew. So I saved him. He survived the war. What were the chances of that? Unless someone saved him. But he never understood that, how it was.”

  “You murdered his son.”

  “Murdered. It’s not correct, that word.” He gestured with his hand again, a dismissal. “He was going to die anyway. I made it easier for him. A matter of minutes only, with the gas. Not like some of the others. For them, a difficult time.”

  “In the medical experiments.”

  “We were asked to do that,” he said, explaining the obvious. “There was never such an opportunity before. For tests.”

  “On children.”

  “They were sent there to die,” Otto said, not hearing. “And now useful. You can still read them, the reports, the test results. At Dahlem, the Institute. They didn’t die for nothing. They made a contribution.”

  Aaron looked at him. Radiation tests. Endless crackpot measurements. All sitting in file drawers somewhere in Berlin. A contribution.

  “You made him help. Max. You made him do what you did.”

  “I didn’t send those people there. It was not my decision. And so many. Train after train. We had to do the best we could under the circumstances. Medical decisions. Who was fit for work? Who had typhus? You had to watch like a hawk before it spread. And the requests would come. From the Institute, from the Wehrmacht. How long could a pilot survive in freezing water? Useful information for the war.” He paused. “Mengele and the twins—I never took that seriously. He was obsessed, I think. And the guards, I don’t answer for them. Some of them were—sadists.” Searching for the word.

  “Sadists,” Aaron said, as if he hadn’t heard correctly.

  “Not all. Some. There were terrible things. People thrown into the ovens before they were dead. Terrible. But in
our section, only the right procedures. What doctors had to do.” He looked up. “That’s the way it was there. You think it was my idea, to make such a camp? And now who answers for it? The people responsible? No—” He stopped, not bothering to finish, talking too much.

  “You haven’t answered yet.”

  Otto ignored this, looking down again, brooding.

  “Do you want some water?” Aaron said.

  Otto shook his head. Another silence.

  “How did he die? Max.”

  “His heart.”

  “So, a long life. I saw him on a magazine once. With Wiesenthal. And that’s how he spent his life? Looking for camp guards? To accuse them—of what? Doing what they had to do?”

  “No, bringing them to justice.”

  “Quatsch. There was no such thing. Not at Auschwitz. What would justice be there? He was a sentimentalist, Max, always. That made it difficult for him—to do the work. A doctor, you can’t be a sentimentalist. Death is part of the job. It’s all around you. Those people were corpses. But useful. That’s what mattered.”

  “Living corpses.”

  Otto shrugged, a point not worth arguing.

  “Corpses. Like bodies in anatomy class. So you learn from them. You did your work.”

  “What did you learn?”

  Otto looked away, ignoring this, scanning the room, then came back to Aaron.

  “Such a waste, looking for guards. All these years. A good doctor. He gave it up?”

  Aaron nodded. “He didn’t feel he was a doctor anymore. After that.”

  Otto shrugged. “Foolishness.”

  “You stopped too.”

  “I had a new identity. A German doctor? How long would that have taken them?”

  “Who’s them?”

  “At first the Allies. The Amis,” he said, nodding to Aaron. “So eager for justice. But those days? In Europe? Everything a mess. It was easy to get away—get a new name.”

  “And Red Cross papers. And a priest to help.”

  “So you know all that.”

  “The ratline to Argentina.”

  Otto looked up, amused. “They call it that? I didn’t know. We’re the rats?” A kind of warmth in his voice, suddenly like hers, what he must have sounded like at parties, an easy charm. “So, Argentina. A new name. And it was good here, for years. Nobody was looking. The Amis went home, Adenauer was busy. No one cared about some businessman in Buenos Aires. But then the Israelis came and things changed.”