by Ira Levin
Liebermann said, “Should I call Wheelock now?”
Gorin nodded. Greenspan said, “I’m going to want to put someone right in his house with him.” The young man with the mustache moved the phone over near Liebermann.
Liebermann put his glasses on and got an envelope out of his jacket pocket. Bachrach at the window said, “Hi, Mr. Wheelock, your son is Hitler.”
Liebermann said, “I’m not going to mention the boy at all. It might make him hang up on me, because of the way the adoption was. I just dial, yes?”
“If you have the area code.”
Liebermann dialed the phone, reading the number from the envelope.
“School’s probably out by now,” Gorin said. “The boy is liable to answer.”
“We’re friends,” Liebermann said drily. “I met him twice already.” The phone at the other end rang.
Rang again. Liebermann looked at Gorin looking at him.
“Hay-lo,” a man said in a deep-throated voice.
“Mr. Henry Wheelock?”
“Speaking.”
“Mr. Wheelock, my name is Yakov Liebermann. I’m calling from New York. I run the War Crimes Information Center in Vienna—maybe you heard of us? We collect information on Nazi war criminals, help find them and help with the prosecution?”
“I’ve heard. That Eichmann.”
“That’s right, and others. Mr. Wheelock, I’m after someone now, someone who’s in this country. I’m on my way to Washington to see the F.B.I. about it. This man killed two or three men here not so long ago, and he’s planning to kill more.”
“Are you looking for a guard dog?”
“No,” Liebermann said. “The next one this man is planning to kill, Mr. Wheelock”—he looked at Gorin—“it’s you.”
“All right, who is this? Ted? That’s a real good Choiman agzent, you shithead.”
Liebermann said, “This isn’t someone joking. I know you think a Nazi would have no reason to kill you—”
“Says who? I killed plenty of them; I bet they’d be damn happy to get even. If any were still around.”
“One is around—”
“Come on now, who is this?”
“It’s Yakov Liebermann, Mr. Wheelock.” “Christmas!” Gorin said; the others spoke, groaned. Liebermann stuck a finger in his ear. “I swear to you,” he said, “that a man is coming to New Providence to kill you, a former SS man, maybe in only a few days. I’m trying to save your life.”
Silence.
Liebermann said, “I’m here in the office of Rabbi Moshe Gorin of the Young Jewish Defenders. Until I can get the F.B.I. to protect you, which could take a week or so, the Rabbi wants to send some of his men down. They could be there—” He looked questioningly at Gorin, who said, “Tomorrow morning.” “Tomorrow morning,” Liebermann said. “Will you cooperate with them until F.B.I. men get there?”
Silence.
“Mr. Wheelock?”
“Look, Mr. Liebermann, if this is Mr. Liebermann. All right, maybe it is. Let me tell you something. You happen to be speaking to one of the safest men in the U.S.A. Firstly, I’m a former correction officer at a state penitentiary, so I know a little about taking care of myself. And secondly, I’ve got a houseful of trained Dobermans; I say the word and they tear the throat out of anyone who looks cross-eyed at me.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Liebermann said, “but can they stop a wall from falling on you? Or someone shooting at you from far away? That’s what happened to two of the other men.”
“What the hell is this about? No Nazi is after me. You’ve got the wrong Henry Wheelock.”
“Is there another in New Providence who raises Dobermans? Sixty-five years old, a wife much younger, a son almost fourteen?”
Silence.
“You need protection,” Liebermann said. “And the Nazi has to be captured, not killed by dogs.”
“I’ll believe it when the F.B.I. tells me. I’m not going to have any Jew kids with baseball bats around.”
Liebermann was silent for a moment. “Mr. Wheelock,” he said, “could I come see you on my way to Washington? I’ll explain a little more.” Gorin looked questioningly at him; he looked away.
“Come ahead if you want to; I’m always here.”
“When is your wife not there?”
“She’s away most of the day. She teaches.”
“And the boy is in school too?”
“When he’s not playing hooky to make movies. He’s going to be the next Alfred Hitchcock, he thinks.”
“I’ll be there around noon tomorrow.”
“Suit yourself. But just you. I see any ‘Jewish Defenders’ around, I let the dogs loose. You got a pencil? I’ll give you directions.”
“I have them,” Liebermann said. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And I hope tonight you stay home.”
“I was planning to.”
Liebermann hung up.
“I have to tell him it involves the adoption,” he told Gorin, “and it’s better if he can’t hang up on me.” He smiled. “I also have to convince him the Y.J.D. isn’t ‘Jew kids with baseball bats.’” To Greenspan he said, “You’ll have to wait someplace there and then I’ll call you.”
“I have to go to Philadelphia first,” Greenspan said. “To pick my men and get my equipment.” To Gorin he said, “I want to take Paul along.”
They worked things out. Greenspan and Paul Stern would go to Philadelphia in Stern’s car as soon as they could get packed, and Liebermann would drive Greenspan’s car to New Providence in the morning. When he had persuaded Wheelock to accept Y.J.D. protection, he would call Philadelphia and the team would drive out and meet him at Wheelock’s home. Once things were settled there, he would drive on to Washington, keeping Greenspan’s car till the F.B.I. relieved the team. “I should call my office,” he said, stirring tea. “They think I’m there already.”
Gorin gestured at the phone.
Liebermann shook his head. “No, not now, it’s too late there. Early in the morning I’ll call.” He smiled. “I won’t stick the Y.J.D.”
Gorin shrugged. “I’m on the phone to Europe all the time,” he said. “Our chapters there.”
Liebermann nodded thoughtfully. “The contributors went from me to you.”
“I suppose some did,” Gorin said. “But the fact that we’re sitting here together, working together, proves that they’re still helping the same cause, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so,” Liebermann said. “Yes. Sure.”
Later he said, “Wheelock’s boy doesn’t paint pictures. It’s 1975; he makes movies.” He smiled. “But he picked himself the right initials. He wants to be another Alfred Hitchcock. And the father, the civil servant, doesn’t think it’s such a good idea. Hitler and his father had big arguments about his wanting to be an artist.”
Mengele had gone across the street early Wednesday morning and taken a room at another hotel, the Kenilworth, registering as Mr. Kurt Koehler of 18 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Illinois. He had been asked, fairly enough, to pay in advance, since all he carried was a slim leather portfolio (papers, knife, clips for the Browning, diamonds) and a small paper bag (grapes).
He couldn’t call Liebermann’s office from the room of Sr. Ramón Aschheim y Negrín, for after Liebermann’s death the calls from Koehler might well be checked into, nor did he especially care to gather seven dollars’ worth of coins and spend an hour blackening his thumb as he fed them into a booth phone. And as Kurt Koehler he could receive a return call, should one be necessary.
In his second room (no tenths of a star) he had reached Fräulein Zimmer and explained to her that he had flown from New York to Washington, sending Barry’s body on its way unescorted, because of the overriding importance of getting the poor boy’s notes—even more significant than he had originally realized—into Herr Liebermann’s hands as quickly as possible. But where, pray tell, was Herr Liebermann?
Not at the Benjamin Franklin? Fräulein Zimmer had been surprised but not ala
rmed. She would call Mannheim and see what she could find out. Perhaps Herr Koehler might try some other hotels, though why Herr Liebermann should have gone elsewhere she couldn’t imagine. No doubt he would call in soon; he usually did when he changed his plans. (Usually!) Yes, she would call Herr Koehler as soon as she had information. At the Kenilworth, kind Fräulein; the Benjamin Franklin had been full when he arrived. But holding a room for Herr Liebermann, of course.
By the time she had called back he had called more than thirty hotels, and the Benjamin Franklin six times.
Liebermann had left Frankfurt on his intended flight Tuesday morning; so he was either in Washington or had stopped off in New York.
“Where does he stay there?”
“Sometimes the Hotel Edison but usually with friends, contributors. He has a lot of them there. It’s a big Jewish city, you know.”
“I know.”
“Don’t worry, Herr Koehler; I’m sure I’ll hear soon and I’ll tell him you’re waiting. I’m staying here late, just in case.”
He called the Edison in New York, more hotels in Washington, the Benjamin Franklin every half-hour; dashed back there through freezing rain to make sure his clothes and suitcase were still in his Do Not Disturb-signed room.
He slept Wednesday night at the Kenilworth. Tried to sleep. Grew depressed. Thought of the gun on the bedside table…Did he really expect to get Liebermann and the other men still to be killed (seventy-seven of them!) before being killed himself? Or even worse, captured and made to endure the kind of hideous mock-trial that had befallen poor Stangl and Eichmann? Why not end all the struggling, planning, worrying?
He found, at one in the morning on American television—and surely this was God’s doing, a sign sent to raise him from despair—glorious film of the Führer and General von Blomberg watching a Luftwaffe flyover; silenced the loathsome English narration and watched the grainy old soundless images, so heart-wrenchingly bittersweet, so reinspiring…
Slept.
At a few minutes after eight on Thursday morning, just as he was about to place another call to Vienna, the phone rang. “Hello?”
“Kurt Koehler?” A woman, American, not Fräulein Zimmer.
“Yes…”
“Hello, this is Rita Farb! I’m a friend of Yakov Liebermann’s. He’s been staying with us. I’m in New York. He asked me to call you. He called his office in Vienna a little while ago and found out you were there in Washington waiting for him. He’ll be there tonight, around six. He’d like you to have dinner with him. He’ll call you as soon as he gets in.”
Relieved, joyful, Mengele said, “That’s fine!”
“And could you do him a favor, please? Would you call the Hotel Benjamin Franklin and tell them he’ll definitely be coming?”
“Yes, I’ll be glad to! Do you know what flight he’s arriving on?”
“He’s driving, not flying. He just left. That’s why I’m calling. He was a little rushed.”
Mengele frowned. “Won’t he be here earlier than six?” he asked. “If he left already?”
“No, he has to make a detour into Pennsylvania. He might even be a little later than six, but he’ll definitely be there and he’ll call you first thing.”
Mengele was silent; then said, “Is he going to speak to Henry Wheelock? In New Providence?”
“Yes, I’m the one who got the directions for him. It certainly is interesting having Yakov in your house! I gather something really big is going on.”
“Yes,” Mengele said. “Thank you for calling. Oh, do you know what time Yakov and Henry are getting together?”
“Noon.”
“Thank you. Good-by.” He pushed the phone’s button down, held it, looked at his watch, closed his eyes and pressed the side of his fist against his forehead; opened his eyes, released the button, tapped at it. Got the cashier and told her to get his food-and-phone bill ready.
Put the mustache on, the wig. The gun. Jacket, coat, hat; grabbed the portfolio.
He ran across the street and into the Benjamin Franklin; paused at the cashier’s window to give instructions and hurried to the car-rental booth. A pretty young woman in a yellow-and-black uniform smiled radiantly at him.
And only a little less radiantly when she learned he was Paraguayan and had no credit card. The estimated cost of the rental would have to be paid in cash in advance; around sixty dollars, she thought; she would work it out more accurately. He threw bills down, left his license, told her to have the car ready within ten minutes, no later; hurried to the elevators.
By nine o’clock he was on the highway to Baltimore, in a white Ford Pinto under a bright blue sky. Gun under his arm, knife in his coat pocket, God at his side.
Driving at the fifty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit, he would reach New Providence almost an hour before Liebermann.
Other cars slowly passed him. Americans! The limit is fifty-five, they go sixty. He shook his head and allowed himself to drive faster. When in Rome…
He reached New Providence—a clutch of drab houses, a shop, a one-story brick post office—at ten of eleven, but then he had to find Old Buck Road without asking directions of someone who might later describe him and/or his car to the police. The road map he had picked up at a gas station in Maryland, more detailed than the atlas map, showed a town named Buck to the southwest of New Providence; he explored in that direction, following a bumpy two-lane road that curved through winter-bare farmland; slowed at each cross road and peered at all-but-illegible signs and markers. Occasional cars and trucks passed him.
He found Old Buck Road branching right and left; chose the right-hand branch and headed back toward New Providence, watching for mailboxes. Passed Gruber, and C. Johnson. Leafless trees locked branches over the narrow road. A horse-drawn black buggy came toward him. He had seen similar ones on billboards on the main road; Amish people were apparently a local tourist attraction. A bearded black-hatted man and a black-bonneted woman sat within the black-canopied buggy, looking straight ahead.
The mailboxes, near drives leading into trees, were few and far apart. Which was good; he could use the gun.
H. Wheelock. The red flag-signal was down at the side of the box. GUARD DOGS, a board below warned (or advertised?) in crude black-painted letters.
Which was bad. Though not wholly bad, since it gave him a more acceptable reason for being there than the summer-tour-for-the-boy business which he had intended to repeat.
He turned right, guiding the car’s wheels into the deep ruts of a humpbacked dirt drive that led gradually uphill through trees. The car’s bottom scraped against the hump: Herr Hertz’s problem. But his own, too, should the car be disabled. He drove slowly. Looked at his watch: 11:18.
Yes, he vaguely remembered one of the American couples listing dog-breeding among their interests. No doubt it had been the Wheelocks; and the prison guard, retired by now certainly, had perhaps made a full-time occupation of his former pastime. “Good morning!” Mengele said aloud. “The sign down below says ‘guard dogs,’ and a guard dog is exactly what I’m looking for.” He pressed the full mustache down tight, patted the wig at side and back, tilted the mirror and glanced at himself; put the mirror right and followed the rutted drive slowly; reached under coat and jacket, unsnapped the holster’s side so the gun could be whipped free.
Dogs’ barking, a tumult of it, challenged him from a sunlit clearing where a two-story house—white shutters, brown shingles—stood at an angle to him; and at its back a dozen dogs flinging themselves at high mesh fence, barking, yipping. A white-haired man stood behind them, looking toward him.
He drove on to the foot of the house’s stone-paved walk and stopped the car there; shifted to P and turned the key. One dog yipped now, a puppy by the sound of it. At the far side of the house a red pickup truck stood in a two-car garage, the other half empty.
He unlocked the car door, opened it, got out; stretched and rubbed his back while the car whined at him to take the key. The gun stirred under his arm.
He slammed the door and stood looking at the white-trimmed porch at the head of the walk. This is where one of them lives! Perhaps a photo of the boy would be around somewhere. How wonderful to see that nearly-fourteen-year-old face! God in heaven, what if he’s not in school today? Upsetting but thrilling thought!
The white-haired man came loping around the side of the house, a dog at his side, a gleaming black hound. The man wore a bulky brown jacket, black gloves, brown trousers; he was tall and broad, his ruddy face sullen, unfriendly.
Mengele smiled. “Good morning!” he called. “The—”
“You Liebermann?” the man asked in a deep-throated voice, loping nearer.
Mengele smiled more widely. “Ja, yes!” he said. “Yes! Mr. Wheelock?”
The man stopped near Mengele and nodded his head of wavy white hair. The dog, a handsome blue-black Doberman, snarled at Mengele, showing sharp white teeth. Its chain collar was hooked by a black leather finger. Rips and tears shredded the sleeves of the coarse brown jacket, fibers of white quilting sticking out.
“I’m a little early,” Mengele apologized.
Wheelock looked beyond him, toward the car, and looked directly at him with squinting blue eyes under bushy white brows. Wrinkles seamed his white-stubbled cheeks. “Come on in,” he said, tilting his white-haired head toward the house. “I don’t mind admitting you’ve got me goddamn curious.” He turned and led the way up the walk, finger-holding the blue-black Doberman’s chain.
“That’s a beautiful dog,” Mengele said, following.
Wheelock went up onto the porch. The white door had a dog’s-head knocker.
“Is your son at home?” Mengele asked.
“Nobody is,” Wheelock said, opening the door. “Excepting them.” Dobermans—two, three of them—came licking his glove, growling at Mengele. “Easy, boys,” Wheelock said. “It’s a friend.” He gestured the dogs back—they retreated obediently—and he went in with the other dog, beckoning to Mengele. “Close the door.”