The Ghost

by Henry Kellerman

  “Even the particular Nazi Bolt-hole from South Tyrol to the port of Genoa,” Wiesenthal obsessively continued, “began operating twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It required a unified objective and a self-assigned priority to accomplish it all for these poor examples of what being a true Christian means. These Nazis masquerading as Christians, were some of the top crust of the church: Bishop Hudal, Cardinal Siri, the Archbishop of Genoa, the Croation priest, Krunoslav Stjepan Dragonovic, and especially perhaps Monsignor Montini of the Vatican’s Secretary of State office. This was what could be considered the upper tier of this evil organization. And yet, the main problem at the beginning of this nefarious enterprise was that most of these Nazi fugitives didn’t know that Genoa could be a drop-off embarkation point so that instead they all figured they would need to get to Rome. In fact, it was common knowledge in their circles that at the Vatican they could get help. So instead of looking anywhere else, Rome became their target destination. In addition, the whole operation was also strongly supported by the entire industrial complex of Germany”

  And then in an incisive summary, Wiesenthal said: “At first, at the Vatican, the collection of documents could probably be easily arranged. This meant ID cards, recommendation letters, Red Cross passports, and special travel needs such as new ID name, new profession listed, reason for the trip, and name of contact job at the destination city. Only later by 1949 or 1950 was Genoa also outfitted with these necessary preparatory items.”

  In addition to all of this uncovered information, Wiesenthal also noted that by 1950 his entourage calculated the amount of financial support it took at the Vatican to underwrite the entire Odessa project. Apparently, they figured that the Vatican needed about three hundred million dollars starting in early 1943 and onward for payment to a vast array of supporting organizations both at embarkation and disembarkation points. Apparently, the further disgusting side-deal Hudal was making with these escapees was that each one was extorted for a large amount of money in order to pay for the escape. Yes, Hudal was making money out of it—a mountain of money.

  Al said that while sitting in back of that car, that Wiesenthal laughed because he further and at length said: “My friend here, Father O’Flaherty had to scrimp pennies to help Jews and allied soldiers who had escaped, and this Hudal had unlimited funds. Good friend O’Flaherty here knew without a doubt that to request such aid from authorities at the Vatican was equivalent to signing his death warrant or exile or banishment.

  “So, it was the church and the Nazis in an evil love affair intertwined in each others arms and lasting for decades. Decades? How about lasting for centuries. Even in so-called modern times, when Pope Pius XI wanted to produce an Encyclical against anti-Semitism, the committee writing it couldn’t prevent their Jew-hatred from bleeding in, so this unfinished Encyclical was buried for more than fifty years, and of course, never completed.

  “And there are antecedents to it all,” Wiesenthal continued.” For example, earlier, Pope Pius IX, head of the 1st Vatican Council in 1869 preached that Jews should be kept in confined areas—Ghettos. In addition, Martin Luther the reformer of the Protestant reformation wrote his own Encyclical calling for the torture of Jews and of confiscation of all of their property. And of course, we know that even a church sect is named for him: The Lutheran Church !—named for this vituperative atavistic narcissist—this psychotic theologian, Martin Luther, who today is venerated. Are people just stupid or ignorant is my question? And I’m not even mentioning the Inquisition. And of course, now we have the big one. Millions killed.

  “No, my friends,” Wiesenthal again concluded, “the Vatican, the church, has lost its right in the eyes of God, in the eyes of justice—even to exist.” Then he turned to our own favorite friend Father Hugh O’Flaherty and said: “But not you Hugh. Not you. Of course, Hudal is another story. He is the Devil’s church-representative at the Vatican which has without a doubt become the Devil’s location. And yes, that is the way I feel. True Christianity has been usurped by Devils! “Yes,” Wiesenthal said, “these catholic priests were the worst of the supporters of all of the Nazis that escaped to South America as well as to the Middle East. In this case, by worst I mean the ones most successful in their objective. You know,” Wiesenthal stridently said: “Look at Stangl. They got him to Sao Paulo and a job in a Volkswagon factory no less!”

  Al then told me that if Wiesenthal knew, if Wiesenthal was there as part of the kidnapping event and the questioning of ‘anonymous,’ he never said it outright, he never admitted it. ‘Anonymous’ therefore, for all intents and purposes, remained anonymous.

  * * *

  Later, when Al repeated to me what it was that Wiesenthal felt regarding the church’s violation, he added:

  “Frankie, Wiesenthal’s right. He’s right. Shut it down. Shut the mothafucka down.” Now, Al’s heritage is Jewish. But he’s a stone-cold Jewish atheist and identifies himself as a cultural/historical Jew, like secular, meaning non-religious. But he knew he could talk to me that way because although I’m Italian Catholic, like him I’m really culturally Italian and not at all religious. But I responded reasonably and said: “Al, keep in mind that in America nowadays the church helps a lot of people and it’s growing and getting better—especially in the cities.”

  Al wouldn’t have any of it and answered: “But Frankie, this is 1958 and Hudal is still operating and all those Nazis got away with it. They got away with it and they’re still getting away with it. Hudal’s still operating! I don’t know why Mossad doesn’t just take him out. I can’t figure it out. Just take the motha’ fucka’ out! I think we need to bring back Murder Incorporated. Re-incarnate these guys. Bring in Lansky, Bugsy, Lepke, Kid Twist—even Luciano and the boys! Then we’ll see what happens.”

  This brief concoction of a conversation happened when Al called me from across the ocean. Of course, he urgently wanted to hear about Willy. It was I who goaded him into our brief interlude regarding the Wiesenthal stuff. But he prefaced all the Willy questions he had by ending his tirade against the Vatican, the church, and Hudal by also calling the church: “the most successful cult in existence, and the inner machinations of the church, pure evil.”

  But then he went right to Willy and wouldn’t let me distract him again. I began telling him the latest.

  “It’s Saturday here, Al. I arrived at the hospital kind of early at 9:15am. Gloria was already there. She had me beat by about ten or fifteen minutes. She met me at the elevator with a cup of coffee in her hands, leaned toward me while holding the coffee steady and kissed me on the cheek. Don’t get jealous, Al. It’s you she really loves.”

  “Frankie, c’mon, get to it.”

  “Okay. The precinct kept Morgan on the night-shift inside Willy’s room while Tommy was on duty in the hall outside the room. Morgan told us that Willy woke up at exactly 2:10 am and started making sounds. He said Willy seemed eager to talk, like specifically wanting to say something to someone. Morgan told Willy that everything was okay and that Gloria and I would be arriving early in the morning and that Willy should try to sleep until then.

  “So now here we were waiting for any sign of Willy at least beginning to stir. Then we were grateful that his eyes suddenly opened. He saw us and ever so slightly nodded along with making some kind of weird facial expression that we could see was his attempt at a smile.

  “Hi, Willy,” I said.

  I spoke softly because there was some new news that I was sure would surprise him—even shock him although it had nothing to do with his condition. Well, here it is. Willy’s okay and getting better. But that’s not the new news. He woke up this morning and he was alert for the first time. He smiled at Gloria and at me and then at the nurse who walked in to check on him. He also waved to Morgan. No doubt he’s healing. Then it happened. He said a few separate words—not part of a single sentence. Just a few separate words and then started blinking once or twice to every question Gloria was asking. One blink meant yes, two meant no.”
>
  “Where’s the package, Willy?” Where is it?”

  After the questioning, Gloria told me that her quizzing of Willy about the package was a ruse. Apparently, she needed to hear from Willy the entire story of how he may have hidden the package and who he might have given it to, up to the time that she herself found it. But she didn’t want anyone to know that she found it until you got back. She only wanted to tell you that she had it. She had the utmost confidence that you would know how to take it from there.

  “In answer to Gloria’s question about where the package was, Willy actually mouthed what looked like the word ‘spell.’

  “Gloria repeated it to him: ‘Spell, you want to spell it out?’

  “One blink.”

  “Then Willy kind of verbally dragged out his answer: ‘S-t-e-v-i-e.’”

  “You gave the package to Stevie? Stevie from your class? Your girlfriend?”

  “One blink. Gloria then told us she knows Stevie and that everyone knows that Willy and Stevie have always liked one another and confide in each other. Then Gloria asked him ‘why?’”

  “He actually mouthed it answering: ‘H-i-d-e.’”

  “Gloria repeated herself: ‘Stevie has it and is hiding it for you?’”

  “One blink.”

  “Willy, you mean Stevie Wharton? Sheila?”

  “One blink.”

  “What about her, Willy? What about her?”

  “’H-a-s,’ then he waited. Al, Willy was actually speaking. He seemed all normal. Like his mind was good. Then a new word. It was ‘p-a-c-k.’”

  “At that, Gloria jumped on it. ‘Willy, you mean Stevie has the package?’”

  “Willy blinked once.”

  “F-a-m-i-l-y . . . o-n . . . t-r-i-p.”

  “Willy, you mean Stevie and her family are on some trip, maybe a vacation and she’s holding the package for you?”

  “Willy almost smiled and blinked once.

  “Gloria then told me that the girl’s name is Sheila Wharton and that the humorous story that almost everyone knows because Sheila’s always explaining it. It’s is when her little toddler brother couldn’t say ‘Sheila,’ and pronounced it something like ‘Seemie.’ Then that funny sounding name eventually turned into ‘Stevie’ so that everyone in the family began calling her Stevie, and apparently, she liked it and that’s it.

  “She’s a very cute and intelligent girl, exactly Willy’s age and they’ve been in the same class since Kindergarten. Everyone knows it. They’re inseparable. Their friends all think they’ll marry some day”

  Willy suddenly began to spell.”

  “P-a-c-k . . . t-r-i-p. . . .”

  “What,” Gloria astoundingly asked? “Willy, you mean you think the package went along on the trip with Stevie and her family?”

  “One blink.”

  Morgan, Gloria, and me—we started to make guesses. Like, where did the family go if it was a vacation? The first thing Morgan blurted out even without really thinking was “Europe. They’re in Europe.” Gloria and I looked at each other and instantly felt Morgan hit it. If it was a vacation, probably Europe was it. Of course, it could be a trip to the West Coast or anywhere in the USA, or maybe the Caribbean But somehow Europe sounded right. But the question then was if it was Europe, which country—where?

  I guess I wasn’t as affected with anxiety or tension about Willy the same as all of us had been, and therefore was more clear-headed. And I wanted to make a good guess about where the Whartons might be but Morgan again blurted out: ‘London or Paris!’ And again, Gloria and I instantly turned to each other and knew that Morgan was right. It was either London or Paris, or maybe even both.

  Even at that, Gloria wouldn’t reveal to anyone, including Morgan or me that her motive to find the Wharton’s had nothing to do with the package. She had the package. Her motive therefore concerned an eerie feeling she had that the Whartons might be a target but that they probably wouldn’t know why unless somehow the location of the package was forced out of Stevie.

  Nevertheless, despite all the commotion, things started happening fast; we had people at the precinct scouring all the travel agencies located in the Bronx and Manhattan trying to identify any of them that may have booked a trip for the Wharton family. If so, it could be we’ll be getting their itinerary—air transport and hotel.

  Al’s idea was that Jimmy should start calling hotels in London and Paris. So, while we would be doing the travel agencies here, Jimmy and his guys would be doing hotels there. The idea was to intercept the Whartons. Maybe. Hopefully.

  But Gloria seemed anxious. She kept referring to not having enough patience waiting for Al. She kind of knew that Jimmy would get Al involved in their pursuit of the Wharton itinerary as it related to hotel reservations for incoming guests and such, so it would be a while till she would see him again. However, she was determined not to reveal to anyone that it was she who had possession of the authentic microfilm.

  . 9 .

  THE STEVIE TRAIL

  Yes, Gloria was right. Al and Jimmy got right to it. Hotels. It was going to be easy they thought. Father Hugh

  O’Flaherty offered them free rein; use of telephones, directories, whatever they needed. They thanked him for the offer and for his obvious understanding of what they were after, but the apartment was too cramped. They decided to rent a two-bedroom apartment in another hotel nearby because apartment # 3 in O’Flaherty’s building was no longer available.

  The crazy thing was that Al and Jimmy felt weird because Hugh’s little townhouse/ apartment-hotel was directly outside the walls of the Vatican near to the Vatican Museum. Therefore, it was also near one of the several entrances to the Vatican. Alex Kaye, a private detective from the Bronx, and Jimmy McKay of British Secret Service, stationed in London, figured that a plan might easily be conceived and very definitely implemented that first, could get them into the Vatican, and next, into Hudal’s lair. After all, they were there—in this tiny perimeter of Rome named The Vatican. They both knew that either could pull the trigger without blinking. Just knowing that Hudal would be within a stone’s throw and that all sorts of archival information, including the specific data they wanted was right there. It gave them the feeling that such data could, without a shadow of a doubt, be captured and at the same time, Hudal would be history.

  Alas, and of course, they wouldn’t do it. It was not a matter of couldn’t. It was only a matter of wouldn’t. More pressing they were there to gain access to the trail that would lead them directly to Stevie/Sheila, and then hopefully, to retrieve the package. That was priority number one. But they couldn’t neglect talking about any plan to penetrate the Vatican, and with luck on their side, get to Hudal. Of course, the strange parallel issue was that they kept obsessing about the package when in reality Gloria already had it in her possession.

  “If that were the case,” Al said to O’Flaherty, “Even if we could get to Hudal, we would need to know where to look. Whatdya say?”

  “I say,” O’Flaherty answered, “that it would have been stored in the Vatican’s Secretary of State office, and if so the file would be included in the State Archive responsible for correspondence and things related to commissions of one sort or another. What comes to mind is any file that might have the title of: The Pontifical Commission of Assistance in Rome.

  “My associates and I have always felt that this sort of ambiguous title was a cover for the Odessa Monastery Route, and for the Nazi bolt-hole as an example of escape hatches like the one from South Tyrol to the port of Genoa here in Italy. However, with Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini’s influence, it could be that all such materials were transferred to the Department of Grants and Appointments which I believe was perhaps surreptitiously supervised by none other than Bishop Alois Hudal. It was that Montini had been a favorite of the conservatives and was rumored to have ambition to become Pope. Therefore, for many years he had an aura of power.

  “I have never seen the office that houses this Department of Gran
ts and Appointments but by the process of elimination, I believe it may be housed somewhere in the Vatican Museum, almost right outside of my door here. Probably somewhere in the basement where there is a maze of rooms looking like a labrynthian blueprint.”

  “It’s good to know, Hugh,” Al said. “Except that now our first order of business is to get to this Wharton family. Let’s do London first.”

  With that, they decided to first look into three-star hotels figuring that such hotels are nice enough so that it would be safe for the children and, in addition, also reasonably priced. Al then called Gloria at home in the Bronx in order to get any further update on Willy but more important to ask about the financial condition of the Wharton family.

  Gloria was ecstatic to hear from him and told him the Wharton father, William, was a real-estate investor and owned more than a dozen buildings in Queens so he was obviously fairly well off. The only other thing Gloria told Al was that she did have something to tell him but wouldn’t talk about it over the phone. She told him that Willy was okay and then made it clear that the rest she had to tell him was equally important.

  “Gloria,” Al quickly stated, “you’ve got to tell me now.”

  “Can’t do it now—not over the phone,” she quickly answered. It’s important, even vital, but still I cannot say it over the phone. Come home as soon as possible. That’s all I can say now. But trust me. I know what I’m talking about.”

  They ended the conversation with Al telling Jimmy what Gloria had just said.

  “I guess you’ve got to skedaddle back home,” Jimmy answered. “You’ve got to trust what she says. We both know she’s very smart. But at the moment, I’m still wondering what was Stevie doing in a school with Willy since her father was affluent? She probably could have been a student at a private school in Manhattan. Right?”

  The answer was that even though Willy and Stevie went to the same school, because it had a special advanced honors program, in this case located in a public grammar school it turned out that in such a school, both more or less affluent kids would be found comingled. With that sort of information regarding Mr. Wharton’s affluence, Al and Jimmy had more confidence to investigate three as well as four-star hotels. Jimmy stepped in and called one of his M-16 agents who then put a squad of several of these secret service men on the job of finding any target hotel that had the Wharton family on the register. Jimmy told his contact to let him know immediately if they located the family and asked them if so, to then quarantine them.