“We going to 84 West 119th, and the restaurant is in Forest Hills, not out of way at all,” he said.
Despite the rain and traffic, they managed to arrive there in time for a meal of Bukharian specialties. Winkler invited Igor to join them, but he politely refused and waited in the car, keeping very busy with his cell phone. After they ate, they proceeded directly to the Weinman residence, arriving just at eight o’clock.
The men made their way up the long set of concrete steps leading to the front door of the tidy brownstone. The door was ajar, and when Winkler knocked, it slowly swung open. They saw a dozen people inside, saying their goodbyes and hugging a woman wearing a black dress with long sleeves; they assumed she was Mrs. Weinman.
Winkler and Rollins entered, standing off to the side while the others passed through the narrow foyer and left. After a couple of minutes they were alone, and the woman welcomed them warmly and invited them into the front room.
“Mr. Winkler, I’m sorry you’re about a week too late. My husband, Rabbi Weinman—may he rest in peace—died eight days ago, after a rather short bout with cancer. This evening was the end of our shiva period—seven days of mourning.”
Winkler gulped and turned pale; he’d come all this way, and the man he was to meet was no more.
“You look shocked, but I told your secretary. I guess I was a little ambiguous. I suppose I still can’t admit that he’s no longer alive.”
“Please accept our sincere condolences,” said Winkler, disappointed that he had missed meeting the rabbi by a few days. “How long had you and the rabbi been married?”
“Ten years, almost to the day. I was his second wife. His first wife, Rivka, died, and we married a year later. But we’d known each other for many years. He was such a kind man, a good man. He was a few years older than me, but not old, no, not at all. He loved to talk, to go out, to be with people, to travel. You wouldn’t believe how many people were at the funeral, maybe a thousand, and the visits have been nonstop all this past week. He touched so many people, and they don’t know how they’ll get along without him. Neither do I, but in these things, we have no choice; we must go on, and with God’s help we will.”
“Mrs. Weinman, we appreciate your willingness to see us, but you must be exhausted. If you weren’t with your husband in Argentina back in the seventies, then should we assume you don’t have anything you can share with us about the Guttmann affair—or perhaps the rabbi spoke to you about this?” Winkler asked.
“You’re correct. I wasn’t with Jonah in Argentina, and the whole thing was past history that only came up a few times in conversations. Whenever he would see an article in The New York Times about something going on in Argentina, he would recall his years down there and the terrible things that happened—the killings, the disappearances.”
“Then he never specifically mentioned Ricardo Guttmann or any of his family?”
“No—not until about two weeks ago. Just before they put him on morphine. He was in such pain. Then one night out of the blue he said, ‘Sarah, there’s something important I need you to get in the vault.’ The key was in his desk drawer. I knew he had a safe deposit box down at First Independence Bank, about a mile from here—he deducted the safe deposit box rent on our tax return—but I never went there.
“So, first thing the next morning I went to the bank, and they let me in the safe deposit box. Both our names were on it. To tell you the truth, I don’t remember ever signing anything about it, but sure enough, they had my signature on a card, and they let me in.
“I couldn’t imagine what he would keep in a safe deposit box. We were not rich people, Mr. Winkler. A rabbi can make a decent living, but it’s certainly not a fortune.
The rewards come in personal satisfaction from helping people, in teaching, and celebrating the holidays and life cycle events, the good times and the bad times, with the members of the congregation. Doing God’s work.”
“So what did you find, Mrs. Weinman?” Winkler was more than curious and becoming impatient.
“Just two envelopes. One contained a certificate showing ownership of two burial plots, one for Jonah, next to Rivka, and the other he said was for me, next to him. Always a thoughtful gentleman, wanting to have his ladies, one to each side of him.”
“And the other envelope, Mrs. Weinman? Did that have something to do with Ricardo Guttmann?” Winkler couldn’t stand the suspense anymore.
“The other envelope was large—you know, the big manila type—and it was sealed. Jonah said I should never open it and should only give it to Ricardo Guttmann or a member of his family—or their representative. He said there was a letter from Ricardo Guttmann.”
For the next fifteen minutes, Winkler briefed the rabbi’s widow on his assignment for Maria Theresa Romero. He told her about the charter jet crash that reportedly took Guttmann’s life, how Ms. Romero came to believe she was Guttmann’s daughter, and how he met her in Aruba after the death of the woman she always believed was her mother. Mrs. Weinman seemed to know a fair amount about the disappearances in Argentina but hadn’t ever linked them to the Guttmann affair. She had many questions.
“You know, it’s different when you hear about atrocities happening to so many people, and then you know, or hear about, someone who’s directly affected, like your client.
Like the Holocaust, a mind-numbing event in history, which has so much more meaning when you meet a survivor,” she said.
“This is an incredible story—it’s bashert, we would say in Yiddish, it’s fate—you being Guttmann’s former lawyer, then meeting his daughter decades later. And how did you come to the rabbi?”
“J.B. Winston, the owner of the charter aircraft that went down. We met him earlier today, and he said he’d met your husband years ago and felt there might be more to learn. He suggested we pay him a visit.”
The rabbi’s widow was beginning to warm up to Winkler, and she was clearly sympathetic to the plight of Maria Theresa Romero. “What a terrible thing to believe you knew your parents your whole life, then to find out you were stolen from your real parents and don’t know if they’re dead or alive.” Mrs. Weinman sighed and shook her head.
“Mr. Winkler, for over fifty years no one has contacted my husband to claim the letter. I guess this must be so, because my husband still had it. How long am I going to live? No one knows. I have no one to give it to. You say you represent the daughter of Ricardo Guttmann and you used to be his lawyer. I’m thinking maybe you’re the one, Mr. Winkler, the emissary who was sent to pick it up. What do you think?”
“Mrs. Weinman, I assure you, your husband would have wanted me to have that letter.” Winkler’s heart was pounding, and his palms were sweating. It was as if someone was about to give him the key to a box containing the Holy Grail. “Should we go to the vault with you tomorrow to pick it up?” he asked.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said. She walked over to the other side of the room and opened the sliding glass door of a breakfront, home to generations of silver wine cups, candlesticks, and trays. Wedged in-between two worn leather-covered prayer books was the manila envelope. The flap was sealed with red sealing wax and the rabbi’s personal seal. The front bore these words:
“Only to be given to Ricardo Guttmann, a member of his family or their representative.”
It was signed Rabbi Jonah B. Weinman, and under the signature it was dated December 23, 1976.
“Mr. Winkler, please, take the envelope. By the time I brought it back from the vault, my husband was in no condition to speak about it, so I don’t know what the letter says, just that there’s a letter from Ricardo Guttmann. I hope it helps you in your search, but since Jonah never discussed the contents with me, please don’t open it here, and don’t tell me what you find out. For some reason, this envelope frightens me. For you, maybe it will lead to something good. But for me, it reminds me of the terrible things Jonah told me about what happened in Argentina—and his pain when he asked me to get it from the vault.�
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“Certainly, Mrs. Weinman. If the letter leads to any major discoveries, I’m sure you’ll hear about it on the news. But we’ll respect your wishes and not involve you any further. And thank you so much for seeing us at this most difficult time.”
“I know Jonah would have wanted me to see you. Go and be well, Mr. Winkler. You and your friend should both go and be well.” Mrs. Weinman showed them to the door. “I have an early flight to Ft. Lauderdale tomorrow. I’m going to stay a while with my sister-in-law. She hasn’t been doing too well.”
“Thanks again, Mrs. Weinman. Here’s my card, just in case you think of something,” said Winkler.
CHAPTER 22
“WHERE TO NOW, GENTLEMEN? Time to relax?” Igor said to them once they were back inside the town car.
Winkler and Rollins looked at each other in amazement, then Winkler said, “What do you think, Luke? Do we open it right now, or wait until we get back to the office? I think we still have time to catch the last flight out this evening.”
“David, I don’t know about you, but I certainly wouldn’t be able to sleep if we really did have a letter from Ricardo Guttmann. Did you see the date of the rabbi’s signature? December 23, 1976. That’s about a month after the crash. That letter could be nothing, or it could hold the answers to a whole lot of questions.”
“Should we open it here?” asked Rollins.
“No,” replied Winkler. “This is too important.”
“You fellows like to go back to Russian restaurant for a little while?” said Igor, turning his head a bit as he kept one eye on the road. “They stay open late, close after midnight.”
“Sure, good idea. We’ve got time. Let’s spend a few minutes and see what this envelope is all about,” said Winkler. “It may well hold the key to a missing fortune.”
Within minutes the town car pulled up in front of the restaurant, and Winkler and Rollins got out, leaving Igor in the car. It was dark, and the off-again, on-again rain was on-again, pouring hard.
“We’re just going to have a drink and be out within half an hour,” said Winkler.
As soon as they stepped out of the car the driver made a phone call in Russian.
Once inside, they asked the hostess to seat them at a table in the back, in a relatively quiet section away from the main dining area. Though it was late, the restaurant was still full of patrons, mostly Russian. They each ordered a drink, which was delivered promptly, then turned their attention to the manila envelope and its contents.
“David, before you open it, let’s take some precautions. Let me slice through the envelope rather than breaking the wax seal. We may need to authenticate it. I’ve got a sharp pen knife.” Rollins pulled a small knife from his pocket, then put on rubber gloves.
“Rubber gloves, Luke? You certainly come prepared! But in a restaurant?”
“Second nature, I guess. You can never tell if we’re going to be dealing with evidence. I don’t want to contaminate whatever’s inside with our own fingerprints.”
Winkler looked on as Rollins neatly cut through the top of the manila envelope, pulling a smaller white envelope from the inside. The flap was unsealed, and the outside of the white envelope bore the rabbi’s name and address. There was no return address.
“Can you make out the postmark?” asked Winkler.
“Nope, it’s blurred. Let’s take a look at the letter.”
Rollins took the letter out of the envelope, three pages, single sided, in handwriting, with a separate sheet attached. Four pages total.
“David, it’s in Spanish! Can you read Spanish?”
“Not very well, Luke. How about you?”
“I can give it a try. When I was in the Army, I went through an intensive course in Spanish.” Rollins paused. “They can teach a dog anything. In my day, I wasn’t too bad, but it’s been decades. Let’s see how far I can get.
“First, it’s a no-brainer. The letter is dated December 16, 1976. That’s three weeks after the crash.” Rollins’ eyes scanned the first page, then he proceeded to translate the letter, line by line:
“Dear Jonah,
“I am writing in very unusual, difficult circumstances. By now you will probably have read or heard that I was killed in an air crash in Mexico. This is obviously not so, a case of mistaken identity and maybe attempted murder, but you must not tell anyone that I have contacted you, or your life—and theirs—will be in serious danger.”
“I’m doing better than I thought,” he said, looking to Winkler for approval. “No extra charge for translation services.”
“Just keep on going, Luke. You’re doing great. Thank you, Uncle Sam!”
“You did not know this, but I have been investing ransom monies for the Montonero guerillas in Argentina. This has gone on for many years, and until now I was doing very well for them, growing their capital substantially.
“Recently, however, I incurred serious losses. Some very speculative investments. I told them I would make good, but they have lost patience, and I received information they made a contract on my life. I had to disappear for a while, to get the funds to repay them. I decided I would take ‘loans’ from a number of the banks in my group. But I needed to be free from their eyes for a few weeks to arrange everything because the amounts were too large to take all at once.
“While I was the financier of the guerillas, I was also a consultant for the U.S. government, providing them with information on the movements of the guerillas and their internal operations. My information was not that helpful to them, but they paid well. When I told them what had happened, they agreed to help me get the time I needed. The CIA arranged to have me switch places with a man who I was told looked exactly like me, at one of the stops on the flight from New York to Acapulco. I was told to leave my passport and driver’s license in the seat pocket in the plane. They were going to give me another set of identification papers to use on a temporary basis.
“I got off in Memphis, went to the men’s room, and waited there. I was told he would board in my place, and after my flight left I should quietly slip out the back of the flight lounge, which I did. I never saw the fellow, but I assume he boarded in my place for the continuation of the flight. They left a car for me in the parking lot.”
Rollins turned to the next page and continued.
“But the next day I was picked up on the street, arrested, and thrown in prison. It seems that the man who was my double was a convicted criminal who had recently escaped from prison. The CIA must have known this. We had our differences, but I do not know why they would have double-crossed me.
“When I read that the flight crashed, and the story of the missing head and hands—that my —” Rollins paused, searching for the right word. “—my charred remains consisted only of a torso—I was even more convinced that they were trying to murder me and made the flight go down. I assumed it was the Montoneros.
“So I am now in his place, in prison, thinking about how to get out of here without revealing my true identity. I must look so much like him that no one even questions who I really am, and they did not even bother to fingerprint me when they brought me here.”
Rollins turned to the third and final page.
“For now, I have told no one except you, and you must not tell anyone that you have heard from me. If the guerillas find out, they will certainly be enraged and torture anyone who has information until they find out where I am. No one in my family knows—not my wife, my brother, my parents. They all must believe that I have died, or they will face worse consequences than they are now facing with my death and what will soon be the failure of my banking empire.
“If I cannot sort this out, however, I want you to know that the funds I withdrew from my banks, which would cover only part of my losses, are safe in a Swiss bank, in a numbered account. I am writing a basic Power of Attorney on a separate page I will include with this letter, in blank, which can be used to withdraw them, but without the account number and password—which I will give you b
y phone when I can—and you can fill in if necessary. It will be effective immediately and remain in effect even if I am disabled or die. If the time comes when you have to use this, contact Klaus Wehrli at the Commerz Bank branch in Arosa, Switzerland. He is the one who handles this account. This information is ultimately only for the use of my family and to be given to them or a representative.”
“Can you believe this, Luke?” Winkler interrupted. “Did he ever get himself into a mess! First he screws up big time as banker for the bad guys, then he has to siphon money out of his own banks to keep them at bay but doesn’t quite finish the job.”
“David, let me finish,” replied Rollins, eager to go on with the translation to see if there were any more revelations.
“I have been in prison for three weeks. It is not the worst place, and in this situation probably the safest place I could be. It’s good that the guerillas think that I am dead.
“I am giving this letter to the prison psychologist, who seems to feel that I am not like all the others. I trust her. In this way, hopefully it will not be read by the prison authorities—but would they ever believe it anyhow?
“Thank you for your friendship.”
“It’s signed Ricardo Guttmann.”
“Damn, Luke, do you believe it? All these years, and no one could ever prove if he was on the plane or not, and if this letter is authentic—which it probably is—at least we know Guttmann didn’t go down with the plane.”
“Yes, David, and the Power of Attorney is right here. Short and sweet. He just authorizes the person whose name is to be completed on the form, and I’m filling in your name right now—if that’s OK with you—to have full authority over the account, including the power to withdraw funds and close the account.”
“Sure, Luke, but we’ve got to find that account number and password. The rabbi probably hid them apart from the letter, somewhere in the house. Based on the sixties furnishings, it sure doesn’t look like he cashed in for himself. Far too modest a place. And unless she’s a first-rate actress, Mrs. Weinman wasn’t in on it. Let’s assume the rabbi played it straight and was just holding on to the letter, as instructed. Or maybe Guttmann never provided the account number and password.”
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