Philip Kerr - A Quiet Flame

I put a cigarette in my face and lit it. I didn’t want a cigarette, but it gave me time to think of something to say. Colonel Montalban cleared his throat. It sounded like a lifebelt hitting the water above my head.

“As soon as we have something to report, we’ll be in touch, ma’am.”

When we were on the stairs outside the antechamber, I thanked him.

“For what?”

“For coming to my aid back there. That question she asked.”

“ ‘How will you go about it?’ ”

“That’s right.”

“And how will you go about it?” He grinned amiably and took a light off my cigarette.

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll go and look for inspiration, probably. Stick a gun in its face. Slap it around a bit. See what happens. The forensic, judicial approach. On the other hand, I might just have to hope that I get lucky. That usually works for me. I may not look like it, Colonel, but I’m quite a lucky guy. This morning I was in prison. Five minutes ago, I had my hand inside the cleavage of the wife of the president of Argentina. Believe me, for a German that’s as lucky as luck can buy you these days.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Evita didn’t seem ill.”

“Nor do you.”

“Not now, maybe. But I was.”

“Pack’s a good doctor,” said the colonel. “The best there is. You were both lucky to have someone like him treating you.”

“I expect so.”

“I’ll call the von Baders and say that you want to speak to them again. Perhaps there was something we missed before.”

“There’s always something that gets missed. On account of the fact that detectives are human and humans make mistakes.”

“Shall we say at midday tomorrow?”

I nodded.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll drive you back to your hotel.”

I shook my head. “No, thanks, Colonel. I’ll walk, if you don’t mind. The landlady sees me arriving in that white Jaguar of yours, she’s liable to put my room rate up.”

THEY WERE PLEASED to see me at the Hotel San Martin. Of course, a lot of that was to do with the fact that the secret police had turned over my room-although not so as you would have noticed. There wasn’t much to turn over. Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd greeted me like they hadn’t expected ever to see me again.

“One hears stories about the secret police and that kind of thing,” Mr. Lloyd told me over a welcome-back glass of whiskey in the hotel bar. “But, well, it’s not something we’ve encountered before.”

“There was a misunderstanding about my cedula, that’s all,” I said. “I don’t suppose it will happen again.”

All the same, I went ahead and paid my monthly bill, just in case it did. It helped to put the Lloyds at ease. Losing a guest was one thing. Losing a guest who hadn’t paid was quite another. They were nice people, but they were in it for the money, after all. Who isn’t?

I went up to my room. There was a bed, a table and chair, an armchair, a three-bar electric fire, a radio, a telephone, and a bathroom. Naturally, I’d added a few personal touches of my own. A bottle, a couple of glasses, a chess set, a Spanish dictionary, a Weimar edition of Goethe I’d bought in a secondhand bookshop, a suitcase and some clothes. All my worldly possessions. I’d like to have seen young Werther cope with Gunther’s sorrows. I poured myself a drink, set out the chess set, switched on the radio, and then sat in the armchair. There were some telephone messages in an envelope. All but one of these was from Anna Yagubsky. The one that wasn’t was from Isabel Pekerman. I didn’t know anyone called Isabel Pekerman.

Agustin Magaldi came on Radio El Mundo, singing “Vagabundo.” This had been a huge hit for him in the thirties. I turned off the radio and ran a bath. I thought about going out to get something to eat, and had another drink instead. I was just thinking about going to bed when the telephone rang. It was Mrs. Lloyd.

“A Senora Pekerman calling.”

“Who?”

“She rang before. She says you know her.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Lloyd. You’d better put her through.”

I heard a couple of clicks and the tail end of another woman saying “Thank you.”

“Senora Pekerman? This is Carlos Hausner. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure.”

“Oh, yes, we have.”

“Then you have the advantage of me, Senora Pekerman. I’m afraid I don’t remember you.”

“Are you alone, Senor Hausner?”

I glanced around the four bare, silent walls at my half-empty bottle and my hopeless game of chess. I was alone, all right. Outside my window, people were walking up and down the street. But they might as well have been on Saturn, for all the good it did me. Sometimes the profound silence of that room scared me, because it seemed to echo something silent within myself. Across the street, at the church of Saint Catherine of Siena, a bell began to toll.

“Yes, I’m alone, Senora Pekerman. What can I do for you?”

“They asked me to come in tomorrow afternoon, Senor Hausner,” she said. “But I just got offered a small part in a play on Corrientes. It’s a small part. But it’s a good part. In a good play. Besides, things have moved on since last we met. Anna’s told me all about you. About how you’re helping her to look for her aunt and uncle.”

I winced, wondering how many other people she’d told.

“When exactly did we meet, Senora Pekerman?”

“At Senor von Bader’s house. I was the woman who pretended to be his wife.”

She paused. So did I. Or rather, so did my heart.

“Remember me now?”

“Yes, I remember you. The dog wouldn’t stay with you. It came with me and von Bader.”

“Well, it’s not my dog, Senor Hausner,” she said, as if I still didn’t quite get what she was talking about. “To be honest, I don’t think I really expected you to dig up anything about Anna’s aunt and uncle. But of course, you did. I mean it’s not much but it’s something. Some proof that they did at least enter this country. You see, I’m in the same boat as Anna. I’m Jewish, too. And I also had some relatives who entered the country illegally and then disappeared.”

“I don’t think you should say anything else on the telephone, Senora Pekerman. Perhaps we could meet and talk this over.”

IN THE EVENINGS, when she wasn’t acting, Isabel Pekerman worked at a milonga, which was a kind of tango club, on Corrientes. I didn’t know much about the tango, except that it had originated in Argentine brothels. That was certainly the impression I had from the Club Seguro. It was down some steps, underneath a small neon sign, and at the far end of a yard lit by a single naked flame. Out of the flickering shadows a large man approached. The vigilante guarding the door. He had a whistle around his neck to summon the police in the event of a dispute he couldn’t handle.

“Are you carrying a knife?” he asked.

“No.”

He seemed surprised at this admission. “All the same, I have to search you.”

“So why ask the question?”

“Because if you’re lying, then I’d figure you might be out to cause trouble,” he said, patting me down. “And then I’ll have to keep an eye on you.” When he had satisfied himself I wasn’t armed, he waved me to the door. Music, which was mostly an accordion and some violins, was edging its way into the yard.

In the doorway was a sort of coop that was home to the casita woman, a largish Negress who sat in an easy chair humming an altogether different tune from the one played by the tango orchestra. On her thigh was a paper napkin and a pair of lamb chops. Maybe they were her dinner, but they might just as easily have been the remains of the last man to cause trouble for the huge vigilante. She smiled a big, uneven smile that was as white as a swath of snowdrops, and gave me a sizing up-and-down look.