Philip Kerr - A Quiet Flame

“I called you twice. But you weren’t there.”

“I was arrested. Briefly.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story. Like Isabel’s. Mostly I didn’t go back home with her on account of you, Anna. That’s what I told myself this morning, anyway. I was feeling quite proud of myself for having resisted the temptation to go to bed with her. Until you told me she was dead.”

“So you think I’m right, that she might have been murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Why would anyone kill Isabel?”

“Being the kind of actress she was is not without risk,” I said. “But that’s not why she was killed. I imagine it had something to do with me. Maybe her phone was tapped. Maybe my phone is tapped. Maybe she was being followed. Maybe I’m being followed. I don’t know.”

“Do you know who it was?”

“I’ve a very good idea who issued the orders. But it’s best you don’t know any more than I’ve told you. This is quite dangerous enough already.”

“Then we have to go to the police.”

“No, we don’t.” I grinned, amused at her naivete. “No, angel, we definitely do not go to the police.”

“Are you suggesting they had something to do with it?”

“I’m not suggesting anything at all. Look, Anna, I came here to tell you that I think I might have found out something. Something important about Directive Eleven. A place on a map. I had this stupid, romantic notion that you and I might catch the night train to Tucuman and go and take a look at this place. But that was before I heard about Isabel Pekerman. Now I think it’s best I don’t say any more. About anything.”

“And you think that trying to shield me from something like some naive schoolgirl doesn’t make you sound stupid and romantic?” she said.

“Believe me. It’s safer that I don’t say any more.”

She sighed. “Well, this should be an interesting lunch. With you not saying anything.”

Lon Chaney came back with the wine. He opened it and we went through the pantomime of me tasting it and him pouring it. As absurd as a Japanese tea ceremony. As soon as he had filled Anna’s glass, she picked it up and drained it. He smiled awkwardly, and started to refill it. Anna took the bottle away from him, poured it herself, and drank a second glass as quickly as the first.

“Well, what will we talk about now?” she asked.

“Take it easy with that,” I said.

The waiter went away. He could sense trouble coming.

“We could talk about football, I suppose,” she said. “Or politics. Or what’s on at the cinema. But you should start. You’re better at avoiding certain subjects than I am. After all, I imagine you’ve had a lot more practice.” She poured herself some more wine. “I know, let’s talk about the war. Better than that, let’s talk about your war. What were you, anyway? Gestapo? SS? Did you work in a concentration camp? Did you kill any Jews? Did you kill lots of Jews? Are you here because you’re a Nazi war criminal and because there’s a price on your head? Will they hang you if they ever catch up with you?” She lit a cigarette nervously. “How am I doing so far, not talking about what we came here to talk about? By the way, what was it that made you take me on as a client, Bernie? Guilt? Are you trying to make yourself feel better about what you did then by helping me now. Is that it? Yes, I can see how that might work.”

Her eyes narrowed and she bit her lip as if she was putting her whole body into each stroke of the verbal whip she was wielding.

“The SS man with a conscience. It’s quite a story when you think about it. A little corny, but then real stories often are, don’t you agree? The Jewess and the German officer. Someone should write an opera about it. One of those avant-garde ones, with miserable songs, minor keys, and bum notes. Only I do think that the baritone who plays you should be someone who can’t really sing. Or better still, won’t. That’s his leitmotif. And hers? Something impotent, repetitive, and hopeless.”

Anna picked up her glass, only this time she stood up when she had finished it. “Thanks for lunch.”

“Sit down,” I said. “You’re behaving like a child.”

“Maybe that’s because you’re treating me like one.”

“Maybe I am, but I’d rather that than see your body on a slab in the police morgue. That’s my only real motif, Anna.”

“Now you sound like my father. No, wait. I think you’re a little older than he is.”

And then she left.

I FINISHED what was left of the bottle and went to the Casa Rosada, to look through all the information Montalban had given me about Old Comrades in Argentina. But there was nothing about a Hans Kammler. But then neither was there anything about Otto Skorzeny. Apparently, some old comrades were beyond suspicion. Later on, I telephoned Geller to let him know I was coming back to Tucuman and to ask if I might borrow his jeep.

“Are you planning to visit Ricardo again?” he asked. “Because he still hasn’t quite forgiven me for telling you where he lives.” Geller laughed. “I don’t think he likes you.”

“I’m sure of it.”

“By the way, you were asking about bastards who give us bastards a bad name. You’ll never guess who showed up here the other day. Otto Skorzeny.”

“Is he working for Capri, too?”

“That’s the funny thing. He’s not. At least, not according to my records, anyway.”

“See if you can find out what he’s doing there,” I said. “And while you’re at it, see what you can find out about a man called Hans Kammler.”

“Kammler? Never heard of him.”

“He was a general in the SS, Pedro.”

Geller groaned.

“What’s the matter?”

“Why ever did I agree to the name Pedro?” he said. “Every time I hear it, I wince. It’s a peasant’s name. It makes me think I probably smell of horseshit.”

“Not so as you’d notice, Pedro. Not in Tucuman. Everything in Tucuman smells of horseshit.”

In the evening I drove to the railway station. As usual, the place was full of people, many of them Indians from Paraguay and Bolivia and easily identifiable in their colorful blankets and bowler hats. At first, I didn’t see her standing at the head of the Mitre line platform. She was wearing a sensible two-piece woolen suit, gloves, and a scarf. By her shapely leg was a small valise and in her hand was a ticket. She appeared to be waiting for me.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” she said.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked.

“I might say that this is a free country, except that it’s not,” she said.

“You really think you’re coming to Tucuman?”

“That’s what it says on my ticket.”

“I told you before. This is dangerous.”

“My heart is in my mouth.” She shrugged. “Everything’s dangerous when you read the small print, Gunther. Sometimes it’s a good idea not to bring your glasses. Besides, these are my relatives, not yours. Always supposing you have such things as relatives.”

“Didn’t I tell you? They found me under a rock.”

“It figures. You have a number of rocklike qualities.”

“Then I guess I can hardly stop you, angel.”

“It might be fun to see you try.”

“All right.” I let out a sigh. “I know when I’m beaten.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Have you been to Tucuman before?”

“I never saw the point of spending twenty-three hours on a train just to end up in a flea-bitten dump. That’s what everyone says, anyway. That there are just a couple of churches and what passes for a university.”

“That, and a couple of million acres of sugarcane.”

“You make it sound like I’ve been missing something.”