Philip Kerr - The Shot

It was Davidson himself who answered.

‘Tom, come on in.’ He was a smooth, sharply dressed little George Raft of a guy who was possessed of a politician’s easy manner. ‘Here, let me introduce you to everyone.’

Three men stood up from an ersatz leopard-skin couch that curved around the Lucullan suite’s rough stone walls. The drapes were pulled over the silver-screen-sized window, as if privacy was of paramount importance.

‘Morris Dalitz, Lewis Rosenstiel, and Efraim Hani. Gentlemen, this is Tom Jefferson.’

Even before he’d greeted everyone, Tom had guessed he was the only gentile in the room.

‘Pleased to meet you, Tom,’ said Morris Dalitz.

His was the only name Tom recognised. A big man, with a fleshy, big-nosed face like a coarser version of Adlai Stevenson, the guy crossing the thick pile rug to shake Tom’s hand was Moe Dalitz, the godfather of Las Vegas. Or so the Kefauver Committee had said a few years back. All Tom could say about Rosenstiel, catching sight of the man’s fancy diamond cufflinks as he, too, shook Tom by the hand, was that he looked rich. Which was the only way to look in Vegas. The third guy, Hani, wearing a plain white short-sleeved shirt and open-toed sandals, and who looked as poor as Rosenstiel looked rich, just lit a cigarette and nodded. For the first few minutes it was Davidson who did most of the smooth talking. That seemed to be what he was good at.

‘Get you a drink, Tom? We’re all having Martinis.’

Tom saw that everyone didn’t include Hani, who was drinking iced water.

‘Thanks, I’ll just have a Coke.’

‘Keep a clear head for business, huh? I like that. It’s the only way to survive in this town.’ Davidson fixed the drink himself off a drinks trolley that was shaped like an airplane wing, and handed it over with the kind of big-shot swagger that made Tom think he didn’t often mix the drinks. ‘Suite okay?’

‘When I’ve been all the way round it, I’ll tell you.’

Davidson smiled. ‘And the drive down from Lake Tahoe?’

‘The landing and takeoff were okay.’

‘That’s a nice car, the Dual Ghia.’

‘Yeah, it’s a swell car,’ agreed Tom. ‘Real smooth. Like the owner, I guess.’

‘Is that an American car?’ asked Rosenstiel.

‘It’s a fucking Chrysler,’ Moe Dalitz told him.

‘Yeah? Sounds more Italian,’ said Rosenstiel.

‘Sinatra’s got one,’ said Davidson. ‘Peter Lawford, too. Tom drove Peter’s car down here for us.’

Tom smiled quietly, wondering which of the two stars the car really belonged to, if either. Not that it mattered any to him.

‘Hey,’ he said, sitting down on the sofa and sipping some of his Coke, ‘for all I care about such things, Elizabeth Taylor could have driven naked across America in the car and not wiped the seat when she was through with it. I’m here, so let’s talk business.’

‘Sure, sure,’ Davidson said smoothly. ‘We’re all businessmen. The four of us you see here now represent a variety of business backgrounds, Tom. But Morris, Lewis, and myself are meeting you in our capacity as members of the American Jewish League Against Communism. And in our desire to help Mister Ilani. This particular matter does not involve any communists, you understand, but fascists.’

‘Makes a pleasant change,’ chuckled Dalitz.

‘Mister Ilani is concerned with the pursuit and punishment of Nazi war criminals. I take it you’ve heard of Adolf Eichmann, Tom.’

‘I read the newspapers.’

‘Since Prime Minister Ben-Gurion told the Israeli parliament that Eichmann was in his country’s custody, Israel’s been in pretty bad odour with the international community. To say nothing of the very severe diplomatic difficulties that now exist between Israel and Argentina. The whole affair has left Mister Ilani here with some unfinished business back in Buenos Aires. Someone he’d like to have seen in Israel, standing trial alongside that bastard Eichmann. Only Mister Ilani and his people can’t go back, for obvious reasons.’

Tom sneaked a glance at Ilani. With his pale skin, hairy body, and heavy glasses, Ilani looked more like the chairman of the local chamber of commerce than someone who worked for Shin Bet or Mossad.

‘At least not right now. Not for a while, maybe. So, the next best alternative would be to have this second man, himself an important war criminal, brought immediately to book and subjected to an extreme penalty without the visible benefits of legal process, as the people of Israel would of course prefer.’

‘In other words,’ added Moe Dalitz, ‘we want this Nazi bastard hit.’

Tom nodded slowly. And addressed his next remark Hani’s way.

‘I used to have an English friend,’ he said. ‘A British army officer, stationed in Jerusalem. This was twelve years ago. Nineteen forty-eight. Anyway, this friend got himself killed. Shot in the head with a six-point-five-millimetre Mannlicher Carcano rifle at eight hundred yards.’ Tom pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. ‘Centre forehead at eight hundred yards,’ he repeated. ‘Helluva shot.’

‘Are you saying you don’t want this contract, Mister Jefferson?’ This was Ilani speaking. To Tom’s ears his accent sounded more Spanish than Hebrew. ‘You have something against the State of Israel, yes?’

‘I don’t give a fuck one way or the other about the State of Israel. What I’m saying, Mister Ilani, is that you have some pretty fine marksmen back in Israel. I can’t see why you need my services.’

‘In view of the delicate state of relations between Israel and Argentina,’ explained Davidson, ‘it would be best if a professional was brought in to handle the contract. Someone who isn’t Jewish. Our information is correct, isn’t it, Tom? You’re not Jewish, are you?’

‘Me? Hell no. I’m a Roman Catholic. At least that’s what it says on my army record. It’s been a while since I went through the church doors, mind you. God and me haven’t talked in a long while. You might say it’s an occupational hazard.’

‘I’ve read that,’ said Ilani. ‘Your army record. US Marine Corps. You speak several languages, including Spanish. Served Guadalcanal, Okinawa. Ended World War Two with the rank of Gunnery Sergeant, and with twenty-three kills. Attached to UN nineteen forty-seven to — nine, and a member of US Armed Forces in Korea when North Korean troops crossed the thirty-eighth parallel. Captured Pork Chop Hill January nineteen fifty-three. Repatriated August. Honourable discharge. Several decorations et cetera, et cetera. It’s very impressive.’

‘You’re pretty cute yourself, Mister Ilani,’ Tom said with a smile. ‘All that information without so much as a note in front of you. A regular Charles Van Doren, that’s what you are, sir. I’ll bet you could answer twenty-one about anybody in this damn room.’

Moe Dalitz, who had got up to fix himself another drink, snorted loudly. ‘As long as the man doing the asking isn’t Bobby Kennedy, I really don’t mind how many fucking questions it is.’

Rosenstiel laughed uproariously and lit a large cigar. ‘Maybe we should ask Tom to fix Bobby too,’ he said. ‘Two rats for the price of one.’

Tom lit a Chesterfield and let them carry on with this line of conversation for a minute or so before drawing them back to the contract that was on the table.

‘You said this man who lives in Buenos Aires is a Nazi war criminal. What’s his name and what did he do?’

‘Doctor Helmut Gregor,’ answered Ilani. He unzipped a cheap plastic briefcase and took out a file that he handed over to Tom. ‘That’s the name he lives under now. You’ll find everything you need to know about him in this dossier. I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you his real name. But to be quite frank with you, few people have ever heard of this man. It is enough to say that he tortured and killed thousands of people, but mostly children.’