Ira Levin - Boys from Brazil

Liebermann glared, trying to think of a way to stop him; but of course there wasn’t any. “Do you at least know what information to look for?” he asked.

“Certainly I do. Who Müller left his money to, who he was related to, what his political and military activities were—”

“Where he was born—”

“I know . All the points that were suggested that evening.”

“And whether he could have had any contact with Mengele, either during the war or immediately after. Where did he serve? Was he ever in Günzburg?”

“Günzburg?”

“Where Mengele lived. And try not to act like a prosecutor; it’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar.”

“I can be charming when I want to, Herr Liebermann.”

“I can’t wait for a demonstration. Give me your address, please; I’ll send you pictures of three of the men who are supposed to be doing the killings. They’re old pictures from thirty years ago and at least one of the men has had plastic surgery, but they might come in handy anyway, in case anyone saw strangers around. I’ll also send you a letter saying you’re working on my behalf. Or would you rather send me one saying I’m working on yours?”

“Herr Liebermann, I have the utmost admiration and respect for you. Believe me, I’m truly proud to be able to be of some help to you.”

“All right, all right.”

“Wasn’t that charming? You see?”

Liebermann took von Palmen’s address and phone number, gave him a few more pointers, and hung up.

A “we.” But maybe the boy would manage; he was bright enough surely.

He finished making the second list, studied it a few minutes, and then opened the desk’s left-hand bottom drawer and got out the folder of photos he had pulled from the files. He took out one each of Hessen, Kleist, and Traunsteiner—young men in SS uniforms, smiling or stern in coarse-grained enlarged snapshots; next to useless but the best there were. “Esther!” he called, putting them on the desk. Hessen smiled up at him, dark-haired and wolfish, hugging his beaming parents. Liebermann turned the photo over, and below the mimeographed history taped to its back, wrote: Hair silvery now. Has had plastic surgery .

“Esther?”

He picked up the photos, got up from the chair, and went to the door.

Esther sat sleeping at her desk, her head on her folded arms. A bowl of still water sat by her elbow.

He tiptoed over, put the photos on the desk’s corner, and tiptoed on through the living room and into the bedroom.

“So where are you going?” Esther called.

Surprised that she was up and should ask, he called back, “To the bathroom.”

“I mean where are you going . To look.”

“Oh,” he said. “To a place near Essen—Gladbeck. And to Solingen. It’s all right with you?”

Farnbach paused outside the hotel. Admiring the luminous blue-violet twilight, which the clerk had assured him would stay as it was for hours, he pulled his gloves on, turned up his fur collar, and snugged his cap down more warmly over his ears and the back of his head. Storlien wasn’t as cold as he had feared, but it was cold enough. Thank God this was his northernmost assignment; Brazil had made an orchid of him. “Sir?” His shoulder was tapped. He turned, and a black-hatted man taller than he offered an identity card on his palm. “Detective Inspector Löfquist. May I have a word with you, please?”

Farnbach took the card in its leather-and-plastic holder. He pretended to have more difficulty reading it in the twilight than he in fact had, so as to give himself at least that moment to think. He handed the card back to Detective Inspector Lars Lennart Löfquist, and putting a pleasant smile (he hoped) in front of the alarm and confusion inside him, said, “Yes, of course, Inspector. I’ve only been here since noon; I’m sure I haven’t broken any laws yet.”

Smiling too, Löfquist said, “I’m sure you haven’t.” He put the card-holder away inside his black leather coat. “We can walk while we talk, if you’d like.”

“Fine,” Farnbach said. “I’m going to take a look at the waterfall. That seems to be all one can do around here.”

“Yes, at this time of year.” They started across the hotel’s cobbled forecourt. “Things are a little livelier in June and July,” Löfquist said. “We have sun all night then, and quite a few tourists. By the end of August, though, even the center of town is dead after seven or eight, and out here it’s practically a graveyard. You’re German, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Farnbach said. “My name is Busch. Wilhelm Busch. I’m a salesman. There’s nothing wrong, is there, Inspector?”

“No, not at all.” They passed through an arched gateway. “You can relax,” Löfquist said. “This is entirely unofficial.”

They turned toward the right, and walked side by side along the shoulder of the crushed-stone road. Farnbach smiled and said, “Even an innocent man feels guilty when he’s tapped on the shoulder by a detective inspector.”

“I guess that’s so,” Löfquist said. “I’m sorry if I worried you. No, I just like to keep an eye out for foreigners. Germans in particular. I find them…enlightening to talk with. What do you sell, Herr Busch?”

“Mining equipment.”

“Oh?”

“I’m the Swedish representative of Orenstein and Koppel, of Lübeck.”

“I can’t say I’ve heard of them.”

“They’re fairly big in the field,” Farnbach said. “I’ve been with them fourteen years.” He looked at the detective walking along at his left. The man’s upturned nose and pointy chin reminded him of a captain he had served under in the SS, one who had begun interrogations with exactly this disarming bullshit of “nothing to worry about, it’s entirely unofficial.” Later had come the accusations, the demands, the torture.

“And is that where you come from?” Löfquist asked. “Lübeck?”

“No, I’m from Dortmund originally, and I live now in Reinfeld, which is near Lübeck. When I’m not in Sweden, that is. I have an apartment in Stockholm.” How much, Farnbach wondered, did the son of a bitch know, and how in God’s name had he found it out? Had the whole operation been blown? Were Hessen and Kleist and the others facing the same situation right now, or was this his own private failure?

“Turn in here,” Löfquist said, pointing toward a footpath into the woods at their right. “It leads to a better vantage point.”

They entered the narrow path and followed its near-night darkness uphill. Farnbach unbuttoned the breast of his coat, concerned about getting his gun out quickly if worse came to worst.

“I’ve spent some time in Germany myself,” Löfquist said. “Took ship from Lübeck once, as a matter of fact.”

He had switched to German, and fairly good German. Farnbach, disconcerted, wondered whether there might really be nothing to worry about; was it possible that Lars Lennart Löfquist wanted only a chance to use his German? It seemed too much to hope for. In German too, he said, “Your German’s very good. Is that why you like speaking with us, to get a chance to use it?”

“I don’t speak to all Germans,” Löfquist said, his voice charged with suppressed merriment. “Only former corporals who’ve put on weight and call themselves ‘Busch’ instead of Farnstein!”

Farnbach stopped and stared at him.

Smiling, Löfquist took his hat off; looked up and moved aside into better light; and laughing now, faced Farnbach and gave himself the substitute mustache of an extended finger.

Farnbach was astonished. “Oh my God!” he gasped. “I thought of you just a second ago! I guess I—My God! Captain Hartung!”