Ira Levin - Boys from Brazil

“Don’t you have any contacts there?” Klaus asked.

“Dead contacts,” Liebermann said. “Not-with-the-Justice-Department-any-more contacts. I’ll manage, though. I’ll break down doors. God in heaven! Think of it! Ninety-four young Hitlers!”

“Ninety-four boys ,” Nürnberger said, writing, “with the same genetic inheritance as Hitler.”

The Benjamin Franklin, as a hotel, a place to stop at, rated about one tenth of a star in Mengele’s judgment, and that only because the sink in the bathroom had a certain antique charm. As a place to rid oneself of an enemy bent on destroying one’s life work and the last hope (correction, certainty) of Aryan supremacy, however, it rated three and a half stars, possibly a full four.

For one thing, the clientele in the lobby was partly black, which meant, of course, that crime on the premises wasn’t unheard of. As proof of this, if proof were needed, the door of his room, 404, bore the gouge-marks of forcible entry, and For your own protection please keep door bolted at all times , a red-lettered sticker on the inside urged. He complied.

For another thing, the place was ill-attended; at 11:40 in the morning, breakfast trays still lay outside the doors of some of the rooms. As soon as he had taken off the damn neck-brace (only for border-crossing and maybe in Germany) he nipped outside and got himself a tray and a breadbasket and a Do Not Disturb sign. He hid the tray between the mattress and the box spring, the breadbasket in a paper laundry bag on the closet shelf; put the Do Not Disturb sign in the writing drawer with the one already there. He checked the floor plan on the door; there were three stairways, one right around a corner from arrow-marked 404. He went out again and found it; opened the door, went onto the landing, looked up and down the gray-painted flights.

Room service was abominable. By the time his lunch appeared he had excreted and cleaned the tube of diamonds, washed up, powdered his chafed neck, unpacked as much as he meant to unpack, tried the television, and made a list of everything he had to buy and do. But the waiter who brought the lunch—a full star right here—was a white man almost as old as he, sixty or so, wearing a plain white linen mess jacket such as might be bought, surely, in any working-class clothing store. He added it to the list; easier than filching one.

The food, sole à la bonne femme —forget it.

He left the hotel at a little after one, by a side door. Dark glasses, no mustache, hat, wig, overcoat with turned-up collar. Gun in shoulder holster. He would leave nothing of value in that vulnerable room, and besides, it was wise to go armed in the States; not only for himself, for anyone.

Washington was cleaner than he had expected and quite attractive, but the wide streets were wet with day-old snow. The first thing he did was stop in a shoestore and buy a pair of rubbers. He had flown from summer into winter and had always been susceptible to colds; vitamins were on his list too.

He walked until he came to a bookstore, and went in and browsed, exchanging the dark glasses for his regular ones. He found a paperback copy of Liebermann’s book; studied the stamp-size photo on the back of it. There would be no mistaking that Jewish beak. He flipped through the section of photos at the book’s center and found his own; Liebermann, on the other hand, would be hard put to recognize him . It was the Buenos Aires photo of ’59, obviously the best Liebermann had been able to come up with; neither with the brown wig and mustache nor his own cropped gray hair and newly shaven upper lip did he look much at all, alas, like this handsome sixteen-years-younger himself. And Liebermann, of course, wouldn’t even be watching for him.

He put the book back in its place in the rack and found a section of travel books. He selected road atlases of the States and Canada; paid for them with a twenty-dollar bill and accepted his change, bills and coins, with a casual glance and a nod.

In dark glasses again, he walked into less spacious streets with brighter, more gaudy shop windows. He couldn’t find what he wanted, and finally asked a young black man—who would know better? He walked on, following the surprisingly well-spoken directions.

“What kind of knife?” a black man behind a counter asked him.

“For hunting,” he said.

He chose the best. German-made, good in the hand, really beautiful. And so sharp it whisked ribbons from loosely held paper. Two more twenties and a ten.

A drugstore was next door. He bought his vitamins.

And in the next block, Uniforms & Work Clothes .

“I’d say you’re about a thirty-six?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to try it on?”

“No.” Because of the gun.

He bought a pair of white cotton gloves too.

A food store was impossible to find. Nobody knew; they didn’t eat, apparently.

He found one finally, a glary supermarket full of blacks. He bought three apples, two oranges, two bananas, and for his own consumption, a lovely-looking bunch of green seedless grapes.

He took a taxi back to the Benjamin Franklin—the side entrance, please—and at 3:22 was back in that dismal one-tenth-of-a-star room.

He rested awhile, eating grapes and looking at the atlases in the easy (ha!) chair, consulting now and again the typed sheets of names and addresses, dates. He could get Wheelock—assuming he was still in New Providence, Pennsylvania—almost on schedule; but from then on, it would have to be catch-as-catch-can. He would try to keep within six months of the optimum dates. Davis in Kankakee, then up into Canada for Stroheim and Morgan. Then Sweden. Would he have to renew the visa?

After he had rested, he rehearsed. Took off the wig and put on the white jacket and gloves; practiced carrying the basket of fruit on the tray; said, “Compliments of the management, sir”—again and again till he got the th -sound right.

He stood with his back to his bolted door, hung the Do Not Disturb sign on air and let it fall, knocked at air. “Compliments of the management, sir.” He carried the tray across the room, set it on the dresser, drew the knife from the sheath in his belt; turned, keeping the knife behind him; walked, stopped, put out his left hand. “Sank you, sir.” Grabbed with his left hand, stabbed with his right.

“Thank you, sir. Thank you. Th, th, th .” Grab with the left hand, stab with the right.

Do Jews tip?

He worked out some alternative movements.

The sunlit plateau of clouds ended abruptly; blue-black ocean lay below, wrinkled and white-flecked, immobile. Liebermann gazed down at it, his chin in his hand.

Ei.

He had lain awake all night, sat awake all day, thinking of a full-grown Hitler hurling his demonic speeches at mobs too discontented to care about history. Two or three Hitlers even, maneuvering to power in different places, recognized by their followers and themselves as the first human beings bred by what in 1990 or so would be a widely known, maybe widely practiced, procedure. More alike than brothers, the same man multiplied, wouldn’t they join forces and wage again (with 1990 weapons!) their first one’s racial war? Certainly that was Mengele’s hope; Barry had said so: “It’s supposed to lead to the triumph of the Aryan race, for God’s sake!” Words to that effect.

A lovely package to bring to an F.B.I. that’s had an almost hundred-percent turnover since Hoover died in ’72. He could hear the puzzled question: “Yakov who? ”

It had been easy enough last night to tell Klaus he would manage, would break down doors; and in truth he wasn’t wholly without contacts. There were senators he had met who were still in office; one of them, surely, would unlock the right doors for him. But now, having weighed the horror, he was afraid that even with unlocked doors too much time might be lost. Guthrie’s and Curry’s deaths would have to be investigated, their widows questioned, the Wheelocks questioned…Now it was the utmost necessity to capture Wheelock’s would-be killer and find through him the five others. The rest of the ninety-four men had to stay alive; the knobs of the safes, to follow Lena’s comparison (a good one to remember and use in the days ahead), must not be allowed to be turned to what was maybe the last and most crucial number in the combination.