Ira Levin: Boys from Brazil

Tsuruko, uneasy in their closeness, said, “He was twenty-two or -three, I think. I couldn’t see him clearly. Very tall. Nice-looking, friendly. He had brown hair in close little curls.”

“That’s good,” the man in white said, “that’s a good description. He was wearing jeans…”

“Yes. And a jacket the same—you know, short blue. And he had a bag from an airline, on a strap.” She gestured at her shoulder. “That’s where he had the recorder.”

“Very good. You’re very observant, Tsuruko. What airline?”

She looked chagrined. “I didn’t notice. It was blue and white.”

“A blue-and-white airline bag. Good enough. What else?”

She frowned and shook her head, and remembered happily: “His name is Hunter, senhor!”

“Hunter?”

“Yes, senhor! Hunter. He said it very plainly.”

The man in white smiled wryly. “I’m sure he did. Go on. What else?”

“His Portuguese was bad. He said I was a ‘big helper’ to him; all kinds of mistakes like that. And his pronunciation was wrong.”

“So he hasn’t been here very long, has he? You’re being a ‘big helper’ to me , Tsuruko. Keep going.”

She frowned, and gave an impotent shrug. “That’s all, senhor.”

He said, “Please try to think of something else, Tsuruko. You have no idea how important this is to me.”

She bit at a knuckle of her fisted hand, and looking at him, shook her head.

“He didn’t tell you how to get in touch with him in case I should arrange another party?”

“No, senhor! No! Nothing like that. Nothing. I would tell you.”

“Keep thinking.”

Her distressed face suddenly brightened. “He’s at a hotel. Does that help you?”

The brown eyes looked questioningly at her.

“He said he would eat at his hotel. I asked him if he wanted some food—he got hungry waiting—and that’s what he said, he would eat at his hotel.”

The man in white looked at Tsuruko and said, “You see? There was something else.” He stepped back, and looking down, opened his billfold. He drew out four hundred-cruzeiro bills and gave them to her.

“Thank you, senhor!”

Kuwayama came closer, smiling.

The man in white gave him four bills, and one each to Mori and Yoshiko. Putting his billfold inside his jacket, he smiled at Tsuruko and reprimanded her: “You’re a good girl, but in the future you should give a little more thought to your patrons’ interests.”

“I will, senhor! I promise!”

To Kuwayama he said, “Don’t be hard on her. Really.”

“Oh no, not now!” Kuwayama grinned, withdrawing his hand from his pocket.

The man in white took his hat and his briefcase from the lamp table, and smiling at the bowing women and Kuwayama, turned from them and went toward the men who stood waiting, watching him.

His smile died; his eyes narrowed. Reaching the men, he whispered in German, “Fucking cock-sucking yellow bitch, I would cut her teats off!”

He told the men about the tape recorder.

The blond man said, “We checked the street and all the cars; no young North American in jeans.”

“We’ll find him,” the man in white said. “He’s a loner; the groups that are still active are all Rio and Buenos Aires men. And he’s an amateur, not only by reason of his age—twenty-two or -three—but also because he gives the name ‘Hunter,’ which is English for Jäger; no one with experience would bother with such jokes. And he’s stupid, or he wouldn’t have let the bitch know he’s at a hotel.”

“Unless,” Schwimmer said, “he isn’t at one.”

“In which case he’s smart,” the man in white said, “and I hang myself in the morning. Let’s find out. Hessen, our Paulista who allows himself to be followed by an amateur ‘hunter,’ will now make amends by giving each of you the name of a hotel.” He looked at Hessen, who looked up from an examination of his hat. “A hotel good enough to serve food at late hours,” the man in white told him, “but not so good as to discourage the wearing of jeans. Put yourself in his place: you’re a boy from the States who’s come down to Paulo to hunt for Horst Hessen or maybe even Mengele; which hotel would you stay at? You’ve got money enough to overbribe waitresses—I don’t think the bitch lied about the amount—but you’re romantic; you want to feel you’re a new Yakov Liebermann, not a comfortable tourist. Five hotels, please, Hessen, in order of likelihood.”

He looked at the others. “When Hessen names your hotel,” he said, “you’ll take a box of matches from that bowl there and go outside and repeat the name to a taxi driver. When you reach the hotel you’ll find out whether or not they have there a tall young North American with brown hair in close curls , who recently came in wearing blue jeans, a short blue denim jacket, and a blue-and-white airline shoulderbag. You’ll then phone the number on the matchbox. I’ll be here. If the answer is yes, Rudi and Tin-tin and I will be right over; if the answer is no, Hessen will give you the name of another hotel. Everything clear? Good. We’ll have him in half an hour and he won’t even be through listening to his damned tape. Hessen?”

Hessen said to Mundt, “The Nacional,” and Mundt said, “The Nacional” and went to get a matchbox.

Hessen said to Schwimmer, “The Del Rey.”

And to Traunsteiner, “The Marabá.”

To Farnbach, “The Comodora.”

To Kleist, “The Savoy.”

He listened for about five minutes, then he stopped, rewound, and started again from where they finished admiring whatever the hell they were admiring and “Aspiazu” said “ Lasst uns jetzt Geschäft reden, meine Jungens ” and sure enough got down to business. Business! Jesus!

He listened to the whole thing through this time—saying “Jesus!” and “ God almighty!” now and then, and “Ooh you fuck , you!—and after the clonk and the long silence that had to be the waitress bringing the bowl downstairs he stopped and rewound partway and replayed a few bits and pieces, just to make sure it was really there and he wasn’t spaced out from hunger or something.

Then he paced as much as the room allowed, shaking his head and scratching the back of it, trying to figure out what the fuck to do in this hotbed of who-knows-who-isn’t-one-of-them-or-at-least-being-paid-by-them.

There was only one thing to do, he finally decided, and the sooner the better, never mind the time-difference. He brought the recorder over to the night table and put it by the phone; got his wallet out and sat down on the bed. He found the card with the name and number on it, tucked it under the foot of the phone, and picked up the handset, pocketing his wallet. He asked for the long-distance operator.

She sounded cute and sexy. “I’ll call you when I get it.”

“I stay on the telephone,” he said, not trusting her not to go out and samba someplace. “Hurry, please.”

“It’s going to take five or ten minutes, senhor.”

He listened to her giving the number to an overseas operator and rehearsed in his head what he would say. Assuming, of course, that Liebermann was there and not off speaking somewhere or running down a lead. Be home, please, Mr. Liebermann!

A light rap sounded at the door.

“It’s about time,” he said in English, and hanging on to the phone, got up, reached, and just managed to give the doorknob the turn that unlocked it. The door opened against his hand, and the waiter with the droopy mustache came in with a napkin-covered plate and the bottle of Brahma but no glass on the tray. “Sorry it took so long,” he said. “Eleven o’clock they all run. I had to make it myself.”