by P J Skinner
‘What’s that got to do with Gloria?’
‘This Dr Vargas is missing and your daughter is upsetting people by asking intrusive questions concerning his whereabouts.’
‘How does that concern me?’
‘I should’ve thought that it was obvious. Your ability to get government contracts relies on a bit of give and take. It would be a pity if your standing took a knock, and it was no longer possible for us to look with favour on your bids for work.’
‘I get her to back off or my contracts disappear?’
‘In a nutshell. I hope you understand. These matters can be vexing. We want to shut this down before a can of worms is opened.’
‘Naturally.’ Hernan Sanchez took a couple of deep breaths. He stood up and gestured towards the door. ‘Well, it was good of you to visit. I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting you and I have a previous appointment. My apologies.’
Holger was surprised but hid his emotions, and his disappointment at having to abandon his whisky. He considered gulping it down but there was no polite way of doing so.
‘Of course, my friend. I’m assured we understand each other. There is no need for this to interfere with our relationship.’
Hernan rang a silver bell on the mantelpiece and Rosa appeared.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘The Minister is leaving. Can you show him out, please?’
The maid looked surprised. Most visits from the Minister lasted for hours and he almost had to be carried out of them.
‘Yes, sir. Minister?’
Holger travelled down in the lift feeling as if his mission was accomplished. He was also smug at taking Hernan Sanchez down a peg or two. Insufferable jumped-up street urchin! He’d put him back in his box and no mistake. His driver was lounging on a bench across the street chatting up a maid from the other building. He ran across the road.
‘Everything okay, Minister?’
‘Perfect, thank you. Take me home, please.’
***
Hernan Sanchez was shaking with anger after Holger Ponce left. The bare faced cheek of that man threatening him in his own house had left him quite discombobulated. He poured himself another whisky and sat in one of his more comfortable chairs trying to slow down his heart rate. One of these days he would have a serious heart attack if he didn’t lose weight and stop smoking but these were not the ideal circumstances. He marvelled at Gloria’s ability to get herself in trouble. He was annoyed that she had disobeyed him and gone back to Alfredo but he understood affairs of the heart were not that simple. Her loyalty to Alfredo was quite touching, and he felt pleased that she had found someone about whom she cared enough to defy him. What on earth was Vargas researching that had made the government so paranoid? He had to find out.
And then he remembered. He stood up and made his way to the chest on his wife’s side of the bed. He opened the drawers with reverence and he ferreted around until he found the sheath of paper hidden amongst the clothes. He breathed in the faintest waft of his wife’s perfume from the untouched legacy of her presence. The document was heavy, and he dropped it as he removed it from the drawer, scattering pages over the bedroom. It took him quite an effort to retrieve them again, especially those that had floated under the bed. Puffing with exertion, he laid them out on the bed and reordered them, holding them together with the bulldog clip he found in his dresser drawer. Then he took the report back into the sitting room, poured himself yet another whisky and made himself comfortable.
CHAPTER XV
Alfredo and Saul September 1988
The next morning Alfredo made Saul remove his gun from his rucksack and put it behind the side panel at the back of the jeep, along with the jack and other tools for changing the tyre. There was always the chance that they would encounter a random police checkpoint on the roads leading south, manned by individuals who were looking to augment their paltry salaries. The police would invent some infraction and an instant fine would be paid, almost like a toll. However, if they found a weapon, things could get nasty, especially if it was in the hands of a foreigner. This gave the police licence to extort much greater sums of money and to employ violence if they didn’t get what they wanted.
Alfredo and Saul didn’t need any extra trouble on this trip which was dangerous enough already. Alfredo had assessed the risks without taking into account the fact that one half of his team had been hiding his light under a bushel, posing as a mild-mannered investigative journalist while he was a vengeful Jew with a gun. The stakes were much higher than he had anticipated. They would need some more whisky.
Some of his worry soon dissipated. Saul was full of the joys of Spring, humming tunelessly as they drove along. He had never been to South America before and was in a constant state of amazement. There were lots of unplanned stops for perusing vistas and sampling of local delicacies. Alfredo was quite happy to let him relax and forget about his mission of revenge for as long as possible. He was not confident he could control Saul if they ever found Kurt Becker but he wasn’t going to get between them if things went wrong. That gun needed to stay hidden.
They had lunch at an ancient food stand in a village along the main road after Saul spotted that it had a primitive barbecue with a rotating spit from the car. As they pulled in to the side of the road, Alfredo realised what was cooking and waiting for the inevitable reaction as Saul took in the skinned guinea pigs with accusing faces, bucked toothed grimaces and begging paws turning on their skewers.
‘What are those animals? Are they rabbits?’
‘No, they are guinea pigs. The local people farm them for food.’
‘Oh my! Are you serious?’
‘They are quite tasty.’
‘Well, what are we waiting for?’
To Alfredo’s surprise, Saul ate two of them, sucking the bones with gusto, as if he were a local. The owner of the stand, a toothless old crone who smelt like a corpse, encouraged him and brought him extra rice and corn to mop up the juices. A loud burp from Saul broke the silence of a good lunch and brought it to an end. Alfredo paid for their meal and they got back into the car.
‘You are the first gringo I ever saw who ate guinea pig with such gusto,’ said Alfredo.
‘Oh, we ate rat often when we were children. I used to think it was normal. And now I can see that it is. Life is super weird, huh?’
Alfredo was speechless. The phrase ‘the condemned man enjoyed a last meal’ ran though his brain like the electric advertisements in Times Square. Maybe they wouldn’t find anything and it would be remembered as a nice trip to the mountains. Maybe.
They drove south for a couple of hours between the two rows of volcanoes that form the peaks of the Andes. Then they turned east into the plains and valleys of the upper reaches. The road became narrow, and the tarmac patchy, as they drove towards the lakes. The roads, which were empty, got steeper and narrower with precipitous drops into green patchwork alleys. They passed some over-loaded open wooden buses which bumped along at bicycle speed and could only be overtaken with great caution on wider stretches of the roads. These were few and far between so progress was glacial. To make matters worse, as the evening drew in, sheep and cattle making for home blocked their route and kept them waiting in fading light. Finally, they entered an area where the road flattened out again. A village loomed out of the darkness, the whitewashed walls of the thatched houses bright in the gloom. There was an old inn on the main square named Lago Verde.
‘We’ll stay here tonight,’ said Alfredo.
‘Looks good to me,’ said Saul, ‘do you think we can get some whisky?’
There was no whisky but their host procured a bottle of cheap local rum which they drank with the local version of Coca Cola and some dubious looking ice. They ate a piece of well stewed beef with some fried yucca and rice before bedding down for the night. The bathroom was a little primitive but, as Alfredo observed, at least it had a flushing toilet and their precious supply of toilet paper would come in ha
ndy.
The next morning, they were up early and ate some eggs scrambled with onion and bell peppers before setting out for San Blas. Alfredo stopped the car three times to ask different people for directions before taking the way indicated by them. Saul got a little irritated.
‘Why did we need to get instructions from three people? Didn’t they give you the same answer?’
‘Yes, they did. However, it’s local custom to send people on a wild goose chase so I had to check.’
The road got even narrower and it sank into the peat until they were driving in a sunken ditch with the sods of turf piled up into walls on either side.
‘I hope there’s not much traffic,’ said Saul.
‘It’s unlikely. We’ll have to reverse into a gateway if we meet another vehicle.’
‘This place is hidden from view. It’s a wonder you know where it is. How ever did you hear about it?’
‘I had a girlfriend whose father was German and she told me about it years ago, I guess it stuck in my mind. I’d forgotten about it until this came up.’
‘They may not be here anymore.’
‘Some of them will have died by now, too, but there may be some who have stayed put. We will soon find out.’
There was one road to follow so it was hard to get lost. It wound on through the boggy terrain skirting the snow topped peaks. Suddenly, like a cork out of a champagne bottle, the jeep popped out into a street of neat houses with carved window sills and wooden tiled roofs. It was like a Swiss alpine town.
‘Jesus!’ said Alfredo, ‘all we need now is Heidi and a flock of goats.’
‘Man, it’s creepy as hell.’
‘This must be the place.’
‘Yes, sir.’
They drove down what looked like the main street of San Blas and came out into a neat square with precision cut box hedges and a carousel in the centre. There was a hotel on one side of the square, which was so picturesque that it looked as if it belonged on the lid of a box of chocolates. It had window frames with carved hearts and birds in relief and wooden balconies with baskets of geraniums still dripping from a recent watering. Alfredo drove through a side entrance into a car park at the back of the hotel. They sat there for a while with their thoughts. A large cat emerged from some bushes and jumped up on the bonnet where it curled up and went to sleep.
‘What do we do now?’ said Alfredo. ‘We haven’t thought this through.’
‘I imagine they’ll come to us rather than the other way around.’
‘You could be right. We’d better see if we can book a room then.’
‘Lead on, Dr Vargas.’
They stepped into the foyer which was also ornate and decorated like a Swiss chalet. There was no one at the reception. A cuckoo clock chimed making them both jump. They watched mesmerised as a couple of dolls emerged from the doors of the clock and spun around in a circle before going back inside. One of them appeared to be wearing a uniform of some sort.
‘Nice, isn’t it?’ said a voice behind them. ‘My name is Fritz Schmidt, I am the hotel manager. How can I help you?’
They both spun around in an uncanny imitation of the figures in the cuckoo clock. There was a large blonde man in lederhosen behind the reception desk. All he needs is a Tyrolean hat to complete the hallucination, thought Alfredo but he recovered.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Schmidt. Myself and my companion here would like a room each for tonight please and possibly tomorrow night as well.’
‘Certainly, sir. We have en-suite rooms if you are interested?’
‘Yes, please, that would be wonderful.’
‘Are you here for the cheese making or the Germanic culture?’
‘Oh, I think we’ll do both.’
‘Excellent. Can I have your passports, please? I need to get your details for the tourist log.’
‘My passport is in my suitcase,’ said Saul. ‘Can I bring it down later, please?’
‘Of course, sir, as long as I have the details of this other gentleman here, that will be fine.’
Alfredo was relieved that Saul had been so quick thinking. If the hotel manager realised that a New York Jew was staying at the hotel, the news of their presence would travel fast. Of course, this might not be a bad move. Perhaps it would speed things up. He wasn’t clear how they were going to proceed if they met a Nazi. That eventuality was still a bit fuzzy in his mind. What they needed was a nice shower and a big supper with ample liquid fortification to give them some breathing time.
‘Let me show you to your rooms,’ said Schmidt.
***
Saul knocked on Alfredo’s door.
‘Hello, can I come in?’
‘What’s up?’
‘I think we should give the manager my passport. He said his name was Fritz Schmidt. Isn’t that one of the Schmidt brothers that you used to play football with?’
‘Wow, I was so freaked out by the hotel décor that I didn’t recognise him. Mind you, I don’t believe he recognised me either. We’re definitely in the right place. Are you confident about this? These people may be dangerous. We don’t know what they are capable of.’
‘I do. I saw first-hand but I think it’s worth the risk. Think of us as bait.’
‘Okay but be careful.’
Saul descended the stairs to the reception. Fritz Schmidt was bent over the ledger and jumped when Saul put his passport on the desk.
‘Here is my ID,’ he said.
‘Thank you. If you wait a moment I will take down your details and give it back to you.’
Schmidt opened the passport and turned to the page with Saul’s data on it. A slight widening of the eyes was the only visible reaction. He copied the information into the ledger without looking up. The pencil bit into the page and left a furrow due to the exaggerated pressure placed on it. The lead snapped and he took a deep breath.
‘Is there anything else I can do for you, gentlemen?’ he said, emphasising every syllable of the last word.
‘Yes, we’d like to have dinner. What do you recommend?’ said Saul, ignoring the ferocious re-sharpening of the pencil.
‘We’ve a nice restaurant here in the hotel,’ said Schmidt through gritted teeth. ‘To tell you the truth, our restaurant is the only place in the village that opens at night. It’s only built for day trippers and we don’t get many people staying overnight.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Saul said.
***
The two men came down for dinner at eight o clock. They followed Schmidt into a quaint dining room with chequered red and white table cloths and carved wooden chairs with cut outs of deer on the seat-backs. There was a log fire burning in the grate. The mantelpiece had a set of elaborate candle holders on either side, framing a shadow on the wall where an image had been removed. It looked a bit like a shrine. Schmidt caught Saul looking at the square of fresh paint revealed by the image’s absence.
‘Some tourist got a bit drunk and damaged the painting we had there. It’s in for repairs.’
‘What was the painting of?’
‘Oh, a local dignitary. No harm done.’ His tone of voice suggested otherwise but Alfredo shook his head at Saul, who looked like he was about to interject. The painting must have been removed when they arrived at the hotel to prevent them seeing it. But why?
‘Drunks, eh?’ said Alfredo.
‘Quite. And on that note, what can I get you to drink, gentlemen?’
They laughed. It is not religion but humour that is the opiate of the masses, thought Alfredo.
‘I’ll have a beer,’ he said.
‘Me, too,’ said Saul.
‘Is there a menu?’
‘Not as such. We have typical German dishes here like Wiener Schnitzel with potato salad, wurst with red cabbage and sauerbraten with dumplings or any combination of these. We also have potato pancakes, potato dumplings and potatoes fried with bacon and onion but I don’t expect you’ll want that,’ and here
he looked at Saul.
‘We’ll have two Wiener Schnitzels with sauerkraut and potato dumplings please. Is it veal or chicken?’
‘It’s veal.’
‘Excellent, thank you.’
Saul had changed colour and was clutching the armrests of his chair.
‘Hang in there,’ said Alfredo, ‘remember what you came for.’
The beer was cold. Saul drank his in long swallows and Alfredo asked for two more. By the time the new drinks arrived, both men had managed to control their emotions. The food followed not long after and the plates were groaning with huge portions of soothing calories which had the desired effect. Their progress had slowed to a crawl and they were playing with the remnants of their meals, when two men walked into the restaurant and sat down at the opposite end of the room. They were both grey-haired with military bearing, dressed with cravats at their necks.
‘It seems that the neck tie is de rigueur in San Blas,’ murmured Alfredo.
Saul had stiffened like a cornered dog. He was staring at one of the two men.
‘Easy there, old chap,’ said Alfredo, ‘don’t want to set the cat among the pigeons yet, do we?’
‘It’s him. Kurt Becker, the scourge of Brussels.’
‘Are you positive? It’s been forty years since you last saw him.’
‘How can you ask me that? He took my family from me and sent them to Auschwitz. Do you think that I could forget something like that? And that other man, I recognise him from the photos. That’s Boris Klein. I’m convinced of it’
‘Okay. Calm down. We need to find out where they live and how many others there are in San Blas. If there are more, we’re going to need help to catch them. Don’t let him see your reaction.’
‘Reaction? He’s a fucking mass murderer.’
‘Yes, and we’re going to get him for it. But not this minute. Trust me. We need to leave now. Stand up, there’s a good chap.’
