A Quiet Flame

by Philip Kerr

  “Colonel Montalbán? If you’re there, speak to me, you bastard.”

  The woman who was screaming started begging them not to kill her. It wasn’t Anna. The voice was older, more mature, huskier, not well educated. It was hard to say more about her voice because, suddenly, it was not there, and I sensed she wasn’t there, either.

  Behind me, a man was praying the same prayer over and over again, as if the repetition might make it count for more in the long line of prayers that were already winging their way ahead of us to the divine waiting room. From the speed of his prayers and his breathing and the way his position changed, I guessed he was next in line to the door. And even as I was thinking this, he was gone, too, his final scream, as he was bundled out of the plane, lost forever in the slipstream of eternity.

  I tried to shake the blindfold off my eyes but it was useless. I might as well have had no eyes at all. Only I wished that they had stopped up my ears as well, as they deported the other men and women, one by one, through the open door of the plane. It was like having a front-row seat in the dress circle of hell.

  I bellowed like a man roasting on a spit, cursing their mothers and their fathers and their bastard children. I told the colonel what I thought of him and his country and his president and his cancerous wife, and how I was going to have the last laugh because only I knew what he and she had dearly wanted to know, and that I wasn’t going to tell him anything now, not even if they did throw me out of the plane. I told them that I was spitting in all their faces in the knowledge that at least I was going to die knowing that I’d thwarted their stupid schemes. Someone slapped me. I ignored it and kept on talking.

  “A month from now. A week. Maybe even tomorrow. You and that dumb blond whore are going to ask yourself if Gunther really knew what he said he knew. If he really could have told you what you wanted to find out most in the world. Where you can find her. Where she’s been hiding all this time. Don’t you want to find out, Colonel?”

  I heard a woman scream several times before the open door silenced her permanently. Some sadistic part of my brain tried to persuade me that there had been something about her scream that had seemed familiar. Her perfume, too. But I wasn’t buying it. I hadn’t any more reason for thinking Anna was on the plane than for believing the colonel was. If she had done as I had told her and gone to stay with a friend, there was every reason to suppose she was all right.

  Someone snatched off my blindfold. I was just in time to see two of my mustachioed friends carrying a man to the open door behind the wing. Mercifully, the man was unconscious. He was wearing just underpants. His hands and his feet were tied and he looked like he’d been badly beaten. Either that or his face had been stung by a whole jungleful of bees. The less said about his toes the better. The two who threw him out of the plane probably thought they were doing him a favor. One of them pulled a filthy handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and wiped his brow. It was hard work. Then they looked at me.

  “What did you expect?” said a voice behind me. “I warned you to leave it alone.”

  My neck was painful from when I’d been slugged but, gritting my teeth, I turned my head into the pain to meet the colonel’s eye.

  “I didn’t expect to find what I found,” I said. “I didn’t expect the unthinkable. Not again. Not here. This is supposed to be a new world. I didn’t expect it would be just like the old one. But you know, now that I’ve seen your national airline and how it handles double-booked passengers, suddenly it doesn’t seem quite so surprising.”

  “This?” He shrugged. “It’s easier this way. There’s no evidence. No camps. No bodies. No graves. Nothing. No one can ever prove anything. It’s a one-way ticket. No one comes back to tell the tale.”

  “Who were they, anyway? Those people who disappeared just now.”

  “People like you, Gunther. People who asked too many questions.”

  “Is that all you’ve got against me?” I got a grin going and tried to make my mouth hang on to it, like I still had an ace up my sleeve. It didn’t feel right. My lips were trembling too much, but from here on, a show-and-tell was all I had going for me. If he decided I was bluffing, I was in for a flying lesson. He knew it. I knew it. The two stooges by the still-open door of the Dakota knew it. “Hell, I’m a detective, Colonel. It’s my job to ask too many questions. To stick my nose in where it’s not wanted. You of all people should know that. Everything’s my business until I find out what I’ve been hired to find out. That’s the way this racket works.”

  “Nevertheless, you were warned. Not to ask questions about Directive Eleven. I couldn’t have been more specific. I thought, after your trip to Caseros, you might appreciate that a little more keenly.” He sighed. “I was wrong, of course. And now you’re in a tight spot. Truly, I regret having to kill you, Gunther. I meant all I said when we first met. You really were a hero of mine.”

  “Well, then, let’s get to it,” I said.

  “You’re forgetting something, surely?”

  “I don’t pray so well these days, if that’s what you mean. And my memory is not so good at altitude. How high are we, anyway?”

  “About five thousand feet.”

  “That explains why it’s so damned drafty in here. Perhaps if those two altar boys were to close the door, I might warm up a little. I’m like a lizard that way. You’ll be surprised what I can do for you if you just let me sit for a while on a nice warm rock.”

  The colonel jerked his head at the door, and with a weary look of disappointment, like some French Catholic noblemen denied the pleasure of defenestrating a big-mouthed Huguenot, the two men closed it. “There,” the colonel said. “How’s your memory now?”

  “Improving all the time. Perhaps when we’re on the ground again, I’ll remember Evita’s daughter’s name. That’s assuming she really is Evita’s daughter. To my untutored, cynical eye, she and the president’s wife looked very unalike.”

  “You’re bluffing, Gunther.”

  “Maybe. But you can’t afford to take a chance on that, can you? If you knew any different, Colonel, I’d be in the river, looking for my old comrades from the Graf Spee.”

  “So why not tell me?”

  “Don’t make me laugh. As soon as I’ve spilled my guts, there’s nothing to stop you from spilling me out the door.”

  “Maybe. But look at it this way. If you tell me when we’re on the ground, there’s nothing to stop me killing you in a day or two. A week from now.”

  “You’re right. I never looked at it that way. You’d better think of something to put my mind at ease about that possibility, or you’ll wind up not knowing anything at all.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Really I don’t. You work it out. You’re the colonel. Perhaps if I had another cigarette and my hands free, we might reach some sort of understanding.”

  The colonel put his hand in the pocket of his suit. It came out with a switchblade as big as a drumstick. He turned me around and sawed at the cord binding my wrists. While I was rubbing some pain back into my hands, he put the knife away and took out his cigarettes. He shook one loose from the pack, put it into my mouth, and then tossed me a book of matches. If I’d had any feeling in my hands, I might have caught them. One of the colonel’s thugs picked up the matches and got my cigarette going for me. Meanwhile, the colonel leaned through the open cockpit door and spoke to the pilot. A moment later, the plane began to turn back toward the city.

  I was desperate to know if Anna had been one of those poor people thrown out of the aircraft. But I hardly knew how to ask the colonel. If I didn’t ask about Anna, he might get the idea there was no one important in my life who might be used against me. If I did ask, I’d be putting her in grave danger.

  “We’re going back to Ezeira,” he said.

  “I feel better already. Never was one for air travel.”

  I glanced around the inside of the plane. There was a large pool of blood and something worse on the f
loor. Now that the door was closed, I could smell the lingering stench of fear inside the Dakota. There were some seats up front. The colonel sat in one. I got up off the floor and went and sat beside him. I leaned across his lap and glanced out of the window at the gray river beneath us.

  “The people you just murdered,” I said. “I suppose that they were Communists.”

  “Some were.”

  “And the others? There were women, weren’t there?”

  “These are enlightened times we live in, Gunther. Women can be Communists, too. Sometimes—no, usually—they’re more fanatical than the men. More courageous, also. I wonder if you could take as much torture as one of the women we just dumped.”

  I said nothing.

  “You know, I could always take you back to Caseros. Have my men go to work on you with that electric cattle prod. Then you’d tell me what I want to know.”

  “I know a little bit more about torture than you think, Colonel. I know that if you torture a man to make him tell you lots of things, then gradually he’ll give them up, one by one. But if you torture a man to make him tell you one thing, the chances are he’ll clam up and take it. Make it a contest of wills. Now that I know how important this is to you, Colonel, I’d make it my life’s last mission to say nothing.”

  “A tough guy, huh?”

  “Only when I have to be.”

  “I believe you are. I suppose that’s one of the reasons I like you.”

  “Sure you like me. That’s why you wanted to throw me out of a plane at five thousand feet.”

  “You don’t think I enjoy this sort of thing, do you? But it has to be done. If the Communists were in power, they’d do the same thing to us, I can assure you.”

  “That’s what Hitler used to say.”

  “Wasn’t he right? Look what Stalin has done.”

  “It’s the politics of the cemetery, Colonel. I should know. I just crawled out of the one called Germany.”

  The colonel sighed. “Perhaps you’re right. But I think it’s better to live without principles than be righteous and dead. That’s what I’ve learned in the cemetery. There’s this, too, that I’ve learned. If my father leaves me a gold watch, I want my son to have it after me, not some paisano carrying a copy of Marx he’s never read. They want my watch? They’d better kill me first. Or it’s out the door they go. They’d better know that in Argentina we practice the redistribution of health. Anyone goes around thinking that all property is theft soon finds out that all killing is not murder. The last Communist we hang will be the one who helped himself to our rope.”

  “I don’t want to take anything from anyone, Colonel. When I came here, I wanted a quiet life, remember? Nothing made your business my business except you. For all I care, you can hang all the Communists in South America on your Christmas tree. All the Nazis, too. But when you hire me to be your dog and sniff around, you shouldn’t be surprised if I bark a bit and piss on your flower bed. That may be embarrassing to you, but that’s the way it is. I embarrass myself sometimes.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Fair enough, he says. You haven’t played fair with me since I got off the damn boat, Colonel. I want to know everything. And when I know everything, I’m going to get off this plane and I’m going back to my hotel and I’m going to take a bath. And when I’ve had some dinner and I’m good and ready and I’ve understood how everything works, I’m going to tell you what you want to know. And when you find that I’m telling the truth, you and von Bader and Evita are going to be so damned grateful you’re even going to pay me like you all said you would.”

  “As you wish, Gunther.”

  “No. Just what I said. What I wish would be too much to expect.”

  24

  BUENOS AIRES, 1950

  BY THE TIME we landed at Ezeira, I knew almost everything. Almost. I still didn’t know if Anna Yagubsky was dead or alive. I found a pay phone and called Anna’s parents, who told me they hadn’t seen her since the trip to Tucumán but that she’d left them a note saying she was going to stay with a friend.

  “Do you know who this friend is?” I asked Roman Yagubsky.

  “As a matter of fact, I thought it might be you.”

  “If she comes back or calls, tell her I need to speak to her, urgently.”

  “Always in a hurry,” he said.

  “It’s the business I’m in.”

  “Did you find my brother yet?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What kind of an answer is that?”

  “Not much of an answer, but I won’t lose any sleep over it. If you think I’ve done an unsatisfactory job, you can refuse to pay me. I won’t argue about that. But when I say ‘Not exactly,’ that’s exactly what I mean. There are rarely any definite answers in the private-detective business. There are only probablys and maybes and not-exactlys. They’re the kind of answers that are to be found in the crevices of what we’re allowed to know for sure. I have no evidence to say your brother and your sister-in-law are dead. I didn’t see their bodies. I didn’t see their death certificates. I didn’t speak to anyone who saw them die. All the same, I know they’re both dead, sir. It’s not an exact kind of knowing, but there it is. Fact is, it’s best I don’t say any more. For your sake and mine.”

  There was a silence. Then Señor Yagubsky said quietly, “Thank you, young man. Of course, I’ve known they were dead for a while. If they were alive, they’d have got in touch, but a brother is a brother and a twin is a twin and you feel an obligation to find out what you can. To have someone independent tell you what you think you know already. And you’re right, of course, that isn’t an exact kind of knowing but it’s better than nothing, right? So thank you again. I appreciate your candor. Not to mention your discretion. I know what kind of people are in this government. But I’m a Jew, Señor Hausner. I’m used to it. Maybe if I had more money and I was ten years younger, I’d go and live in Israel, but I don’t and I’m not. So I say may God bless and keep the Peróns a long way from me and mine.”

  “Don’t forget, sir. Tell Anna to call me. I’ll be at my hotel.”

  “I know, I know. Urgently. Germans. Every time you people open your mouths, I hear a clock ticking. Hitler might still be in power if he hadn’t been in such a hurry to do things.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, I went to meet the colonel at the Jockey Club, as arranged.

  The luxury of the Jockey Club of Buenos Aires would have put any Berlin or London club to shame. Inside, there was a great, empire-style rotunda, a fine marble statue of the goddess Diana, and a magnificent staircase that looked like the eighth wonder of the world. There were Corinthian columns everywhere, and these were ornamented with onyx, ivory, and more lapis lazuli than a Russian Orthodox cathedral. I found the colonel in the library—although calling the library at the Jockey Club a library was like calling Rita Hayworth an actress. There were plenty of books, it was true, but nearly all of their bindings were tooled with a little bit of gold, so that it was like entering a long-lost burial chamber in the Valley of the Kings. And there were some members who clearly belonged in a tomb: old men with profiles you might have seen on a thousand-peso note. There were no women in that club, however. They wouldn’t know what to do with a woman in the Buenos Aires Jockey Club. Try and saddle her, probably, or, in the colonel’s case, defenestrate her.

  He put down the book he was reading. I sat in the chair opposite and, curious, picked it up. I’m always interested in what mass murderers are reading.

  “Martín Fierro, by José Hernández,” he said. “Our national poet. Are you familiar with this?”

  “No.”

  “Then I give it to you. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s somewhat romanticized, but I’m sure there are elements that will appeal to you. The hero is an impoverished gaucho whose house, farm, wife, and family are all gone. Destroyed. He gets himself into one scrape after another. Knife fights and other brutal combats and various affairs of honor. Eventually, Martín Fierro becomes an outlaw, pur
sued by the police militia.” The colonel smiled. “Perhaps this is a familiar tale to a man like you, Gunther. Certainly this book is very popular here in Argentina. Most children grow up able to quote a few stanzas from Martín Fierro. Myself, I know most of it by heart.”

  “Assuming you have one.”

  The colonel smiled almost imperceptibly. “To business,” he said.

  There was a briefcase beside his leg. He laid his hand on it for a moment. “In here is one hundred thousand American dollars. Fifty from Evita and fifty from von Bader. There is also an Argentine passport in the name of Carlos Hausner. This bag is yours if you tell me what I want to know. The true whereabouts of Fabienne von Bader.”

  “Let’s not forget her mother,” I said. “Ilse von Bader. Her real mother. Not Evita Perón. And certainly not Isabel Pekerman. Beats me why you went to all that trouble.”

  “Originally, we thought it might add to the sense of urgency if you believed that only the girl had disappeared. A girl who merely goes away with her mother hardly needs to be found with any great urgency.”

  “True. But why the Evita story as well?”

  “Evita is a woman who believes in the personal touch. As I’m sure you remember. She thought that an appeal to you from her, in person, would encourage you to find Fabienne.”

  “She was very good,” I said. “But then, she is an actress, after all. What will happen to them? To Ilse? To Fabienne?”

  “They will be kept here, in Buenos Aires. Kept safe. No harm will come to them, I can assure you. As I told you on the plane, von Bader is the only one of the three remaining trustees of the Reichsbank accounts with a family. Therefore he is the only trustee who can be trusted to go to Zurich and do what we require him to do. Which is to sign over the Reichsbank accounts to the Peróns. Ilse von Bader feared allowing herself and her daughter to become hostages for her husband’s safe return. That is why they disappeared. Which left our plans in obvious disarray, since we could hardly let von Bader go to Zurich without some guarantee that he would come back again.” The colonel lit a cigarette. “So as soon as you tell me where they are hiding, we can pick them up and he can be on his way.”