by Ira Levin
“They were going when I came down.”
“Good, good.” The young man tugged at the zipper of his blue-and-white airline bag. He was wearing a short blue denim jacket and blue jeans; he looked to be about twenty-three, North American. “You are a big helper to me,” he told Tsuruko, fitting the recorder into the bag. “My magazine is very happy when I bring home a story about Senhor Aspiazu. He is the most famous maker of the cinema.” Reaching to his hip, he brought out a wallet and opened it toward the light.
Tsuruko watched, holding the balled napkin. “A North American magazine?” she asked.
“Yes,” the young man said, separating bills. “Movie Story. A very important magazine of the cinema.” He smiled brightly at Tsuruko and gave bills to her. “One hundred and fifty cruzeiros. Many thanks. You are a big helper to me.”
“Thank you.” She glanced at the bills and smiled at him, bobbed her head.
“Your restaurant smells like a good one,” he said, pocketing his wallet. “I am in much hunger while I wait.”
“Would you like me to get something for you?” She tucked the bills into her kimono. “I could—”
“No, no.” He touched her hand. “I eat at my hotel. Thanks. Many thanks.” He gave her hand a squeeze, and turned and went long-legging into the passage.
“You’re welcome, Senhor Hunter,” she called after him. She watched for a moment, then turned and opened the door and went in.
They had a round of complimentary drinks at the bar, persuaded to do so less by the pleadings of the tuxedoed Japanese—who introduced himself as Hiroo Kuwayama, one of Sakai’s three owners—than by the presence there of a novel electronic ping-pong game; and this proved so engaging that another round was ordered and drunk, and still another debated upon but decided against.
At about eleven-thirty they went en masse to the checkroom to collect their hats. The kimonoed girl, giving Hessen his, smiled and said, “A friend of yours came in after you, but he didn’t want to go upstairs uninvited.”
Hessen looked at her for a moment. “Oh?” he said.
She nodded. “A young man. A North American, I think.”
“Oh,” Hessen said. “Of course. Yes. I know who you mean. Came in after me, you say.”
“Yes, senhor. While you were going up the stairs.”
“He asked where I was going, of course.”
She nodded.
“You told him?”
“A private party. He thought he knew who was giving it, but he was wrong. I told him it was Senhor Aspiazu. He knows him too.”
“Yes, I know,” Hessen said. “We’re all good friends. He should have come up.”
“He said it was probably a business meeting and he didn’t want to break in. Besides, he wasn’t dressed right.” She gestured down her sides, regretfully. “Jeans.” She fluttered slim fingers at her throat. “No tie.”
“Oh,” Hessen said. “Well, it’s a shame he didn’t come up anyway, just to say hello. He went right out again?”
She nodded.
“Oh well,” Hessen said, and smiled and gave her a cruzeiro.
He went and spoke to the man in white. The other men, holding hats and attaché cases, gathered around them.
The blond man and the black-haired man went quickly toward the carved entrance doors; Traunsteiner hurried into the bar and came out a moment later with Hiroo Kuwayama.
The man in white put a white-gloved hand on Kuwayama’s black shoulder and talked earnestly to him. Kuwayama listened, and drew in breath, bit his lip, wagged his head.
He spoke and gestured reassuringly and hurried off toward the rear of the restaurant.
The man in white waved the other men sharply away from him. He moved to the side of the foyer and put his hat and his briefcase, less fat now, on a black lamp table. He stood looking toward the rear of the restaurant, frowning and rubbing his white-gloved hands together. He looked down at them, and put them at his sides.
From the rear of the restaurant Tsuruko and Mori came, in colorful slacks and blouses, and Yoshiko, still in her kimono. Kuwayama hustled them forward. They looked confused and worried. Diners glanced at them.
The man in white curved his mouth into a friendly smile.
Kuwayama delivered the three women to the man in white, nodded to him, and moved aside to watch with folded arms.
The man in white smiled and shook his head sorrowfully, ran a gloved hand back over his cropped gray hair. “Girls,” he said, “a really bad thing has come up. Bad for me, I mean, not for you. Fine for you. I’ll explain.” He took a breath. “I’m a manufacturer of farm machinery,” he said, “one of the biggest in South America. The men who are with me tonight”—he gestured back over his shoulder—“are my salesmen. We got together here so I could tell them about some new machines we’re putting into production, give them all the details and specifications; you know. Everything top secret. Now I’ve found out that a spy for a rival North American concern learned about our meeting just before it started, and knowing the way these people work, I’m willing to bet he went back to the kitchen and got hold of one of you, or even all of you, and asked you to eavesdrop on our conversation from some…secret hiding place, or maybe take pictures of us.” He raised a finger. “You see,” he explained, “some of my salesmen formerly worked for this rival concern, and they don’t know—the concern doesn’t know—who’s with me now, so pictures of us would be useful to them too.” He nodded, smiling ruefully. “It’s a very competitive business,” he said. “Dog eat dog.”
Tsuruko and Mori and Yoshiko looked blankly at him, shaking their heads slightly, slowly.
Kuwayama, who had moved around beside and behind the man in white, said sternly, “If any of you did what the senhor—”
“Let me!” The man in white threw an open hand back but didn’t turn. “Please.” He lowered the hand, smiled, and took half a step forward. “This man,” he said good-naturedly, “a young North American, would have offered you some money, of course, and he would have told you some kind of story about it being a practical joke or something, a harmless little trick he was playing on us. Now, I can fully understand how girls who are not, I’m sure, being vastly overpaid—You aren’t, are you? Is my friend here vastly overpaying any of you?” His brown eyes twinkled at them, waiting for an answer.
Yoshiko, giggling, shook her head vehemently.
The man in white laughed with her, and reached toward her shoulder but withdrew his hand short of touching her. “I didn’t think so!” he said. “No, I was pretty damn sure he isn’t!” He smiled at Mori and Tsuruko; they smiled uncertainly back at him. “Now, I can fully understand,” he said, getting serious again, “how girls in your situation, hard-working girls with family responsibilities—you with your two children, Mori—I can fully understand how you could go along with such an offer. In fact, I can’t understand how you couldn’t go along with it; you’d be stupid not to! A harmless little joke, a few extra cruzeiros. Things are expensive these days; I know. That’s why I gave you nice tips upstairs. So if the offer was made, and if you accepted it, believe me, girls: there’s no anger on my part, there’s no resentment; there’s only understanding, and a need to know.”
“Senhor,” Mori protested, “I give you my word, nobody offered me anything or asked me to do anything.”
“Nobody,” Tsuruko said, shaking her head; and Yoshiko, shaking hers, said, “Honestly, senhor.”
“As proof of my understanding,” the man in white said, holding his jacket-front from him and reaching into it, “I’ll give you twice what he gave you, or twice what he only offered.” He brought out a thick black crocodile billfold, split it open, and showed the inside edges of two sheaves of bills. “This is what I meant before,” he said, “about it being a bad thing for me but a good thing for you.” He looked from one woman to another. “Twice what he gave you,” he said. “For you, and the same amount also for Senhor…” He jerked his head back toward Kuwayama, who said, “Kuwayama.” “So he won’t be angry wit
h you either. Girls? Please?” The man in white showed his money to Yoshiko. “Years have been spent on this—on these new machines,” he told her. “Millions of cruzeiros!” He showed his money to Mori. “If I know how much my rival knows, then I can take steps to protect myself!” He showed his money to Tsuruko. “I can speed up production, or maybe find this young man and…get him onto my side, give money to him as well as to you and Senhor—”
“Kuwayama. Come on, girls, don’t be afraid! Tell Senhor Aspiazu! I won’t be angry with you.”
“You see?” the man in white urged. “Only good can come! For everyone!”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Mori insisted, and Yoshiko, looking at the bent-open billfold with its sheaves of bills, said sadly, “Nothing. Honestly.” She looked up. “I would tell, gladly, senhor. But there’s really nothing.”
Tsuruko looked at the billfold.
The man in white watched her.
She looked up at him, and hesitantly, with embarrassment, nodded.
He let his breath out, looking intently at her.
“It was just the way you said,” she admitted. “I was in the kitchen, when we were getting ready to serve you, and one of the boys came to me and said there was a man outside who wanted to speak to someone serving your party. Very important. So I went out, and he was there, the North American. He gave me two hundred cruzeiros, fifty before and a hundred and fifty after. He said he was a reporter for a magazine, and you made films and never gave interviews.”
The man in white, looking at her, said, “Go on.”
“He said it would be a good story for him if he found out what new films you were planning. I told him you were going to talk with your guests later on—Senhor K. told us you were—and he—”
“Asked you to hide and listen.”
“No, senhor, he gave me a tape recorder, and I brought it in, and brought it out to him when you were done talking.”
“A…tape recorder?”
Tsuruko nodded. “He showed me how to work it. Two buttons at once.” With both her forefingers she pressed air before her.
The man in white closed his eyes and stood motionless except for a slight side-to-side swaying. He opened his eyes and looked at Tsuruko and smiled faintly. “A tape recorder was in operation throughout our conference?” he asked.
“Yes, senhor,” she said. “In a rice bowl under the serving table. It worked very well. The man tried it before he paid me, and he was very happy.”
The man in white took in air through his mouth, licked his upper lip, allowed the air out, and closed his mouth and swallowed. He put a white-gloved hand to his forehead and wiped it slowly.
“Two hundred cruzeiros altogether,” Tsuruko said.
The man in white looked at her, moved closer to her, and drew in a deep breath. He smiled down at her; she was half a head shorter than he. “Dear,” he said softly, “I want you to tell me everything you can about the man. He was young—how young? What did he look like?”
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 rig
ht 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!
