PROLOGUE
BUENOS AIRES
SPRING, 1979
He’d been following the German all day.
Now he was down by the Boca where he shadowed the older man along the river, the sun going down. The German was beer-gut heavy, in his Bermuda shorts and tourist T-shirt, with a crewcut and sunburn to set him further apart from the locals, making him easy to follow through the Paris of South America. Like tracking an aging rhinoceros. Still lethal.
But no whip or club now.
No gas chamber now.
He watched the sixty-seven-year-old plod over the garish multi-colored stones, eating his ice cream in the pleasant spring evening, stopping at the mouth of El Caminito as the barkers outside the bars and clubs tried to lure him in with cut-rate Flamenco shows, cheap steins of beer, girls in split skirts and heavy eye makeup who pouted from doorways. Their desperation was evident as the tinny music wafted out of this place, that place.
The German waddled down El Caminito, the children coming up to him, begging for change. He swatted a small hand away. An old woman approached, hands in prayer, pleading. He pushed past her. The soldiers, machine guns over shoulders, watched everyone. The generals had been in power for several years.
The man continued to track the German. Unlike the German he was fit, in his forties, dark, more than ready for what was about to come.
It was all about patience.
He had waited since 1942. He could wait a little longer.
He felt in his jacket pocket. The ID card was all set. The switchblade knife was ready. He had one more weapon in his other pocket, the pièce de résistance.
In the middle of the narrow street, old colonial Spanish houses contrasted with the kitschy primary colors that had been slapped on all over the Boca. A woman in stacked high heels and tight red skirt, her gleaming hair pinned back, danced out from a bar on the cobblestones to meet the German. Her blood-red lips puckered as she took his arm, pulling him into the dark club. The German laughed as he shoved the last of his ice cream cone into his mouth, licking a drop off his thumb. The man watched the German stumble in past the doorman, whose well-worn pinstriped suit hung on him in the heat.
The man followed the German inside.
It was dark in here, the Flamenco music echoing. Cane-backed chairs hung from the ceiling. A few other tourists sat at small tables, where Chianti bottles with melted wax candles served as decoration. The smell of beer saturated the floorboards. Another woman danced on a low stage, the hems of her frilly skirt swirling as she clacked castanets. Behind her a bored combo played dutifully with forced smiles.
The man stood at the bar, anonymous in his cap and sunglasses, black roomy jacket, jeans and sneaks. Just another tourist on the prowl.
He watched the German sit down at a table with the woman in the red skirt.
The barman appeared, smiling around his mustache.
“Espresso,” the man said.
The barman nodding si, si, turned to a fancy chrome machine. Already the waitress for the German was at the counter, ordering a liter of beer and a champagne. The woman in red at the table had her hand on the German’s pink pudgy knee.
The barman set his coffee down in front of the man with a flourish and a smile.
“Deutsche?” he asked.
“Americano,” the man lied.
“No, no …” The barman grinned as he shook his head, thumbing his white-shirted chest. “We are the Americanos. You are the norte Americanos!”
The man smiled at the quip, sipped his coffee, held it up to compliment the barman. The barman grinned back, turned to the counter to pour a frothy stein of beer for the German and a fizzy drink of some sort from an unlabeled bottle into a champagne flute.
The man would bide his time. He had waited thirty-seven years.
After
another liter of beer and another “champagne,” the woman in red was practically in the fat man’s lap. Then he pushed her away, struggled to get up, chair squeaking over the music.
A worried look crossed her face. That he might leave.
“Toilet!” the German shouted.
Ah. She pointed back past the stage with a long red-nailed finger, a fresh smile plastered on her face. As soon as he turned away from her, the smile faded.
The German staggered across the tiny floor, past the stage where the dancing was reaching a climax. Down a dark hallway.
Time. It was time.
The man paid for his coffee, tipped the barman well, but not so well that he’d be remembered.
Headed back to the restroom.
Pushed open the blue door marked Gauchos. The sharp smell of urine.
The German stood at the only urinal, his back to him, head tilted up as he relieved himself.
The man slid the bolt lock on the door. Turned to the German. He slipped his hands in his pockets, ready.
The German turned his head halfway as he finished up.
“Just waiting for a piss,” the man said in German to the fat man. “You don’t buy beer; you only rent it.”
The German laughed, big belly jiggling as he zipped himself up. “Where are you from, friend? Do I hear Berlin? That’s my town.”
“Sachsenhausen,” the man said darkly.
The German’s eyes narrowed as he turned around, face dropping.
“Where?”
“You know where,” he said, “The concentration camp.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“
Don’t pretend. Thirty-five kilometers north of Berlin. The shoe-testing track? Where my mother walked twelve hours a day over gravel and rocks, while you bastards tested out the latest in military footwear? You thought it was funny when she collapsed. Before you shot her.”
The German’s drunken face grew brutal. “You’re living in a fantasy, pal. I was never in the army.”
The man brought out the thirty-seven-year-old SS ID, held it up.
“Really?” he said, feigning confusion. He looked at the card, then at the German. “Is this not you? Rottenführer Kruger? It certainly looks like you. Admittedly, quite a few kilos ago.” He smiled. “It’s a constant battle, isn’t it—keeping the weight off ? Not for me, though. I learned how to do with almost nothing back in the camps. It’s a habit that stuck.”
The German looked at the card, bleary at first, then ignored it with a fleshy scowl.
“Out of my way, Yid.” He moved to push past.
The man brought the switchblade out, pressed the button, a long stiletto of steel ejecting with a smooth shick.
The German stood back, blinking in fear. “What the hell? What do you want?”
He held out the ID card. “Want to get rid of this?”
There was a pause. A cagey squint. “How much?”
“No charge.”
“What?”
“All you have to do is eat it.”
“What?”
“You obviously like to eat. So eat this. Hide the evidence. Like you did with my mother’s body in the lime pit behind Sachsenhausen.”
“You’re fucking crazy!”
He nodded in agreement. “Yes.” He held the ID out further. “Chomp chomp, eh?” He held the knife up in the other hand. “Or, take your pick.”
The German blinked frantically. Out in the bar, the syrupy music played.
The German gave a gasp, took the ID, shoved it in his mouth, started chewing, the old paper dry, the photograph crumpling with difficulty between his teeth. Grunting a painful
mouthful.
“Mach Schnell, Rottenführer.” The man poked him gently in the gut with the tip of the knife blade, so as not to break skin. The German flinched. “Almost done.”
The German fought it down, swallowing with a grimace.
When he was done, he said, “Satisfied, punk?”
The man pulled the garrote from his other pocket. Didn’t smile. There was nothing to smile about anymore.
“Remember the gallows? Where you hung prisoners with piano wire while we stood in line at roll call? I was only six at the time but it’s not something you forget.”
The German’s face turned to tears. “Halt! Bitte!”
“On your knees, Rottenführer.”
The German’s mouth opened in a shout for help. But the man had anticipated that. A swift butt of his forehead into his face, crunching his nose, knocked him back into the cubicle wall with a bang. Several more blows had him down on the filthy tiles. Flipped him over. The garrote around his neck now. Caught one of the German’s fingers in it as he tightened it, slicing deep as the German fought for his life. Blood spurted.
***
Moments later the man left the bar, head down. The woman in the red skirt was sitting at the same table, smoking a cigarette, looking bored, waiting for her German to return. On stage, the music and dancing continued.
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