know I’ll get lost again!” She gave him directions to a cafe a few
blocks away.
She watched as he got up, left some change, and, without appearing to
signal to, or consult with, anyone inside the cafe, emerged. She knew
what he looked like, but presumably he wouldn’t recognize her.
He crossed the street and walked past her, and she got a better glimpse
of him. The silver hair was premature; he was a man in his forties with
soft brown eyes and a pleasant look about him. He carried no briefcase
or file, just his phone.
She waited a few seconds, then followed him.
He located the cafe easily, and went inside. She joined him a minute or
so later.
“You mind explaining what all this was about?” Machado asked.
She related what had happened to her and Ben the night before. She
watched his face closely; he seemed appalled.
Machado had the saturnine look of an Italian film star of the 1960s. He
was deeply and meticulously tanned. Around his neck was a thin gold
chain, and another gold chain encircled his left wrist. A vertical
worry line was scored deeply between his close-set fawn’s eyes. He wore
no wedding band.
“The police here, they are totally corrupt, you are absolutely right,”
he said. “They hire me to do investigative work for them, as an outside
consultant, because they don’t trust their own people!”
“I’m not surprised.” The fear left over from the abduction had become
anger.
“You know, we have no cop shows here in Argentina like you have in
America, because here cops aren’t heroes. They’re scum. I know. I was
in Federal Police for twenty-one years. Got my pension and left.”
A long table nearby, some sort of student study group by the look of
them, burst into laughter.
“Everyone here is afraid of the police,” he went on heatedly. “Police
brutality. They charge for protection. They shoot to kill whenever
they want. You like their uniforms?”
“They look like New York City cops.”
“That’s because their uniforms were copied exactly from the NYPD. And
that’s all they copied.” He flashed an endearing smile. “So what can I
do for you.”
“I need to find a man named Josef Strasser.”
His eyes widened. “Ah, well, you know, this old bastard lives under a
false name. I don’t know where he lives, but I can ask some questions.
Not so easy. You gonna extradite?”
“No, actually, I need to have a talk with him.”
He straightened. “Really?”
“I may have a way to locate him, but I’ll need your help.” She related
Ben’s meeting with Lenz’s widow. “If Vera Lenz or her stepson are in
touch with Strasser, and they called to warn him, say could you find out
what number they dialed?”
“Ah,” he said. “Very nice. Yes of course, but only if you can get
Senora Lenz’s telephone number.”
She handed him a slip of paper with the number on it.
“The phone companies in Argentina, they record the beginning and end of
all telephone conversations, the number called and how long the call. It
is the Excalibur system, they call it. My friends in the police, for
the right price, they will get for me all calls made from that number.”
And as if to demonstrate how easy it was, he placed a call, spoke
briefly, read off the number on the scrap of paper.
“No problem,” he said. “We’ll know soon. Come, I buy you a steak.”
They walked a few blocks to his car, a white Ford Escort whose backseat
had for some reason been removed. He took her to an old-style
restaurant near the Cementerio de la Recoleta called Estilo Munich, its
walls adorned with stuffed boar’s and stag’s heads. The floor was
marble but looked like drab linoleum; the ceiling was acoustic tile.
Weary waiters shuffled slowly between the tables.
“I will order for you bife de chorizo,” Machado said. “With chimichurri
sauce. Jugoso, it is O.K.?”
“Rare is how I like it, yes. Any symbolism in the fact that you brought
me to a restaurant called Munich?”
“They serve one of the best steaks in Buenos Aires, and we are a city
that knows steaks.” He gave her a comp licit glance. “Used to be a lot
of restaurants in BA called Munich very fashionable once. Not so
fashionable now.”
“Not so many Germans.”
He took a pull of the Carrascal. His cell phone rang; he spoke briefly,
put it back. “My girlfriend,” he apologized. “I thought we might have
some results on our search, but no.”
“If Strasser has managed to live here for so long without anybody
finding him, he must have some good false ID.”
“People like him got excellent false papers. For a long time only Jakob
Sonnenfeld was able to trace them. For years, you know, there was a
rumor that Martin Bormann was still alive in Argentina, until his skull
turned up in Germany. Nineteen seventy-two, in Berlin. They were
building a bridge, they dug up the ground, and they found a skull.
Identified it as Bormann’s.”
“Was it?”
“A couple of years ago they finally did the DNA test. It was Bormann’s
skull, yes.”
“What about the rest of his body?”
“Never found. I think he was buried here, in Bariloche, and someone
brought the skull to Germany. To mislead the pursuers.” His eyes
sparkled with amusement. “You know Bormann’s son lives here. He’s a
Catholic priest. Really.” Another swig of Carrascal. “It’s true.
Always rumors about Bormann. It is like with Josef Mengele. After he
was buried everyone thinks he faked his own death. With Lenz the same
thing. For years after his death was announced, there was rumors that
he’s still alive. Then they found his bones.”
“Were they DNA-tested, too?”
“I don’t think.”
“No one found his skull anywhere.”
“No skull.”
“Could he still be alive somewhere?”
Machado laughed. “He’d be more than one hundred twenty.”
“Well, only the good die young. He died of a stroke, didn’t he?”
“This is the public line. But I think Lenz was murdered by Israeli
agents. You know, when Eichmann came here, he and his wife took false
names, but their three sons–they used the name Eichmann! At school
everyone knew the boys as Eichmann. But no one came to find them, you
see. No one came to look for them until Sonnenfeld.”
Their steaks arrived. Amazingly delicious, Anna thought. She was not
much of a meat-eater, but this could convert her.
“Mind if I ask why you want to talk to Strasser?” Machado asked.
“Sorry. Can’t say.”
He seemed to accept it with good grace. “Strasser was one of the
inventors of ZyklonB.”
“The gas used at Auschwitz.”
“But it was his own idea to use it on human beings. A clever fellow,
this Strasser. He came up with the way to kill Jews so much more
expeditiously.” After dinner they walked a few doors down to a large
cafe called La Biela, on Avenue Quintana, which at after eleven o’clock
at night was crowded and loud.
Over coffee she asked, “Can you get me a weapon?”
He looked at her slyly. “It can be arranged.”
“By tomorrow morning?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
His phone rang again.
This time he jotted down notes on a little square napkin.
“His phone’s listed under the name Albrecht,” Machado said when he’d
hung up. “The right age, too. He used his real birthdates on his
application forms. I think you’ve found your man.”
“So someone did call him from Lenz’s house.”
“Yes. With the phone number it was a simple thing to get the name and
address. I think he must have been out of town for a long time, because
no outgoing calls were made from his home for the last five weeks. Two
days ago the calls started up again.”
That would explain why Strasser hadn’t yet been reported killed like all
the others, she thought. He was out of town. That’s how he had stayed
alive. “Your contact,” she said. “Whoever got this information for
you-why does he think you’re interested?”
“Maybe he believes I’m planning some sort of extortion.” “He wouldn’t
let Strasser know you’ve been looking?” “My police contacts are too
stupid to play those sorts of games.” “Let’s hope so.” But her worry
was not so easily allayed. “What about the sorts of thugs who kidnapped
us …”
He frowned. “The sons and grandsons of the fugitives, they won’t mess
with me. I have too many friends in the police. It is dangerous for
them. Sometimes when I do this sort of job, I go home and I find Wagner
on my answering machine, a veiled threat. Sometimes they walk by me on
the street, take flash photographs of me. But that’s all they do. I
never worry.” He lit another cigarette. “You have no reason to worry
either.” No, no reason to worry, she thought. Easy for you to say.