A Quiet Flame

“Quite so. Anyway, we carry out river survey reports for the prof. Hydrological analysis, that kind of thing. Not much to it, really. But I’m out in the fresh air a lot, which suits me after all those months of hiding out in lofts and basements. I shall miss this. Didn’t I tell you? After another six months here I shall transfer to Capri’s personnel department, in Buenos Aires.”

We ate some lunch. The steaks were good. The food was always good in Argentina. Just as long as you ordered steak.

“What about you, Bernie? What brings you this far north?”

“I’m working for the police. I’m supposed to be checking out old comrades. Deciding whether they’re worthy of the good-conduct pass they will need to get an Argie passport. Yours is already in the file.”

“Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it. To be honest, it’s mostly just a cover story so that I can ask some of our old comrades a lot of awkward questions. Like, what did you do in the war, Fritz? The Argies are a bit jumpy that they’ll unwittingly hand out a passport to some mass-murdering psycho and that the Amis will find out about it and kick up an international fuss.”

“I see. Tricky stuff.”

“I was hoping you might help, Herbert. After all, it goes without saying that Capri—the Compañía Alemana para Recién Inmigrados—is the largest employer of ex-SS in the country.”

“Of course I’ll help,” said Geller. “You’re just about my only friend in this country, Bernie. Well, there’s you and a girl I met back in Buenos Aires.”

“Good for you, kid. Apart from Ricardo, who else have you come across who might be worse than the worst?”

“I get the picture. A bastard who gives the rest of us bastards a bad name, eh?”

“That’s the idea.”

“Let’s see now. There’s Erwin Fleiss. He’s a nasty piece of work. From Innsbruck. He made a rather tasteless joke about organizing some Jewish pogrom there, in 1938. We’ve got a couple of gauleiters. One from Brunswick, and one from Styria. Some Luftwaffe general called Kramer. Another fellow, who was part of Hitler’s bodyguard. Of course, there’s a lot more of them back at head office in Buenos Aires. I could probably find out quite a lot about them for you when I’m working there. But, like I say, that won’t be for a while.” He frowned. “Who else? There’s Wolf Probst. Yes, he’s a ruthless character, I think. Might be a good idea to check him out.”

“I’m particularly looking for someone who might just have murdered again, since arriving here in Argentina.”

“Now I see. Set a thief to catch a thief, is that it?”

“Something like that,” I said. “The kind of man I’m looking for is someone who probably enjoys cruelty and killing for its own sake.”

Geller shook his head. “No one springs to mind, I’m afraid. I mean, Ricardo’s a bastard, but he’s not a psychopathic bastard, if you follow me. Look here, why don’t you ask him? I mean, he must have been to murder camps and seen some horrible things. Met some horrible people. Probably the very types you’re looking for.”

“I wonder,” I said.

“What?”

“If he’d cooperate.”

“A passport’s a passport. We both know what that’s worth when you’re sweating it out in someone’s basement in Genoa. Ricardo, too.”

“This village where he lives?”

“La Cocha.”

“How long would it take me to get there?”

“At least two hours, depending on the river. We’ve had a lot of rain in these parts, of late. I could drive you there if you wanted. If we left now, we could be there and back before dark.” Geller chuckled.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Just that it might be amusing to see Ricardo’s face when you tell him that you’re working for the police. That’s really going to make his day.”

“Worth a two-hour drive?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

GELLER’S CAR was a jeep the color of an apricot: just four heavy-duty wheels, a tall steering column, two uncomfortable seats, and a tailgate. We hadn’t driven very far before I realized why Geller was driving it. The roads south of Tucumán were little better than dirt tracks through sprawling fields of sugarcane with only the ingenios—the industrial mills—of the large sugar companies to remind us that we weren’t about to fall off the edge of the earth. By the time we reached La Cocha, it was impossible to imagine being anywhere farther from Germany and the long arm of Allied military justice.

If Tucumán was a horseshit town, then La Cocha was its poor pig-shit cousin. A Gadarene number of swine seemed to be wandering about the muddy streets as our jeep bounced into the place, scattering a flock of chickens like an exploding mortar bomb of clucks and feathers, and attracting the attention of a number of dogs whose prominent rib cages didn’t seem to interfere with their propensity to bark. From a tall chimney poured a cloud of black smoke; at its base was an open oven. For Eichmann, it looked like a home away from home. Using a long-handled wooden peel, a man was moving bread in and out of the oven. In his excellent castellano, Geller asked the baker for directions to the house of Ricardo Klement.