Boys from Brazil (4 page)

“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 with 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 right 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!

A light rap sounded at the door.

“It's about time,” he said in English, and hanging on to the phone, got up, reached, and just managed to give the doorknob the turn that unlocked it. The door opened against his hand, and the waiter with the droopy mustache came in with a napkin-covered plate and the bottle of Brahma but no glass on the tray. “Sorry it took so long,” he said. “Eleven o'clock they all run. I had to make it myself.”

“That is all right,” he said in Portuguese. “Put the tray on the bed, please.”

“I forgot the glass.”

“That is all right. I need no glass. Give me the check and the pencil, please.”

He signed the check against the wall, holding it there with his phone-hand; added a tip beyond the service charge.

The waiter went out without thanking him and belched as he closed the door.

He never should have left the Del Rey.

He sat back down on the bed, the phone whistling hollowly in his ear. He turned to steady the tray, and looked with misgiving at the yellow napkin with
Miramar
stamped big and black and burglar-proof in a corner of it. He took hold of it, and what the hell, whipped it away: the sandwich was thick and beautiful, all chicken, no lettuce or crap whatsoever. Forgiving the waiter, he gathered up a half of it, bent his head to meet it, and took a big delicious middle bite. God, he was starving!

“
Ich möchte Wien
,” an operator said. “
Wien!
”

He thought of the tape and what he would say to Yakov Liebermann, and his mouth was full of cardboard; he chewed and chewed and somehow got it down. He put the sandwich down and picked up the beer. It was one of the really great beers and it tasted lousy.

“Not much longer,” Cute Sexy Operator said.

“I hope. Thank you.”

“Here you are, senhor.”

A phone rang.

He grabbed another swallow and put the bottle down, wiped his hand on a jeaned knee, turned more toward the phone.

The other phone rang, and rang, and was picked up: “
Ja?
”—as clear as around the corner.

“Mr. Liebermann?”

“Ja. Wer'st da?”

“It's Barry Koehler. Remember, Mr. Liebermann? I came to see you early in August, wanted to work for you? Barry Koehler from Evanston, Illinois?”

Silence.

“Mr. Liebermann?”

“Barry Koehler, I don't know what time it is in Illinoise, but in Vienna it's so dark I can't see the clock.”

“I'm not in Illinois, I'm in São Paulo, Brazil.”