“Sit down,” Wheelock said, gesturing toward the sofa as he went to the settee. “And tell me why a Nazi is coming to get me.” He sat down. “I have to admit I’m goddamn curious.”
Curhious—the r slightly roughened. That was what was bothering him; friendly Henry Wheelock was mimicking him, shading his American speech with a hint of a “Choiman agzent” nothing broad, just the hardly-at-all roughening of the r’s, the lightest dart of a v inside the w’s. Liebermann sat on the sofa—the cushion wheezed—and looked across at Wheelock leaning forward on the settee, elbows on spread knees, fingertips gliding back and forth along the edge of a green album or scrapbook on a low table before him; smiling at him, waiting.
Could the mimicry be unintended? He himself had sometimes echoed the rhythm and inflections of a foreigner’s awkward German; had caught himself doing it and been embarrassed.
But no, this was intentional, he was sure of it. Hostility was coming at him from smiling Wheelock. And what would you expect from an anti-Semitic former penitentiary guard who trains dogs to tear people’s throats out? Loving kindness? Good manners?
Well, he hadn’t come here to make a new friend. He put his briefcase by his feet, rested his hands on his knees.
“To explain this, Mr. Wheelock,” he said, “I have to go into personal matters. Personal regarding you. About your son, and his adoption.”
Wheelock’s eyebrows lifted questioningly.
“I know,” Liebermann said, “that you and Mrs. Wheelock got him in New York City from ‘Elizabeth Gregory.’ Now please believe me”—he leaned forward—“no one is going to make trouble about it. No one is going to try to take your son away from you or charge you with any law-breaking. It’s long ago and not important any more, not directly important. I give you my word on this.”
“I believe you,” Wheelock said gravely.
A very cool customer, this momzer, taking it so calmly; sitting there running the tips of his forefingers apart and together, apart and together, along the edge of the green album cover. The spine of the album lay toward Liebermann; the cover sloped upward, resting, apparently, on something inside. “‘Elizabeth Gregory,’” Liebermann said, “wasn’t her real name. Her real name was Frieda Maloney, Frieda Altschul Maloney. You have heard it?”
Wheelock frowned thoughtfully. “Do you mean that Nazi?” he asked. “The one they sent back to Germany?”
“Yes.” Liebermann picked up his briefcase. “I have here some pictures of her. You’ll see that—”
“Don’t bother,” Wheelock said.
Liebermann looked at him.
“I saw her picture in the newspaper,” Wheelock explained. “She looked familiar to me. Now I know why.” He smiled. The “why” had almost been “vy.”
Liebermann nodded. (Was it intentional? Except for the mimicry Wheelock was behaving pleasantly enough…) He put back the loosened briefcase strap; looked at Wheelock. “You and your wife,” he said, trying to un-v his own w’s, “weren’t the only couple that got babies from her. A couple named Guthrie did, and Mr. Guthrie was murdered last October. A couple named Curry did; Mr. Curry was murdered in November.”
Wheelock looked concerned now. His fingertips were motionless on the edge of the album cover.
“There is a Nazi going about in this country,” Liebermann said, holding the briefcase on his lap, “a former SS man, killing the fathers of the boys adopted through Frieda Maloney. Killing them in the same order as the adoptions, and the same time apart. You’re the next one, Mr. Wheelock.” He nodded. “Soon. And there are many more after. This is why I go to the F.B.I., and this is why, while I go, you should be protected. And by more than your dogs.” He gestured at the door beyond the sofa end; the dogs were whining behind it now, one or two barking half-heartedly.
Wheelock shook his head in amazement. “Hmm!” he said. “But this is so strange!” He looked wonderingly at Liebermann. “The fathers of the boys are being killed?”
“Yes.”
“But why?” Perfect pronunciation this time; he too was trying.
Dear God, of course! Not mimicry at all, intended or unintended, but a real accent, like his own, being suppressed!
He said, “I don’t know…”
And the shoes and the trousers, of a city man not a country man; the hostility coming from him; the dogs closed away so as not to “annoy”…
“You don’t know?” the-Nazi-not-Wheelock asked him. “All these killings are taking place and you don’t know the rheason?”
But the killers were in their fifties, and this man was sixty-five, maybe a little less. Mengele? Impossible. He was in Brazil or Paraguay and wouldn’t dare come north, couldn’t possibly be sitting here in New Providence, Pennsylvania.
He shook his head at no-not-Mengele.
But Kurt Koehler had been in Brazil, and had come to Washington. The name would have been in Barry’s passport or wallet as next-of-kin…
A gun came out from behind the album cover, aiming its muzzle at him. “Then I must tell it to you,” the man holding the gun said. Liebermann looked at him; darkened and lengthened his hair, gave him a thin mustache, filled him out and made him younger…Yes, Mengele. Mengele! The hated, the so-long-hunted; Angel of Death, child-killer! Sitting here. Smiling. Aiming a gun at him. “Heaven forbid,” Mengele said in German, “that you should die in ignorance. I want you to know exactly what’s coming in twenty years or so. Is that ossified stare only for the gun, or have you recognized me?”
Liebermann blinked, took a breath. “I recognize you,” he said.
Mengele smiled. “Rudel and Seibert and the others,” he said, “are a bunch of tired old ladies. They called the men home because Frieda Maloney talked to you about babies. So I have to finish the job myself.” He shrugged. “I really don’t mind; the work will keep me young. Listen, put the briefcase down very slowly and sit back with your hands on your head and relax; you have a good minute or so before I kill you.”
Liebermann put the briefcase down slowly, to the left of his feet, thinking that if he got a chance to go quickly to the right and open the door there—assuming it wasn’t locked—maybe the dogs whimpering on the other side would see Mengele with the gun and go for him before he could get off too many shots. Of course, maybe the dogs would go for him too; and maybe they wouldn’t go for either of them without Wheelock (dead in there) giving a command. But he couldn’t think of anything else to try.
“I wish it could be longer,” Mengele said. “Truly I do. This is one of the most satisfying moments in my life, as I’m sure you can appreciate, and if it were at all practical to do so, I would gladly sit and talk with you like this for an hour or two. Refute some of the grotesque exaggerations in that book of yours, for instance! But alas…” He shrugged regretfully.