The lodged bullet had been removed and all the damage repaired. He should be talking in a week or ten days, walking on crutches in two weeks. The Austrian Embassy had been notified, although—the doctor smiled—it probably hadn’t been necessary. Because of the newspapers and television. A detective wanted to speak to him but would have to wait of course.
Dena bent and kissed him; stood squeezing his right hand and smiling. What day? Rings under her eyes, but beautiful. “Couldn’t you have arranged to do this in Britain?” she asked.
He was moved to an intermediate care unit, and could sit up and write notes. Where are my belongings?
“You’ll get everything when you’re in your room,” the nurse said with a smile.
When?
“Thursday or Friday, most likely.”
Dena read him the newspaper accounts. Mengele was identified as Ramón Aschheim y Negrín, a Paraguayan. He had killed Wheelock, wounded Liebermann, and been killed by Wheelock’s dogs. Wheelock’s son, Robert, thirteen, had summoned the police on his return from school. Five men who had arrived immediately after the police had identified themselves as members of the Young Jewish Defenders and friends of Liebermann; they had intended to meet him there, they said, and accompany him on a trip to Washington. They expressed the opinion that Aschheim y Negrín was a Nazi, but could offer no explanation of his or Liebermann’s presence at Wheelock’s home, or of Wheelock’s murder. The police hoped that Liebermann, if and when he recovered, would be able to shed light on the matter.
“Can you?” Dena asked.
He tilted his head, made a “maybe” mouth.
“When did you become friendly with the Y.J.D.?”
Last week.
A nurse told Dena someone wanted to see her.
Dr. Chavan came by, studied Liebermann’s chart, held his chin and looked closely at him, and told him that the worst thing wrong with him was that he needed a shave.
Dena came back, leaning against the weight of Liebermann’s suitcase. “Speak of the devil,” she said, setting it down by the partition. Greenspan had dropped it off. He had come down to get his car, which the police hadn’t let him take on Thursday. He had given Dena a message for Liebermann: “One, get well; and two, Rabbi Gorin will call you as soon as he can. He has problems of his own. Watch the newspapers.”
He hurt all over. Slept a lot.
He was moved into a nice room with striped curtains and a television set up on the wall, his briefcase on a chair. As soon as he was settled in the bed, he opened the night-table drawer. The list was there, along with his other things. He put his glasses on and looked at it. Numbers one through seventeen crossed out. Cross out Wheelock too. Wheelock’s date had been February 19th.
A barber came and shaved him.
He could talk, hoarsely, but wasn’t supposed to. It was just as well; it gave him time to think.
Dena wrote letters. He read the Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times, watched the news on the push-button television. Nothing on Gorin. Kissinger in Jerusalem, meeting with Rabin. Crime, unemployment.
“What’s wrong, Pa?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t talk.”
“You asked.”
“Don’t talk! Write! That’s what you’ve got the pad for!”
NOTHING’S WRONG!
She could be a pest sometimes.
Cards and flowers came: from friends, contributors, the lecture bureau, the Sisterhood of the local temple. A letter from Klaus, who had got the hospital address from Max: Please write as soon as you’re able. Needless to say, Lena and I, and Nürnberger too, are most anxious to learn more than was in the newspapers.
The day after he was allowed to talk, a detective named Barnhart came to see him, a big redheaded young man, polite and soft-spoken. Liebermann didn’t have much light to shed; he had never met Ramón Aschheim y Negrín before the day the man shot him. He hadn’t even heard the name. Yes, Mrs. Wheelock was right; he had called Wheelock the day before and told him a Nazi might be coming to kill him. That was in response to a tip he had got from a not-too-reliable source in South America. He had come to see Wheelock to try to find out if there could really be anything in it; Aschheim had let him in, fired at him. He had let the dogs in. The dogs killed Aschheim.
“The Paraguay government says his passport’s a fake. They don’t know who he is either.”
“They have no record of his prints?”
“No, sir, they don’t. But whoever he was, it looks like you’re the one he was after, not Wheelock. You see, he died only a little while before we got there. You must have come around two-thirty, right?”
Liebermann considered, nodded. “Yes,” he said.
“But Wheelock died between eleven and noon. So ‘Aschheim’ waited over two hours for you. That tip of yours looks mighty like a trap, sir. Wheelock had nothing at all to do with the kind of people you go after, we’re sure of that. You’d better be leery of future tips, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I don’t mind at all. It’s good advice. Thank you. To be ‘leery.’ Yes.”
Gorin was in the news that evening. He had been on probation since 1973, when he had been given a three-year suspended sentence on a bombing-conspiracy charge to which he had pleaded guilty; now the federal government was trying to have his probation revoked on the grounds that he had conspired again, this time to kidnap a Russian diplomat. A judge had scheduled a hearing for February 26th. Revocation would mean Gorin would have to go to prison for the balance of his sentence, a year. Yes, he had problems, all right.
Liebermann did too. He studied the list when he was alone. Five thin pages, neatly typed. Ninety-four names. He sat looking at the wall; shook his head and sighed; folded the list up small and slid it into his passport case.
He wrote letters to Max and Klaus, not saying much. Began taking and making phone calls, though he was still hoarse and couldn’t talk at normal volume.
Dena had to go home. She had arranged about the hospital bill. Marvin Farb and some others were going to take care of it, and when Liebermann got back to Austria and collected on his insurance, he would pay them back. “Don’t forget the copy of the bill,” she warned him. “And don’t try to walk too soon. And don’t leave until they say you should leave.”
“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.”
After she left he realized that he hadn’t brought up the business about her and Gary; felt bad about it. Some father.
He crutched himself up and down the corridor, hard work with the cast still on his hand. Got to know some of the other patients, griped about the food.
Gorin called. “Yakov? How are you?”
“All right, thanks. I’ll be out in a week. How are you?”
“Not so hot. You see what they’re doing to me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“We’re trying to get a postponement but it doesn’t look good. They’re really out to get me. And I’m supposed to be the conspirator! Oh man. Listen, what’s doing? Can you talk? I’m in a booth, so it’s all right here.”
In Yiddish he said, “We’d better speak in Yiddish. There aren’t going to be any more killings. The men were called home.”
“They were?”
“And the one who shot me, the one the dogs got, it was…the Angel. You understand who I mean?”
Silence. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. We talked.”