David nodded at Rounder’s secretary as she said, “Go on in,” and opened the closed door to the office. Chico, Harpo, and Rounder paused in mid-sentence. They looked concentrated, their eyes blankly taking him in. “Close the door,” Chico said, unnecessarily, for David was already doing so. “Is your passport in order?” Chico asked like a border guard in a thriller.
David smiled. “Yes. The cover’s so bad we’re fleeing the country?”
Harpo laughed, but Chico and Rounder had no humor in them today. Rounder looked pale and tired. He had been on a seemingly endless tour of events with Mrs. Thorn, from Washington dinners to visits to far-flung bureaus, supposedly to boost morale. Chico had been left to run the magazine, deserted, so that he had to do a good job of it. Indeed, the commonly held theory within Newstime was that Mrs. Thorn, in her mind, had already fired Rounder and elevated Chico to Groucho. Naturally this muddy earth upon which both men stood made them irritable and insecure, Chico’s feet sticking unpleasantly as he tried to move to higher ground, Rounder nervously unsure as to whether the glop beneath him would harden or suck him under to drown.
“No bullshit,” Chico said. “Is your passport in order?”
“Yes, sir,” David said. “I’m compulsive about those things. Haven’t been anywhere in five years but I renew my pass—”
“Good,” Chico cut him off. “You may have to fly to Brazil tomorrow.”
“Really?” David consciously showed no excitement. It had become automatic not to respond with the predictable gee-whiz that was typical of young staffers. Although it seemed silly, he believed a substantial portion of his success was due to surface behavior of this sort. He sat down and looked interested — in a mild way.
“We may have our hands on a big story—” Rounder began.
“Exclusively. We have to keep this totally buttoned up,” Chico interrupted, though he spoke not as if he had talked over his boss, but rather as if no one had been talking. David noticed Rounder bow his head and lower his eyes when it happened, like a farmer patiently suffering the stubbornness of an animal he needed to reap a harvest, but wished he could instead slaughter for food. “So no gossiping, no sign that you might have to go somewhere. If you leave, we’ll simply tell people you’re out sick.”
“Okay. This sounds exciting,” David remarked. “What’s up?”
“We may have found Josef Mengele’s chief assistant— Hans Gott. He’s—” Rounder began.
“—willing to give us an exclusive interview!” Chico finished. “He was Mengele’s right-hand man. Stood there with a clipboard charting the experiments. Apparently he escaped with Mengele. He may have the whole inside story from gas chambers to drowning. Here are the files on Gott.” Chico handed David a folder. “You’re our choice to do the interview.”
“Uh …” David felt scared. He had a vision of himself seated in a jungle facing an ominous old man surrounded by savage bodyguards, a Jew facing a fiendish Nazi, armed only with a notebook. “Alone?” he asked.
“No,” Chico answered. “I’ll go with you.”
Rounder looked gravely at David. “He can’t know you’re Jewish.”
“What?” David said, stuttering with amazement and nerves.
“Because if he finds out, you’ll be carted off to Auschwitz,” Harpo said in a low sarcastic tone.
“That’s hilarious,” Chico said, frowning.
Rounder ignored their exchange, staying on David. “He specified no Jews.”
“Then why risk blowing the interview?” David asked, feeling a desperate desire (to his shock) to escape being assigned to this story, though no doubt it would be stunning — a spectacular that would make him: a news event with which he would always be linked.
“Because of the hook!” Chico shouted. He spoke quickly, thrilled by his vision of the magazine: “We want you to write what it’s like — as a Jew — to listen to this man talk about his experiments on your people. We’ll run a Q-and-A and then a personal essay from you on your reactions.”
“How come no one else has this?” David asked.
“He’s chosen us,” Rounder said.
“For a big fee,” Chico added.
“If it’s him,” Harpo said.
David looked sharply at Harpo. “You mean there’s some doubt?”
“A lot,” Harpo said.
“Come off it already!” Chico shouted.
“Settle down,” Rounder said, and looked expectantly at David.
“What evidence is there?” David asked, feeling he had to say something.
He was shown copies of wartime photos of Gott (alongside Mengele) that bore a similarity to the picture of the old man now, shown standing with the Brazil Newstime stringer. There were signatures and a string of false identity papers to compare as well, and their appearance created another fuss between Harpo and Chico. “They look alike,” David had commented about them.
“But we haven’t had them compared by an expert,” Harpo mumbled.
“We can’t risk it!” Chico shouted. “Besides, they always disagree. Gott refuses to give the definite proof until the interview.”
“Until he sees the money, you mean,” Harpo said.
“We’re paying him the money before the interview?” David asked, incredulous.
“Part of it,” Harpo said.
“A small part,” Rounder added.
“Ten thousand bucks. It’s nothing!”
“How much will he get if he’s really Gott?” David asked.
There was a reluctance to answer. Each of the powerful men glanced at the others, silently handing around the duty of response. Chico finally looked at David. “That must remain a secret.”
“Understood,” David said impatiently. Who the hell did Chico think he was talking to? A stranger?
“Hundred thousand,” Chico said, and glanced quickly away, looking out the window, giving David the impression he expected to see it fluttering down on Madison Avenue.
“What happens after the interview?” David asked.
They blinked at him. “What do you mean?” Rounder asked.
“What happens to Gott?”
“I don’t know,” Rounder said, looking at Chico inquisitively.
“He crawls back under another rock,” Harpo said.
“But …” David shut his eyes, uncertain how to put this so it seemed calm and rational, not the reaction of a participant, an interested party, but rather a cool and pleasant observation of disinterest. Instead he saw his father, now an old man of seventy, sitting in the Florida sun screaming into a phone. David opened his eyes. “If we do an interview with Gott — he did the work of the most hated of the Nazis …” He paused, feeling the tone of tension in his words, and waited until it subsided.
“You’re not about to suggest we kidnap him and hand him over to the Israelis?” Harpo said with aloof sarcasm.
“Let David talk,” Rounder said. “His is a point of view we haven’t considered.” He folded his arms and leaned back, his cool blue eyes glistening with challenge. “Go ahead.”
“I think we’re going to be criticized. For paying him, for doing nothing to alert the authorities, and even for writing about him in a way that tends to glamorize him.”