Strauss could not help himself. “It was a stupid idea from the beginning,” he muttered under his breath.
Von Roesler looked up at this interruption. “What? Did you say something?”
The big man looked up from his feathered cap. “You should have met with him,” he said doggedly. “None of this would have happened if you had met with him.”
Von Roesler dismissed this as pure negativism. “And now what do you intend to do?” It was a statement more than a question, but Strauss chose to interpret it as a query.
“Well, one thing I don’t think we should do,” he said, “is to attempt any more kidnappings!”
“No?” von Roesler said sarcastically.
“I agree with Strauss,” Mathais suddenly said from his chair in the corner. He spoke in a firm, positive voice. Of the three of them, he seemed the least afraid of, or impressed by the bathrobed man behind the desk. “He was picked up twice, once in Rio and once here in São Paulo. The one in Rio can be explained; actually it helped us. But it will be very hard to explain the one in São Paulo.” He shrugged. “This Herr Busch is no fool. One day Strauss asks him for money and he refuses; the next day he is kidnapped. What do you imagine he is going to think?”
“I was against it from the beginning,” Strauss began, but Monica broke into me conversation.
“There is no point in repeating that stupid statement endlessly,” she said with irritation. “It was an idea and it didn’t work. Let’s not talk about it any more.”
“I just want to make sure that we don’t decide to try it again,” Strauss insisted stubbornly.
“Again I agree with Strauss,” Mathais said. “If there should be any more of these attempts, the only thing we will accomplish is to frighten him away from Brazil. He’ll simply leave.”
“And leave the money?” von Roesler sneered.
“He brought the money in, right under our nose, and we don’t know how,” Mathais said boldly, looking von Roesler in the eye. “I’m sure he can take it out again, probably also under our nose, and we still won’t know how he managed.” His glance never wavered. “You all continue to think that Herr Busch is a fool. I know him, and I tell you that he is far from a fool.”
Strauss nodded his head emphatically. “I also know him and I agree. I tried to tell everybody...” His voice trailed into silence under the withering contempt of Monica’s sideways look.
“All right!” Von Roesler was beginning to lose his temper. The madness that ebbed and flowed in him seemed to be at a standstill at the moment. His voice was firm. “So he isn’t a fool! All right!” His voice became gently sarcastic. “You gentlemen seem to know what shouldn’t be done; possibly you might care to express your suggestions as to what should be done!”
Strauss stared stubbornly at the little feathered hat he continued to twist between his fingers. It was clear that he had his ideas but was hesitant to present them. Mathais was not so bashful.
“Certainly,” he said coolly. “It is very simple. We go back to Strauss’s original idea. Which, of course, was the reason I arranged for Herr Busch to come to São Paulo in the first place.” He spread out his hands. “You merely meet with him.”
The explosion they had all been tentatively expecting did not materialize. Von Roesler sat silent, looking from one to the other. Even as they watched he seemed to age a bit, to become a bit smaller, even to shrink a bit into the folds of his bathrobe. When he finally spoke his voice seemed to have even become a bit querulous. They watched this change with amazement.
“It is very easy for you all to talk,” he said, his face beginning to twitch as the madness crept warily back to the edges of his mind. “Meet him! Meet him! But where?” He looked at them craftily. “They are waiting for me to come out of this apartment; don’t you know? They have been waiting for years; I know they have! They almost got Busch, and who is Busch? Nobody! What was Busch ever? Nothing! And yet they almost got Busch.”
“Meet him here,” Mathais said soothingly. “Meet him in this apartment. Then you won’t have to go out.”
“Meet him here?” The crazed voice was scandalized. “Here? Bring him here, when they must be following him every minute, watching every move he makes? Bring him here? Let him lead them to this apartment?”
“If you agree to meet him,” Strauss said in a quiet, reasonable tone, “a meeting place that is safe can easily be arranged.”
The mad eyes swung blindly away from them, wandering tragically along the walls, past the heavily draped windows, over the locked door. “I thought my destiny was always Brazil,” he said, speaking in a soft crooning tone to some hidden corner of his brain, the past beginning to swirl like his pipe smoke through the gossamer web of his thoughts. He giggled. “Safe? What is safe?” The insane laughter faded and he looked at them blankly, through them, beyond them. “You know,” he said conversationally, “I had a map on my desk at Buchenwald, a map of Brazil. I looked at it every day, studied it, pored over it. I thought my destiny was here in Brazil. Here. I was sure that my destiny was here.” He sighed, suddenly weary of it all. “And now I find myself locked in a small room, worse than a prisoner...”
“Your destiny is in Brazil,” Monica said swiftly, quietly, attempting to bring the wandering mind back into focus. “Here in Brazil. Maybe meeting with Herr Busch is that destiny, Erick.”
“And the meeting place is no problem,” Mathais interposed smoothly without a break, not wishing to allow time for the attention of the other to escape back into the nebulous past. “If you don’t want to meet him here in the apartment, I can easily arrange a suite at one of the hotels here in São Paulo.” A gleam of sanity briefly returned. The voice hardened. “Not in São Paulo. I will not meet him in São Paulo.” He leaned forward, appealing to the intelligence of them all. “Don’t you see? They are here in São Paulo. Now. Can’t you understand?”
“A suite at the Mirabelle in Rio, then,” Mathais said equably, calmly. “You will be safe there.”
The gleam once again faded, he seemed to shrink again. “Locked rooms,” he murmured faintly. “Always locked rooms...” He looked up pathetically. “Must I meet with. him?”
“We need the money,” Mathais said quietly.
“We promise you we will arrange a place that is safe from... from... from them,” Strauss added with embarrassment. Monica sat silent, her fingers twisting, her eyes filling with tears.
“Then I will meet with him!” The figure behind the desk seemed to draw strength from the decision. He looked at them all fiercely. “But not in São Paulo. In Rio!” He stood up abruptly; the weak figure that had sat in his place but a moment before had disappeared to be replaced in an instant by the old Erick von Roesler, Colonel in the justly famed and justly feared SD. They watched this metamorphosis in astonished silence.
He turned to Mathais, the old tone of command strong in his voice. “You will arrange it. Consider yourself in command. You will arrange a place that is safe; not indoors, not in any locked room. I leave it to you to arrange.” He turned sharply toward the others, continuing to speak to Mathais. “When all arrangements are completed, you will communicate with Herr Strauss; he will manage to let me know.” He looked at them coldly; it was dismissal. The meeting was over.
Monica saw them out of the apartment, her eyes bright with tears, her thoughts far away. In the automatic elevator, descending slowly, Strauss finally found words. “You know, of course,” he said absently, “the man is mad. Completely mad.” He turned to Mathais as if seeking support.
Mathais smiled at him icily. “Of course.”