“Good luck, kiddo. Tell me if you want help. And Matthew, I know this is a fantastic piece and all, but it’s just one piece. It’s not your whole life.”
Calling Benny Ezraki was a long shot. The card with the message service number was years old, and Andreas did not know if Benny was alive, much less still in the business of finding people, but he was unquestionably the right man for the job if he would take it. There was no recorded voice, just a tone. Andreas left his name and the hotel number, and ten minutes later his old Israeli contact called back. Andreas could stop by his new office, if he liked, but he might not approve of it. The old man knew he was being baited but agreed to go there anyway.
The name on the door was for a travel agency, and indeed the posters of Turkey and Egypt on the walls and the efficient young women with their headsets seemed to confer legitimacy. But that was only the first floor. The second, reached by a long stairway, consisted of narrow corridors and closed doors, and the barely dressed, boldly casual women smoking in the small lounge completed the picture. They all smiled at Andreas and pointed to the office in back.
Benny met him with a bear hug, which seamlessly segued into a frisk. Habit, he apologized. The wily Greek Jew still looked younger than his age, which must be late fifties, though he seemed a little beaten down and tired. The beard was graying faster then the hair, the huge shoulders were more hunched, the pouches beneath the gentle brown eyes were more pronounced. The office had a view of the alley, a large computer monitor on the table, and a Pissarro calendar on the wall. The light was poor, and the cramped space was shrouded in blue cigarette smoke.
“Did you really expect me to be shocked by this place?”
“I was hoping so; you Athenians are all prudes. But I forget you are a man of the world.”
“This is your new business?”
The big man sucked on a cigarette as if his life depended upon it, blew smoke just to the left of Andreas’ face. He seldom smiled, even when he was kidding around.
“Always the same business. Travel, marketing, whores, it’s all about information. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this years ago. You wouldn’t believe the kinds of things these girls find out.”
Andreas, a connoisseur of human nature, found it very easy to believe.
“Are they safe?”
“A doctor checks them every month. You want to try one?”
“That is not what I’m asking.”
“I don’t give them sensitive stuff. Mostly names. Send them around to the hotels whose databases we can’t hack. But they always come back with stories. You know, blackmail is not my thing, but if it were I could make a fortune.”
“You’re too casual for that kind of work; you would get yourself killed.”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Can we speak freely? Is the Israeli ambassador in the next room?”
“We get very little traffic in here,” Benny replied, the battered ergonomic chair groaning beneath his shifting weight. “Mostly we send out. Like Chinese food. This isn’t a bordello.”
“No?”
“No, we’re an escort service. These aren’t even the prime girls.”
“Not so loud.”
“The prime girls wait at home for the phone to ring. We screen it, make sure it’s safe, get the credit card number, send them out.”
“All in the name of information.”
“That’s my business.”
“Excellent. I’m looking for someone.”
Benny twisted awkwardly to reach the ashtray on his cluttered desk, mashed out one Gauloises, and immediately lit another.
“Aren’t you retired?”
“For years.”
“But never completely, right?”
“I kept my hand in for a while. Until the idiots brought Papandreou back. That was the end.”
“Papandreou, Mitsotakis, not much to choose from there. This new one seems like a decent fellow. Now our Israeli politicians-”
“We’re not discussing politicians, Benny.” Andreas sensed a brush-off in the other man’s tone. “This is unofficial business. A favor. I’m reduced to asking favors these days. You can refuse after you hear what it is, but please let us not talk politics. That’s for old men in cafés.”
“Why would I refuse you?”
“Because there is nothing in it for you. Except my gratitude.”
“And gratitude is such a small thing these days? I think I can judge best what is in my own interests.”
Andreas pursed his lips and nodded. He’d hit the correct spot, but he must not push it.
“Years ago you helped me with something.”
“God defend us, are you chasing Nazis again?”
“The same one.”
“He’s dead.”
“No, he’s here.”
Benny looked at him hard. “You are certain?”
“Yes.”
This was risky. He had only Fotis’ word about Müller, which he would never normally trust uncorroborated. Yet his instinct told him it must be so, had been telling him since before he left Greece. If he was wrong, it was a cruel trick. Benny’s parents had been taken in the Salonika deportation in 1943 and died at Auschwitz. Müller may or may not have been involved, but he was a German officer in Salonika at the time, and that had been good enough for Benny thirty years before. He had been the one Mossad analyst to throw Andreas some leads, and the two had played straight with each other since then. They were both, by nature, careful about facts, and Andreas did not say he was certain of a thing unless he was.
“But you don’t know exactly where he is.”
“That’s what I need you to tell me.”
“Then how do you know he’s here?”
“I have been informed.”
“A dependable source, I hope.”
“I’ll pay you. So you’re not wasting your time.”
“Been hoarding your drachmas? Well, when a Greek agrees to pay, he must be pretty certain. But then it’s not a favor.”
“We can dispense with favors. Or you can refuse me, but don’t toy with an old man.”
Benny put up his hands in surrender, leaned over to get another cigarette, then realized he hadn’t finished the one in the ashtray. He was more agitated than he would let on.
“Müller. You know how much trouble you got me into over that business?”
“How could I not, after all the times you told me? But you work for yourself now.”
“Which means I have fewer resources than I used to.”
“But better technology.”
“This,” Benny waved at the monitor, “this won’t help us with Müller. I don’t see him making it easy on us, staying at a big hotel.”
“Why not? No one has looked for him in years. A private citizen, traveling under an alias, where better to hide but in a crowded hotel?”
The other man considered this. “You may be right. In my experience, however, people’s behavior doesn’t change. They may vary a pattern, but the pattern is discernible. Those old Nazis don’t stay at hotels.”
“Where do they stay?”
“Private homes, if they have those connections. In which case we’ll never find him. I haven’t looked for one of these guys for a while, and never in this country, but there used to be two small inns, run by elderly German ladies, very discreet. One in Brooklyn, which may be gone now; and one in the Village. That’s where I would start.”
“And will you?”
“I have some conditions.”
Andreas sighed. He would rather have paid a king’s ransom than have someone else set conditions, but Benny was a peer and couldn’t be treated like some low-clearance freelancer.
“Yes?”
“What are your intentions when you find him?”