“He is not talking, merely pointing, Mr. McCready,” Wolfe said. “But it is a meaningful gesture. Perhaps you would care to respond.”
“Not to this man I wouldn’t. I don’t even know him.”
“Now you can see, Mr. Hartz, how Jesus of Nazareth must have felt in that fateful garden when his friend Peter denied any knowledge of their relationship.”
“I know that story from the Bible,” Hartz said, shaking his head and looking sadly at McCready, who would not return his glance.
“Some time ago, Inspector Cramer, I mentioned the term ‘ratline,’ which you were unfamiliar with. This is not surprising, as the word has not been in general use for long. What we have here is a ratline, and I—”
“Get to the point, Wolfe!”
“That is where I am headed. A few years ago, at a speech in Missouri, Winston Churchill coined the phrase, ‘Iron Curtain,’ to describe the way the Soviet Union had in effect taken over many countries in Eastern Europe after the war. At the risk of aping Mr. Churchill, I am going to suggest that what we have here is an ‘Iron Triangle,’ a local system of smuggling a certain category of individuals into the United States.”
“Do mean Communists?” Cramer asked in a shocked tone.
“No, Nazis,” Wolfe said. “That is what this business has been all about.” The room got very quiet, as if no one wanted to say a word. Having achieved the effect that he sought, Wolfe went on.
“Ratlines are systems by which Nazis of all ranks have been smuggled out of Germany since the end of the war to countries around the world. Many of the most high-ranking members of Hitler’s National Socialist Party fled to South America, primarily Brazil and Argentina, as has been widely reported. Far less publicity has been given to other locations where Nazis have been able to find refuge, including Peru, Uruguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico, and, yes, the United States.”
“What about this so-called Iron Triangle of yours?’ Cramer demanded of Wolfe.
“Thank you for getting us back to the subject at hand, Inspector. The deeper I delved into this perplexity, the more obvious it became that there were several moving parts. To smuggle Nazis into this country took a number of individuals working in concert. Three of them are in this room.”
“Now wait a minute!” Liam McCready said, “I want to protest this—”
“No, you wait a minute,” Cramer cut in. “Mr. Wolfe has the floor, and that will be the case until I say otherwise.”
“Thank you, Inspector. Our triangle, as I choose to describe it, begins with Douglas Halliwell, or more accurately, with a colleague of his at National Export Lines in Germany. These men, working together, have moved Nazis across the Atlantic to New York via the shipping company’s freighters.
“Along with his German partner, Mr. Halliwell, an avowed admirer of the National Socialist German Workers Party, i.e., the Nazis, charged these men to transport them to our shores. I leave it to others to determine the rates that got extracted from these ‘passengers.’
“Once ashore in New York, the men — and most if not all of the Nazi arrivals are male — are directed by Mr. Halliwell to the Elmont establishment on Tenth Avenue, where they are greeted by our Mr. Bauer here. How did he become the second leg in our triangle? Perhaps he can edify us.”
Bauer stared at his lap, and after several seconds, he spoke without looking up. “I am an American citizen. I came here twenty years ago, even before Hitler became powerful, because I did not like it in Germany. My parents stayed, and they both died of diseases before the war. My brother also chose to stay. According to what Halliwell has told me, Dieter — that’s my brother — was being investigated by the American forces now in Germany because he was accused of being a Nazi.”
“Had you known that before?” Wolfe asked.
“No, but I was not surprised. Dieter had always liked the military life, and the uniforms. If Dieter stayed in Germany, he probably would have been executed, Halliwell told me, but he felt he could get him over here without the Americans knowing it.”
“On a National Export ship?” Wolfe posed.
Bauer finally looked up, nodding. “Yes, but there was a price. I had to agree to shelter at the Elmont others who came over on those ships of Halliwell’s.”
“Which you did?”
Bauer nodded again. “I have never liked the Nazis or what they stand for, but I also love Dieter, so I agreed.”
“I gather there were empty apartments at the Elmont.”
“Yes, the building had not really been so popular in recent times, and when these... Nazis began filling it, Mr. Merritt and Mr. Day were very pleased.”
“Did they know many of their new tenants were Nazis?” Wolfe asked.
“Well... no, I saw no reason to tell them.”
“Has your brother been staying at the Elmont?”
“No, he has gone to some other part of the city. He would not tell me where, and I don’t know the address. We only met for a short time when he arrived here.”
“How did these men have the ability to pay the rent at the Elmont?”
“They could not even come across the ocean unless they had several hundred American dollars. I do not know the exact figure, and my brother would not tell me. He also did not tell me how he got the money.”
“I assume some of it, and that of the other passengers as well, went to Mr. Halliwell and his friend in Germany at the shipping company,” Wolfe said.
“I do not know that,” Bauer said. “What I do know is that all of these men had enough money to pay for at least their first two months’ rent.”
“How much of that money did you keep for yourself?”
“None of it!” Bauer snapped, sounding offended. “I did not need it. Merritt and Day pay me a fair salary.”
Wolfe glared at his empty water glass and sighed. “Now let us turn our attention to Mr. McCready and his public house.”
Chapter 35
The tavern owner shifted uneasily in his chair as Wolfe considered him through lidded eyes. “So now we come to the final leg of our triangle,” he said. “Mr. McCready, a number of the newer residents of the Elmont have been seen in your establishment.”
“So what?” McCready said. “We are right across the street, so it is an obvious place to go. Are you suggesting that it is illegal to have a drink?”
“By no means. It has been almost twenty years since the Volstead Act was repealed. I would like to return to your relationship with Emil Krueger, who you shot dead in your establishment.”
“In self-defense!”
“Perhaps,” Wolfe said, shifting his attention to William Hartz. “Were you acquainted with Mr. Krueger?”
The man in prison garb tensed. “Answer the question!” Cramer prodded.
“Yes... I knew him, but only from having seen him in the tavern.”
“I am going to suggest you knew him very well,” Wolfe said. “He was the other man with you in the attack on Mr. Goodwin, wasn’t he?”
Hartz drank from his water glass, as if hoping to postpone his response. When he set the glass down, he was met with Wolfe’s steady, unrelenting gaze.
“I don’t want to tell you again to answer Mr. Wolfe,” Cramer urged.
“Emil was with me, yes. He... was the one who hit Mr. Goodwin.”
“And this was not the only time the pair of you attacked people, was it?” Wolfe asked.
Hartz looked at Cramer, as if he was about to feel the inspector’s anger yet again. “No, it was not,” he said, his accented voice just above a whisper.
“Tell us about these attacks, Mr. Hartz.”