Hour of the Assassins (4 page)

“What happened?”

“Oh, we were into drugs and then he started tripping on acid. We must have done a hundred tabs down in Mexico. Then we came back to Berkeley and he started getting really freaky. You know, whips and leather. The whole bit. One time he whipped me so bad, I had to go to the Free Clinic. He really did a number on me,” she said softly. “So I split and came down to L.A. After I did the movie thing, Karl asked me to stay on at his place.”

“How do you like it now?”

“He's very good to me. He protects me.”

“That's what Jane said about Tarzan, but who wants to live in a tree?” Caine said.

“You saw the place. We live pretty well,” she said, crossing her arms defensively.

“Yes, you do,” he conceded.

That was true enough, Caine thought, remembering his first sight of her that afternoon. She had come to the door wearing nothing but a white bikini and a solid gold coke spoon on a chain around her neck. Wasserman wore a proud possessive smile as he gave her an affectionate peck on the cheek, but the effect was ruined by his roughly grabbing her bottom at the same time. C.J. just smiled and looked appraisingly over Wasserman's shoulder at Caine. Then her lips parted, the pink tip of her tongue peeking out between her lips, promising anything just for the hell of it.

She was looking at him the same way now, as if he was a fortune cookie she was dying to open. The lights along the Malibu shore were scattered like stars across the darkened restaurant window behind her, as Caine leaned back and smiled, imagining how she would look going down on him, feeling the first tingle in his groin. But he was really smiling at himself, he thought. After all they were both professionals. As she had said, it was strictly business. He had to keep reminding himself of that, because of the way his body had responded to her breathtaking sensuality from that first moment when he had arrived at the beach house with Wasserman.

The sun was unrolling an amber carpet across the sea, splashing gold light through the cathedral windows that looked out over the beach, as C.J. and Wasserman led him into the huge living room. The light reflected off a gas fire, dancing in a massive fireplace of Palos Verdes stone that might have just squeezed into the main hall at Windsor Castle. In the corner a soap opera droned on the tube. C.J. glanced at it out of the corner of her eye, as a doctor explained to the well-used blond heroine that she had to have the operation. She didn't want to face it, what with her husband running off with the sixteen-year-old babysitter, her son being busted for possession, her old lover running for the Senate, and her daughter about to get engaged to an African exchange student. The doctor tried to be sympathetic, but her ego began to crack like an egg as the music came up and the credit crawl began. With a shrug C.J. flicked the set off and invited them to sit down. Then completely unselfconscious, she sat cross-legged in a black Danica chair and offered Caine a joint. As he nodded no, Caine was aware of the contrast between the elegance of the surroundings and the raw assertiveness with which Wasserman displayed his possessions, including the girl. Once again, he was struck by the contradictions in Wasserman. The man furnished his office with antiques and his house in Danish Modern. He had an exquisite eye for beauty and seemed to delight in cheapening it. He was impossible to pin down.

For a moment Wasserman glanced at both of them and smiled. The girl had been one of his better investments.

“Pretty, isn't she?” he asked, as though she weren't there.

“Yes, very,” Caine replied. Wasserman was pulling out all the stops, he decided, as he leaned back and crossed his legs, waiting for the hard sell.

“She has the best box in L.A. You ought to try it sometime,” Wasserman bragged.

“Fringe benefits?” Caine asked.

“Beats Social Security,” Wasserman laughed. He laughed a fraction longer than necessary at his own joke, then turned to the girl.

“Why don't you take a walk on the beach, dear?” It was not a question. Without a word she got up, shrugged, and walked out with a movement as rhythmic and fundamental as that of the sea. Conscious of their eyes upon her, she exaggerated her wiggle slightly as she went through the door.

“Do you want her?” Wasserman asked.

“Are you offering?”

“Sure. Take her. That's what she's for. That's what they're all for. Take what you like, only …”

“Only what?”

“Only get Mengele.”

“Tell me about him.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” Caine replied, and lit a cigarette.

Wasserman got up and, motioning for Caine to remain where he was, left the room. The room was growing dark, the sunset a rosy blush over the darkening ocean. A sailboat was barely visible against the red embers of the horizon. Along the green fringe of the beach, palm trees glowed red, as though they were burning. It reminded him of the last time he had seen palm trees by a beach, the fronds blackened by smoke and smelling of cordite. Wasserman returned carrying a bulky folder. As he handed the folder to Caine, his features were caught in the flickering firelight. For a moment his eyes burned in his skull like candles in a jack-o'-lantern. As he took the folder, Caine felt an almost irresistible impulse to smash that greedy face, which seemed to flame with the fanaticism of a Torquemada in the dying light. Then Wasserman flicked the lamps on and the moment was gone. Caine paused to light a cigarette, then he opened the folder and began to read. At some time during the reading he heard the girl come back and there was the murmur of conversation between her and Wasserman in the bedroom. But he disregarded them and concentrated on the material.

The dossier, as Wasserman called it, was mostly a hodgepodge of newspaper and magazine clippings about Nazi war criminals. The bulk of the dossier were transcripts from Nuremberg based on unsubstantiated testimony. More interesting was a copy of a bill of indictment against Mengele issued by a court in Freiburg, dated June 5, 1959. The warrant listed seventeen specific counts of murder. Even more useful were a copy of Mengele's Interpol file and a copy of an application for an Argentinian identity card, made out for a Dr. Gregor Schklastro on October 27, 1956. There was a set of fingerprints in the Interpol file and a second on the Argentinian application and it was clear, even to Caine's untrained eye, that the fingerprints were strikingly similar. As Caine sifted through the material, he began to get a vague picture of his quarry.

As noted in the bill of indictment, Josef Mengele was born to a wealthy manufacturer named Karl Mengele and his wife Walburga Mengele,
née
Hupfauer, on March 16, 1911, in Günzburg, District of Swabia in Bavaria. Karl Mengele had begun to manufacture farm machinery in Günzburg, a quaint village situated on the banks of the Danube, shortly after the Franco-Prussian War. He had already established himself as the town's leading citizen when he founded the firm of Karl Mengele & Sons around the turn of the century. By the time Josef was born, more than half of the men of Günzburg were employed by the Mengeles. As a child Josef was small and sickly. He was spoiled by his mother, who couldn't understand why her brilliant, dreamy son felt so frustrated at being unable to keep up with his healthy blond schoolmates in the rough and tumble of school sports. Small and dark, with soft brown eyes, he suffered with envy of those whom Thomas Mann, his favorite writer in those idealistic days, had called “the blond-haired and the blue-eyed.” During the late 1920's Josef went to Munich to study philosophy and medicine. Even at that age he was already seeking some way to scientifically match the physical aspects of man to some perfect conception of man's metaphysical nature. Then one evening the lonely student heard Adolf Hitler speak in a beer hall, and his life was transformed. In a single evening the intoxicated and exhilarated Mengele became a fanatic and lifelong Nazi.

Shortly after Hitler invaded Poland, Mengele graduated and immediately enlisted as a medical officer in the Waffen SS. During the early years of the war Mengele served in France and later on the Russian front. It was during this time that he began to expound a theory that he had first formulated as a student. He believed that the only way Germany could succeed in ruling the world was to replace the
inferior races
with a multitude of pure Aryan babies. This could only be done, he decided, by producing multiple births as an ordinary occurrence. His early genetic research concentrated in two areas: the study of twins and an attempt to isolate the chromosome responsible for blue eyes. However, in the Waffen SS all he could do was theorize. He realized that he would need a supply of human guinea pigs and the right laboratory conditions in order to pursue his research. While on leave he petitioned SS Inspector General Glucks for the chance to do medical experiments at a concentration camp. In 1943, acting on a recommendation from Glucks, Heinrich Himmler appointed Mengele chief doctor at Auschwitz. As the surviving inmates of Auschwitz later attested, Himmler had made the perfect choice.

After the war Mengele returned home to Günzburg. His wife, family, and friends welcomed him as a good German who had done his duty during the war. Mengele started a successful medical practice and all went well until, in 1950, some of the SS small-fry being tried at Nuremberg began to mention Mengele's name.

By 1951 the outlines of his experiments and responsibilities at Auschwitz were becoming public knowledge. After, a reporter from the
Frankfurter Allgemeine
tried to interview him, Mengele secretly began to liquidate his assets. Later that year a Bavarian police official received an inquiry from the American authorities in Nuremberg. The official was one of Mengele's patients, and his family had worked for the Mengeles for generations. He alerted the
Herr Doktor
and Mengele contacted some comrades in ODESSA.

According to a reprint of a
Der Spiegel
article in the dossier, ODESSA was a secret organization set up by certain high-ranking SS officers when it became apparent that the German defeat was inevitable. An acronym for
Organisation der SS—Angehörigen
, or Organization of SS Members, it was designed to help SS war criminals escape Allied retribution after the war. ODESSA apparently spirited Mengele out of Germany through an underground network called
die Spinne
, or the Spider. The Interpol file indicated that Mengele escaped to the Italian Tyrol via the Reschenpass-Merano route. From Genoa the comrades moved him to Madrid, where he contacted the “Special Assistance” department of the Falangista party. The Falangista arranged for Mengele's escape to Argentina. Except for the application for the Argentinian identity card in 1956, the Interpol entry was the last authoritative mention of Mengele's whereabouts contained in the dossier.

Caine dropped the folder in his lap, leaned back, and lit a cigarette. He could hear the timeless surf lapping at the beach, punctuated by the occasional cry of a gull. But the sea was hidden in darkness. He could barely make out the running lights of a freighter well off the coast. When he turned back, Wasserman was standing near his chair, studying him intently.

“What do you think?”

“Where's the girl?” Caine responded.

“She's in the bedroom getting dressed. I made dinner reservations for you two at the Moonglow,” Wasserman said.

All this solicitude was beginning to make him nervous. What comes next, Caine wondered, cucumber sandwiches for Lady Bracknell?

“I don't want anyone to know anything about this,” he said.

“Don't worry.” Wasserman's expression implied that Caine was a fool even to raise the issue. “She thinks you're in the movie business.”

“Worry is what keeps people like me alive, so let's get it straight. The next time I see you, it will be to collect the other stamp.”

Wasserman's eyes gleamed with excitement.

“Then you think you can do it?” he prodded.

“I don't know. The goddamn trail has been cold for over twenty years and that's assuming that Interpol knows what it's talking about. And Interpol is notorious in the intelligence community for never having anything worth knowing.”

“Then it's hopeless,” Wasserman said dully.

“No, we have a few things going for us. First, after all this time Mengele might have let his guard down a little. He probably isn't expecting anyone to really come after him. Second, we have money to spend and that will open a few mouths anyway. Third, nobody knows anything about me. Anonymity is our strongest weapon. Fourth, whenever Interpol, the West Germans, or the Israelis went after Mengele, their primary objective was to extradite him to stand trial. Inevitably the legal maneuvering took time and gave Mengele the advance warning he needed to get away. This time we don't want to try him, just kill him. Finally, according to this dossier, the only people who have ever seriously gone after Mengele have been fanatic Jewish amateurs. This time you are sending a professional.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Now? I think I'll go with the girl and have myself a steak.” Caine grinned.

“No, I mean how will you begin?”

“Oh, first I'll go to Vegas to launder the money and pick up a few things.”

“So you still don't trust me.” Wasserman smiled approvingly.

“Of course not.” Caine smiled back. His eyes were emerald chips, glassy and empty of feeling. For the first time Wasserman suddenly realized what a dangerous man Caine really was.

“What are you going to pick up in Vegas?” Wasserman prompted.

“A dose of the clap.”

“No, really. What things? Maybe I can help.”

“Guns, things. The details are my business. I told you, I work alone,” Caine snapped.

“Is that how you're going to do it. Shoot him?” Wasserman asked eagerly.

Caine stood up. He had had enough of this nonsense.

“I don't know. That depends on his setup, when and if I locate the son of a bitch.”