“Been incontinent, have you, Ramón?” von Deitzberg asked sympathetically. “That sometimes happens to people when they realize they’re close to death. Come in and sit down. On the floor. We wouldn’t want to soil Frau von Tresmarck’s furniture, would we?”
He waited until Ramón had done so before going on.
“Now, let me explain what’s going to happen: Frau von Tresmarck has been good enough to turn over to me the material in your safe. Including, of course, the unspent funds. The money is already in Buenos Aires, where I will invest it. Now, where are the deeds to whatever you have purchased in Paraguay? If you lie to me, I will shoot Ramón right now to show you how serious I am about this.”
“Ramón has them in his safe,” von Tresmarck said. “In his home.”
“And they are in whose name?”
Von Tresmarck hesitated before replying, “In Ramón’s name. We thought of that as an extra precaution . . .”
“Yes, I’m sure you did,” von Deitzberg said. “And how much did you invest in Ramón’s name as an extra precaution? How much is it worth in dollars, or pounds?”
Von Tresmarck exhaled audibly.
“A little under a million pounds sterling,” he said finally. “They use the British pound.”
“How much is a little under a million pounds sterling?”
“Perhaps it was a little over a million pounds sterling,” von Tresmarck said.
“That’s four million American dollars,” von Deitzberg said. “Tell me, Werner, do you think you and Ramón could disappear and find happiness together on, say, one million American dollars?”
“What does he mean, ‘disappear’?” Ramón asked.
“Werner will explain that to you later, Ramón,” von Deitzberg said. “What’s going to happen now is that you’re going to go home—Hauptsturmführer Forster will drive you—and after you change your trousers, you’re going to bring all the deeds here.
“We will then select between us which properties you will sign over to Señor Jorge Schenck—all but, say, two hundred fifty thousand pounds’ worth.
I will then give you ten thousand American dollars for your immediate expenses as you and Werner set forth on your new lives.”
“Who’s Señor Jorge Schenck?” von Tresmarck blurted.
“He’s the man who will hunt you down and kill you as slowly and painfully as possible if I ever hear of either of you again,” von Deitzberg said. “Get going, Ramón. Not only does the sight of you make me ill, but you’re starting to smell badly.”
XIV
[ONE]
Estancia San Pedro y San Pablo
Near Pila
Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
1930 2 October 1943
Inspector General Santiago Nervo and Don Cletus Frade were sitting in wicker chairs on the verandah of the big house. A wicker table between them held bottles of scotch and bourbon.
Frade was wearing khaki trousers, a polo shirt, and battered Western boots. Nervo was in uniform, save for his tunic, which he had shed before they had gone riding.
Nervo had expressed interest in the radar, and Clete had really had no choice but to offer to show it to him.
“It’s not far,” Frade had said. “I usually ride out there . . .”
It was a question, and Nervo had picked up on it.
“Whatever happened to that magnificent stallion of your father’s? What was his name?”