Inge turned on the seat and smiled at him. “Herr Generalmajor, is there anything in particular you’d like to see?” she asked.
Was there a double entendre in her question? And why do I suspect that her skirt is not accidentally hiked so far up?
“Why don’t we start by you showing me your house?” von Deitzberg said.
“If you like,” she said. “It’s just two squares away.”
He smiled at her, and she put the car in gear and drove off.
When she raised her hand and pointed to the house, von Deitzberg smiled at her and said, “As long as we’re here, Frau von Tresmarck, why don’t you run in and get Sturmbannführer von Tresmarck’s bank records? The special ones.”
“Excuse me, Herr Generalmajor?”
“Stop the car, please,” von Deitzberg ordered.
Inge pulled the car to the curb in front of the house and looked at him.
“The special bank records?” she asked, confused.
“And the rest of the records, as well.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Inge said.
“By the rest of the records,” von Deitzberg explained patiently, “I mean the books, Frau von Tresmarck, and the deed to the estancia, unless there is more than one deed by now, and the records of the Sturmbannführer’s expenses. I want to take a look at everything.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Inge said.
He didn’t reply for a moment. “Go get the records, Frau von Tresmarck,” he said, still patiently. “I know they are here, and I know there is no one else in whose care your husband would have dared to place them when he went to Berlin.”
“I think I may know what you want,” Inge said.
“Frau von Tresmarck, your husband would not have left his records with you without explaining their importance,” he said, as if admonishing a stubborn child. “You know what records I want. Now please go get them.”
“Herr von Deitzberg, my husband said I was to give the records to no one.”
“As well he should have. But obviously, I’m not ‘no one,’ am I, Frau von Tresmarck?”
“No. Of course not. I meant no disrespect, Herr von Deitzberg.”
“Go get the records,” he said. “All of them. And then we can have our tour of Montevideo and our lunch.”
She smiled somewhat uneasily at him and opened the car’s door. “I won’t be a moment,” she said.
He smiled at her.
Three minutes later, she came quickly out of the house carrying a soft black leather briefcase.
“Oh, what a lovely suite,” Frau von Tresmarck exclaimed as she walked into the sitting room. She turned and looked at von Deitzberg, smiled, and walked around, inspecting both the bedroom and the dining room, and then the balcony.
She walked close to him and smiled. “It really is very nice,” she said. “And lunch is ready, I see.”
He nodded. “A cold lunch,” he said. “I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
“Not at all,” she replied, and then added, a little naughtily, “And I saw that someone has turned the bed down.”
“Take off your clothing, please,” von Deitzberg said.
She looked at him in surprise, then smiled naughtily. “I’m to be the hors d’oeuvres? Why, Herr von Deitzberg!”