Boys from Brazil

7

LIEBERMANN KEPT AN EYE on the tenths of a mile slowly registering on the dashboard of the kidney-killing little Saab. Wheelock’s house was exactly four tenths of a mile from the left turn onto Old Buck Road—if he was reading Rita’s baroque handwriting correctly, which hadn’t always been the case so far. Between Rita’s handwriting, and rest-room stops necessitated by the Saab’s jolting, it was twenty after twelve already.

Nonetheless he felt that things were falling into place and going nicely. He had been saddened, of course, to hear about Barry’s body being found, but the timing, at least, was something to be grateful for; now he had a strong and provable starting point to make use of in Washington. And Kurt Koehler was there, not only with notes Barry had made—important and useful notes, apparently—but with the influence of a well-to-do citizen besides. Surely he would want to stay on and help in any way he could; the fact that he was there was proof of his concern.

And Greenspan and Stern were in Philadelphia, ready, presumably, to come out with an effective Y.J.D. commando team as soon as Wheelock was convinced he was in danger. “It involves your son, Mr. Wheelock. His adoption. It was arranged for you and your wife by a woman named Elizabeth Gregory, yes? Now please believe me, no one—”

The fourth tenth of a mile slipped into place, and ahead on the left a mailbox was approaching. GUARD DOGS in black-painted letters on a board below; H. Wheelock along the box’s top. Liebermann slowed the car, stopped, waited till a truck coming toward him had passed, and drove across the road to the dirt drive before the box; guided the car’s wheels into deep ruts. The humpbacked drive led gradually uphill through trees. He shifted gears, drove slowly. The car’s bottom scraped against the hump. He glanced at his watch: almost twenty-five after.

Half an hour, say, to convince Wheelock (without going into genes: “I don’t know why they’re killing the boys’ fathers; they are, that’s all”), and then an hour or so for the Y.J.D. to get there. That would be two o’clock, a little after. He could probably leave by three, and be in Washington by five, five-thirty. Call Koehler. He looked forward to meeting him, and seeing those notes of Barry’s. Surprising that Mengele had missed them. But maybe Koehler was overestimating their importance…

Dogs’ barking, a tumult of it, challenged him from a sunlit clearing where a two-story house—white shutters, brown shingles—stood at an angle to him; and at its back a dozen dogs flinging themselves at high mesh fence, barking, yipping.

He drove to the foot of the house’s stone-paved walk and stopped the car there; shifted into neutral, turned the key, pulled up the hand brake. The dogs out in back still barked. At the far side of the house a red pickup truck and a white sedan stood in a garage.

He got out of the car—a real relief—and with his briefcase in his hand, stood looking at the white-trimmed brown house. It would be easy enough to protect Wheelock here; the dogs—still barking—were a built-in alarm system. And deterrent. The killer would probably make his move somewhere else—in town or on the road. Wheelock would have to follow a normal routine and allow the killer an opportunity to show himself. Problem: scare him enough so that he accepts Y.J.D. protection, but not so much that he stays at home and locks himself in a closet.

He drew a breath and marched up the walk and onto the porch. The door had a knocker, a dog’s head of iron, and a black bell button at the side. He chose the knocker; worked it twice. It was old and tight; the knocks weren’t very loud. He waited a moment—dogs were barking in the house now—and put a finger toward the button; but the door opened and a man smaller than he expected, with cropped gray hair and vivid and cheery brown eyes, looked at him and said in a deep-throated voice, “You Liebermann?”

“Yes,” he said. “Mr. Wheelock?”

A nod of the cropped gray head, and the door opened wider. “Come on in.”

He went in, to a dog-smelling hallway with stairs going up. He took his hat off. Dogs—five or six of them, it sounded like—were barking, whining, scratching behind a door at the hallway’s end. He turned toward Wheelock, who had closed the door and stood smiling at him. “Nice to meet you,” Wheelock said, spruce-looking in a light-blue shirt with the collar open and the cuffs turned up, well-fitting dark-gray trousers, good-looking black shoes. No recession in the guard-dog business. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come.”

“I read the directions wrong,” Liebermann said. “The lady who called you from New York?” He shook his head, smiling apologetically. “She was calling for me.”

“Oh,” Wheelock said, and smiled. “Take your coat off.” He pointed at a coat-stand; a black hat and coat hung on it, and a brown quilted jacket, its sleeves shredded with rips and tears.

Liebermann hung his hat up, put his briefcase on the floor, unbuttoned his coat. Wheelock was friendlier than he had been on the phone—seemed genuinely pleased to see him in fact—but something in the way he spoke ran counter to the friendliness; Liebermann felt it, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Glancing at the door where the dogs barked and whined, he said, “You meant it when you said ‘a houseful of dogs.’”

“Yes,” Wheelock said, going past him, smiling. “Ignore them. They always bark like that. I put them in there so they wouldn’t annoy you. Some people get nervous. Come in here.” He gestured toward a room at the right.

Liebermann hung his coat up, picked up his briefcase, and with a pondering look at Wheelock’s back, followed him into a pleasant sitting room. The dogs began bumping and barking behind a door on the left, next to a black leather sofa above which all-colored prize ribbons hung on wood-paneled wall amid trophies and black-framed photos. A stone fireplace stood at the end of the room, more trophies on its mantel, a clock. White-curtained windows in the right-hand wall, an old-fashioned settee between them; in the corner by the doorway, a chair and table, telephone, ledgers, pipes in a rack.

“Sit down,” Wheelock said, gesturing toward the sofa as he went to the settee. “And tell me why a Nazi is coming to get me.” He sat down. “I have to admit I’m goddamn curious.”

Curhious—the r slightly roughened. That was what was bothering him; friendly Henry Wheelock was mimicking him, shading his American speech with a hint of a “Choiman agzent” nothing broad, just the hardly-at-all roughening of the r’s, the lightest dart of a v inside the w’s. Liebermann sat on the sofa—the cushion wheezed—and looked across at Wheelock leaning forward on the settee, elbows on spread knees, fingertips gliding back and forth along the edge of a green album or scrapbook on a low table before him; smiling at him, waiting.

Could the mimicry be unintended? He himself had sometimes echoed the rhythm and inflections of a foreigner’s awkward German; had caught himself doing it and been embarrassed.

But no, this was intentional, he was sure of it. Hostility was coming at him from smiling Wheelock. And what would you expect from an anti-Semitic former penitentiary guard who trains dogs to tear people’s throats out? Loving kindness? Good manners?

Well, he hadn’t come here to make a new friend. He put his briefcase by his feet, rested his hands on his knees.

“To explain this, Mr. Wheelock,” he said, “I have to go into personal matters. Personal regarding you. About your son, and his adoption.”

Wheelock’s eyebrows lifted questioningly.

“I know,” Liebermann said, “that you and Mrs. Wheelock got him in New York City from ‘Elizabeth Gregory.’ Now please believe me”—he leaned forward—“no one is going to make trouble about it. No one is going to try to take your son away from you or charge you with any law-breaking. It’s long ago and not important any more, not directly important. I give you my word on this.”

“I believe you,” Wheelock said gravely.

A very cool customer, this momzer, taking it so calmly; sitting there running the tips of his forefingers apart and together, apart and together, along the edge of the green album cover. The spine of the album lay toward Liebermann; the cover sloped upward, resting, apparently, on something inside. “‘Elizabeth Gregory,’” Liebermann said, “wasn’t her real name. Her real name was Frieda Maloney, Frieda Altschul Maloney. You have heard it?”

Wheelock frowned thoughtfully. “Do you mean that Nazi?” he asked. “The one they sent back to Germany?”

“Yes.” Liebermann picked up his briefcase. “I have here some pictures of her. You’ll see that—”

“Don’t bother,” Wheelock said.

Liebermann looked at him.

“I saw her picture in the newspaper,” Wheelock explained. “She looked familiar to me. Now I know why.” He smiled. The “why” had almost been “vy.”

Liebermann nodded. (Was it intentional? Except for the mimicry Wheelock was behaving pleasantly enough…) He put back the loosened briefcase strap; looked at Wheelock. “You and your wife,” he said, trying to un-v his own w’s, “weren’t the only couple that got babies from her. A couple named Guthrie did, and Mr. Guthrie was murdered last October. A couple named Curry did; Mr. Curry was murdered in November.”

Wheelock looked concerned now. His fingertips were motionless on the edge of the album cover.

“There is a Nazi going about in this country,” Liebermann said, holding the briefcase on his lap, “a former SS man, killing the fathers of the boys adopted through Frieda Maloney. Killing them in the same order as the adoptions, and the same time apart. You’re the next one, Mr. Wheelock.” He nodded. “Soon. And there are many more after. This is why I go to the F.B.I., and this is why, while I go, you should be protected. And by more than your dogs.” He gestured at the door beyond the sofa end; the dogs were whining behind it now, one or two barking half-heartedly.

Wheelock shook his head in amazement. “Hmm!” he said. “But this is so strange!” He looked wonderingly at Liebermann. “The fathers of the boys are being killed?”

“Yes.”

“But why?” Perfect pronunciation this time; he too was trying.

Dear God, of course! Not mimicry at all, intended or unintended, but a real accent, like his own, being suppressed!

He said, “I don’t know…”

And the shoes and the trousers, of a city man not a country man; the hostility coming from him; the dogs closed away so as not to “annoy”…

“You don’t know?” the-Nazi-not-Wheelock asked him. “All these killings are taking place and you don’t know the rheason?”

But the killers were in their fifties, and this man was sixty-five, maybe a little less. Mengele? Impossible. He was in Brazil or Paraguay and wouldn’t dare come north, couldn’t possibly be sitting here in New Providence, Pennsylvania.

He shook his head at no-not-Mengele.

But Kurt Koehler had been in Brazil, and had come to Washington. The name would have been in Barry’s passport or wallet as next-of-kin…

A gun came out from behind the album cover, aiming its muzzle at him. “Then I must tell it to you,” the man holding the gun said. Liebermann looked at him; darkened and lengthened his hair, gave him a thin mustache, filled him out and made him younger…Yes, Mengele. Mengele! The hated, the so-long-hunted; Angel of Death, child-killer! Sitting here. Smiling. Aiming a gun at him. “Heaven forbid,” Mengele said in German, “that you should die in ignorance. I want you to know exactly what’s coming in twenty years or so. Is that ossified stare only for the gun, or have you recognized me?”

Liebermann blinked, took a breath. “I recognize you,” he said.

Mengele smiled. “Rudel and Seibert and the others,” he said, “are a bunch of tired old ladies. They called the men home because Frieda Maloney talked to you about babies. So I have to finish the job myself.” He shrugged. “I really don’t mind; the work will keep me young. Listen, put the briefcase down very slowly and sit back with your hands on your head and relax; you have a good minute or so before I kill you.”

Liebermann put the briefcase down slowly, to the left of his feet, thinking that if he got a chance to go quickly to the right and open the door there—assuming it wasn’t locked—maybe the dogs whimpering on the other side would see Mengele with the gun and go for him before he could get off too many shots. Of course, maybe the dogs would go for him too; and maybe they wouldn’t go for either of them without Wheelock (dead in there) giving a command. But he couldn’t think of anything else to try.

“I wish it could be longer,” Mengele said. “Truly I do. This is one of the most satisfying moments in my life, as I’m sure you can appreciate, and if it were at all practical to do so, I would gladly sit and talk with you like this for an hour or two. Refute some of the grotesque exaggerations in that book of yours, for instance! But alas…” He shrugged regretfully.

Liebermann folded his hands on top of his head, sitting erect on the front of the sofa. He began working his feet farther apart, very slowly. The sofa was low, and getting up from it quickly wasn’t going to be easy. “Is Wheelock dead?” he asked.

“No,” Mengele said. “He’s in the kitchen making lunch for us. Listen closely now, dear Liebermann; I’m going to tell you something that’s going to sound totally incredible to you, but I swear to you on my mother’s grave that it’s the absolute truth. Would I bother to lie to a Jew? And a dead one?”

Liebermann flicked his eyes to the window at the right of the settee and looked back at Mengele attentively.

Mengele sighed and shook his head. “If I want to look out the window,” he said, “I’ll kill you and then look. But I don’t want to look out the window. If someone were coming, the dogs out in back would be barking, yes? Yes?”

“Yes,” Liebermann said, sitting with his hands on his head.

Mengele smiled. “You see? Everything goes my way. God is with me. Do you know what I saw on television at one o’clock this morning? Films of Hitler.” He nodded. “At a moment when I was severely depressed, virtually suicidal. If that wasn’t a sign from heaven, there’s never been one. So don’t waste your time looking at windows; look at me, and listen. He’s alive. This album”—he pointed with his free hand, not taking his eyes or his gun off Liebermann—“is full of pictures of him, ages one through thirteen. The boys are exact genetic duplicates of him. I’m not going to take the time to explain to you how I achieved this—I doubt whether you’d have the capacity to understand it if I did—but take my word for it, I did achieve it. Exact genetic duplicates. They were conceived in my laboratory, and carried to term by women of the Auiti tribe; healthy, docile creatures with a businesslike chieftain. The boys bear no taint of them; they’re pure Hitler, bred entirely from his cells. He allowed me to take half a liter of his blood and a cutting of skin from his ribs—we were in a Biblical frame of mind—on the sixth of January, 1943, at Wolf’s Lair. He had denied himself children”—the phone rang; Mengele kept his eyes and his gun on Liebermann—“because he knew that no son could flourish in the shadow of so”—the phone rang—“godlike a father; so when he heard what was theoretically possible, that I could”—the phone rang—“create some day not his son but another himself, not even a carbon copy but”—the phone rang—“another original, he was as thrilled by the idea as I was. It was then that he gave me the position and facilities I required to begin my pursuit of the goal. Did you really think my work at Auschwitz was aimless insanity? How simple-minded you people are! He commemorated the occasion, the giving of the blood and skin, with a beautifully inscribed cigarette case. ‘To my friend of many years Josef Mengele, who has served me better than most men and may serve me some day better than all. Adolf Hitler.’ My most cherished possession, naturally; too risky to take through customs, so it sits in my lawyer’s safe in Asunción, waiting for me to come home from my travels. You see? I’m giving you more than a minute”—he looked at the clock—

Liebermann got up and—a gunshot roared—stepped around the sofa end, reaching. A gunshot roared, a gunshot roared; pain flung him against hard wall, pain in his chest, pain farther down. Dogs barked loud in his wall-pressing ear. The brown wood door thumped and quivered; he reached across it for its glass-diamond knob. A gunshot roared; the knob burst apart as he caught it, a small hole in the back of his hand filling with blood. He clutched a sharp part of knob—a gunshot roared; the dogs barked wildly—and wincing in pain, eyes shut tight, he twisted the part-knob, pulled. The door threw itself open against his arm and shoulder, dog-howling; gunshots roared, a thundering salvo. Barks, a cry, clicks of an empty gun; a thud and clatter, snarls, a cry. He let go the cutting part-knob, turned himself back gasping against the wall; let himself slide downward, opened his eyes…

Black dogs drove Mengele into a spread-legged side-sprawl on the settee; big Dobermans, teeth bared, eyes wild, sharp ears back. Mengele’s cheek slammed against the settee arm. His eye stared at a Doberman before him, shifting amid the legs of the overturned table, jaw-grappling his wrist; the gun fell from his fingers. His eye rolled to stare at Dobermans snarling close against his cheek and underjaw. The Doberman at his cheek stood between his back and the settee’s back, its forepaws treading for purchase at his shoulder. The Doberman at his underjaw stood hind-legged on the floor between his spread legs, leaning in over his updrawn thigh, body down low against his chest. Mengele raised his cheek higher against the settee arm, eye staring down, lips trembling.

A fourth Doberman lay big on the floor between the settee and Liebermann, on its side, black ribs heaving, its nose on hooked rug. A light-reflecting flatness spread out from beneath it; a puddle of urine.

Liebermann slid all the way down the wall, and wincing, sat on the floor. He straightened his legs out slowly before him, watching the Dobermans threatening Mengele.

Threatening, not killing. Mengele’s wrist had been let go; the Doberman that had held it stood snarling at him almost nose to nose.

“Kill!” Liebermann commanded, but only a whisper came out. Pain lancing his chest enlarged and sharpened.

“Kill!” he shouted against the pain. A hoarse command came out.

The Dobermans snarled, not moving.

Mengele’s eye clenched tight; his teeth bit his lower lip.

“KILL!” Liebermann bellowed—and the pain ripped his chest, tore it apart.

The Dobermans snarled, not moving.

A high-pitched squealing came from Mengele’s bitten-closed mouth.

Liebermann threw his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, gasping. He tugged his tie knot down, unbuttoned his shirt collar. Undid another button under the tie and put his fingers to the pain; found wetness on his chest at the edge of his undershirt. Brought the fingers out, opened his eyes; looked at blood on his fingertips. The bullet had gone right through him. Hitting what? The left lung? Whatever it had hit, every breath swelled the pain. He reached down for the handkerchief in his trouser pocket, rolled leftward to get at it; worse pain exploded below, in his hip. He winced as it gored him. Ei!

He got the handkerchief out, brought it up, pressed it against the chest wound and held it there.

Raised his left hand. Blood leaked from both sides of it, more from the ragged break in the palm than from the smaller puncture in the back. The bullet had gone through below the first and second fingers. They were numb and he couldn’t move them. Two scratches bled across the palm.

He wanted to keep the hand up to slow the bleeding but couldn’t; let it fall down. No strength was in him. Only pain. And tiredness…The door beside him drifted slowly toward closing.

He looked at Mengele.

Mengele’s eye watched him.

He closed his eyes, breathing shallowly against the pain burning in his chest.

“Away…”

He opened his eyes and looked across the room at Mengele lying side-sprawled on the settee among the close-snarling Dobermans.

“Away,” Mengele said, softly and warily. His eye moved from the Doberman before him to the Doberman at his underjaw, the Doberman at his cheek. “Off. No more gun. No gun. Away. Off. Good dogs.”

The blue-black Dobermans snarled, not moving.

“Nice dogs,” Mengele said. “Samson? Good Samson. Off. Go away.” He turned his head slowly against the settee arm; the Dobermans withdrew their heads a little, snarling. Mengele made a shaky smile at them. “Major?” he asked. “Are you Major? Good Major, good Samson. Good dogs. Friend. No more gun.” His hand, red-wristed, caught the front of the settee arm; his other hand held the frame of the settee’s back. He began turning himself up slowly from his side. “Good dogs. Off. Away.”

The Doberman in the middle of the room lay motionless, its black ribs still. The urine puddle around it had fragmented into a scatter of small puddles glinting on wide floorboards.

“Good dogs, nice dogs…”

Lying on his back, Mengele began pulling himself up slowly into the corner of the settee. The Dobermans snarled but stayed where they were, finding new paw-holds as he moved himself higher, away from their teeth. “Away,” he said. “I’m your friend. Do I hurt you now? No, no, I like you.”

Liebermann closed his eyes, breathed shallowly. He was sitting in blood that leaked down behind him.

“Good Samson, good Major. Beppo? Zarko? Good dogs. Away. Away.”

Dena and Gary were having some kind of trouble between them. He had kept his mouth shut when he was there in November, but maybe he shouldn’t have; maybe he—

“Are you alive, Jew-bastard?”

He opened his eyes.

Mengele sat looking at him, erect in the corner of the settee, one leg up, one foot on the floor. Holding the settee’s arm and back; scornful, in command. Except for the three Dobermans leaning at him, softly snarling.

“Too bad,” Mengele said. “But you won’t be for long. I can see it from here. You’re gray as ashes. These dogs will lose interest in me if I sit calmly and talk nicely to them. They’ll want to go pee or get a drink of water.” To the Dobermans he said in English, “Water? Drink? Don’t you want water? Good dogs. Go get a drink of water.”

The Dobermans snarled, not moving.

“Sons of bitches,” Mengele said pleasantly in German. And to Liebermann: “So you’ve accomplished nothing, Jew-bastard, except to die slowly instead of quickly, and to scratch my wrist a little. In fifteen minutes I’ll walk out of here. Every man on the list will die at his time. The Fourth Reich is coming: not just a German Reich but a pan-Aryan one. I’ll live to see it, and to stand beside its leaders. Can you imagine the awe they’ll inspire? The mystical authority they’ll wield? The trembling of the Russians and Chinese? Not to mention the Jews.” The phone rang.

Liebermann tried to move from the wall—to crawl if he could to the wire hanging down from the table by the doorway—but the pain in his hip spiked him and held him, impossible to move against. He settled back into the stickiness of his blood. Closed his eyes, gasping.

“Good. Die a minute sooner. And think while you die of your grandchildren going into ovens.”

The phone kept ringing.

Greenspan and Stern, maybe. Calling to see what was happening, why he hadn’t called. Getting no answer, wouldn’t they worry and come, get directions in the town? If only the Dobermans would hold Mengele…

He opened his eyes.

Mengele sat smiling at the Dobermans—a relaxed, steady, friendly smile. They weren’t snarling now.

He let his eyes close.

Tried not to think of ovens and armies, of heiling masses. Wondered if Max and Lili and Esther would manage to keep the Center going. Contributions might come in. Memorials.

Barking, snarling. He opened his eyes.

“No, no!” Mengele said, sitting back down on the settee, clutching the arm and back of it while the Dobermans pushed and snarled at him. “No, no! Good dogs! Good dogs! No, no, I’m not going! No, no. See how still I sit? Good dogs. Good dogs.”

Liebermann smiled, closed his eyes.

Good dogs.

Greenspan? Stern? Come on…

“Jew-bastard?”

The handkerchief would stick to the wound by itself, so he kept his eyes closed, not breathing—let him think—and then he got his right hand up and gave the middle finger.

Faraway barking. The dogs out in back.

He opened his eyes.

Mengele glared at him. The same hatred that had come at him over the telephone that night so long ago.

“Whatever happens,” Mengele said, “I win. Wheelock was the eighteenth one to die. Eighteen of them have lost their fathers when he lost his, and at least one of the eighteen will grow to manhood as he grew, become who he became. You won’t leave this room alive to stop him. I may not leave it either, but you won’t; I swear it.”

Footsteps on the porch.

The Dobermans snarled, leaning at Mengele.

Liebermann and Mengele stared across the room at each other.

The front door opened.

Closed.

They looked at the doorway.

A weight dropped in the hallway. Metal clinked.

Footsteps.

The boy came and stood in the doorway—gaunt and sharp-nosed, dark-haired, a wide red stripe across the chest of his blue zipper jacket.

He looked at Liebermann.

Looked at Mengele and the Dobermans.

Looked at the dead Doberman.

Looked back and forth, deep blue eyes wide.

Pushed his dark forelock aside with a blue plastic mitten.

“Sheeesh!” he said.

“Mein—dear boy,” Mengele said, looking adoringly at him, “my dear, dear, dear, dear boy, you can not possibly imagine how happy I am, how joyous I am, to see you standing there so fine and strong and handsome! Will you call off these dogs? These most loyal and admirable dogs? They’ve kept me motionless here for hours, under the mistaken impression that I, not that vicious Jew over there, am the one who came here to do you harm. Will you call them off, please? I’ll explain everything.” He smiled lovingly, sitting among the snarling Dobermans.

The boy stared at him, and turned his head slowly toward Liebermann.

Liebermann shook his head.

“Don’t be deceived by him,” Mengele warned. “He’s a criminal, a killer, a terrible man who came here to hurt you and your family. Call off these dogs, Bobby. You see, I know your name. I know all about you—that you visited Cape Cod last summer, that you have a movie camera, that you have two pretty girl cousins named…I’m an old friend of your parents. In fact I’m the doctor who delivered you, just back from abroad! Dr. Breitenbach. Have they mentioned me? I left long ago.”

The boy looked uncertainly at him. “Where’s my father?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Mengele said. “I suspect, since that person had a gun that I succeeded in taking away from him—and the dogs saw us fighting and reached their wrong conclusion—I suspect that he may have”—he nodded gravely—“done away with your father. I came to call, having just come back from abroad, as I said, and he let me in, pretending to be a friend. When he drew his gun I was able to overpower him and get it, but then he opened that door and let the dogs out. Call them off and we’ll look for your father. Perhaps he’s only tied up. Poor Henry! Let’s hope for the best. It’s a good thing your mother wasn’t here. Does she still teach school in Lancaster?”

The boy looked at the dead Doberman.

Liebermann wagged his finger, trying to catch the boy’s eye.

The boy looked at Mengele. “Ketchup,” he said; the Dobermans turned and came jumping and hurrying to him. They ranked themselves two at one side of him, one at the other. His mittens touched their blue-black heads.

“Ketchup!” Mengele exclaimed happily, lowering his leg from the settee, sitting forward and rubbing his upper arms. “Never in a thousand years would I have thought to say ketchup!” He marched his feet against the floor, rubbing his thighs, smiling. “I said off, I said away, I said go, I said friend; not once did it enter my mind to say ketchup!”

The boy, frowning, pulled his mittens off. “We…better call the police,” he said. The dark forelock fell aslant his forehead.

Mengele sat gazing at him. “How marvelous you are!” he said. “I’m so—” He blinked, swallowed, smiled. “Yes,” he said, “we certainly must call the police. Do a favor for me, mein—Bobby dear. Take the dogs and go in the kitchen and get me a glass of water. You might also find me something to eat.” He stood up. “I shall call the police, and then I’ll look for your father.”

The boy stuffed his mittens into his jacket pockets. “Is that your car in front?” he asked.

“Yes,” Mengele said. “And his is the one in the garage. Or so I assume. Is it yours? The family’s?”

The boy looked skeptically at him. “The one in front,” he said, “has a bumper sticker about Jews not giving up any of Israel. You called him a Jew.”

“And so he is,” Mengele said. “At least he looks like one.” He smiled. “This is hardly the time to talk about what words I used. Go get the water, please, and I’ll call the police.”

The boy cleared his throat. “Would you sit down again?” he said. “I’ll call them.”

“Bobby dear—”

“Pickles,” the boy said; the Dobermans rushed snarling at Mengele. He backed down onto the settee, forearms crossed before his face. “Ketchup!” he cried. “Ketchup! Ketchup!” The Dobermans leaned at him, snarling.

The boy came into the room, unzipping his jacket. “They’re not going to listen to you,” he said. He turned toward Liebermann, pushed his dark forelock aside.

Liebermann looked at him.

“He switched it around, didn’t he?” the boy said. “He had the gun, and let you in.”

“No!” Mengele said.

Liebermann nodded.

“Can’t you talk?”

He shook his head, pointed at the phone.

The boy nodded and turned.

“That man is your enemy!” Mengele cried. “I swear to God he is!”

“You think I’m retarded?” The boy moved to the table, picked up the phone.

“Don’t!” Mengele leaned toward him. The Dobermans snapped and snarled at him but he stayed leaning. “Please! I beg you! For your sake, not mine! I’m your friend! I came here to help you! Listen to me, Bobby! Only for one minute!”

The boy faced him, the phone in his hand.

“Please! I’ll explain! The truth! I did lie, yes! I had the gun. To help you! Please! Only listen to me for one minute! You’ll thank me, I swear you will! One minute!”

The boy stood looking at him, and lowered the phone, hung it up.

Liebermann shook his head despairingly. “Call!” he said. A whisper, not even getting out of his mouth.

“Thank you,” Mengele said to the boy. “Thank you.” He sat back, smiling ruefully. “I should have known you would be too clever to lie to. Please”—he glanced at the Dobermans, looked at the boy—“call them off. I’ll stay here, sitting.”

The boy stood by the table looking at him. “Ketchup,” he said; the Dobermans turned and hurried to him. They ranked themselves beside him, all three at the side toward Liebermann, facing Mengele.

Mengele shook his head, ran a hand back over his cropped gray hair. “This is…so difficult.” He lowered his hand, looked anxiously at the boy.

“Well?” the boy said.

Mengele said, “You are clever, are you not?”

The boy stood looking at him, fingers moving at the head of the nearest Doberman.

“You don’t do well in school,” Mengele said. “You did when you were little, but not now. This is because you’re too clever, too”—he raised a hand, tapped at his temple—“thinking your own thoughts. But the fact is, you’re smarter than the teachers, yes?”

The boy looked toward the dead Doberman, frowning, his lips pursed. He looked at Liebermann.

Liebermann poked his finger at the phone.

Mengele leaned toward the boy. “If I am to be truthful with you,” he said, “you must be truthful with me! Are you not smarter than the teachers?”

The boy looked at him, shrugged. “Except one,” he said.

“And you have high ambitions, yes?”

The boy nodded.

“To be a great painter, or an architect.”

The boy shook his head. “To make movies.”

“Oh yes, of course.” Mengele smiled. “To be a great movie-maker.” He looked at the boy; his smile faded. “You and your father have fought about this,” he said. “A stubborn old man with a limited viewpoint. You resent him, with good reason.”

The boy looked at him.

“You see,” Mengele said, “I do know you. Better than anyone else on earth.”

The boy, bewildered-looking, said, “Who are you?”

“The doctor who delivered you. That much was true. But I’m not an old friend of your parents. In fact, I’ve never met them. We are strangers.”

The boy tipped his head as if to hear better.

“Do you see what that means?” Mengele asked him. “The man you think of as your father”—he shook his head—“is not your father. And your mother—though you love her and she loves you, I’m sure—she is not your mother. They adopted you. It was I who arranged for the adoption. Through intermediaries. Helpers.”

The boy stared at him.

Liebermann watched the boy uneasily.

“That’s distressing news to receive so suddenly,” Mengele said, “but perhaps…not wholly unpleasing news? Have you never felt that you were superior to those around you? Like a prince among commoners?”

The boy stood taller, shrugged. “I feel…different from everyone sometimes.”

“You are different,” Mengele said. “Infinitely different, and infinitely superior. You have—”

“Who are my real parents?” the boy asked.

Mengele looked thoughtfully at his hands, clasped them, looked at the boy. “It would be better for you,” he said, “not to know yet. When you’re older, more mature, you’ll find out. But this I can tell you now, Bobby: you were born of the finest blood in all the world. Your inheritance—I’m speaking not of money but of character and ability—is incomparable. You have it within you to fulfill ambitions a thousand times greater than those of which you presently dream. And you shall fulfill them! But only—and you must bear in mind how well I know you, and trust me when I say this—only if you will go out of here now with the dogs, and let me…do what I must and go.”

The boy stood looking at him.

“For your sake,” Mengele said. “Your well-being is all that I consider. You must believe that. I have consecrated my life to you and your welfare.”

The boy stood looking at him. “Who are my real parents?” he asked.

Mengele shook his head.

“I want to know,” the boy said.

“In this you must bow to my judgment; at the—”

“Pickles!” The Dobermans rushed snarling at Mengele. He cowered back behind crossed forearms. The Dobermans leaned at him, snarling.

“Tell me,” the boy said. “Right now. Or else I’ll…say something else to them. I mean it! I can make them kill you if I want.”

Mengele stared at him over crossed wrists.

“Who are my parents?” the boy asked. “I’ll give you three. One…”

“You have none!” Mengele said.

“Two…”

“It’s true! You were born from a cell of the greatest man who ever lived! Reborn! You are he, reliving his life! And that Jew over there is his sworn enemy! And yours!”

The boy turned toward Liebermann, blue eyes confounded.

Liebermann got his hand up, circled a finger at his temple, pointed at Mengele.

“No!” Mengele cried as the boy turned to him. The Dobermans snarled. “I am not mad! Smart though you are, there are things you don’t know, about science and microbiology! You’re the living duplicate of the greatest man in all history! And he”—his eyes jumped toward Liebermann—“came here to kill you! I to protect you!”

“Who?” the boy challenged. “Who am I? What great man?”

Mengele stared at him over the heads of the snarling Dobermans.

The boy said, “One…”

“Adolf Hitler; you’ve been told he was evil,” Mengele said, “but as you grow and see the world engulfed by Blacks and Semites, Slavs, Orientals, Latins—and your own Aryan folk threatened with extinction—from which you shall save them!—you’ll come to see that he was the best and finest and wisest of all mankind! You’ll rejoice in your heritage, and bless me for creating you! As he himself blessed me for trying!”

“You know what?” the boy said. “You’re the biggest nut I ever met. You’re the weirdest, craziest—”

“I am telling you the truth!” Mengele said. “Look in your heart! The strength is there to command armies, Bobby! To bend whole nations to your will, to destroy without mercy all who oppose you!”

The boy stood looking at him.

“It’s true,” Mengele said. “All his power is in you, or will be when the time comes. Now do as I tell you. Let me protect you. You have a destiny to fulfill. The highest destiny of all.”

The boy looked down, rubbing at his forehead. He looked up at Mengele. “Mustard,” he said.

The Dobermans leaped; Mengele flailed, cried out.

Liebermann looked. Winced. Looked.

Looked at the boy.

The boy thrust his hands into the pockets of his red-striped blue jacket. He moved from the table, walked slowly to the side of the settee; stood looking down. He wrinkled his nose. Said, “Sheesh.”

Liebermann looked at the boy, and at the burrowing Dobermans pushing Mengele down onto the floor.

He looked at his slowly bleeding left hand, both sides of it.

Growls sounded. Wet partings. Scrapings.

After a while the boy came away from the settee, his hands still in his pockets. He looked down at the dead Doberman, prodded its rump with a sneaker-toe. He glanced at Liebermann, and turned and looked back. “Off,” he said. Two of the Dobermans raised their heads and came walking toward him, tongues lapping bloody mouths.

“Off!” the boy said. The third Doberman raised its head.

One of the Dobermans sniffed at the dead Doberman.

The other Doberman came past Liebermann, nosed open the door beside him, and went out.

The boy came and stood between Liebermann’s feet, looking down at him, the forelock aslant his forehead.

Liebermann looked up at him. Pointed at the phone.

The boy took his hands from his pockets and crouched down, elbows on brown-corduroy thighs, hands hanging loose. Dirty fingernails.

Liebermann looked at the gaunt young face: the sharp nose, the forelock, the deep blue eyes looking at him.

“I think you’re going to die soon,” the boy said, “if someone doesn’t come help you, get you to the hospital.” His breath smelled of chewing gum.

Liebermann nodded.

“I could go out again,” the boy said. “With my books. And come back later. Say I was…just walking somewhere. I do that sometimes. And my mother doesn’t get home till twenty to five. I bet you’d be dead by then.”

Liebermann looked at him. Another Doberman went out.

“If I stay, and call the police,” the boy said, “are you going to tell them what I did?”

Liebermann considered. Shook his head.

“Ever?”

He shook his head.

“Promise?”

He nodded.

The boy put out his hand.

Liebermann looked at it.

He looked at the boy; the boy looked at him. “If you can point, you can shake,” the boy said.

Liebermann looked at the hand.

No, he told himself. Either way you’re going to die. What kind of doctors can they have in a hole like this?

“Well?”

And maybe there’s an afterlife. Maybe Hannah’s waiting. Mama, Papa, the girls…

Don’t kid yourself.

He brought his hand up.

Shook the boy’s hand. As little as possible.

“He was a real nut,” the boy said, and stood up.

Liebermann looked at his hand.

“Scram!” the boy shouted at a Doberman busy on Mengele.

The Doberman ran out into the hallway, then back crazily, bloody-mouthed, and past Liebermann and out.

The boy went to the phone.

Liebermann closed his eyes.

Remembered. Opened them.

When the boy was done talking, he beckoned to him.

The boy came over. “Water?” he asked.

He shook his head, beckoned.

The boy crouched down beside him.

“There’s a list,” he said.

“What?” The boy leaned his ear close.

“There’s a list,” he said as loud as he could.

“A list?”

“See if you can find it. In his coat maybe. A list of names.”

He watched the boy go into the hallway.

My helper Hitler.

He kept his eyes open.

Looked at Mengele in front of the settee. White and red where his face was. Bone and blood.

Good.

After a while the boy came back looking at papers.

He reached.

“My father’s on it,” the boy said.

He reached.

The boy looked uneasily at him, put the papers down into his hand. “I forgot. I better go look for him.”

Five or six typed sheets. Names, addresses, dates. Hard to read without his glasses. Döring, crossed out. Horve, crossed out. Other pages, no crossings.

He folded the papers against the floor, got them into his jacket pocket.

Closed his eyes.

Stay alive. Not finished yet.

Faraway barking.

“I found him.”

Blond-bearded Greenspan glared at him. Whispered, “He’s dead! We can’t question him!”

“It’s all right. I have the list.”

“What?”

Crinkly blond hair, pinned-in embroidered skullcap. As loud as he could: “It’s all right. I have the list. All the fathers.”

He was lifted—ei!—and put down.

On a stretcher. Being carried. Dog’s-head knocker, daylight, blue sky.

A shiny lens looking at him, keeping up, humming. Sharp nose next to it.