Montezuma’s Revenge

His smile faded as he turned to the younger men and spoke to them in a different language that had far more guttural sounds than the German, but never an umlaut. In a moment he warmed to the occasion, shaking a finger and administering what was obviously a full-scale dressing down to the pair, who wilted beneath the attack and began to look as chagrined as schoolboys. Then they were dismissed with a pointing finger at the door and seemed very glad to leave.

“Have a cigarette,” said the plump man, seating himself comfortably on a large box labeled zion salami. He held the pack out to Tony then took one himself. The cigarettes were thin and black and had a rank smell. “Delicados” the donor said, “strong but nice.” He struck a wooden kitchen match on the seat of his trousers. “I should introduce myself. My name is Jacob Goldstein.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Goldstein ...” The sentence faded away into a spasm of coughing as the fumes of the rank burning leaf bit deep into Tony’s lung. With every cough his head rang as though someone were plying it with a hammer. Goldstein looked on kindly with the smoke trickling unperturbably from his nostrils.

“The name means something to you?”

“Sorry, no ... the cigarette’s a little strong. If you don’t mind.” Without waiting for permission he ground the smoldering object out under his heel.

“It would mean nothing to you either if I mentioned another name maybe. A party called Wilhelm Ulrich Vogel.”

“Vogel the Vulture, of course.” Tony wondered what this was all about. “Captured by Israeli Nazi hunters in Brazil and smuggled back to Germany. I read about it ...” The hammering had done his head no good at all but his synapses were finally beginning to click on and off again and produce results. “Vogel. Tracked down by the greatest hunter of them all. Goldstein?”

Jacob Goldstein nodded his head slightly and drew deeply on the cigarette. For a moment there was a gleam of something deep in his eyes and Tony had the realization that the fat old man outside was just the disguise for the tiger within. He shivered without realizing it.

“Now that we have exchanged names and you know who I am perhaps you will tell me just what your relationship is to Kurt Robl.”

“I met him tonight for the first time, honestly.”

“Please, be honest, that I appreciate. You met the man for the first time, yet you wear his hat so that my enthusiastic boys mistake you for him, sabras, big on muscles, short on brains, believe me. You wear his hat, you have the key to the trunk of his car ... ?” The sentence ended with an unspoken question.

“I am being honest. It is, well, a little complicated. A business deal, that’s all, the hat sort of identification, nothing else. There was something in the trunk, it was unlocked, that I had to look at, something important, and I must say your sabras wrecked that deal as well as wrecking my head. They are going to be in trouble, Goldstein, you can be sure of that.”

The Nazi catcher seemed undisturbed by the threat; he lit a second cigarette from the still glowing end of the first. “What kind of business?”

“That is confidential.”

“It should be. Three a.m. meetings with known war criminals engaged in with the aid of a well-known CIA man. The law looks dimly upon this sort of monkey business.”

“It was entirely harmless, I assure you.”

“I find that hard to believe since you were carrying these.”

He produced a revolver and the cigar-case knife and held them up for inspection. The gun bore more than a slight resemblance to Davidson’s gun that Tony had put in his pocket and forgotten about. He fought a strong impulse to groan aloud.

“That can be explained. Personal protection, nothing more.”

“Why did you need personal protection? What is this harmless business you are engaged in that required you go armed?”

“I am afraid I cannot say. A matter of national secrecy, to be exact.” He could say that at least, they knew the CIA was involved.

“Since when does the stealing of an Italian national treasure by Nazi crooks become a matter of American national secrecy?”

Tony opened his mouth, then shut it again, started to stand but changed his mind and sat down again. Goldstein smiled warmly.

“That’s a good one, isn’t it? What used to be called in the good old days of the faked quiz games the $64,000 question. You think about the answer. I’ll make a little nosh, give us strength. Nice hot pastrami sandwich and a glass of tea.”