A Quiet Flame by Philip Kerr Read Free Book Online

need to speak good Spanish to do that. You don’t need to know the city. You do need to be a German. And to hunt among the people I want you to hunt among, you need to be one of them. When I said you could be my angel, I meant my black angel. Isn’t that what Germans called men who were in the SS? Black angels?”
    “Set a thief to catch a thief, is that it?”
    “Something like that, yes.”
    “They’re not going to like that, my old comrades. They have new names. New faces, some of them. New names, new faces, and amnesia. I could find myself becoming very unpopular with some of the most ruthless men in South America. Present company excepted.”
    “I already thought of a way of handling things so that you don’t wind up dead.”
    I smiled. He was persistent, I had to give him that much. And I was beginning to have a feeling he had already second-guessed all of my objections. “I bet you have, Colonel.”
    “I’ve even considered your financial situation,” he said. “After having converted your money at the Bank of London and South America—the branch on Calle Bartolomé Mitre, wasn’t it?”
    “So much for banking secrecy in this country,” I said.
    “You will have learned that twenty-five thousand Austrian schillings is not such a lot. By my calculations, you have about a thousand dollars, which is not going to last you very long in Buenos Aires. A year, maybe less, if there are unforeseen expenses. And it’s my experience that there are always unforeseen circumstances. Especially for a man in your position. On the other hand, I’m offering you a job. Unlike the kind of a job Carlos Fuldner will probably offer you, this is a job you would actually be good at.”
    “Working for you? In the secret police?”
    “Why not? There’s a salary, a desk in the Casa Rosada, a car. There’s even a passport. A proper one. Not that piece of shit the Red Cross gave you. With a proper passport you could go back to Germany, perhaps. Without having to answer all sorts of awkward questions when you got there. After all, you would be an Argentine citizen. Think about it.”
    “Perhaps if I had the original case files, it might have been possible.” I shook my head. “But it was almost twenty years ago. Probably the files were lost during the war.”
    “On the contrary. They’re here in B.A. I had them sent from Berlin Alexanderplatz.”
    “You did that? How?”
    The colonel shrugged modestly, but still managed to look quite pleased with himself. As well he might have done. I was impressed with him.
    “Actually, it really wasn’t very difficult. It’s the Americans who dislike Perón and the generals, not the Russians. Besides, the Delegation for Argentine Immigration in Europe has many friends in Germany. You should know that better than anyone. If the DAIE can get Eichmann out of Germany, a few old files are not going to present much of a problem.”
    “My compliments, Colonel. You seem to have thought of everything.”
    “In Buenos Aires it is better to know everything than it is to know too much,” said the colonel.
    He crossed his legs and picked some fluff off his knee and waited patiently for my answer. I felt certain I was about to trump him, but he looked so cool I couldn’t help but think he still had something up his sleeve.
    “Please don’t think that I’m not flattered by your offer,” I said. “But right now I have other things on my mind. You’ve thought of everything, it’s true. Except the one reason why I’m not going to work for you. You see, Colonel, I’m not well. I had heart palpitations on the boat. I thought I was having a heart attack. Anyway, I went to see Dr. Espejo, the one Perón recommended. And he says I don’t have a heart condition at all. The heart palpitations are the result of thyrotoxicosis. I have cancer of the thyroid, Colonel Montalbán. That’s why I’m not going to work for you.”

5
    BUENOS AIRES, 1950
    C OLONEL MONTALBÁN TOOK OFF his glasses and