Blood Flag: A Paul Madriani Novel (14 page)

The cadaver would greet him without a smile, hug him as if he was feeling him up, looking to see if Nino might be wearing a wire. The Jewish consul’s gofer was trying to be careful. But he was never happy. He would order a sandwich and either leave it on the table or drop it in the trash on the way out. Nino wanted to tell him there were children starving all over the world, but he knew the guy wouldn’t care.

“Twice you have been there now. And twice you have failed.”

“Not entirely,” said Nino.

“Oh, you mean you found it?”

“No, but I narrowed it down.”

“I would hope so,” said Ari, “seeing as you destroyed most of the furniture in the house on your first visit. What are you planning next, a fire? Is it necessary to remind you who I work for? We cannot afford an embarrassing incident. Particularly one that can be traced back to me or, more important, to my employer.”

Nino guessed that the man would slide under the table with a stroke if he knew the whole story, the details that Nino hadn’t told him. Still, he was hoping that today the man might be in a better mood, seeing as he picked a kosher deli for their meeting. But it didn’t seem to help. The sandwich was still going in the garbage. The guy had a perpetual hot wire up his ass. He needed to find a more peaceful line of work. If he kept doing this much longer it was going to kill him.

“Why should we give you another chance?” said Ari. “Tell me.”

“Because I know where it is,” said Nino.

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then enlighten me.”

“Why would I wanna do that? If I tell you where it is, you’re just gonna hire somebody else to go get it.”

“You mean someone with skill,” said Ari.

Nino looked at the pickle on the guy’s plate. He was wondering if the man was going to eat it or if he would fight for it if Nino reached over and harpooned it with his fork. Nino’s mind was occupied, plotting the trajectory across the table.

“Listen to me, Jimmie.” Ari leaned forward.

Nino’s eyes suddenly diverted to the man’s face with the thought, Who the hell is Jimmie?

“Stop eating for a moment and listen to me.”

Nino put the fork down. This was getting hard, trying to remember the false names under which he was operating, let alone keeping them matched with the right clients. It would have been easier to run for office. There all you had to worry about was forgetting the names of the fools who gave you money. Nino had to worry about forgetting his own. Answer to the wrong name with some business tycoon who went to the trouble to check out your rap sheet just to see if you had the credentials to off one of his partners, and what do you do then? Some of these people had money, more than enough to hire some wiseguy to erase their mistake. Nino could end up on a rolling cart in the morgue with somebody else’s name on his toe tag.

“We are on thin ice here,” said Ari. “You and me. The people I report to are not happy. They are telling me that I hired an amateur. I’d like to tell them that I didn’t. But at the moment I’m not sure. Did I?”

Nino shook his head slowly.

“I hope not. For your sake as well as my own. The burglary was clumsy. You know that. To break in and do all that damage . . .”

“It’s a very small item. You’re the ones who told me what to look for. There’s a lotta places you can hide something like that. It wasn’t an easy search. Sometimes that means breaking stuff. After that, well, it was necessary to make it look real. You know, teenage vandals.”

“Teenagers are one thing. Visigoths are another,” said Ari. “And then when you left, you didn’t take anything. For crying out loud . . .”

“Why would I want to take any of that old crap?” said Nino. In point of fact he had taken only one item, a document that he had no intention of sharing with the Israelis.

“That’s not the point,” said Ari. “Teenagers would have taken something. Even some idiot burglar your age would have grabbed a few small things of value.”

Nino wanted to tell him, “Yeah, that’s how their stupid asses end up in prison.” But he didn’t. The only reason he took the job in the first place was that he had two other clients looking for the same item. One of them he had on the hook advancing his costs. He was a guy who was married to money with a shaky marriage, and he wanted a backup plan in case of a divorce. Each one of them had given him differing slivers of information, where to look and what to look for. When he found it he would haul it away, find out who else was interested, hold a private auction, and sell it to the highest bidder. The money would be wired into a numbered account in Aruba.

He found the other clients the same way he found Ari. By flying under false colors, posing as someone he wasn’t. In this case it was a former navy petty officer, third class, James “Jimmie” Pepper. Pepper came out of the navy with a drinking problem and not much else. He lived on the streets and panhandled for booze. When Nino found him he was standing under a highway overpass with a banged-up shopping cart.

He was about Nino’s height with the same dark hair, holding a cardboard sign that read: “Former Navy—Need Help.” Nino tossed him into a rendering tank at a small tallow plant near Miramar, but not until after stripping his clothes, lifting his wallet, and scouring the shopping cart for any other identifying information. It was one of the advantages of helping yourself to the identity of the homeless. They were rarely missed, and usually everything they owned was with them. In Pepper’s case this included some navy papers and a jail release form showing that the former petty officer had been booked for burglary. By now, molecular particles of Pepper were probably gracing ladies’ luxury facial soaps on shelves in a half-dozen western states.

“So now, because of your bungling,” said Ari, “they know that it wasn’t a burglary. They know you were looking for something specific, and because you didn’t find it, they can go to much greater lengths to hide it. So tell me, what happened the second time?”

“I was interrupted,” said Nino. “I didn’t get the chance.”

“I thought the place was empty.”

“So did I.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can they identify you?”

“No. You don’t have to worry about that. Listen, the old man is dead,” said Nino, “and the house is empty because the daughter’s in jail. Let me go in one more time.”

“
Was
in jail,” said Ari. “She has been released on bail. And we have to assume that by now she is probably back at her house.”

EIGHTEEN

T
he photo of the German on the ID looks as if it could easily date back as far as the early forties, World War II. From everything Emma has told us, Robert Brauer served honorably in the war, saw combat in Europe, and was present there on V-E Day in 1945. Beyond that we know nothing.

Harry and I are alone in my office. I tell him about the Luger in the display case in Brauer’s study and the military patch, the gold and red thunderbird with the label “45th Infantry Division” under it, and the swastika. Harry was busy working the trapdoor when Herman and I were looking at them.

“I saw them later when I was going through his desk. I wondered the same thing,” says Harry. “You think Brauer was a closet Nazi?”

“Who knows?”

“That might explain why he was afraid,” says Harry. “Maybe he got tangled up with some skinheads.”

I turn to the computer, punch up Google, and type in “45th Infantry Division.”

In seconds the site list pops up. There’re a bunch of sites. I open one of them. It spills across the screen, a map of Western Europe with text underneath in big letters.

“The 45th Infantry Division drove on Munich in the closing days of the war and, in the process, it liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. The division crossed the Danube River on 27 April, 1945, and liberated 32,000 captives of Dachau on 29 April. The division captured Munich during the next two days, occupying the city until V-E Day and the surrender of Germany. During the next month, the division remained in Munich and set up collection points and camps for the massive numbers of surrendering troops of the German armies. The number of POWs taken by the 45th Infantry Division during its almost two years of fighting totaled 124,840 men.”

“Dachau concentration camp,” says Harry.

“I see it.”

“You think Brauer was there?”

“I don’t know.”

“We could ask Emma.”

“She says she doesn’t know anything. According to her, her dad never talked about the war. All she knows is little bits and pieces from letters he’d written to army buddies and a few telephone conversations she overheard. Whenever she asked him about the war, the men he served with, he’d go silent. Didn’t want to talk about it. She assumed it brought up bad memories, so she never pressed him.”

“It is possible the swastika on the wall is something Brauer captured, like the pistol. Maybe they go together,” says Harry.

“Herman looked at the Luger and said he thought it was authentic.” I punch up another site, wait a couple of seconds, and sit there staring at it. “I’ll be damned.”

“What is it?” says Harry.

“The unit emblem for the 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army.”

“What was it?”

“Come take a look,” I tell him.

Harry steps around the desk so he can look over my shoulder. It’s an item from the 45th Infantry Division Museum, their online site, an organization dedicated to the history of the unit.

I know from other readings that the symbol in question has a history dating back thousands of years. It is formed by an equilateral cross, the outward legs of which are bent at a ninety-degree angle. It has been used by various cultures and religions from time immemorial, including Hindus, Buddhists, and followers of Jainism. In ancient Sanskrit it was known by the word
svastika
. We know it as the swastika.

According to the article from the 45th Infantry Division Museum, the unit wore the swastika on their divisional arm patch for a period dating from around 1920 until 1933. To the unit it was an ancient American Indian icon, a symbol of good luck.

The 45th was headquartered in Oklahoma City and trained at Fort Bliss. It was made up of recruits mostly from Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. This was Indian country for many of the western tribes, so according to the article the symbol made sense.

From reading we find out that the problem arose when the swastika became known worldwide as the symbol of Hitler’s Nazi Party in Germany.

Apparently the 45th abandoned the swastika in 1933. They wore no arm patch insignia until 1939. After much thought and a contest to come up with a new insignia, the army settled on another American Indian motif. It was gold and red, the same colors as the old patch, but this time it was the Thunderbird—the symbol of the “sacred bearer of happiness unlimited.” They marched with it on their shoulders through World War II and the Korean War.

The 45th Infantry Division was deactivated in 1968 and rolled into the 45th Infantry Brigade along with its battle flags, storied history, and Thunderbird shoulder insignia.

“That proves what they say,” says Harry.

“What’s that?”

“There’s nothing stranger than history. Could have knocked me over with a thunderbird feather. We can forget the theory that Brauer was a Nazi.”

“Looks like it.”

“Where did they end up?” says Harry.

“Who?”

“The 45th, at the end of the war?”

I look through some of the materials online. “Looks like Munich. Why?”

“Munich was a hotbed,” says Harry. “It’s where Hitler got his start. The Beer Hall Putsch, remember? Early twenties.”

“That was before my time,” I say, and start to smile.

“I know it’s fashionable to be ignorant with regards to history,” he says, “but the Millennials will end up reliving it if they aren’t careful. Our own American version of Hitler. Country’s in trouble, in case you haven’t noticed. And most people haven’t a clue as to current events. They know even less about history.”

He’s getting wound up. I can tell. Harry’s lecture series, new season, episode one.

“If a nuclear war happened before four o’clock yesterday, they don’t know about it. If another one is scheduled for tomorrow, the only question they’ll ask is whether they can catch it on YouTube. The definition of being cool. The younger generation is ignorant,” he says.

“You tell my daughter that, tell Sarah that the next time she’s down, and I’ll take odds she hits you with a book.”

“You can bet it won’t be a history book,” says Harry.

I start to laugh.

“It’s not funny,” he says. “The world’s coming apart and the kids are gonna inherit it.”

“You did pretty well last year. Have you checked your portfolio balance lately?”

“I’m not talking about money,” says Harry. “Forget the money. Do you realize you’d have to dig up at least three generations of elementary school teachers in any major city in this country before you find one who knows what World War Two was and when it happened? I’m not kidding. Stop anybody on the street under eighty and ask them who Stalin was, and they’ll tell you it’s a rock group. We’re gonna wake up someday and find his clone sitting with his feet on the desk in the Oval Office,” he says.

I need to buy Harry a bullhorn and sandwich board so he can go out on the street and scream at the kids. See if all those noise-canceling headphones really work.

“They can either learn it or relive it,” he says.

“Well, I suppose every so often the world needs a refresher course,” I tell him.

“That’s not funny,” says Harry. “That’s not funny at all. That’s learning the hard way.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it’s a lesson they won’t forget,” I tell him. I have my back to him looking at the screen. “Can you find that little box with the key? It’s on the desk there somewhere.”

“What, this?”

I turn. “Yeah. There’s another piece of paper folded up inside. Take it out and take a look.”

He does it.

It’s the brown wrapper. “Do you see a return address on it?”

“Yeah, there’s a small sticker.”

“What does it say?”