The Honor of Spies

"I heard Werner talking with Ramon--"

"Ramon being his lover?" von Deitzberg interrupted.

She nodded.

They were still in the bed. But the bedcovers had been taken off and von Deitzberg was naked under the sheet. Inge was sitting on the bed with her back propped against the headboard.

When Inge had gone to the bathroom, he had stripped, then hung his trousers and shirt neatly over a chair. Inge was wearing the terry-cloth robe she had found in the bathroom. It hung loosely on her and he could see her breasts.

"Who is this man?" von Deitzberg asked.

"A Uruguayan, of course. He's thirty-something. Not bad-looking. Doesn't look like a poufter."

"A what?"

"That's what they call queers here. It's English, I think. They use a lot of English words here."

"What does he do?"

"He owns a restaurant. Actually, several restaurants and a poufter bar."

" 'A poufter bar'?" he parroted, and chuckled.

"A poufter bar," she repeated, smiling. "That's where Werner met him."

"Would you say that Werner has told his poufter friend about the confidential special fund?"

She smiled and nodded.

"I'm sure he has."

Then both poufters have to be eliminated.

"How did you get to eavesdrop on their conversation?"

"Conversations, plural. A lot of them. I had to protect myself; Werner would throw me to the wolves and take pleasure watching them eat me."

"And how did you do this?"

"The first time, it was by accident. I'd told Werner I was going to Punta del Este--"

"Where?"

"It's a beachside resort about a hundred kilometers from here. I go there sometimes to lie on the beach."

And possibly to find someone who can give you what you're not getting from your poufter?

"Go on."

"And I had trouble with my car and couldn't go. I had to put the car in the garage. I was in my bedroom when I saw Werner drive up with Ramon. I suspected they came here when they thought I was gone."

"Not to Ramon's house? Apartment?"

"Ramon is married," she said.

"A married poufter?"

"He and Werner have that in common," Inge said. "Anyway, I was curious. I hid in my closet. Werner didn't see my car, but he looked into my bedroom. . . ."

"You have separate bedrooms?"

She nodded. "And when I wasn't there, they went to his. I could hear everything that went on in his bedroom. That was interesting. Werner is the woman. I thought it would be the other way. And when Ramon went home to his loving wife, I walked over here to the Casino and took a room. He didn't suspect a thing.

"Sometimes they didn't even--you know, do it. But they talked about what they should do with Werner's money--the money the Jews gave him; the confidential fund--and I found that fascinating. And then I started looking in his safe. I knew where he kept the combination; he could never remember it. All the details and property deeds--and of course the money waiting to be invested--were in there."

"So what are the poufters doing in Paraguay?"

"Werner is worried about you. He thinks you have concluded he knows too much and are going to order him back to Germany and send him to Sachsenhausen."

"I couldn't risk him running off at the mouth, either on his way to Sachsenhausen or once he was in there," von Deitzberg said.

"I thought about that too," she said matter-of-factly. "And I thought about you, that you should know, but how was I going to get in touch with you?"

"That raises several questions in my mind," von Deitzberg said. "What did you think I should know?"

"That Werner, especially after he decided the war is lost . . . Is the war lost, my darling?"

What does she think, that after we have rolled around like two dachshunden in heat, that we are now lovers, that she can call me "my darling"?

"Things do not look good," von Deitzberg said.

She nodded thoughtfully, then said: "Where was I? Oh, yes. Werner decided that even if you didn't order him back to Germany, the war was lost and he had to protect himself. That he had decided to take all the cash and go to Paraguay. With Ramon, of course."

Can I believe her?

Of course I can't believe her. She's a Hotel Am Zoo whore.

A very good one, to be sure, but a Hotel Am Zoo whore.

"Inge, why did you want to tell me all about this?"

"To whom else could I turn?"

"Why would you think I would help you?"

"That's what I meant when I said I have no choice but to put my life in your hands."

"Why, Inge, did you think I would give a damn?"

She exhaled audibly.