A Death in Vienna

strength to pry it open. The air conditioner no longer worked, and the engine roared like a prop plane.
    They sped along the broad Avenida 9 de Julio with the windows down. Scraps of notepaper swirled around them. Ramirez seemed not to notice, or to care, when several pages were sucked out into the street. It had grown hotter with the late afternoon. The rough wine had left Gabriel with a headache. He turned his face toward the open window. It was an ugly boulevard. The façades of the graceful old buildings were scarred by an endless parade of billboards hawking German luxury cars and American soft drinks to a populace whose money was suddenly worthless. The limbs of the shade trees hung drunkenly beneath the onslaught of pollution and heat.
    They turned toward the river. Ramirez looked into the rearview mirror. A life of being pursued by military thugs and Nazi sympathizers had left him with well-honed street instincts.
    “We’re being followed by a girl on a motor scooter.”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?”
    “Because she works for me.”
    Ramirez took a long look into the mirror.
    “I recognize those thighs. That girl was at the café, wasn’t she?”
    Gabriel nodded slowly. His head was pounding.
    “You’re a very interesting man, Monsieur Duran. And very lucky, too. She’s beautiful.”
    “Just concentrate on your driving, Alfonso. She’ll watch your back.”
    Five minutes later, Ramirez parked on a street running along the edge of the harbor. Chiara sped past, then swung round and parked in the shade of a tree. Ramirez killed the engine. The sun beat mercilessly on the roof. Gabriel wanted out of the car, but the Argentine wanted to brief him first.
    “Most of the files dealing with Nazis in Argentina are kept under lock and key in the Information Bureau. They’re still officially off-limits to reporters and scholars, even though the traditional thirty-year blackout period expired long ago. Even if we could get into the storerooms of the Information Bureau, we probably wouldn’t find much. By all accounts, Perón had the most damaging files destroyed in 1955, when he was run out of office in a coup.”
    On the other side of the street, a car slowed, and the man behind the wheel took a long look at the girl on the motorbike. Ramirez saw it, too. He watched the car in his rearview mirror for a moment before resuming.
    “In 1997, the government created the Commission for the Clarification of Nazi Activities in Argentina. It faced a serious problem from the beginning. You see, in 1996, the government burned all the damaging files still in its possession.”
    “Why create a commission in the first place?”
    “They wanted credit for trying, of course. But in Argentina, the search for the truth can only go so far. A real investigation would have demonstrated the true depth of Perón’s complicity in the postwar Nazi exodus from Europe. It would also have revealed the fact that many Nazis continue to live here. Who knows? Maybe your man, too.”
    Gabriel pointed at the building. “So what’s this?”
    “The Hotel de Immigrantes, first stop for the millions of immigrants who came to Argentina in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The government housed them here, until they could find work and a place to live. Now, the Immigration Office uses the building as a storage facility.”
    “For what?”
    Ramirez opened the glove box and removed rubber surgical gloves and paper sterile masks. “It’s not the cleanest place in the world. I hope you’re not afraid of rats.”
    Gabriel lifted the latch and threw his shoulder against the door. Across the street, Chiara killed the engine of her motorbike and settled in for the wait.
    A BORED POLICEMANstood watch at the entrance. A girl in uniform sat before a rotating fan at the registrar’s desk, reading a fashion magazine. She slid the logbook across the dusty desk. Ramirez signed and added the time. Two laminated tags with alligator clips appeared. Gabriel was No. 165. He affixed the badge to the top of his shirt pocket and followed Ramirez toward the elevator. “Two hours till closing time,” the girl called out, then she turned another page of her magazine.
    They boarded a freight elevator. Ramirez pulled the screen shut and pressed the button for the top floor. The elevator swayed slowly upward. A moment later, when they shuddered to a stop, the air was so hot and thick with dust it was difficult to