“Get a reward?”
“No.” Mengele hung his coat up. “I do these things for the satisfaction,” he said. “I hate all Nazis. They should be hunted down and destroyed like vermin.”
Wheelock said, “It’s the boogies not the Nazis we have to worry about now. Come on in here.”
Mengele, adjusting his jacket, followed Wheelock into a room on the right. Two of the Dobermans escorted him, nosing at his legs; the other two went with Wheelock. The room was a pleasant sitting room, with white-curtained windows, a stone fireplace, and to the left, a wall of all-colored prize ribbons, gilded trophies, black-framed photos. “Oh, this is very impressive,” Mengele said, and went and looked. The photos were all of Dobermans, none of the boy.
“Now why is a Nazi coming for me?”
Mengele turned. Wheelock was sitting on a Victorian settee between the two front windows, pinching tobacco out of a cut-glass jar on a low table before him, packing it into a chunky black pipe. A Doberman stood with his front paws on the table, watching.
Another Doberman, the largest one, lay on a round hooked rug between Wheelock and Mengele, looking up at Mengele placidly but with interest.
The other two Dobermans nosed Mengele’s legs, his fingertips.
Wheelock looked over at Mengele and said, “Well?”
Smiling, Mengele said, “You know, it’s very hard for me to talk with…” He gestured at the Dobermans beside him.
“Don’t worry,” Wheelock said, working at his pipe. “They won’t bother you unless you bother me. Just sit down and talk. They’ll get used to you.”
Mengele sat down on a wheezing leather sofa. One of the Dobermans jumped up beside him and turned around and around, getting ready to lie down. The Doberman on the rug got up and came and pushed his sleek black head between Mengele’s knees, sniffing toward his crotch.
“Samson,” Wheelock warned, sucking match-flame into his pipe bowl.
The Doberman withdrew his head and sat on the floor looking at Mengele. Another Doberman, sitting by Mengele’s feet, scratched with a hind leg at his chain collar. The Doberman beside Mengele on the sofa lay watching the Doberman sitting before Mengele.
Mengele cleared his throat and said, “The Nazi who’s coming is Dr. Mengele himself. He’ll probably be here—”
“A doctor?” Wheelock, holding his pipe, shook out the match.
“Yes,” Mengele said. “Dr. Mengele. Mr. Wheelock, I’m sure these dogs are perfectly trained—I can tell as much from all these marvelous prizes”—he pointed a finger at the wall behind him—“but the fact is, when I was eight years old I was attacked by a dog; not a Doberman, a German shepherd.” He touched his left thigh. “This entire thigh,” he said, “is still today a mass of scars. And there are mental scars too. I’m very uncomfortable when a dog is in the room with me, and to have four of them present—well, this is a nightmare for me!”
Wheelock put his pipe down. “You should’ve said so right off the bat,” he said, and stood up and snapped his fingers. Dobermans jumped, sprang, jostled to his side. “Come on, boys,” he said, leading the pack across the room toward a doorway by the sofa. “We’ve got another Wally Montague on our hands. In you go.” He pointed the Dobermans through the doorway, toed something away from the bottom of the door and closed it, tried the knob.
“They can’t come in another way?” Mengele asked.
“Nope.” Wheelock walked back across the room.
Mengele breathed a sigh and said, “Thank you. I feel much better now.” He sat forward on the sofa and unbuttoned his jacket.
“Tell your story quickly,” Wheelock said, sitting on the settee, picking up his pipe. “I don’t like to keep them cooped up in there too long.”
“I’ll come directly to the point,” Mengele said, “but first”—he raised a finger—“I should like to lend you a gun, so you can defend yourself at moments like this when the dogs are not with you.”
“Got a gun,” Wheelock said, sitting back with the pipe between his teeth, his arms along the settee’s frame, his legs crossed. “A Luger.” He took the pipe from his mouth, blew smoke. “And two shotguns and a rifle.”
“This is a Browning,” Mengele said, taking the gun from the holster. “Similar to the Luger except that the clip holds thirteen cartridges.” He thumbed the safety catch down, and holding the gun in firing position, turned it toward Wheelock. “Raise the hands,” he said. “Put the pipe down first, slowly.”
Wheelock frowned at him, white eyebrows bristling.
“Now,” Mengele said. “I don’t want to hurt you. Why should I? You’re a complete stranger to me. Liebermann is the one I’m interested in. ‘The one in whom I’m interested,’ I should say.”
Wheelock uncrossed his legs and leaned forward slowly, glaring at Mengele, his face flushed. He put his pipe down and raised his open hands above his head.
“On the head,” Mengele suggested. “You have beautiful hair; I envy you. This is a wig, unfortunately.” He got up from the sofa, wagged the gun’s barrel upward.
Wheelock got up, his hands folded across the top of his head. “I don’t care doodily-shit about Jews and Nazis,” he said.
“Good,” Mengele said, keeping the gun aimed at Wheelock’s red-shirted chest. “But nevertheless I should like to put you someplace where you can’t give Liebermann a signal. Is there a cellar?”
“Sure,” Wheelock said.
“Go to it. At a not-alarming pace. Are there any other dogs in the house besides those four?”
“No.” Wheelock walked slowly toward the hallway, his hands on his head. “Lucky for you.”
Mengele followed after him with the gun. “Where is your wife?” he asked.
“At school. Teaching. In Lancaster.” Wheelock walked into the hallway.
“Have you pictures of your son?”
Wheelock paused for a moment, walked toward the right. “What do you want them for?”
“To look at,” Mengele said, following after him with the gun. “I’m not thinking of hurting him. I’m the doctor who delivered him.”
“What the hell is this about?” Wheelock stopped beside a door in the side of the stairway.
“Have you pictures?” Mengele asked.
“There’s an album in there. Where we were. On the bottom of the table where the phone is.”
“That is the door?”
“Yes.”
“Lower one hand and open it, only a little.”
Wheelock turned to the door, lowered a hand, opened the door slightly; put the hand back on his head.
“The rest with your foot.”
Wheelock toed the door all the way open.
Mengele moved to the wall opposite and stood against it, the gun close to Wheelock’s back. “Go in.”
“I have to put the light on.”
“Do so.”
Wheelock reached, pulled a string; harsh light came on inside the doorway. Putting his hand back on his head, Wheelock ducked and stepped down onto a landing of household implements clipped to plank wall.
“Go down,” Mengele said. “Slowly.”
Wheelock turned to the left and started slowly down stairs.
Mengele moved to the doorway, stepped down onto the landing; turned toward Wheelock, drew the door closed.
Wheelock walked slowly down cellar stairs, his hands on his head.
Mengele aimed the gun at the red-shirted back. He fired and fired again; deafeningly loud shots. Shells flew and bounded.
The hands left the white-haired head, groped down, found wooden rails. Wheelock swayed.
Mengele fired another deafening shot into the red-shirted back.
The hands slipped from the rails and Wheelock toppled forward. The front of his head banged floor below; his shoe-soled feet spread apart and his legs and trunk slid farther down the stairs.