The Storyteller Read online

  That is, if there's something to be unearthed.

  She looks up at me. "You spilled coffee on your tie," she says, pulling a pencil out of the bird's nest of frizzy yellow hair piled on top of her head. "Better change it before your date."

  "How do you know I have a date?" I ask.

  "Because your mother called me this morning and told me I should push you out the door with brute force if you were still here at six thirty p.m."

  This doesn't surprise me. No cable, Ethernet, or FiOS system is as blisteringly fast at spreading news as a Jewish family.

  "Remind me to kill her," I tell Genevra.

  "Can't," she muses. "Don't want to be roped in as an accomplice." She grins at me over her glasses. "Besides, Leo, your mom's a breath of fresh air. All day long I read about people who craved world domination and racial superiority. By comparison, wanting grandchildren is sort of sweet."

  "She has grandchildren. Three, courtesy of my sister."

  "She doesn't like the fact that you're married to your job."

  "She didn't much like it when I was married to Diana, either," I say. It's been five years since my divorce was final, and I have to admit, the worst thing about that whole experience was having to admit to my mother that she was right: the woman I believed to be the girl of my dreams was not, in fact, right for me.

  Recently, I ran into Diana in the Metro. She's remarried, and she's got one kid and another on the way. We were exchanging pleasantries when my cell phone rang--my sister, asking me if I was going to be able to make it to my nephew's birthday party that weekend. She heard me say good-bye to Diana, and within the hour, my mother had called to set me up on a blind date.

  Like I said, Jewish family network.

  "I need you to run a name," I repeat.

  Genevra takes the paper from my hand. "It's six thirty-six," she says. "Don't make me call your mother."

  I stop back at my desk to grab my briefcase and laptop, because leaving without them would be as foreign to me as leaving without my arm or leg. I instinctively reach for the holster on my belt to make sure my BlackBerry's there. I sit down for a second, and Google Sage Singer's name.

  I use search engines all the time, of course. Mostly it's to see if someone (Miranda Coontz, for example?) is a complete whack job. But the reason I want to find information on Sage Singer is her voice.

  It's smoky. It sounds like the first night in autumn when you build a fire in the fireplace and drink a glass of port and fall asleep with a dog on your lap. Not that I have a dog or port, but you get what I mean.

  This, if nothing else, is proof that I ought to be running out the door to go to that blind date. Sage Singer's voice may have sounded young, but she is probably in her dotage--she did say, after all, that this Josef Weber guy was a friend of hers. Her mother had recently died, after all, probably of old age. And that husky rasp could be the mark of a lifelong cigarette addict.

  The only Sage Singer in New Hampshire who pops up, though, is a baker at a small boutique cafe. Her berry tart recipe is in a local magazine as part of a summer cornucopia piece. Her name appears in the business listing of the newspaper heralding the opening of Mary DeAngelis's new bakery.

  I click on the News link and find a video from a local television station--one uploaded just yesterday. "Sage Singer," the reporter says in a voice-over, "is the baker who crafted the Jesus Loaf."

  The what?

  The clip is an amateur video of a woman with a messy ponytail, her face turned away from the camera. I can see a mark of flour on her cheek the moment before she completely ducks out of the spotlight.

  She isn't what I expected. When ordinary citizens call HRSP, it usually tells you more about them than about the people they are accusing --they want a conflict resolved, they hold a grudge, they want attention. But my gut tells me that's not the case here.

  Perhaps Genevra will turn up a hit after all. If Sage Singer can surprise me once, maybe she can do it again.

  *

  My car has, I am sure, the world's last eight-track cartridge player. As I sit in traffic on the Beltway, I listen to Bread and Chicago. I like to pretend that everyone in all the cars around me is listening to eight-tracks, too, that the years have been rolled back to a simpler time. I realize how strange this is, given how much smaller the world has become as a result of technology and how my office has benefited from it. Even better, having an eight-track player isn't just strange anymore; it's retro.

  I'm thinking of this, and whether I should tell my blind date that I'm so tragically hip I buy my music on eBay instead of iTunes. The last time I went out (a colleague who set me up with his wife's cousin) I spent the whole dinner talking about the Aleksandras Lileikis case, and the woman begged a headache before dessert and took the Metro home. The truth is, I'm lousy with small talk. I can discuss the fine points of the Darfur genocide, but the majority of Americans probably can't even tell you the country where that's taking place. (It's Sudan, FYI.) On the other hand, I can't talk football, or tell you the plot of the last novel I read. I don't know who's dating whom in Hollywood. And I don't really care. There are so many things in the world considerably more important.

  I check the name of the restaurant against the note in my BlackBerry calendar and walk inside. I can tell it's one of those places where they serve "precious" food--appetizers the size of a mushroom cap, unpronounceable ingredients listed for each menu item that make you wonder if someone sits around making these up: cod semen and wild-fennel pollen; beef cheeks, meringue grits, ash vinaigrette.

  When I give the maitre d' my name, he leads me to a table in the rear of the dining room, a place so dark I wonder if I'll even be able to tell if my date is attractive. She is already seated, and as my eyes adjust to the lack of light I notice that yes, she's cute, except for her hair. It's styled with a big pouf on the top, as if she's trying to fashionably mask encephalitis. "You must be Leo," she says, smiling. "I'm Irene."

  She is wearing a lot of silver jewelry, much of it caught in her cleavage. "Brooklyn?" I guess.

  "No," she repeats, more slowly. "I-rene."

  "No--I mean, your accent . . . are you from Brooklyn?"

  "Jersey," Irene says. "Newark."

  "The car theft capital of the world. Did you know more cars are stolen there than in L.A. and NYC put together?"

  She laughs. It sounds like a wheeze. "And my mother's worried about me living in Prince George County."

  A waiter comes over to rattle off specials, and to take our drink order. I order wine, about which I know nothing. I choose one based on the fact that it's not the most expensive one on the list, and it's not the least expensive, either, because that would just look cheap.

  "So this is weird, huh?" she says. Either she is winking at me or she has something in her eye. "Our parents knowing each other?"

  The way it has been explained to me, my mother's podiatrist is the brother of Irene's father. It's not like they grew up next door. "Weird," I agree.

  "I moved here for a job, so I don't really know anyone yet."

  "It's a great city," I say automatically, although I do not entirely believe this. The traffic is insane, and there's a protest every other day about some cause, which quickly stops being idealistic and starts being a pain in the neck when you need to get somewhere in a timely fashion and all the roads are blocked off. "I'm sure my mom told me, but I've forgotten--what do you do?"

  "I'm a certified bra fitter," Irene says. "I'm working at Nordstrom."

  "Certified," I repeat. I wonder where the legitimizing agency for bra fitters is. If you get grades: A, B, C, D, and DD. "It sounds like a very . . . unique job."

  "It's a handful," Irene says, and then she laughs. "Get it?"

  "Um. Yeah."

  "I'm doing bra fitting now so I can put myself through school and do what I really want."

  "Mammography?" I guess.

  "No, be a court reporter. They're always so stylish in the movies." She smiles at me. "I know what you
do. My mother told me. It's very Humphrey Bogart."

  "Not so much. Our department isn't Casablanca, just the poor bastard stepchild of the DOJ. We don't actually have Paris. We barely even have a coffeemaker."

  She blinks.

  "Never mind."

  "So how many Nazis have you caught?"

  "Well, it's a little complicated," I say. "We've won court cases against a hundred and seven Nazi criminals. Sixty-seven have been removed from the U.S., to date. But it's not sixty-seven out of a hundred and seven, because not all of them were U.S. citizens--you have to be careful about the math. Unfortunately, few of the people we've deported or have had extradited were ever prosecuted, to which I say, shame on Europe. Three defendants have been tried in Germany, one in Yugoslavia, and one in the USSR. Of those, three were convicted, one was acquitted, and one had his trial suspended for medical reasons and died before it could continue. Before our department was created, one other Nazi criminal was sent from the U.S. to Europe and prosecuted there--she was convicted and imprisoned. We've got five cases currently in litigation and many more people under active investigation and . . . Your eyes are glazing over."

  "No," Irene says. "I just wear contacts. Really." She hesitates. "But aren't the guys you're chasing, like, really old now?"

  "Yes."

  "So they can't be moving all that fast."

  "It's not a literal chase," I explain. "And they did horrible things to other human beings. That shouldn't go unpunished."

  "Yeah, but it was so long ago."

  "It's still important," I tell her.

  "You mean because you're Jewish?"

  "The Nazis didn't just target Jews. They also killed Gypsies and Poles and homosexuals and the mentally and physically disabled. Everyone should be invested in what my department does. Because if we're not, what message is America sending to people who commit genocide? That they can get away with it, if enough time passes? They can hide inside our borders without even a slap on the wrist? We routinely deport hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens every year whose sole offense is that they overstayed a visa or came without the right paperwork--but people who were involved in crimes against humanity get to stay? And die peacefully here? And be buried on American soil?"

  I don't realize how loud and impassioned I've become until a man who is sitting at the next table starts to clap, slowly but forcefully. A few other folks at tables around me join in. Mortified, I slink lower in my chair, trying to become invisible.

  Irene reaches for my hand and threads her fingers through mine. "It's okay, Leo. Actually, I think it's really sexy."

  "What is?"

  "The way you can wave your voice around, like it's a flag."

  I shake my head. "I'm not some big patriot. I'm a guy who's doing his job. I'm just tired of defending what I do. It isn't obsolete."

  "Well, it is, kind of. I mean, it's not like those Nazis are hiding in plain sight."

  It takes a moment for me to realize she is confusing the words obsolete and obscure. At the same time, I think about Josef Weber, who-- according to Sage Singer--has done just that, for decades.

  The waiter arrives with the bottle of wine and pours a taste for me. I swish it around in my mouth, nod my approval. At this point, frankly, I'd have given the thumbs-up to moonshine, as long as there was a valid alcohol content.

  "I hope we're not going to talk about history all night," Irene says breezily. "Because I'm really bad at it. I mean, who really cares if Columbus discovered America instead of Westhampton--"

  "The West Indies," I murmur.

  "Whatever. The natives were probably less bitchy."

  I refill my wineglass, and wonder whether I will survive until dessert.

  *

  Either my mother has a sixth sense or else she implanted a microchip in me at birth that allows her to know my comings and goings at all times. It's the only way I can explain the fact that she times her phone calls for the very moment I walk in my front door, without fail.

  "Hi, Mom," I say, pushing the speakerphone button without even bothering to look at the caller ID.

  "Leo. Would it have killed you to be nice to that poor girl?"

  "That poor girl is completely capable of landing on her feet. And she doesn't need or want someone like me, anyway."

  "You don't know if you're compatible after one lousy dinner," my mother says.

  "Mom. She thought the Bay of Pigs was a barbecue joint."

  "Not everyone had the educational opportunities you did, Leo."

  "You study that stuff in eleventh grade!" I say. "Besides, I was nice to her."

  There is a pause on the other end of the line. "Really. So you were being nice when you took a phone call and told her it was the office and you had to go because John Dillinger had been captured."

  "In my defense, dinner had lasted two hours already and our entree plates hadn't even been cleared."

  "Just because you're a lawyer doesn't mean you can twist the story around. I'm your mother, Leo. I could read your thoughts in utero."

  "Okay, (a) That's creepy. And (b) Maybe you and Lucy should just let me find my own dates from now on."

  "Your sister and I want you to be happy, is that such a crime?" she says. "Plus, if we waited for you to find your own dates you'd be sending your wedding invitation to me at the Sons of Abraham."

  It's the cemetery where my father is already buried. "Great," I say. "Just make sure you leave your forwarding address." I hold the keypad away from my ear and punch the pound button. "Got another call coming in," I lie.

  "At this hour?"

  "It's an escort service," I joke. "I don't like to keep Peaches waiting . . ."

  "You're going to be the death of me, Leo," my mother says with a sigh.

  "Sons of Abraham Cemetery. Got it," I say. "I love you, Ma."

  "I loved you first," she replies. "So what am I supposed to tell my podiatrist about Irene?"

  "If she keeps wearing heels she'll wind up with bunions," I say, and I hang up.

  My house is very GQ. The countertops are black granite, the couches covered in some kind of gray flannel. The furniture is spare and modern. There's blue lighting under the cabinets in the kitchen that makes the place look like Mission Control at NASA. It looks like the kind of place where an NFL bachelor or a corporate attorney would be comfortable. My sister, Lucy, who does interior design, is responsible for the look. She did it to snap me out of my post-divorce funk, so I can't really tell her that it seems sterile to me. Like I'm an organism in a petri dish, not a guy who feels guilty putting his feet up on the lacquered black coffee table.

  I strip off my tie and unbutton my shirt, then carefully hang my suit up in the closet. Realization number one about single life: no one else is going to take your suits to the cleaners on your behalf. Which means if you leave them crumpled in a ball at the foot of the bed, and you work till ten every night, you're screwed.

  Wearing my boxers and an undershirt, I put on the stereo--it's a Duke Ellington kind of night--and then find my laptop.

  Granted, it might have been more exciting if I had stayed in Boston working in corporate law (and who knows, maybe this decor would be just my cup of tea). I would be out schmoozing with clients instead of reading Genevra's report on one of our suspects right now. God knows I'd be socking away more money for retirement. Maybe I'd even have a girl named Peaches curled up at the end of the sofa. But in spite of what my mother thinks, I am happy. I cannot imagine doing anything except what I do and liking it more.

  I'd first gotten an internship with HRSP when it was still called OSI, the Office of Special Investigations. My grandfather, a World War II vet, had regaled me with stories of combat my whole life; as a boy my most prized possession was an M35 Heer steel helmet that he gifted to me, with a dark spot on the inside he swore was brain matter. (My mother, disgusted, removed it from my room one night while I was asleep and to this day hasn't told me what she did with it.) In college, hoping to pad my resume before I went to
law school, I took the job at OSI. I expected legal experience I could put on my applications. What I got instead was passion. Everyone in that office was there because they wanted to be, because they truly believed that what they did was important, no matter what the Pat Buchanans of the world said about the U.S. government wasting money to hunt down people who were too old to be a threat to the general population.

  I went to Harvard Law and had my choice of offers from Boston firms when I graduated. The one I picked paid me enough to buy fancy suits and a sweet Mustang convertible, which I never had time to joyride in, because I was working furiously on a track toward becoming a junior partner. I had cash, I had a fiancee, and 95 percent of my litigation had resulted in a verdict for the defendant I was representing. But I missed caring.

  I wrote to the director of OSI and moved to Washington one month later.

  Yeah, I know that my head is more often mired in the 1940s than the 2010s. And true, if you spend too much time living in the past, you never move forward. But then again, you can't tell me what I do isn't necessary. If history has a habit of repeating itself, doesn't someone have to stay behind to shout out a warning? If not me, then who?

  The Duke Ellington track ends. To fill the silence, I turn on the television. I watch Stephen Colbert for about ten minutes, but he's too entertaining to be background noise for me. I keep finding myself pulled away from Genevra's report to listen to his patter.

  When my laptop chimes with an incoming email, I look down at the screen. Genevra.

  Hope I'm not interrupting a lovely sexcapade with the next Mrs. Stein. But just in case you're sitting home alone watching old episodes of Rin Tin Tin like me (don't judge) thought you'd want to know that Josef Weber's name returned no hits. Onward and upward, boss.

  I stare at the email for a long moment.

  I had told Sage Singer that the odds were against her. For whatever reason, Josef Weber is lying to her about his past. But that's Sage Singer's problem now, not mine.

  I've questioned dozens of suspects over the years I've worked at HRSP. Even when I am presenting some of them with the incontrovertible evidence that they were guards at an extermination camp, they always say they had no idea that people were being killed. They insist that they only saw the prisoners on work detail, and they remember them being in good condition. They recall seeing smoke and hearing rumors of bodies being burned, but they never witnessed it themselves and didn't believe it at the time. Selective memory, that's what I call it. And--go figure--it's completely different from the stories of survivors I've interviewed, who can describe the stench from the chimneys of the crematoria: nauseating and acrid and sulfurous, fatty and thick, almost more of a taste than a smell. They say you couldn't help but breathe it in, everywhere you went. That even now, they sometimes wake up with the scent of burning flesh in their nostrils.