“Oh, but they could,” he said. “Believe me. Vienna’s a closed city, Bernie. It’s not so easy to get out of it. And under those circumstances I don’t think it would take one of those squads of Israeli avengers very long to track you down. What do they call themselves? The Nakam? Or is it the Brichah? Some soap name, anyway. Did you know that they are based in Austria? No, probably not. In fact, Linz and Vienna are their center of operations. Major Jacobs knows some of these soaps quite well. For one thing, he’s a soap himself, of course. And for another, there are several of those soaps working for the Nakam who are also working for the CIA. As a matter of fact, it was a CIA soap who killed the real Frau Warzok. Hardly surprising after what she did at Lemberg-Janowska. Really terrible things. I know, I was there. She was a real beast, that woman. Killing Jews for sport, that kind of thing.”

“Whereas you only killed them to further the cause of medical science,” I said.

“Now you’re just being sarcastic, Bernie,” he said. “And I don’t blame you. But what you say is quite true. I never killed anyone for the pleasure of it. I’m a doctor. None of us did, as a matter of fact.”

“And Vera? What’s your justification for killing her?”

“I can’t say that I approved of that,” said Gruen. “But Jacobs thought it would help to put you on your toes.”

“Maybe I will give myself up as Bernie Gunther after all,” I said. “Just to spoil your plans.”

“You could do that, yes,” he said. “But Jacobs has some powerful friends in Vienna. Somehow I think they’ll make it stick that you’re Eric Gruen. Even you will get to see the sense of it when you’re in police custody.”

“Whose idea was this, anyway?”