“I haven’t given that much thought,” Inge said.
“Oh, the hell you haven’t,” Evita said. “You’ve not had one little itty-bitty thought about who now owns all the property of the late SS-Brigadeführer Ritter Manfred von Deitzberg—excuse me, Jorge Schenck?”
Inge didn’t reply.
“How long do you think it’s going to take the Gendarmería to find out Señor Schenck was already dead when somebody shot him?” Evita asked.
“I wonder who shot him,” Perón said. “Maybe it was just a simple robbery. Manfred resisted and was shot.”
“Oh, come on, Juan Domingo, you know better than that,” Evita said. She let that sink in for a moment. “And that you are, too, Inge. Dead, I mean.”
“Well, I still have my diplomatic passport as Frau von Tresmarck,” Inge said.
“You should have thought of that when the gendarmes asked for your papers,” Evita said. “You handed them Inge Schenck’s Argentine National Identity booklet.”
“I didn’t even know Manfred had been shot when they came in,” Inge protested.
“And did you notice that the gendarmes were in the hotel after the shooting before the local police were?” Evita asked. “Maybe they were sitting outside in a car.”
“Why would they be doing that?” Perón asked.
Evita shrugged.
“It could be they were protecting the secretary of labor. Or wondering what he was doing in Bariloche,” Evita said. “Did they ask you that, what you are doing here?”
“No.”
“They will. And what are you going to tell them?”
“I don’t know. That I was having a little holiday. People do that—come to Bariloche for a little holiday.”
“They’re questioning everybody,” Evita said. “That real-estate man and the notary are going to tell them you bought Estancia Puesta de Sol from Schenck.”
“So that’s what I’ll tell them. There’s nothing illegal about that.”
“Well, that brings us back to what happens to the rest of Señor Schenck’s properties,” Evita said, and turned to Inge. “There’s a lot of property, right?”
Inge nodded.
“There’s a lot of property. Hundreds of millions of pesos’ worth of property. Here and in Uruguay.”
“What’s that all about?” Evita asked.
“Very briefly, Evita,” Inge explained. “The money came from the German Embassy. The real estate is to provide someplace for senior officials of the German Reich to go if they lose the war.”
“You knew about this, Juan Domingo?” Evita asked.
After a moment, he nodded.
“You’re going to have to learn to trust me. Tell me about things like this.”
And, again, after a moment, he nodded.
“What happens to the property of a dead man? It goes to his wife, right?”
“Right.”
“That would be fine, but the wife is already dead. Then what?”