“Maybe Walter’s been to fortune-tellers,” Carl said. “Or he has piles,” Honey said. They turned off Ten Mile onto Farmington Road and Carl said, “That must be the house up ahead.”

A pickup truck pulling an empty stock trailer came riding hard across a field raising dust, approaching them on Honey’s side of the road and Carl braked and shifted down. The truck came to a stop at the edge of the road they were on and Honey said, “Oh, my God,” as they rolled past. “I think that’s my brother driving the truck.”

It turned onto Farmington Road, Carl watching it in the rear view mirror, and saw it turn again as it came to Ten Mile. “When’d he get out of Eddyville?” Honey, sideways in the seat to watch through the rear window, came around to Carl.

“You know about Darcy?”

“Not as much as I’d like. His file’s right next to yours at the Bureau.”

Walter came in the side door that led to the kitchen and went to the sink thinking of Otto, still thinking of Otto since trying to spot his homburg in the downtown crowd of people. Jurgen had been helping Darcy bring the three cows and a heifer out of the stock trailer and work them into the pen joined to the barn, the abattoir. Darcy spoke to Jurgen for a few minutes and left with his trailer. Jurgen would be in the barn now, he was no trouble. Otto was the problem.

They came home without him and Madi said in English, “Where is the Nazi?” To the old woman they were “Jurgen and the Nazi,” the Nazi demanding she and Rudi speak to him always in German and asked them one question after another, like an immigration official, to keep them talking. Rudi didn’t mind talking to him, the two sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of whiskey talking about the war, the Nazi telling Rudi of North Africa and Italian women.

She asked Walter, “Where is he, the Nazi?”

Walter saw hope in her eyes. He told Madi, reasonable with her since she was his aunt, they would have to wait and see if Otto could find his way here from downtown.

“He tell the police he’s lost,” Madi said, “they put him in jail? You should pin a note on his coat that say where he lives.”

This was earlier.

Peeled potatoes in a pan of water waited for Madi to light the burner. Walter could smell the pork roast in the oven. He drew a glass of water at the sink, stepped over to the oven to open the door, and threw the water over the roast. Madi came in from setting the table in the dining room and caught him. It wasn’t the first time. She would ask in English why he wet the roast. Walter would tell her it was burning. Madi would ask why he thought she wanted to burn a roast? More than half a century cooking every day of her life she had never burned a roast.

“You want me to cook for you good dinners? Stay out of my kitchen. Go see your visitors.”

Walter was drying his hands on a dish towel.

“What visitors?”

“The car drove up to the house while you throwing water on the roast.”

Walter left the kitchen, still holding the dish towel, moved around the dining table set for two, himself and Jurgen, to stand at one side of the dining room window. He moved the blinds apart and saw the Pontiac parked in the drive, no one in it.

The bell chimed.

Going into the living room Walter told himself this would be about Otto. They found him. They want to know if he lives here. Here? No, they inform him-this was better-they told Otto to stop but he kept running and they were forced to shoot him, and want you to identify the body. The FBI. They had already asked him if he knew Otto, and asked him again and again. They might try to trick him this time. All right, he would say as he always did, “Who?” and shake his head. “I never heard of this man.”

Walter unlocked the door thinking if they wanted him to identify Otto dead he still wouldn’t know him. He wouldn’t have to worry about him either, ever again.

He opened the door.

It wasn’t about Otto.

No, because he was looking at Honig standing not more than a few feet away, Honig smiling at him and saying, “Hi, Walter.” The man with her said his name and showed his identification in a leather case-not FBI-with a badge pinned inside, a star in a circle. The name, Carl something, meant nothing to Walter. My God, no, he was looking at Honig for the first time in more than five years.

Carl glanced at her. He said, “You’re right,” and looked at Walter again. “I’ve never seen two people look more alike. Mr. Schoen, you’re the spittin’ image of Heinrich Himmler.” Now he brought a folded copy of a Time magazine cover from his coat pocket. Carl opened it, looked at Himmler’s portrait and handed the page to Walter. “This was two months ago. He’s starting to look less like you. More like he’s dead. I don’t think they needed to put the crossed bones under his chin.”

Walter didn’t say a word. He looked at the illustration and folded the page in his hands.

“It’s amazing,” Carl said, aware of Walter’s hands folding the page again and folding it again into a small, tight square. “Honey told me you’re Himmler’s twin brother. I look at you, Mr. Schoen, and I have to believe it.”

Walter nodded, once. He said, “It’s true,” and looked at Honig again. “Heinrich and I were born in Munich in the same hospital on the same day and at exactly the same time and, for a reason I cannot explain, we were separated.”

“You had the same mother,” Carl said. “I mean if you’re twins.”

“Yes, Heinrich would have been born of my mother.”

“What about his mother?”

Walter said, “You mean a woman who poses as his mother. Heinrich once said if the Führer asked him to shoot his own mother, as an act of unconditional loyalty, he would do it. Why not? The woman isn’t his real mother.” He looked at Honig. “Remember we spoke of this, wondering about her?”

“A lot,” Honey said.

Carl said, “You tried to locate her?”

“I wrote to the hospital in Munich several times. I ask if they have a record of Heinrich Himmler’s birth. They have never answered me.”

Carl said, “Your mom didn’t bring both of you home from the hospital?”

“How would I know that?”

“You never asked her about it?”

“By the time I was older, and learned the accepted version of Heinrich’s birth, she had passed away.”

“You didn’t ask your dad?”

“Of course I did. He said, ‘Are you crazy?’”

“You don’t remember playing kick the can with Himmler when you were kids?”

“Look,” Walter said. “There are questions I can’t answer. The proof of our being twins is our identical appearance and the fact of our being born on the same day at the same hour-”

“But you don’t remember him.”

“I never saw him.”

Carl said, “Walter, it’s okay with me if you’re Himmler’s twin brother. No, what I’ve been wondering, looking at your spread, if you planned to fatten up that heifer in the stock pen. She goes about eight-fifty now? Give her twelve pounds of corn a day mixed with seven pounds of ground alfalfa hay, you can put another two hundred pounds on her by the end of summer. I know some families in Oklahoma operate home-kills and do all right.”

Carl shifted his weight from one foot to the other and bent over enough to squeeze his left thigh.

“Walter, you mind if we sit down someplace? I’ll tell you about a cow outfit I worked when I was a boy. Damn, but I have a war wound bothers me when I’m on my feet too long. I got shot twice but managed to nail the bugger.”

Walter was squinting at him now, looking confused.

Carl liked the way it was going.

He said, “Put your mind at ease, Wally, it wasn’t a Kraut I shot. Was a Nip taking a killer aim at me.”

Honey didn’t get into it until they were seated in the living room in old red-velvet-covered furniture Honey thought was depressing. Walter hadn’t stopped looking at her. She said, “Why don’t you turn on some lamps, Walter, so we can see each other. Or open the blinds.”