The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [18]
One qf the two men started to unlock the handcuffs. He held his forefinger under the boy's nose, the gesture almost fatherly, and said, “No dumb tricks, eh?” The boy nodded his head.
“Leave them on,” Wolf said sharply. The detective stepped back.
Wolf walked close to the boy and shoved the blond head up with his hand. “Did you know this soap was for German children?”
The boy let his head fall and didn't answer.
“You worked here, you were trusted … You'll never work for the Americans again. However, if you'll sign a papa” admitting what you've done, we will not prosecute. Do you agree to that?’
The boy nodded his head.
“Ingeborg,” Wolf called. The German typist came in. Wolf nodded to the two men. “Take him in there to the other office; the girl knows what to do.” He turned to Eddie and Mosca. “Too easy,” and smiled his friendly smile. “But it saves everybody a lot of trouble and the kid will get his six months.”
Mosca, not really caring, said, “Hell, you promised to let him off.”
Wolf shrugged. “Right, but the German cops get him for making a black market The chief of police in Bremen is an old friend of mine, and we co-operate.”
“Justice at work,” Eddie murmured. “So what if the kid stole some soap; give him a break.”
Wolf said briskly, “Caft't do it; they'd steal us blind.” He put on his cap. “Well, Fve got a busy night ahead of me. Have to make a full-scale search on all the kitchen workers before they leave the base. There's something.”
He grinned at them. “We get a woman cop from Bremen to search die female workers and she comes out with a big pair of rubber gloves and a bar of GI soap. You should see where those women hide a stick of butter. Phew.” He spit “I hope I never get that hungry.”
When Wolf had left, Gordon Middleton stood up and said in his deep, laconic voice, “The colonel likes him.” He smiled at Mosca, good-naturedly, as if it were something that amused him and which he did not resent Before he left the office he said to Eddie, “I think I'll catch an early bus home,” and to Mosca, simply and in a friendly tone, “See you around, Walter.”
It was the end of the working day. Through the windows Mosca could see the German laborers massing at the exit gate, waiting to be searched and checked by the military police before they could leave the air base. Eddie went to the window and stood beside him.
“I guess you want to get to town and look for your girl,” Eddie said and smiled, a smile almost womanly in its sweetness, in the hesitancy of the delicately cut mouth. “That's the reason I took all the trouble to fix a job here when you wrote. I figured it had to be the girl. Right?”
“I don't know,” Mosca said. “Partly, I guess.”
“Do you want to fix up about your billet in town first and then look her up? Or go see her now?”
“Let's fix up the billet first,” Mosca said.
Eddie laughed outright “If you go now you'll catch her home. By the time the billet is arranged you won't get to her until at least eight. Maybe shell be out by then.” He watched Mosca carefully when he said this.
“My tough luck,” Mosca said.
They each picked up a suitcase and went out of the building to where Eddie had parked his jeep. Before Eddie started the motor he turned to Mosca and said, “You won't ask, but Til tell you anyway. I've never seen her around the officer or enlisted-men clubs or with any GIs. I've never even seen her.” After a pause he added slyly, “And I didn't think you'd want me to look her up.”
four
As they passed through the Neustadt, then over the bridge into Bremen proper, Mosca saw his first remembered landmark. It was a church steeple and tower, the body like a face eaten away by disease, a slim thread of stone and plaster holding the spire toward the sky. Then they were going by the massive police presidio, the white scars of the explosion still showing on its dark-green walls. They traveled on the Schwachhauser Heer Strasse to the other side of Bremen, in what had once been the fashionable suburbs, the houses almost untouched and now used as billets and homes for the occupation forces.
Mosca