The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [31]
Mosca filled the glasses, everybody was sleepy except Wolf. Frau Meyer sat curled in Eddie's lap, and Hella had stretched out on the couch against the wall opposite the bed.
Wolf smiled. ‘U has a special technique. Td never ask a question until I gave ifaem a little punishment first. Like that old gag about the newly married couple. The husband raps her in the mouth as soon as they're alone and says, “That's for nothing, watch what you do.’ Same idea.” He grinned disarmingly, his dead-white face filled with cheerful good humor. “I know what you think, here's a no-good son of a bitch. But somebody has always had to do that kind of work. You can't win wars without it. Believe me, I don't get any of this sadistic kind of pleasure like in the movies. But it's necessary. Hell, I even got a decoration out of it” He added hastily and sincerely, “But, of course, we never were as rough as the Germans.”
Eddie yawned. “All very interesting, but I think Til go down to my room.”
Wolf laughed defensively. “I guess it is too late for a lecture.” He let Eddie and Frau Meyer leave before him. He finished his drink and said to Mosca, “Come on downstairs, I want a talk with you.” They went down to the street and sat in Wolfs jeep.
“All that Eddie thinks of is gash,” Wolf said in an angry contemptuous voice.
“He was just sleepy,” Mosca said.
“How come you carry a weapon?” Wolf asked.
Mosca shrugged. “Used to having one, I guess. And the war isn't over long.”
Wolf nodded “I don't like to be out at night without one, either.”
There was another moment of silence, and Mosca moved restlessly.
Wolf puffed on his cigar. “I wanted to get you alone because I have an idea about making ourselves a pile-of dough. I guess everybody in the occupation has a little hunk of gravy. Now I got a lot of contacts, diamonds for cigarettes, all that kind of stuff. I can fix you up.”
“Hell,” Mosca said impatiently, “I can't get my hands on that many cigarettes.”
Wolf hesitated and then went QU. “YOU know, some day you may need a lot of dough. For instance, if they catch Hella in your room it'll be your ass, you'll get sent back to the States.” He held up his hand. “I know, you'll go underground, a lot of guys have done it. But you'll need money. Or, say it came to a pinch, and you had to take her out of Germany. You can get phony papers, but they cost an arm and a leg. And wherever you go, Scandinavia, France, any other place, living comes high. Ever think of it?”
“No, I haven't,” Mosca said slowly.
“Well, I got an idea. I need help and that's why I'm asking you. Fm no philanthropist. You interested?”
“Go ahead,” Mosca said.
Wolf paused again, puffing on his cigar. “You know the money we use, the Army scrip? The black-market operators break their necks to get it. Then they trade it back to GIs for money orders. But they have to make it pretty slow. We can change all the scrip we can get our hands on into money orders, something we couldn't do with the old occupation marks.”
“So?” Mosca said.
“Now here's the thing. The last couple of weeks the German operators seem to have a hell of a lot of scrip. I'm making a nice bit of change turning it into money orders for them. Til cut you in on that, by the way. Now here's the angle. I got curious and started snooping around, and I heard a terrific story. When the scrip money was shipped from the States the boat docked in Bremerhaven. And even though everything was top-secret, something slipped and a case of scrip, over a million bucks, disappeared. The Army keeps quiet because it makes them look stupid as hell. How do you like that?” In telling the story Wolf became excited. “A million