The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [32]
Mosca grinned at the pure hunger in Wolfs voice. “A lot of money,” he said.
“Now here's my idea. The money is probably split up all over the country, but there must be a gang here with a big chunk. If we could only find them, that's the thing. It's a long shot.”
Mosca said, “How do we find it and how do we take it?”
“Finding the money is my job,” Wolf said, “but you help. It's not as hard as it sounds and remember, I'm a trained man. I have a lot of contacts. I'll take you around and introduce you as a big Post Exchange wheel who's looking to dump cigarettes at three or four bucks a carton. They'll jump at the price. We'll get rid of twenty or thirty cartons that way. I can get the butts. The word'll get around. Then well say we have to get rid of five thousand cartons in one lump. A big deal. We'll make up a story. If everything works out somebody!! come to us, and we'll close the deal. They show up with twenty thousand bucks worth of scrip. We take it. They can't go to the police, theirs or ours. They're screwed.” Wolf stopped, took a last nervous puff, and threw his cigar into the street. Then he said quietly, “It'll be hard work, tramping around town a couple of nights a week. And the final business takes guts.”
“Real cops and robbers,” Mosca said and Wolf smiled. Mosca looked out into the dark street and over the ruins. Far away, as if separated from them by a lake or prairie, he could see a lone streetcar with its yellow light moving slowly through the blackness of the city.
Wolf said slowly, seriously, “We have to prepare for our future. Sometimes I feel that my life before now was just a dream, nothing serious, maybe you feel the same. Now we have to get ready for our real life, and it's going to be tough, real tough. This is our last chance to fix ourselves up.”
“Okay,” Mosca said, “but it sounds complicated as hell.”
Wolf shook his head. “It may not work out. But meanwhile I'll throw you some of this exchange business. You'll make a good few hundred, anyway, no matter what happens. If we're lucky, just a little lucky, we'll split fifteen or twenty thousand. Maybe more.”
Mosca got out of the jeep as Wolf raced the motor, then watched him drive away. Looking up he saw Hella's dark head in the pane of light that was his window. He waved to her and then entered the building and ran up the stairs.
eight
Mosca slouched down in the parked jeep, trying to escape the cold October wind of late afternoon. The frozen metal of the floor chilled his whole body.
Farther on up the street was an important intersection, streetcars swinging to the right and left, and military vehicles pausing momentarily for drivers to read the long row of white shingles that directed them to different headquarters in the city. Ruins stretched away on four sides like rough pasture land, and beyond the crossroads, where little houses began to stand, a small German movie theater opened its doors, and a long waiting line moved slowly inside.
Mosca was hungry and impatient. He watched three covered trucks filled with German prisoners of war go by and stop at the intersection. Probably war criminals, he thought. A jeep with two armed guards followed dutifully behind. Leo appeared in the door of the tailor shop and Mosca straightened up in his seat.
They both saw the woman across the street start to run before she screamed. She left the sidewalk and ran awkwardly, wildly toward the intersection. She waved one arm frantically and screamed continuously a name that her emotion made unintelligible. From the last truck of prisoners a figure waved to the woman in return. The truck picked up speed, the jeep at its heels like a shepherd dog. The woman saw there was no hope and stopped. She fell to her knees and then collapsed her full length on the street, blocking traffic.
Leo qlimbed into the jeep. The roaring and shaking of the motor gave them an illusion of warmth. They waited until the woman had been carried to the sidewalk, then Leo put the jeep in motion. They didn't say anything about what they had seen. It was