The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [53]
“Let's go,” he said to the corporal. He drove down to the Metzer Strasse and got out. He said to the corporal, “Take the jeep back to the base for me.”
The corporal nodded and said quietly, “I think those shots will be enough.” And Mosca realized that he had forgotten to renew the taking of pictures and had left the children standing in front of the Glocke, not given them the chocolate he had promised.
When Mosca entered the room, Hella was warming soup on the electric plate, a red-labled empty can open on the table. A pan full of bacon waited its turn. Leo sat on the couch reading.
The room was warm with the smell of food, comfortable in its well-filled largeness. The bed and its night table in one corner, on the table a lamp and small radio; the great white wardrobe in the corner near the door, and in the middle a great round table surrounded by wicker chairs. Along one wall the enormous, empty china closet helped give the room a coziness that was not crowded, that yet gave plenty of space to move around in. A hell of a big room, Mosca always thought.
Hella looked up from her cooking. “Oh, you're home early,” she said and rose to kiss him. Her face always changed when she saw him, he could see the happiness there, giving him always a sense of guilt and fear because she built so much of her life on him. As if she did not know the many dangers he felt in the world around them.
“I had something to do in town and didn't go back to the base,” Mosca said. Leo raised his head and nodded to him, then continued to read. Mosca reached into his pocket for a cigarette, and his fingers touched the German's identity card.
“How about giving me a lift to the police station after we eat?” Mosca asked Leo. He threw the card on the table.
Leo nodded and said, “What have you there?” Mosca told them what had happened. He noticed that Leo was watching him with a curious, amused smile. Hella poured the hot soup into cups and said nothing. Then she put the bacon on the electric plate.
They drank the soup carefully, dipping crackers into it Hella lifted the blue identity card from the table. Holding the cup in one hand she flipped the card open with the other. “He's married,” she said. “He has blue eyes and brown hair and works as a printer. That is a good job.” She studied the picture. “He doesn't look like a bad man; I wonder if he has children.”
“Doesn't it say on the pass?” Mosca asked.
“No,” Hella said. “He has a scar on his finger.” She let the card drop back onto the table.
Leo tilted his head back and drank the last of his soup, then leaned over the table, the tic in his face working a little. “Tell me,” he said, “why didn't you go to the police station with the man right away? It was close by.”
Mosca smiled at him. “I just wanted to scare the guy, Tm not going to do anything. I guess I just wanted to scare the son of a bitch.”
“Hell have a very bad night,” Hella said.
“He deserves it,” Mosca said angrily, defensively. “Where does that bastard come off putting his two cents in a deal like that.”
Hella lifted her pale, gray eyes to him. “He was ashamed,” she said, “and I think he felt it his fault that these children beg and pick up cigarettes in the streets.”
“Ah hell, let him sweat,” Mosca said. “How about some bacon before you burn the hell out of it?”
Hella put die bacon and a loaf of gray German bread on the table. When they had finished eating the grease-soaked sandwiches, Leo and Mosca rose, Leo searching for his jeep keys on the trunk. Hella picked up the identity card and looked at the address. “See,” she said eagerly, “he lives on Rubsam Strasse. That is closer than the police station.”
Mosca said curtly, “Don't wait up for me. We're going to the club after.” Then he smiled at her as she