The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [63]
Wolf peeled off his coat and put his briefcase on the chair beside him.
“So,” he said to the blond man. “Any luck, Honny?”
“Ah,” the woman said, “I think you are making a little joke with us. We have been able to find out nothing.” She spoke to Wolf, but she looked at Mosca. Her voice was peculiarly sweet, softening the meaning of everything she said. Mosca lit a cigarette, feeling his face tighten with the desire she aroused in him with her look, the complete frankness of her eyes, and the memory of her hand which had been burning hot when it touched his. And yet now, raising his eyes, watching her through the cigarette smoke, he saw that she was ugly; despite her careful disguise with make-up she could not hide her voracious mouth, the cruel tiny blue eyes.
“It is a true story,” Wolf was saying. “I know. I need only to make contact with the right people. Whoever helps me with that contact will earn a pretty reward.”,
“And this really is your rich friend?” the blond man asked with a smile. Mosca noticed that his face was covered with large freckles, giving him a boyish look.
Wolf laughed and said, “There sits a man with five thousand cartons,” burlesquing it but making his voice sound really envious. Mosca, enjoying himself, gave the two Germans a smile as if he already had a truck loaded with cigarettes outside the house. They smiled back at him. He thought, You kraut bastards, smile later.
The sliding door to the next room opened and there was another German, slight, in a dark business suit. Behind him Mosca could see a dining table set with snowy white tablecloth and napkins, gleaming silver, and tall, beautifully cut drinking glasses.
The blond man said, “Please join us in our late supper. On your business, Wolfgang, I cannot help. But surely, a man with such a fortune in cigarettes as your friend can give me a little business for other items besides scrip.”
Mosca said gravely, “That is very possible.” He smiled, and the others laughed as if he had made a very clever joke. They went into the dining-room.
The servant brought in a platter on which was a large, dark-red ham such as was sold in American Army commissaries. On a silver dish there were 6venly cut slices of fresh white American Army bread. It was still warm. Wolf buttered a piece, raised his eyebrows in complimentary astonishment and said, “I see yours is delivered even before it gets to the American commissary.” The blond man made a gesture of delight, laughing meanwhile. The servant brought several bottles of wine and Mosca, very thirsty from the long walking and feeling much better, drank his glass down in one gulp. The blond man was amused and pretended to be pleased.
“Ah,” he said, “a man to my taste. Not like you, Wolfgang, a cautious sipper and plodder. Now you see why he has five thousand cartons and you do not.”
Wolf smiled back at him and said banteringly, “Superficial psychology, my friend, very superficial. You forget how I eat.” And he started to help himself from the ham platter and then the long dish on which lay a dozen sticks of different kinds of wurst. From the cheese and salad dish he treated himself liberally and then looked at the blond man, saying, “Well, Honny, now what do you think? What can you say now?”
Honny, his blue eyes sparkling with pleasure in his freckled face, almost shouted with great good humor, “I can only say one thing. Good appetite.’
The red-haired woman laughed as did the rest of them and bent down to feed the huge dog lying beneath the table. She fed him an enormous slice of ham, and then from the servant took a large wooden bowl into which she poured a whole liter bottle full of milk. As she was bending, she let her hand slide carelessly along Mosca's leg and then pressed his thigh to lift herself again to a sitting position. She did it casually with no attempt at concealment.
“You're too fond of “that dog,” Honny said. “You really need children. They would be an interest.”
“My dear Honny,” she said, looking him straight in the face,