The Dark Arena - Mario Puzo [86]
seventeen
Wolf eased Us pudgy body down the basement steps and sighed wearily, glad to be out of the hot summer sun. He was tired, as there had been a lot of work to catch up after a month's vacation. He had taken his wife to visit a sister in Bavaria, a last visit before they went to the States. Now he went directly to the kitchen where Ursula was preparing supper. “They have a baby boy,” he said.
Ursula turned around and exclaimed happily, “Isn't that wonderful, just what she wanted. Is she back from the hospital yet? I must go to see her.”
“It happened the day after we left,” Wolf said. “The baby came early. So she's been home three weeks now.” And he thought, They barely know each other and yet Ursula is happy. Something about children being born always touched him, too. He wanted kids of his own, when he was all set That was one thing you were sure of and he could teach them how to take care of themselves. They'd be the sharpest kids in the neighborhood, they'd know what the score was.
“Have you heard anything about our marriage papers?” Ursula asked.
“They haven't come bade from Frankfort,” Wolf said. This was a lie. The papers were now in his desk at the air base. But if Ursula knew she would insist on getting married immediately and he would have to leave Germany within thirty days after the ceremony. He wanted to remain a few months longer and complete a few deals.
Ursula's father spoke behind him. “Ah, Wolfgang, home at last.” Wolf swung around. “You had a telephone message. You must get in touch with a man named Honny, at once.” The father had just come in from the storeroom and carried a great ham which he now put on the kitchen table. He took a large carving knife and lovingly cut off medium-thick slices to be fried with their potatoes.
One thing. Wolf thought wryly, the old man always made himself useful around the house. He asked, “Did the man say anything else?”
“No,” Ursula's father said, but he kept repeating that it was very important.
Wolf went into his bedroom and dialed the number. When someone picked up the phone mid said hello, he recognized Honny's voice and said, “Here is Wolfgang.”
Honny's voice, very excited and effeminate in its higher register, said, “Wolfgang, it is good you called so quickly. That contact you were looking for during the winter. I have it.”
“Are you sure?” Wolf asked.
Honny's voice became lower, more guarded. “I saw enough of the evidence to think so.” He stressed the word “tevidence.”
“Ah so,” Wolf said, “very well. I will be there in about an hour. Can you have him there then?”
“In two hours,” Honny said.
“All rigjit,” Wolf said and hung up. He called out to Ursula that he would not be eating supper and hurried out of the house. He heard her exclamation of surprise and disappointment before he closed the door. He walked quickly down the street and arrived just in time to catch a Strassenbahn, making it on the run.
Wolf was excited. He had given up hope on the whole deal, hadn't even thought about it for several months except when Mosca had kidded him. And now everything was breaking just right. The marriage papers were all set, he could get plane tickets, the hell with free government transportation. And it would be a perfect out on the old-man deal. Ursula and her father had been breaking his balls about taking the old man with them to the States, and he had almost laughed in their faces. But you had to lie to women all the time; he had promised Ursula he would try his best. And he wouldn't mind if the old man was on the ball. But the father had taken a nice shellacking when he had tried to put over a swindle on some black-market operators. He spent a week in the hospital recovering. Since then the father had stayed in the basement apartment like a mole, eating a whole twenty-pound ham in less than a week, three or four ducks at a sitting,