Neal’s hand made a move toward the top of his boot, then stopped. “Go on and sign, smartass,” he said. “I’m getting nervous with Strasser passed out in there.”
Lasari wrote “George Jackson, PFC” and his ID number four times and handed the forms and pen back to Neal.
Greta brought in their drinks, placing the tray on a table next to the armchair. Lasari stood to serve himself, picking up a bottle of dark lager and a goblet decorated with a border of toadstools and dwarfs.
Corporal Neal stared with disgust at the big stein in which Greta had made his drink. Large flakes of eggshell floated on the sudsy beer. At the bottom of the glass was a yolk marked with red streaks of blood. A small glass of schnapps stood beside it.
Neal stood, put his hands on his hips and stared at Greta. “Now what the fuck is that supposed to be?”
“It’s what you ordered, Corporal Eddie. Schnapps and a beer ‘mit ei’.”
“Don’t give me any of that ‘mit ei’ bullshit!”
“You told me to put an egg in it. You don’t want an egg, say so. You speak English, don’t you?”
“I wanted an egg, you cunt,” Eddie Neal said, “but no eggshells and not a goddamn yolk marked with chicken shit.”
He was still smiling as he spoke, moistening his lips, ducking his head as if this were a friendly misunderstanding, a humorous mix-up. But Lasari could see the color rising in his throat, the dangerous look in his eyes.
“Greta,” Lasari said, “why not take the man’s drink and dump it down the sink. Just build him one the way he likes it.”
“Ginzo, if we’ve got a problem,” Neal said, “I don’t recollect asking you to help out. You hear me ask for advice?”
“No, corporal, I didn’t.”
Neal broadened his smile and said, “Greta, if that’s your idea of a tasty drink, I’m not gonna deprive you of the fun of drinkin’ it. You hear me, girl? Just pick up that stein and drain it back, eggshells and all.” He poured the glass of schnapps into the beer. “Down the hatch,” he said.
She shook her head uncertainly. “I don’t want it. I don’t like schnapps.”
Eddie Neal caught the fall of hair tied at the top of her head and twisted it powerfully, forcing her to her knees. “If it ain’t good enough for you, it sure as shit ain’t good enough for me, fraulein.”
“Leave me alone, stop it!” she cried. “Make your own drinks!”
“I warned you about that sassy mouth of yours, lady.”
He plucked a switchblade from the cuff of his boot, flipping a catch that caused a four-inch blade to flick out like the tongue of a snake. He sliced through the golden braid of her slip strap, then twisted her head back, forcing her to arch her back with a gasp of pain. Half of her black slip fell away, revealing a soft, white breast.
“Maybe I should do something to help you remember your manners,” he said, “like mommies trying a string around a kid’s linger. Think you might pay more attention if I put my initials above your nipple?”
She began to scream, the cords straining in her throat. The bedroom door opened and Strasser took a lurching step into the room.
“What the fuck,” he muttered. “What the hell is this?” He blinked at the scene as if he were peering through layers of fog.
Neal smiled and laid the tip of his knife against Greta’s bare breast. He looked at the sergeant steadily. “My old man always told me, Top, that it don’t matter who breaks a filly as long as she gets broke. If this is your woman, no argument, but somebody’s got to teach this fraulein what a bridle and spurs are for. You teach her or me, Top, it don’t make no difference...”
For a moment Strasser stared down at Greta, his eyes focusing on the blade touching her breast.
Lasari put his glass aside. He was watching a man die, he realized, not all at once and not completely, but in a small way a part of Ernest Strasser had ceased to exist. He wasn’t going to challenge Eddie Neal and that decision would cause something inside him to shrink and wither away. He could live without it, maybe, Lasari thought. Sergeant Strasser might pull off the heroin scam, get his money, sit around a condo in Florida laughing and telling how he’d let one of his corporals in Germany put the fear of God into a nice piece of kraut stuff he’d had a fling with.
But at this moment, in a room crowded with cuckoo clocks and garish bric-a-brac, looking at a knife touching a soft, young breast and with three witnesses watching him, an essential part of the sergeant died.
Strasser laughed uncertainly. “Hell, you don’t have to make jokes with me, Neal. This filly knows how to take care of herself...”
He turned on unsteady legs and walked into the bedroom, slamming the door. They heard his body collapse on the bed.
“I believe in offering a lady a choice, Greta,” Neal said. “You want the initials above or below that cute little tit of yours?”
Lasari moved forward. “Put the knife away, Eddie. You touch her and you’ve got to kill me.”
“Hold it, soldier. This ain’t no concern of yours.”
“I’m gonna talk real slow,” Lasari said, “to try to get through to that Georgia peabrain of yours. You touch the lady and you’ve got to kill me. Maybe you can do that, maybe you can’t.”
“Hold it, boy!” Neal grinned and turned the blade toward Lasari. “I thought you said you wasn’t fuckin’ her. What the shit difference does any of this make to you?”
Lasari moved his hands out from his sides. “Try me, you cracker bastard. Then a couple of things are gonna happen real fast. You may try to cut my throat before I put a boot into that big buck mouth of yours. Or Greta runs outside and calls the cops. Or maybe Strasser has a nightmare, wakes up and takes your gun away, wastes me himself. But if the golden goose is dead, who picks up the stuff at the Lucky Thirteenth? Maybe I get buried in a deserter’s grave, but you get a general court-martial and a few dozen years for murder.”
Lasari watched the confusion in Neal’s face. “But I’ll tell you what else there’s no doubt about, Eddie. When you walk out of the federal pen, there’s gonna be somebody waiting for you, and you better be ready to tell Malleck why you blew his multi-million-dollar deal sky high just because you couldn’t keep your hands off Strasser’s girl friend.”
For a moment the only sound in the room was Neal’s harsh breathing and Greta’s sobs. Then the corporal loosened his grasp on her hair, shrugged and took a step backward, touching a button on the shaft of his knife. The blade disappeared in a silvery flash.
“You got guts, ginzo,” he said with an admiring smile. “A gutsy guy, a lot of sand to your bottom. You smart, too. First things first, you see that. Let’s just call this unfinished business between you and me.”
He brushed the palms of his hands against his trousers, picked up his topcoat and walked to the door. “I’m gonna wait downstairs in the fresh air. When Strasser’s driver shows I’ll give you a whistle under the window.” He paused at the door, his hand on the knob, his expression shy and awkward. “Yeah, Jackson, we still got some things to settle.”
Greta was crying softly. “It’s over,” he said. “You might as well forget it.”
He helped her from her knees and pulled together the ends of her slip strap and tied them in an expert square knot. She looked at it gratefully.
“It’s almost like it’s on purpose,” she said. “Like a decoration.”
He brought a clean napkin and a glass of water from the bar. “Here. Fix yourself up, you’ll feel better.”
“Eddie could have killed you, George.”
“The odds were against it. He’s not that dumb.”
“Ernie wouldn’t have stopped him, Ernie didn’t care what he was going to do with me.”