He held out his hand. 'We will return it when we finish.' Sonia wondered when, if ever, that would be.
CHAPTER TWO
Atlanta, Georgia Park Place; 2660 Peachtree Road
The next evening
A warm spring breeze gave only a slight hint of the heat and humidity a month or so away. To the two men standing on the twenty-fourth-floor deck, the city below was a handful of jewels stretching to the southern horizon, where aircraft departing and arriving at the airport resembled distant fireflies. Both men took in the scene in silence, each puffing gently on a cigar.
The shorter of the two, a black man wearing a sports shirt open at the neck to display a golden crucifix, rubbed his stomach appreciatively. 'Deorum cibus!'
The other, also informally dressed, chuckled. 'Food for the gods, indeed, Francis. At least you appreciate my cooking. After all, Ieunus raro stomachus vulgaria temnit.'
'Horace does tell us that an empty stomach rarely declines ordinary food, but that dinner was awesome, anything but ordinary.' Father Francis Narumba wrinkled his eyebrows in mock suspicion. 'But then, the quality of food around here has improved dramatically since Gurt came along. I don't mean to preach, Lang, but…'
Langford Reilly contemplated the ash of his cigar. 'Then don't, Francis,' he said good-naturedly. 'We heretics don't take the same view of living in sin as you papists. Ever heard of capistrum maritale?'
It was Francis's turn to chuckle, the sound of a breeze across dry leaves. 'As a priest, I've escaped Juvenal's marital muzzle. But your first marriage was a good one. Had Dawn lived…'
Realizing he might well have touched a place still raw, Francis puffed on his cigar. Dawn, Lang's wife, had suffered a lingering death from cancer years ago, long before the priest had known his friend.
Francis broke the silence that was threatening to lengthen. 'Gurt going to be here indefinitely?' Judging by Lang's scowl, the priest had made another conversational misstep. 'Ask her.'
Francis sighed and turned to face his friend. 'Look, Lang, everything I say tonight seems to upset you. Maybe it would be better if I-'
Lang moved to put an arm around the priest's shoulder. 'Amicus est tanquam alter idem, a friend is just like a second self, Francis. I guess I'm a little touchy tonight.'
Reassured, Francis smiled, the white teeth doubly brilliant against the dark face. A native of a country among the worst of Africa's pestilential and violent West coast, Francis had gone to seminary and been appointed to minister to the growing numbers of Africans in Atlanta. Though white, Lang's sister, Janet, had converted to Catholicism and become one of his parishioners.
Lang embraced no particular religion, but he and the black priest had become good friends with more in common than most white Americans and black Africans. Lang described himself as a victim of a liberal arts education, bored by the usual business degree. Ancient history and its languages had been his passion, a neat fit with the priest's knowledge of Latin and medieval history. Swapping Latin aphorisms had begun as a game and become a habit.
'Perhaps you are now ready for dessert and coffee?'
Gurt was silhouetted against the interior of the condominium. Even half in shadow, she could have graced the cover of any number of men's magazines. Or a bottle of St. Pauli Girl beer from her native Germany. Her height, nearly six feet, accentuated a perfectly proportioned figure she seemed to maintain without effort. Sky-blue eyes and shoulder-length hair the color of recently harvested hay could have come straight off a German travel poster. In public, she got more attention than a joint chief of staff on a military base.
'We have also strudel freshly baked,' she added with just enough accent to make the mundane sexy. Francis rolled his eyes at Lang. 'Appreciate your cooking?'
'Well, I did make the salad,' he grunted defensively.
Inside, a small square table occupied that part of the living/dining area of the one-bedroom unit. Before Gurt's arrival, Lang had taken his meals on the open bar that separated the cramped kitchen. The table had been her addition, something she had found in one of the junk shops she haunted. It was one of several additions she had made to the home Lang had bought after Dawn's death.
Under the table, tail wagging furiously, was Grumps, the large, black, and otherwise' nondescript mongrel that had belonged to Lang's nephew, Jeff. The dog, was the only tangible thing left of the little boy, and Lang had every intention of keeping him despite the regular bribes to the building's concierge staff to ignore the limitations on pet size specified in the condominium's rules.
Gurt's mention of strudel had awakened Grumps, and he was waiting for the handout he knew would be coming from Francis despite Lang's protest that the animal needed no additional food. Lang supposed that had he a child, the priest would be equally ruthless in spoiling the infant, too.
Francis leaned over the table, sniffing appreciatively. 'Peach, you've made a peach strudel?'
Gurt nodded. 'And why not? In Germany, plentiful are apples, not so much peaches. Here there more peaches than I shake a stick at.'
'Can shake a stick at,' Lang corrected.
She shrugged, despairing of ever really understanding English. 'And why would I shake sticks at peaches, anyway?'
Lang rolled his eyes while Francis made no effort to hide a smile.
'If supply's the criterion, I suppose peanut strudel is next,' Lang finally quipped, drawing an elbow in the ribs from Gurt.
Ever the diplomat, Francis changed the subject as adroitly as an NFL running back avoiding a linebacker. 'You got your work permit?'
Gurt looked up from cutting the pastry. 'Yesterday came what you call the green card.' A look of puzzlement flickered across her face. 'But it was not green.'
'It used to be. The name stuck,' Francis offered. 'So now…'
Gurt twisted her face into an expression that told Lang that she was having trouble with the idiom of a name adhering like some sort of glue. The literal nature of her native language made American slang difficult.
'Now,' she continued, 'I will teach German at the school, Westminster.'
Francis gave an appreciative whistle as he accepted a slice that could have been a meal itself. 'You started at the top. That's the ritziest prep school in the city.'
There was a sudden silence, the interruption of conversation as each person looked into their own thoughts.
Lang spoke. 'So the Braves going to do it again?'
Both Lang and the priest were ardent baseball fans.
'If anyone can, Bobby Cox can,' Francis said, referring to the manager of the Atlanta team. 'Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral, in a single moment? No man.'
Lang thought for a second. 'Shakespeare, Macbeth?'
'You got it.'
'We'll see. It's only April. 'The end crowns all and that old common arbitrator, Time, will one day end it.' ' Francis wrinkled his brow. 'Shakespeare?'
'Troilus and Cressida. '
Both men were delighted with the new game: Shakespeare on baseball. The possibilities were endless. Lang was thinking of the Roberto Alomar incident of a few years ago, the umpire asking in the words from King Richard III, 'Why dost thou spit at me?' Francis had in mind the ubiquitous beer ads around the park and King Henry VI, Part II, 'Make my image but an alehouse sign.'
Gurt was standing over them, watching the verbal contest. 'And what is next, Mein Herren, Goethe and ice hockey?'
'Humor is not a logical part of human behavior,' Lang said.
'Shakespeare?' Francis asked.
'Mr. Spock, Star Trek.'
