Brenner stood in the parking spot and the South Tyrolean leaned out the open car door and spoke slowly, as though to a slow-witted child, “I don’t have a driver’s lischense, Herr Simon!”
And now that really reminded Brenner of the first time they met. Because just like then, he was searching for a good line, and just like then, nothing came to him. And so the South Tyrolean beat him to it.
“I’m going to need a chauffeur, Herr Simon.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Firsht up, you drive me home.”
That was a good suggestion for Brenner, because he was thinking, by the time we get to her apartment, I’ll have come up with a good excuse.
As they drove out of the cemetery’s parking lot they passed Natalie again, who was standing with Peinhaupt in front of his car and giving him a very serious talking-to. And Peinhaupt was looking rather grim, too. Desperate, I dare say. Brenner would learn the reason why just thirty-seven weeks later. But just Peinhaupt’s luck: Natalie was already well over forty, but she broke it to him after the funeral that, as of March, he’d be paying alimony for a fifth child.
