unappealing. Upon graduation, he set out his own shingle and began working the phones with old acquaintances for clients.
Word spread. His practice became profitable, enabling Dawn to quit her job and open the boutique of which she had always dreamed. No longer subject to the unpredictability of his former work, he was home almost every night. And when he wasn't, his wife knew where he was and when to anticipate his return.
They pretty much had it all, as the Jimmy Buffet song says: big house, money to do what they wanted and a love for each other that time seemed to fuel like pouring gasoline on a fire. Even after five years, it hadn't been unusual for Dawn to meet him at the door in something skimpy or nothing at all – and they would make love in the living room, too impatient to wait to get to the bed.
It had been embarrassing the evening Lang brought a client home unannounced.
The only real cloud on their horizon was Dawn's inability to get pregnant. After endless fertility tests, they arranged for an adoption that had been only months away when Dawn began to lose both appetite and weight. The female parts that had refused to reproduce had become malignant. In less than a year, her full breasts had become empty sacks and her ribs looked as though they would break through the pale skin with the next labored breath. This was the first time Lang realized the same universe that could give him a loving, helpful wife could dispassionately watch her degenerate from a healthy woman into a hairless skeleton in a hospital bed where her breath stank of death and her only pleasure was the drugs that temporarily took away the pain.
As the cancer progressed, he and Dawn spoke of her recovery, the things they would do and places they would go together. Each of them hoped the other believed it. He, and he suspected she too, prayed for speed to reach the end that was inevitable.
Lang suffered in the certain knowledge of her mortality and in the irrational guilt that he was unable to give her comfort. He had more time than anyone would have wanted to prepare for her death.
As he remembered, he wondered which was worse: the torture of certain death or the sudden snatching away of his sister and nephew.
At least for the latter, he could dream of revenge, of getting even with the powers that had caused their deaths. That was a satisfaction he would never have for Dawn.
Over the years since his retirement, he had diminishing need to use his former contacts. How many of his old cohorts remained, he wondered as he groped in a desk drawer. His fingers found the false back and he slid a wooden panel out of place. Behind it was a small booklet which he pulled out and opened on the desk. Who was left? More importantly, who was left that owed him a favor?
He dialed a number with a 202 area code, let it ring twice and hung up. Somewhere, Lang's own phone number would appear on a computer screen. In less than a second, that number would be verified with Lang's name and location. That is, if the number he had called still belonged to the person he hoped he was calling.
Within a minute, Sara buzzed him. 'There's a Mr. Berkley on the phone, says he's returning your call.'
Lang picked up. 'Miles? How they hangin', ole buddy?'
The reply took a split second longer than an ordinary call. The call had been routed through one of a number of random relays scattered around the globe and was completely untraceable.
'Jus' fine, Lang. How th' hell you doin'?' Through the years, Miles Berkley had clung to his southern drawl as though it were a prized possession.
'Not so good, Miles. I need some help.'
Lang knew his words were being compared to old voiceprints. Or verified by some technology that had come along since his departure.
Pause.
'Ennythin' I can do, Lang…'
'There was a fire in Paris three days ago, looked like thermite was used.' 'So I heard.' Miles still read local papers. Anything abnormal, anything that might be the precursor to possible activity of interest, was noted, examined and catalogued. Miles apparently had the same job.
Grateful for that bit of luck, Lang asked, 'Any military stores missing? Any ideas where that shit came from, who might have weapons like that on hand?'
'What's your interest?' Miles wanted to know. 'Think it might be a client of yours?'
'It was my sister, her friend's house. She and my nephew were in it.'
There was a pause that was too long to attribute solely to a relay. 'Shit, I'm sorry, Lang, Had no idea. I can see why you'd wanna know but we don't have zip so far. No breakins at military installations, no inventory missing, far as we know. 'Course about ennybody could walk off with half the Russian arsenal without the Ruskies knowin'. Your sister into something she shouldna been?'
'Nothing more than her kid, her medical practice and her church. Hardly criminal.'
'That makes it tough to guess at a motive. Say, you're not thinking of coming out of retirement, are you? Hope not. Whoever these bastards are, they're likely to be pros. No way you can take 'em on by yourself, even if you knew who they were.'
'Wouldn't think of it,' Lang lied. 'You can understand my interest. Any chance you can keep me posted, you find out anything?'
'You know I can't do that, not officially, anyway. Asshole buddy to asshole buddy, I'll see what I can do.'
For several minutes after he hung up, Lang stared out of the window. He had just begun and already he was at a dead end.
2
Atlanta
Later the same day
Park Place was not a very original name: the developer of Lang's condo building had taken it right off the Monopoly board. There was no Boardwalk nearby. Putting up a high-rise that looked like a stack of square checkers probably was not a new idea, either. Having a doorman in a comic opera uniform was, however, a first for Atlanta and a bit rich for any place south of New York's Upper East Side.
When Lang got home, Richard the doorman wasn't as much an amenity as an obstacle. He was inspecting Grumps with the same expression he might have used for garbage dumped in the building's marble foyer. The dog's wagging tail and imploring brown eyes did little to diminish the disdain.
Grumps didn't much look like a pet of the affluent, Lang grudgingly admitted. The dog could have been claimed by almost any breed, with his shaggy black coat and white face. One ear was pointed, the other folded over like a wilted flower. Straining at the end of his new leash, Grumps was sniffing a bow-fronted boulle chest that Lang had long suspected might have been the genuine article. Had the dog not already anointed the boxwoods outside, Lang would have been nervous about the Abkhazian area rugs.
He figured a fifty would turn contempt to gratitude and he was right.
'He was my nephew's,' Lang explained apologetically as he handed over the folded bill. 'I didn't know what else to do with him.'
Richard pocketed the money with a smoothness of one accustomed to residents' largess beyond the Christmas fund. No doubt he was aware of Janet and Jeff's deaths. Like all the building's employees, he seemed to know what was going on in the lives of those he served.
He winked conspiratorially. 'Looks like he weighs under ten pounds to me.'
The condominium association's rules forbade pets in excess of ten pounds, a weight Grumps clearly exceeded five or six times.
'The gift is to make sure your powers of estimation don't deteriorate,' Lang said with a wink.
'Count on it. Can I help you with the package?'
Richard was referring to the wrapped painting Lang had under the arm that wasn't holding the leash. Lang thanked him but declined, in a hurry to reach the elevators before any of his more realistically sighted neighbors appeared.
Once the dog had inspected every inch of the condo, verifying that he and Lang were the only living creatures present, he slumped into a corner, staring into space with one of those canine expressions that is subject to
