Park Place, 2660 Peachtree Road
July
Grumps was less than great company. Alternate snores and burps from his corner of the tiny kitchen announced he had ravished his evening meal and, as usual, fallen sound asleep.
Lang looked up at the bar that separated the kitchen and living areas. 'It's your companionship and good looks, fella. That's the only reason I keep you around.'
His attention returned to the evening news, today consisting. almost entirely of the unanticipated withdrawal from the race for his party's nomination for president by one of the leading candidates, Harold Straight. With tearful countenance, the former aspirant for the nation's highest office had announced that 'family matters' would need his exclusive attention for the next several years, necessitating not only an end to his present quest but a termination of all political activity. Based firmly on a total lack of facts, the talking heads interviewed one another, eliciting speculation ranging from AIDS to alcoholism, to the possibility of a scandalous divorce, to possible criminal prosecution for offenses unnamed.
Liberal politicians and the press hailed the event as demonstrating what-was-right-with-America, a theme unheard from the left since Newt Gingrich had declined to run for reelection to Congress. The right wing received far less media attention, as usual, but it was clear that the viciousness of partisan-politics had, in their view, defeated a just cause.
Lang smiled with the satisfaction of true knowledge.
It was, however, his only satisfaction. In the two months since his return from Europe, he had buried himself in work, micromanaging the foundation to the extent that several of his top employees were seeking positions elsewhere. Sara had simply refused to come to work for several days, asserting he was unfit for association with human beings. Only pleas of the longevity of their relationship, promises of a real vacation at the end of the summer, and an assurance he would reduce his caseload had lured her back to the office.
He had, however, had time to read of Rome during the German occupation and the sparse literature available concerning Otto Skorzeny. Although none of the books actually connected the two, Lang knew from the Huff CD that the SS officer had-been there. Supposition had answered at least one question: Why had Skorzeny taken only the one amphora and not come back for the second? Time, pure and simple. By the end of April 1944, Allied troops had broken out of the German encirclement of the invasion beaches and were heading for Rome as fast as artillery and trucks could be supplied. Skorzeny had skedaddled, no doubt with the first container, the mark of which was still visible in the dirt when Lang arrived sixty-plus years later.
That raised an even more interesting query: What was in it?
Lang would have to live without even a guess. He would have enjoyed swapping theories with Gurt. Another reason to miss her.
His return without Gurt had somehow been communicated throughout the building by a system he suspected akin to blood in shark-infested waters. Almost nightly, his doorbell rang and one or more of the building's single women presented him with a casserole, an entree or something else edible, almost all of which had clearly come from one of the caterers nearby. After all, cooking was work, and few of these women would admit to being forced into such drudgery.
Lang had remained steadfast in his declinations of invitations to dinners and cocktail parties.
He knew the single women in this building, the Wet Cats, were as predatory as any animal in the jungle and even more desperate to find someone to rescue them from the alternative of having to support themselves. Wealthy and single, he was a wildebeest in lion territory.
Even in his placid marriage to Dawn, he had learned that men were preservationists, women restorationists. A man saw the woman he loved and took her as is, not wishing (or noticing) so much as a change in hairstyle. A woman took a man as a work in progress, a project to be molded and shaped to her specifications. That 'aromatic tobacco' would become 'that stinking cigar' overnight, and his 'comfortable favorite chair' a 'ratty embarrassment.'
And soon.
Lang wanted none of it.
Dinners with Francis, shared Cubanos, probably this small, easily maintained condo, and Grumps were likely to become no more than vapors of memory if he gave in to the onslaught of single women who were desperate to eliminate the specter of necessary employment.
He knew self-sufficient women-lawyers, doctors, and the like-but he never seemed able to meet them unless they were already taken. In fact, there was a federal prosecutor, a petite redhead, he'd almost asked out before she appeared in court with a diamond of blinding quality and a size that skirted vulgarity. He told himself he was disappointed, but he knew what he felt was relief.
He was not particularly surprised, then, when the doorbell chimed just as he thought he had reached a decision as to which Healthy Choice dinner to nuke in the microwave. Another ready-to-eat something, delivered with a hopeful smile by another woman looking for a male life-support system.
Grumps, long used to the parade, normally favored the applicants with little more than a single open eye before returning to his twenty-three-hour-a day nap. This time, Lang could have sworn the mutt leapt into the air without touching the floor. Barking furiously, the dog nearly took Lang's feet out from under him in his rush to the door, where he stood on stubby hind legs while using the front two to frantically scratch the paint from the wood surface.
No doubt some woman had decided to seek intercession by Grumps and was delivering a bag of treats.
'Traitor!' Lang snorted at the frenzied animal.
He had barely cracked the door when Grumps used his head as a wedge to pry it wide and disappeared into the hall to dance wildly around Gurt's feet.
She put down a small suitcase to kneel and croon to the excited dog.
Lang simply stood there until she looked up.
'Langford, close your mouth. It is most unattractive hanging open.'
'Grumps wrote and asked you to come back,' he suggested with a grin.
She nodded toward the suitcase, both hands still on Grumps. ''You are not a gentleman? You would have me my own luggage carry?'
Still not sure he wasn't hallucinating, Lang reached out for the bag. 'You came back to get something?'
She stood, brushing long black dog hairs from a pair of hip-huggers. 'That could be said.'
'What?'
She made a show of running salacious eyes over his body. 'That is for you to discover.'
He simply couldn't stand it any longer. Neither could she. They met just beside the door in an embrace that showed little chance of ending soon despite plaintive barking.
Finally inside, they stood on the small balcony overlooking the city.
'Gurt, have you decided…?'
She turned, putting a finger across his lips. 'I decided I would rather teach rich kids to mangle German with you than track potential terrorists across Europe.'
'Does that mean…? '
'It means just what I said, nichts andres. You must be satisfied with that.'
And he was.
