'He's dead.'
'Okay, so you might have to wait awhile to ask.'
The credit card receipt arrived and Lang signed it, adding an undeserved tip to ensure the same booth would be available next time.
'The mayor is being tried in federal court?'
Lang pushed back from the table and stood. 'Unluckily for him, yes. The feds indicted him while the Fulton County DA was still thinking about the political ramifications.'
The Fulton County district attorney's office was famous for mishandling its workload. Statutes of limitation expired while county lawyers searched for misplaced files or evidence. Felons walked free after exasperated judges waited for prosecutors to show up for trial.
Both men headed toward the rear door that opened onto the parking lot.
'Too bad,' Francis observed. 'You'll have an opponent instead of a victim.'
Lang beeped the security device that unlocked a silver-gray Porsche Cabriolet. 'You're right there. Trying a case with the local guy has gotten too easy anyway. Poor bastard couldn't have convicted John Wilkes Booth for discharging a firearm in public.'
The priest folded himself into the car's passenger seat. 'One of these days you'll get a grown-up car.'
Lang turned the key and was rewarded by a muscular rumble from the rear-mounted engine. 'I did. Remember the Mercedes convertible, the malfunction mobile-had everything from the burglar alarm to the power top not working?'
'At least it wasn't a toy. Seems to me a multijillion-dollar charitable foundation would want its president to have something a little more dignified to drive around in.'
Lang was looking over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking spot. 'You forget, my dear Francis, I am the foundation.'
That was true: A few years previously Lang had demanded annual payment of millions of dollars from Pegasus, an international organization, as compensation for the murder of his sister and nephew. The money funded a charitable trust in their names. Although the trust had the directors and officers mandated by tax law, Lang made the decisions that mattered. The board did, however, serve two very important functions other than satisfying the IRS: It screened the needy from the greedy, and it kept secret who really made what choices. If Lang's solitary power became known, he would drown in a sea of mendicants.
FIVE
Peachtree Road
Atlanta, Georgia
Twenty Minutes Later
Lang had dropped Francis off and was within blocks of his high-rise condominium when the BlackBerry in his pocket chirped.
Has to be a criminal client, he thought. The foundation pays its staff way too much for someone to call me at night.
He fumbled in his pocket for the Bluetooth earpiece before remembering leaving it on the dresser in the bedroom. With a regretful sigh he thumbed a button, wedged the phone between cheek and shoulder, and gave a grudging, 'Hello.'
'Mr. Reilly? Langford Reilly?'
The voice was familiar, yet Lang couldn't quite place it. He downshifted as he approached a red light. The arm movement sent the phone slithering into his lap. Modern cell phones and classic stick-shift transmissions didn't mix. He plucked the phone out of his lap.
'Yes.'
'Det. Franklin Morse, Atlanta Police, Mr. Reilly. Maybe you remember me.'
Lang wished he didn't. More than once the detective had been summoned to Lang's home after some deadly misadventure. 'Swell to hear from you again, Detective, but it's been a quiet night. Nobody's tried to kill me so far.'
'Early yet. 'Sides, ain't you, Mr. Reilly. It's Dr. Lewis.'
Lang drew a total blank. 'Who?'
'Lewis, professor over to Georgia Tech.'
The name finally came up in Lang's mental Rolodex just as the elusive phone slipped free again. The foundation had made a rare exception to its policy of endowing medical causes in the third world. It had provided funds to persuade a professor at Oxford to move to Tech his research on a promising alternative to fossil fuel. Lang had deviated from the norm at the request of Jacob Annueliwitz, a personal friend of both men in London. The results had been sufficiently promising that the foundation was currently sponsoring parallel research both in the United States and abroad.
He retrieved the phone before it could make its escape under the seat. 'What happened?'
There was a pause. Lang could hear other voices in the background. 'Too soon to know 'xactly, Mr. Reilly. 'Cept Lewis is dead. Since you th' man pays his research grant, thought you could maybe help. You come on, see fo'yo'self.'
'Dead? But how…?'
'Tell you what, Mr. Reilly; I'm at the man's laboratory right now. Know where that is?'
Lang had overseen the installation of some very expensive equipment there just a month or so ago.
'Yeah. Just off Hemphill Avenue.'
'Right.'
Georgia Tech liked red brick, a fact evident in buildings as diverse as its signature semi-Victorian bell tower and the newest ultramodern box of a classroom structure. Despite a few desperate trees, the campus looked just like what it was: an urban school in a shabby part of town. Unlike its neo-Gothic-styled, verdant rival, the University of Georgia, Tech had a blue-collar, hard-work ethic about it that included Saturday classes and a very high job- placement rate. Its only real failure was its football team, which had to play schools where three-hundred-pound tackles could major in athletic education and were not required to pass calculus.
A gaggle of police car lights sprayed a symphony of red, blue, and orange across the face of an otherwise anonymous brick building. The squawk of radios roiled in the night air.
Lang showed his driver's license to the cop blocking the door. The man murmured into the radio pinned to his blouse, and Morse appeared.
The black man's slender, athletic build made it hard to guess his age. Lang guessed he was somewhere in his forties, an assumption based more on his rank than his appearance. He reminded Lang of one of those East African runners who dominated marathon competitions. The detective was also far brighter than his lazy drawl indicated.
They shook hands.
'When did you transfer to this part of town?' Lang asked.
'Figgered this'd be a quieter beat, since you wasn't on it.'
Lang grinned in spite of the circumstances. 'Now who's wise-assin' somebody?'
Morse held lip his right hand. 'No wise-assin', true.' He became serious again. 'Reason I axed you down here was to see if anythin's missin'.'
'How'd you know I had any connection to Dr. Lewis?'
'I'm a detective, remember? I detect stuff.'
Perhaps a quick check of the school's records had revealed Lang's name on the grant.
Morse headed down a short hall. 'This way.'
The room they entered was filled with people. A woman and a man Lang took to be crime scene technicians were using what looked like an artist's brush to sweep shards of glass into small plastic bags. A man sat in front of a computer. Another, this one in police uniform, interviewed a man in the uniform of the school's security personnel. A woman was using her flashlight to study the pages of a loose-leaf notebook.
