by Gregg Loomis
“And with me?”
“Just-as-serious lust.”
She took another puff and waited for the server to take their order before taking a new line. “If the people back at the embassy knew I was meeting with a former, er, employee who, I am sure, wants something, I’d go Tolstoy.”
Go Tolstoy, being required to fill reams of paper with details of anything that didn’t fit routine, usually filled with self-serving fiction.
The waiter reappeared with two glasses of Brunello. The dying sun reflected from the red wine to paint spots of blood on the tabletop while they watched people watching people. Rome’s favorite pastime. A battalion of Japanese followed their tour leader, a woman holding up a furled red umbrella like a battle flag. They broke ranks to photograph the magnificent Bernini marbles.
When her glass was half empty, Gurt spoke with a nonchalance so intensely casual Lang knew she had been straining not to ask before now. “You are divorced?”
“Not exactly.”
He explained about Dawn, only partially successful in trying to relate her death in an emotionless narrative. Sometimes being a man isn’t easy. Gurt picked up on the still-sharp grief, her eyes shimmering. The Germans are a sentimental lot. SS guards who had joked while exterminating women and children in the morning wept at Wagner’s operas the same evening.
“I’m sorry, Lang,” she said, her voice husky with sympathy. “I truly am.”
She put a hand over his.
He made no effort to move it. “You never married?”
She gave a disdainful snort. “Marry who? You don’t meet the best people in this job. Only lunatics.”
“Could be worse,” Lang quipped. “What if you were working for the penal system?”
She brightened. “There is such a thing?”
“Corrections, Gurt, the U.S. prison system.”
“Oh.” She sighed her disappointment. “Well, my not getting married is not why you are here. I think you want something.”
He told her about Janet and Jeff and the man who had broken into his condo.
“Who are these people that would kill your sister and your nephew?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
They were quiet while the waiter refilled glasses.
When he departed, Lang took the copy of the Polaroid from a pocket and pushed it across the table. “If someone could tell me what the significance of this picture is, I might be on the way to finding the people responsible.”
She stared at the picture as though she were deciphering a code. “The police in the States, they cannot help?”
He retrieved the picture. “I don’t think so. Besides, this is personal.”
“You were with the Agency long enough to learn revenge is likely to get you killed.”
“Never said anything about revenge, just want to identify these people. The cops can take it from there.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, not believing a word of it. “And how do you think I can help?”
“I need an introduction to a Guiedo Marcenni—a monk, I think. Anyway, he’s in the Vatican Museum. Who does the Agency know in the Vatican these days?”
Lang remembered the well-kept secret that the Vatican had its own intelligence service. The Curia, the body charged with following the Pope’s directives in the actual governance of the Church, maintained a cadre of information gatherers whose main functionaries were missionaries, parish priests or any other face the Church showed the public. Even though the service had not carried out a known assassination or violent (as opposed to political) sabotage since the Middle Ages, the very number of the world’s Roman Catholics, their loyalty and, most importantly, the sacrament of confession, garnered information unavailable to the spies of many nations. Like similar organizations, the Agency frequently swapped tidbits with the Holy See.
Gurt fished another cigarette from the pack. “And what am I to tell my superiors? Why do I want to introduce a former agent to this monk?”
Lang watched her light up and inhale. “Simply a favor for an old friend, a friend who has specific questions about a piece of art he wishes to ask on behalf of a client.”
“I will think about it.”
They ordered bean soup and eggplant sauteed in olive oil along with a full bottle of wine.
As they finished, Lang said, “Gurt, there’s something else you ought to know.”
She glanced up from the small mirror she was using to repair her lipstick. “That you are wanted by the American police? Close your mouth, it is most unattractive hanging open. I saw the bulletin this afternoon.”
One of the duties the Agency had assumed rather than face extinction upon the demise of its original enemy was cooperation with local authorities and Interpol in locating American fugitives abroad. The FBI, sensing a turf invasion, had protested loudly but futilely.
Lang felt his dinner lurch in his stomach. “You mean the Agency knows?”
She checked the result of her effort, turning her head to maximize the light supplied by tabletop candles. “I doubt it. The message was misfiled. The screw up won’t be discovered for a day or two.”
“But why . . . ?”
She dropped the mirror back into her bag. “I have known you a long time, Lang Reilly. A call from you after all those years made me alert. I did not think you would have called me unless you wanted something. Then I read the incoming and made a connection. I hunched right.”
Her mangling of the idiom did nothing to diminish his surprise. “But you could get fired. . . .”
She stood and stretched, a motion he guessed she knew emphasized shapely breasts. “You are an old friend, one of the Komraden. I have few of those.”
He looked up at her, feeling a smile beginning. “Even when I’m an international fugitive?”
“Why not? I was willing to help when you called and I knew you were a lawyer.”
Everybody was into lawyer-bashing.
Lang left several bills on the table as he stood up. “A walk before I put you into a cab?’
She stepped closer. He could smell the sourness of tobacco smoke as she spoke. “Have I gotten so old I no longer interest you?”
Coquettishness had never been among Gurt’s charms.
“If looks are what you mean, you’ve aged better than good whisky. I’d hardly call what I feel ‘interest.’ ”
“Good,” she said. “Then we can take the same cab to wherever you’re staying.”
Being a Southerner, Lang was a little uncomfortable when he realized he was the one being seduced. Scarlett O’Hara was a steel magnolia, not a New Woman.
He took her hand. “This way, Fraulein. And by the way, the charge is murder. I’m innocent.”
She slipped her bag over her shoulder. “I knew that before I came here.”
Later that night, Lang lay on top of skimpy covers, sweat drying on his chest. Beside him, Gurt’s breathing was deep and regular, the sound of peaceful sleep. They had made love without inhibition, a noisy performance he was fairly certain dismissed any doubts his host might have had about the reason he had not wanted his passport entered into the system.
The murder charge, he thought, could be disproved easily enough. Show Morse the bogus passport and let him check the airline’s passenger manifest. The Agency would be less than happy to find a former employee was using false papers it had created, but the Agency wasn’t his problem. Lang’s problem was that he would have to return to Atlanta to demonstrate his alibi. That, he wasn’t ready to do. Not yet, anyway.
4
Rome
1230 hours the next day
“Your Brother Marcenni isn’t at the Vatican.”
Lang put down his square of pizza, swallowed and asked, “Then, where is he?”
Gurt had gone to work that morning and then met him at an outdoor table on the Via del Babulno in view of the Spanish Steps, a hundred yards by a hundred yards of white travertine angles, straights and terraces in their spring garb of pink azal
eas. As always, the steps were the roost of hordes of young people: students and artists, who seemed to spend their days sitting, smoking, photographing each other and lazing in the sun.
Gurt, obviously enjoying Lang’s concern, was prolonging it. She poked a fork tentatively at her salad. “Orvieto, he’s in Orvieto, supervising the restoration of some frescoes.”
Lang took a sip of beer. Orvieto was an hour, hour and a half north of Rome just off the Auto Strada to Florence.
He put down his glass. “Want to spend a day in Umbria, just being a tourist?”
Finished with her salad, Gurt was firing up another Marlboro, the second Lang had seen since she had joined him that morning. “Why not? But do not think I believe this tourist shit. You cannot communicate with this priest unless he speaks English or I translate for you.”
Once again, Gurt had read him with disquieting accuracy. Among several other languages, she was fluent in Italian. At the Vatican, finding a translator would have been no problem. In a small hill town, it might be impossible.
“Is that a ‘yes’?”
She nodded, looked vainly for an ash tray and flicked ashes onto her empty plate where they sizzled in the salad’s oil. “It is.”
“We’d best go by car. The international fugitive bulletin you saw probably’s been disseminated to the local cops and I’d just as soon stay away from choke points.”
Choke points, places where he could be squeezed into narrow quarters. Like train or bus stations. Or airports.
She tilted her chin and jetted smoke skyward. “I would think a motorcycle would be more desirable. The helmet is a perfect mask and nobody would expect you to be on a bike.”
Lang grinned. “I wouldn’t expect me to be, either. Have you looked at those things lately? Cafe racer bars, competition-faring, rear-mounted pegs. You have to ride the damn things like you’re making love to them. Besides, riding anything on the Auto Strada without being encased in iron is suicidal.”
“There was a time when you had motorcycles happy, liked them. You even owned one, a Triumph Bonneville. Called it the crotch rocket.”
“That was over ten years ago,” Lang said. “I’ve gotten smarter in my old age.”
She ground out her cigarette in the plate. “Or duller.”
“You didn’t think I was dull last night.”
“I was being polite.”
A shadow on the table made them look up. The waiter was following the conversation with obvious interest.
“Lovers’ quarrel,” Lang explained.
“We are not in love,” Gurt said.
“You adore me.”
“In your dreams.”
The waiter fled. Gurt and Lang burst into laughter at the same time.
When he could be serious again, Lang said, “Too bad radio comedy is dead. Did you mean what you said?”
“About not being in love?”
“About the motorcycle.”
“It would be a good disguise. Nobody would suspect a man your age would be on a bike.”
Lang suspected he had just been insulted. “That mean you’re willing to ride on the back all the way to Orvieto?”
“The fresh air will do us both healthy.”
“You’re on. But can we find a machine we can sit on instead of hunch over?”
CHAPTER FOUR
1
Rome
The next morning
Lang didn’t expect a fine Italian bike, a Ducatti or Moto Guzi. They were far too expensive for the average Italian and most were exported to the States. He anticipated one of the small Japanese machines common to Rome’s narrow streets.
He was mistaken.
She arrived the next morning on a BMW 1000, old but well kept. The machine wasn’t known for its acceleration, but it excelled in reliability, smoothness of ride and lack of noise. BMW had been the first to employ the shaft drive now used by most touring bikes in place of the vibration- causing, maintenance-high chain.
Had it not been for the braid of blond hair hanging down the back of the green-and-white leathers, Gurt’s full face helmet would have made recognizing her impossible.
Lang watched with equal parts amusement and surprise as Gurt dismounted. She was the only woman he had ever known strong enough to hoist a bike that big onto its floor stand. Matter of fact, he don’t think he’d ever known another woman who drove a motorcycle.
He was appraising the BMW as she pulled off her Bell Magnum.
“Nice, yes?” she said.
“Makes the trip worth taking. Don’t suppose you have an extra set of leathers?”
Europeans biking the highways wore colorful two-piece leather outfits rather than the jeans preferred by Americans. Without the proper costume, Lang would be conspicuous.
She pointed. “In the Krausers.”
Krausers were the saddlebags attached to the frame. With the turn of a key, they could be detached to serve as luggage.
“And an extra helmet.” One identical to hers was hanging on its loop beneath the seat.
“I don’t know what you had to do to get someone to loan you their bike plus all this,” Lang said, taking the leathers out of the saddlebag, “and I’m sure not going to ask.”
Gurt laughed. “Why would I borrow it? It’s mine.”
Lang felt a twinge of jealousy that he was pulling on pants an unknown number of other guys had worn. “I suppose you’ll insist on driving, then.”
“And make you sit behind a woman?” She found this immensely funny. “You would be, what’s the word, castigated?”
“Castrated.”
“That, too.”
Lang was surprised at how well the trousers fit. The jacket was snug but it would zip shut. His reflection in a shop window showed a typical European, ready for a cross-country ride. Except for the Birkenstocks.
“Damn! Forgot my shoes.”
Gurt smiled. “I have no extra boots.”
“I’ve got a pair of shoes back at the pensione. They aren’t motorcycle boots but they’re better’n sandals.”
The slow run through the narrow streets and alleys served as a refresher course in motorcycle driving. By the time they reached the pensione, Lang was eager to get on the road where speed would make the BMW far more stable than the wobbling pace the crowded city streets required.
He was in and out of the room in seconds while Gurt straddled the bike, studying a road map. Lang’s Cole Haans hadn’t been intended for shifting a motorcycle’s gears but they would do. He turned to the east towards the Tiber and let out the hand clutch as he turned the throttle.
2
The old pensione-keeper had been watching from behind a curtained window. How strange these Germans were! The man would only pay for a room at this modest establishment to fuck his whore, yet he was riding a BMW worth two or three months’ salary for the average Italian. Where had he been keeping that expensive machine? He certainly had not arrived on it. Clearly the man and woman were used to riding together. They had matching leathers, something the German’s wife might like to know and be willing to pay to learn.
He would have to discover the man’s identity. Perhaps there were papers in the room. . . . But he would have to be careful. There was something about the occupant of the room next to the bath upstairs, a mannerism, the hardness of his eyes, that said he was a man not to be angered.
A knock at the door, the flurry of banging of someone in a hurry. Let them wait. With all three rooms full, there was no reason to risk falling in a rush to turn someone away. The noise became more persistent as the old man shuffled to the door.
The man standing outside wore coveralls, the uniform of the European working class. He could have been a plumber or truck driver. It was unlikely he wanted a room.
“Si?”
The workman shoved his way inside and shut the door before he held up a photograph. The old man recognized the German.
“You have seen this man, an American?” the stranger asked. The accent was not Roman, pe
rhaps not even Italian.
“I am the information bureau?” the old man sneered. Like any other commodity, information had a value, was not something to be given away. Perhaps this man was working for the German’s wife. “Out, go ask your questions elsewhere or show me your police credentials.”
The stranger reached into the top of his coveralls. When his hand came out, it held a pistol. The gun was pointed at the old man’s head.
“Here are all the credentials I need, you old fart. Now, once again before your meager brains are splattered all over this entryway, have you seen this American?”
The old man was frightened. He had seen such things happen on the American programs on television. And this man might be American. Worse, by the way he butchered the language, he could be Sicilian. Either way, dying on behalf of a guest’s privacy was not included in the rent. If only this man would go away and leave him unharmed, he would say a hundred Hail Mary’s at Saint Peter’s.
He nodded and pointed to the picture of his guest. “I thought he was German.”
The truck driver, or plumber, or whoever he was, with the gun said angrily, “I don’t give a shit what you thought. Is he here?”
The old man felt his bladder release. Warm urine was running down his leg, becoming cold as it soaked his pants. He hoped the man with the gun didn’t notice. He would go to Saint Peter’s on his arthritic knees if this evil man would just go away.
“He left seconds ago, right before you came. He and a woman.”
The old man felt weak with relief as he saw the gun returned to inside the coveralls.
“The couple on the motorcycle?”
The pensione owner nodded vigorously. “Yes, yes. That was them. They were headed towards Florence.”
The stranger was suspicious. “And how do you know that?”
Had he not been frozen with fear, the old man would have kicked himself for saying anything that kept this intruder here one second longer. If he would go away, he would crawl on his belly like a snake to Saint Peter’s.
“I saw the color of the border of the road map the woman was looking at. It only shows Rome north to Florence.”
The gunman/workman’s eyes narrowed. “You have good eyesight for an old man.”
