Sitting, Lang turned to Francis. “OK, padre, see if you can finish saying grace before dinner gets cold.”
When Francis had completed an admirably brief blessing, Manfred piped up. “Why does Uncle Fancy always do that, thank God for the food, when Mommy buys it at the store herself?”
Francis gave Lang an amused look. “Your son’s spiritual education seems to be somewhat lacking.”
Gurt and Lang exchanged glances before Lang looked back at Francis. “You said the blessing; you explain.”
Francis cleared his throat. “Well, we thank God that your mother has the ability, the money, to buy…”
The phone rang.
Family custom decreed a ringing phone be ignored during dinner. If the call was important, there would be a message. If unimportant, why bother to answer in the first place?
This time, though, Lang wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood. “Excuse me. The federal grand jury was meeting this afternoon, and the indictment of the Reverend Bishop Groom was one of the things they were considering.”
“I thought grand-jury proceedings were secret,” Francis observed.
Lang was headed back to the den and the ringing phone. “They are. That’s why I need to take this. My source isn’t free to call at just any time.”
Lang noticed it the second he put the phone to his ear, a faint hum that had not been on the line when he used the telephone earlier that evening. “Hello?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Dean?” a man’s voice responded. “Is this David Dean?”
The humming seemed to waver like an echo with each word.
“Just a moment,” Lang replied evenly.
Leaving the cordless receiver off its base, he went to the two windows closest to the street. The curtains were already pulled for the night. Reaching up behind the heavy drapes, Lang grasped a handle. He pulled, lowering a metal sheet. He repeated the process at the other window.
When he returned to the phone, the caller had gone. So had the hum.
As he returned to the table, Gurt studied his face. “Who was that, a wrong number?”
Lang shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Then, who…?”
Lang’s expression said he clearly didn’t intend to discuss it in front of Manfred or Francis.
Thirty minutes later, the two men were back in the den. Now, with thudding guitars, the more-recently deceased baritone voice of Johnny Cash was lamenting his confinement in Folsom Prison. Francis was watching as Lang carefully decanted a bottle of twenty-five-year-old vintage Graham’s port.
“What makes a certain year ‘vintage’?” Francis asked.
Lang’s eyes were on the remains of crumbled cork collecting in the silver port filter along with the residue, or “mud,” of crushed fruit with which the distilled wine had been fortified before being stored in oak barrels. “A vintage year is when one vineyard declares it. That’s why the year of this Graham’s, say, might not be declared a vintage by another house, say, Sandeman’s, Cockburne’s or Fonseca.”
“What’s to stop a port manufacturer from declaring every year a vintage? I mean, the price of a vintage is double or triple that of a late-vintage ruby or other port.”
Lang placed the full decanter on the bar. “Nothing except the fact that if a house puts out an inferior year’s product as vintage, it won’t keep its customers long.” He filled a small crystal glass, holding it to the light to admire its ruby color. “You might say the free market keeps the port makers honest.”
Lang handed the glass to Francis, who took a tentative sip. “As always, delicious!”
Lang poured and sampled a glass of his own. “You’re right, it is good but…”
“But what?”
Lang looked longingly at the coffee table where a mahogany humidor sat. “It would be better with a good cubano.”
Francis shook his head slowly as he sat on the sofa. “Don’t even think about going back on your word.”
When Manfred arrived in Atlanta, Gurt and Lang had made promises to each other concerning the child’s health. Not wanting to set a bad example or subject the little boy to potentially harmful secondhand smoke, they agreed they would not smoke in front of him. That proved difficult for Gurt, leading to clandestine Marlboros smoked in the yard, the odor of which was clearly detectable upon her return inside. Lang, a lover of Cuban cigars, which he had ordered specially by an indirect route, only consumed one or two a week anyway. It had been easier for him to smoke less although more difficult to conceal, since he refused to throw away a cigar only half-smoked. The things cost nearly twenty-five bucks apiece. The ultimate resolution had been for both parents to simply quit-if there was anything simple about giving up a lifetime pleasure.
“What word was that?” Gurt had returned from her turn to bathe Manfred and put him to bed.
“Our mutual smoking ban.”
She looked at her husband with mock suspicion. “A year into an agreement and you are already looking for hoop holes?” She shrugged. “It is not easy, being married to a lawyer, always the hoop holes.”
“Loopholes,” Lang corrected.
“Is one hole in an agreement not as good as another?”
For an answer, Lang poured a third glass of port and extended it to her. “At least we didn’t give up port.”
She accepted the offering with a mock curtsy. “For small favors I am thankful.”
Johnny Cash bewailed being named Sue.
Francis smiled. “Always found that song amusing. What I don’t understand, though, is your choice of music.”
“I suppose you would prefer Gregorian chants?”
“Not necessarily. What I meant was, you obviously enjoy history.” Francis pointed to the overburdened bookcases. “I see everything from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall to Will Durant’s Story of Civilization and Churchill’s Second World War. I see works by Dickens, essays by Emerson and a bunch of contemporary novels.”
“And?”
“I don’t get it: someone as obviously well-read as you likes country music?”
Lang nodded. “Yeah, I do. At least some of it. I can understand the words and it actually has a tune I can whistle. Try whistling Beethoven.”
An hour or so later, the port exhausted, Francis stood and stretched. “As always, a magnificent dinner, wonderful port and delightful company.”
Lang also stood. “You are easily amused.”
Francis sighed. “Not as easily as you think. It’s been a long time since you broke bread at the parish house.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Mrs. Finnigan, my housekeeper-cook, bless her heart, is a fine woman and a good Catholic but a horrible cook. Deorum cibus non est. Food for the gods it ain’t.”
“Doesn’t sound like a fair trade-off to me,” Lang said, walking his friend to the front door. “Why not get someone who is a decent cook, then?”
Francis stopped, facing Lang. “She’s been at Immaculate Conception longer than I have. I can’t just fire her like that.”
Lang reached to open the door. “Maybe you’ll be canonized someday for your martyrdom in suffering heartburn as the price of Christian charity.”
Francis stepped around Lang to give Gurt a hug. “In addition to being a heretic, your husband is a wiseass.”
Gurt hugged him back. “Be grateful you do not have to live with him.”
“I include thanks in my daily prayers.”
They watched him pull the Toyota into the street. In following it with his eyes, Lang noticed a sedan parked at the curb to his left. The people who lived there had an ample yard in which to park cars, so the automobile was not a visitor’s nor was it one he recognized as his neighbor’s. For that matter, the humble Ford was not the type transportation preferred by the residents of affluent Ansley Park.
Its sheer ordinariness stuck out like an automotive sore thumb.
Lang took a little more time closing the door than was necessary. He thought he saw a flash of movement. Someone was in the car.
Why?
Lang thought he had a good idea.
It was then he realized he had forgotten to ask Francis about his cryptic remark at lunch the other day concerning the true occupant of Saint Mark’s tomb under the altar in Venice. Oh well, he saw the priest on a regular if purely social basis. He’d get an answer the next time.