There was a slight pause, confirming Lang's guess the call was going through multiple relays. "I coulda told her, Lang, but then I'd hafta kill her. How's it goin' with you?"
"I need a little help."
Again the pause before Miles's drawl. "Damn! An' here I was thinkin' you'd called 'cause you need my wise counsel an' sage advice."
Lang smiled. Miles Berkley was still the same bullshit artist. "Miles, about two months ago a wealthy English philanthropist, name of Eon Weatherston-Wilby, was kidnapped from the British Museum and subsequently murdered."
"I think I remember. Why do all those rich Brits have two las' names, anyway?"
"Same reason Southerners like us have two last names instead of a first and last. Langford and Miles instead of Joe and Frank."
"Damn," Miles said, "an' I'd always thought it was to cover somebody's ass when they weren't sure who the father was."
Lang chuckled. "Like I said, Miles, I need your help."
This time the pause was longer than usual.
"Lang, you know I'll do what I can, but my employer takes a real dim view of sharing information with unauthorized persons."
Or with the rest of the United States government for that matter. "Let me tell you what I need. I believe Eon was killed because of certain ancient documents he had acquired and was donating to the museum, perhaps because he knew what was in those documents. I'd like to know where he got them."
Another long pause. "A little out of my bailiwick, Lang."
"Oh, come on, Miles! You guys track large transfers of money like a hen with one chick. I recall, it was you that warned of nine-eleven because you'd noticed a transfer of cash from al Qaeda accounts."
"Shucks, weren't nuthin'."
"False modesty doesn't become you, Miles. If the powers that be had listened to you…"
"OK, OK, flattery appreciated."
Manfred walked into the room and froze, awestruck by the view provided by the floor-to-ceiling glass. Lang pointed to a helicopter making a pickup from the roof of a nearby building.
"So, Miles can you help?"
"Officially, no. But I'd like to renew the friendship, Lang. Haven't laid eyes on you in years. You and Gurt still…"
Gurt's looks were famous throughout the agency, as was the fact that Lang was the only one of the select members of that group who had ever gotten further than a refusal to do more than have lunch. His post-agency relationship with her was, he was certain, the subject of company gossip.
"We're getting along fine, Miles." He watched Manfred staring outside. "Better than you could believe. Thanks for asking. Now, about Eon Weatherston-Wilby…"
"Like I said, I'd like to keep up the relationship with an old friend. You got a cell phone number?"
Less than half an hour later, Gurt was driving the rented SUV back to the residence hotel that would serve as home for the next few days. Lang planned to move frequently until the danger was eliminated.
Gurt was thinking the same thing. "We will live in hotels for how long?"
The prospect of one set of interchangeable living quarters after another was bleak at best. It would be particularly disturbing to watch his newfound son try to understand why he was suddenly an urban gypsy. Not to mention the bribes he would pay desk clerks to take Grumps. "Until we can figure out what to do, learn enough to go after whoever is trying to kill us."
"Kill you," she corrected. "Manfred and I were not in the country even when the bomb did your condo."
"Whoever shot up the cabin wasn't making distinctions."
Gurt nodded. "Collateral damage. They didn't care."
Lang pointed to a strip center on the right side of the road. "Pull in there."
Gurt did as she was told, parked in a space perpendicular to the curb and looked up at a sign advertising the best ribs in town. "You have hunger?"
He indicated another neon sign in a window that announced, pawn! tvs! electronics! guns! "No, I have a need to be armed."
On the door, a sign informed the entrant that (a) the place was under video surveillance, (b) all firearms must be in cases or holsters and (c) Visa and Mastercard were equally welcomed.
A bell tinkled as Lang entered. A glass case displayed cheap watches and jewelry. Along one wall hung every imaginable form and shape of guitar, trumpet, trombone and several musical instruments Lang didn't recognize. Opposite was a rack of rifles and shotguns.
A man emerged from the shadows at the back of the shop. "Good mornin'! What can I-" He stopped, staring. "Langford Reilly! How have you been, Counselor?"
Lang took a very hairy hand in his own. "Pretty good, Monk. I take it you're keepin' your nose clean?"
"You bet. Not so much as a parking ticket since you got me off." He noticed Lang's difficulty in moving. "What happened to your leg?"
"That's why I've come to take you up on your offer of a favor if I needed one."
William "Monk" Vester, one of Lang's earlier clients.
Also one of the city's more entrepreneurial fences, Monk had been charged with specifying items to be stolen by a cadre of burglars. The case had been airtight with the housebreakers lining up to roll over on their compatriot in exchange for lighter sentences. Lang's only hope had been the incompetence of the Fulton County prosecutor's office. His reliance had been rewarded: somehow the exhibit numbers had become so mixed up it was impossible to ascertain with certainty which object had come from which victim or, for that matter, if the items had been stolen at all.
In Atlanta, Fulton County, it was not only better that a hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be convicted, it was a near certainty. The district attorney could have screwed up the trespassing prosecution of Attila the Hun.
"Owe you one, sure." Monk's head was bobbing as though on a spring.
Lang suspected the sobriquet came from his former client's resemblance to something simian. The hunched back made overly lengthy arms seem longer still, perhaps long enough to drag on the floor. The hairline seemed to end just above eyes that never stayed one place very long, shifting as though in perpetual search. Thick black hair covered every visible part of his body: his arms, his hands, most of his face.
"So, I'm here to call it due," Lang said.
Again the bobblehead doll effect. "Yeah, yeah, anytime."
"I need a gun and I need it fairly quickly."
The smile vanished into the heavy black beard. The man was clearly torn between doing a service for a friend and the possible hazards. "I dunno. I don't make you wait like the law says, I'm in trouble again, lose license."
Lang stepped over to a glass counter much smaller than that containing the jewelry. "Let's see what you got." He pointed. "Let me see that Browning HP 35 nine millimeter."
"Good gun," Monk murmured as he loped to the other side and turned a key. "Thirteen shots…"
"I know," Lang said impatiently, extending his hand.
The feel of the weapon brought back memories. This was the model he had first been issued by the agency before the lighter SIG Sauer with its larger clip had replaced it. Lang pulled back the slide, held the gun up to the ceiling lights and peeked down the muzzle. The grooving was barely worn, the automatic clean, as though its former owner was aware that a well-maintained weapon was a reliable weapon.
He slid the action closed with a distinctive click. "How much?"
Monk pursed his lips and reached over his shoulder to scratch his back, an ape's gesture if Lang had ever seen one.
"Three fifty. For you, an even three."
Lang would have bet Monk had loaned no more than a hundred and a half but he had neither the time nor inclination to haggle. "Done. But I need it now."
Monk produced a sheaf of forms. "ATF requires a background check. Meybbe I can finish before you leave, meybbe three days."
Lang shook his head. "I may not even be in the country in three days."
"No problem. Jus' fill in the forms an' give me a check with a blank date. You don' pass the background check, my ass is so busted."