Instead, Lang had thanked Nellie for what she had perceived as generosity, even if it would have been at her girls' expense. ''I'll just look and not touch," he had said.
The phrase had become a joke in more languages than Lang cared to count, as scantily-clad women repeated it in accented English every time he came to pick up a "date" for the Agency's most recent acquisition.
Nellie still thought it was funny. Her voice squealed with an enthusiasm little diminished by the age of the electronics. "Lang! You have come back to your Nellie!"There was a buzz and the bolt clicked back. Lang swung the door open as Nellie's voice commanded, "You come up here right this minute!"
He could only hope Nellie and her girls were too busy to pay attention to the news on the telly, or at least not enough to have seen him on it. As he climbed the wooden stairs, his fingers closed around the Beretta still in his belt.
What if Pegasus had learned about Jacob through some means other than his records? Would they also know about Nellie? Lang glanced back down the stairs at the only escape route. Once he stepped into Nellie's parlor, even that would be closed.
If They were waiting for him…
2
London, South Dock
By the time Jacob and Gurt exited the elevator of his apartment building, blue lights were swirling through the night. Without exchanging a word, they shoved through the growing circle of people. Four uniformed constables, their faces towards the crowd, kept the inquisitive at a distance from where two men in suits were kneeling beside two bodies on-the sidewalk. A third was writing in a notebook as an elderly woman spoke.
Gurt strained to hear. "… One man ran away… too dark… looked out the window soon's I rang up the police."
Gurt turned her attention to the two forms sprawled on the pavement. The closest to her was far too bulky to be Lang. The other was facedown. Damning the morbidly curious who were blocking her view, she pushed to one side.
"Look 'ere…" a man growled over his shoulder. He turned, took in her size and expression, and got out of her way without regard to how many of his fellow spectators had to be jostled.
The taste of blood surprised Gurt. She had no idea how hard she had been biting her lip. She had had no chance to see the bodies before that policeman had accosted her, sending her back to Jacob's apartment before he could see how upset she was. She had been in torment until she could get back outside, see for herself. Damn Lang Reilly! Leaving her without so much as a good-bye when he obviously needed help. Serve him right if that were him there. She lifted her eyes for an instant. No, she didn't really mean that. Please don't let that body be his.
"Not him," Jacob whispered at her elbow, startling her. She hadn't realized he had followed in the wake she had left in the crowdlike a passing ship."Neither one of 'em."
"How can you be sure?" she asked quietly.
"Those are the pair that came to my flat looking for him, the ones you doubt were the police. Looks like they caught up with him, after all."
Gurt had not been aware she had been holding her breath. "Gott sei danke!" she muttered in an uncharacteristic lapse into German.
She was equally thankful she was not viewing the mortal remains of Langford Reilly and shocked at the thought he could have killed anybody. Lang had taken the Agency's training in self-defense, even learned to kill, but he definitely was not the lethal type. He was a wiseass, not an assassin.
"We need to find him," she said, turning away from the corpses. "Any ideas?"
Jacob was patting his pockets, no doubt searching for the pipe he had left in his apartment. "No more than I had a few minutes ago. I'm afraid."
Gurt closed her eyes, a gesture several bystanders mistook for a horrified reaction to American like violence on the streets. Shit. She had left her cigarettes in her purse in Jacob's flat. If ever she could have used a Marlboro…
3
London, Piccadilly
The door at the top of Nellie's stairs opened into what could have been the lobby of a tourist-class hoteclass="underline" unmatched chairs scattered in view of a cheap television set, a certain worn quality to the few end tables, magazines carelessly tossed about. The girls were the ones who relaxed here. Customers rarely saw the room.
Had the place been done in antiques, the furniture still wouldn't have gotten Lang's first attention. Young women, most in their teens or early twenties, lounged. Every skin color the world had to offer was on display with a minimum of cover. Most wore short pajamas or bra and panties. A few were done up in more exotic garb such as embroidered kimonos or shifts in vibrant African colors. Nellie's inventory reflected the ethnic diversity London embraced.
None of them gave Lang more than a bored glance.
Nothing like being ignored by a roomful of partially dressed women to shrink the old ego.
Nellie emerged from a hallway opposite from him, squinting at Herr Schneller's moustache and jowls. They inspected each other as warily as a couple of dogs meeting on the street. Lang was surprised she looked pretty much the same as he remembered. Not a thread of silver streaked the blue-black hair that seemed to sparkle with green and amber like a crow's wing in the sun. Her face was smooth, devoid of the little wrinkles years try to sneak by. Her chin was sharp, unblunted by the wattles of age. Her only concession to the passage of time was a dress that reached her knees, instead of the microskirts Lang remembered. Even so, her calves were slender, well-turned and without the mapping of varicose veins.
Her important parts had defied gravity as well as old age.
Lang took her gently in his arms and planted a wet one on her cheek. "You're still a young girl, Nellie."
She displayed teeth that must have put at least one orthodontist's kids through university. "You compliment both me and my unbelievably expensive plastic surgeon."
There was still a trace of the Balkans in her voice. She cocked her head, leaned back and regarded him like a specimen in a jar. "But you… you don't look the same."
"Not all of us age as well as you."
Her rich, thick hair had always been her best feature or at least of those Lang could see. She shook her head, the silky strands caressing her shoulders. "That's not what I mean, luv."
Lang touched the moustache and padded cheeks. "Let's just say you're the only person in London I want to recognize me."
A smile twitched the corners of a sensuous mouth. "I thought you had left your position with…"
He let her go and managed to drag his eyes off her long enough to make sure there wasn't anybody there who didn't belong. A little late. If Pegasus had been waiting for him, he'd be dead. He'd been far too interested in the scenery to notice potential danger. Death by carnal desire.
Lang stepped back and shut the door. "I did. It's the cops I'm dodging."
She treated him to those teeth again. "The police, is it, luv? You've come to the right place."
"That's what I hoped you'd say."
A second look around the room and he didn't see any familiar faces, faces from the past. Attrition was fierce in Nellie's line of work.
"I'd like to spend the night," Lang said. "Make a telephone call if I could."
She raised manicured eyebrows. "Make a call and spend the night, would you?" She swept a hand in an arc. "Are my girls so ugly you need to call in talent?"