Gregg Loomis - The Pegasus Secret

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.

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 azaleas. 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?"

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."