She also got a certain amount of pleasure out of Lang's not always successful efforts to translate the Latin that frequently appeared in the paintings.

He understood the interest in collecting. In his various travels, Lang had managed to gather together a small group of objects connected to the classical world he found so fascinating: a Roman coin with Augustus Caesar's image on it, an Etruscan votive cup, the hilt of a Macedonian dagger that might have belonged to one of Alexander's soldiers.

He was locking the front door when the mail truck pulled up to the curb. Lang watched as the postman stuffed the mailbox and drove off.

Sara, Lang's secretary, had come by the past few days to collect the mail, mostly a stream of advertising flyers that seemed to proclaim that life, for the buying public, continued as though nothing had happened. The irony of Janet's existence being reduced to bits on some huckster's mailing list was a bitter one. As her executor, there were a few bills which Lang intended to pay before saying farewell on her behalf to AmEx and Visa.

The mailbox contained a postcard announcing a sale at Neiman's, the midtown neighborhood paper and an envelope with the name "Ansley Galleries" printed on it. Curious, Lang opened it, extracting a computer-printed letter informing "Dear Customer" that the gallery had been unable to reach anyone by phone but the job was complete. Ansley Galleries was a small storefront down around Sixth or Seventh Street, a few minutes from where he was standing. There seemed no point in having Sara make an extra trip.

The teenaged girl behind the counter had spiked purple hair, lipstick to match, a butterfly tattooed on her neck and a ring through her left eyebrow. Looking at her made not having children of his own easier to bear. She glanced at the letter, then at him; Her jaws stopped masticating a wad of gum long enough to ask, "You're…?"

"Langford Reilly, Dr. Holt's brother."

She looked back down at the letter in her hand and then back at him. "Jesus! I read in the paper… I'm sorry. Dr. Holt was a sweet lady. Bummer."

He had had enough condolences for a lifetime, let alone today. Still, it was nice of the kid. "Thanks. I appreciate that. I'm taking care of her estate. That's why I'm picking up…"

He pointed to the paper in her hand.

"Oh! Sorry! I'll get it for you."

He tracked her progress between the shelves behind the counter by the sound of popping gum.

When she returned, she had a package wrapped in brown paper. "Dr. Holt sent this from Paris, had us frame and appraise it for insurance." She tore off a small envelope that had been taped to the paper. "This is a Polaroid of the painting and the appraisal. You'll want to keep them somewhere safe and we'll keep a copy." She put both envelope and package on the counter and consulted a sales slip. "That'll be two sixty-seven fifty-five, including tax."

Lang handed her his plastic and watched her swipe it through a terminal as he stuffed the envelope into his inside coat pocket. What was he going to do with some piece of religious art? Selling it was out of the question; Janet had bought it in the last hours of her life. He would find a place for it-somewhere.

He signed the credit card receipt, wadded it into a pocket and took the package under one arm. Stopping at the doorway, he let his eyes acclimate from the dark of the shop to the bright spring light outside.

Something out there was not quite right, out of place.

The old sensitivity which made him habitually aware of his surroundings had become so much a part of him that he no longer noticed it, like a deer's instinctive listening for the sound of a predator. His mind noted the doorman of his condo standing on the left instead of the right side of the door, a jalopy in an upscale neighborhood where Mercedes and BMWs belonged.

It took a second for him to realize he had stopped and was staring at the street and another to realize why. The man on the other side, the derelict who appeared to be sleeping off the demons of cheap wine in the paper-and glass-littered doorway of one of the neighborhood's empty' buildings. He sat, facing Lang, eyes seemingly closed. The worn camo jacket, tattered jeans and filthy, laceless sneakers were in character. The man could have been one of the city's thousands of wandering homeless. But how many were clean-shaven with hair cut short enough not to hang below the knit cap? Even assuming this one had recently been released from a hygiene-conscious jail, it was unlikely he would be here so close to noon when the church down the street was giving away soup and sandwiches. Also, he had gone to sleep in a hurry. Lang was certain the bum had not been there when he arrived at the gallery, yet he had found a suitable spot and dozed off in two or three minutes. Even the gut-corroding poison purchased with dollars panhandled from guilty yuppies wouldn't knock him out that quickly. Of course, Lang told himself, he could be mistaken. There were plenty of beggars in Midtown and he could have failed to notice this one. But it was not likely.

Raising a hand as though to shade his eyes, Lang left a space between his fingers, keeping the sleeper in view as he walked to where the Porsche was parked. The knit cap slowly turned. Lang, too, was being watched.

In the car, he circled the block. The man was gone. Lang reminded himself that paranoia doesn't necessarily mean someone really isn't after you.

Atlanta

That afternoon

Lang knew Sara, his secretary, would have alerted him to any emergency in his practice. It was as much as to occupy his mind as to see things for himself that he went to his office, a suite high in one of downtown Atlanta's taller buildings.

She had been full of teary condolences at that morning's funeral, and Lang expected Sara to begin weeping again. She had, after all, known Janet and Jeff well. To his surprise, she greeted him with, "Kennel called. Janet left this number as an emergency contact. The dog, Grumps, been there over two weeks. Want me to pick it up? What kind of a name is 'Grumps' anyway? What ever happened to Spot or Fido?"

"Name Jeff picked out, I guess." Lang had no idea what he was going to do with one large, ugly dog. But Grumps had been Jeff's friend and he sure as hell wasn't going to see the animal sent to the pound. Actually, when he thought about it, having the mutt around might be like having a little part of his family back. "No thanks. I'll pick him up on the way home."

He sat down behind a desk covered with files bearing Post-Its.

Once he had retired from his previous occupation, he and Dawn had agreed the law was an appealing second career. His small pension plus her salary saw him through school. The idea of working for someone else was unappealing. Upon graduation, he set out his own shingle and began working the phones with old acquaintances for clients.

Word spread. His practice became profitable, enabling Dawn to quit her job and open the boutique of which she had always dreamed. No longer subject to the unpredictability of his former work, he was home almost every night. And when he wasn't, his wife knew where he was and when to anticipate his return.

They pretty much had it all, as the Jimmy Buffet song says: big house, money to do what they wanted and a love for each other that time seemed to fuel like pouring gasoline on a fire. Even after five years, it hadn't been unusual for Dawn to meet him at the door in something skimpy or nothing at all – and they would make love in the living room, too impatient to wait to get to the bed.

It had been embarrassing the evening Lang brought a client home unannounced.

The only real cloud on their horizon was Dawn's inability to get pregnant. After endless fertility tests, they arranged for an adoption that had been only months away when Dawn began to lose both appetite and weight. The female parts that had refused to reproduce had become malignant. In less than a year, her full breasts had become empty sacks and her ribs looked as though they would break through the pale skin with the next labored breath. This was the first time Lang realized the same universe that could give him a loving, helpful wife could dispassionately watch her degenerate from a healthy woman into a hairless skeleton in a hospital bed where her breath stank of death and her only pleasure was the drugs that temporarily took away the pain.