The Coptic Secret by Gregg Loomis

they never forget four-letter words.
    He couldn't bring himself to rebuke the boy. Instead, he would have smiled had he not been looking at the twisted wire that had been his bedsprings. Squatting sent an electriclike shock of pain from ankle to hip but he wanted to sift through the ash and debris. Sure enough, the SIG Sauer was there, its plastic grip melted into some form of modern art. The heat had set off the bullets in the clip, destroying the firing chamber.
    He dropped it, his eye caught by another shine of metal. The small snapshot of Dawn in its silver frame. Miraculously, the glass hadn't even cracked. He blew the dust away and slipped it into his pocket.
    "Who's that?" Manfred asked.
    Lang sighed again. "Someone I knew a long, long time ago."
    "Before you knew Mommy?"
    Lang started to simply lie and stopped. He was not about to begin his relationship with his son with untruths. "No, I knew Mommy before I knew her. But there was a time ..."
    How do you explain the complexity of man/woman relationships to a three-year-old?
    You don't.
    "Let's just say I knew her before I loved Mommy."
    That seemed to satisfy him.
    He put an arm around Lang's shoulders and squeezed. "I love you, Daddy."
    "And I you," Lang said, gritting his teeth against the pain of standing up. "There isn't anything else here worth saving."
    A knock at the door.
    Lang gave Manfred a gentle shove. "Go open it, will you? It should be men with the oven. Daddy isn't moving so swiftly these days."
    Painfully, Lang made his way from the bedroom. From its door he could see two burly men with a wheeled pallet. Whatever was under the shipping blanket was a lot larger than a wall oven.
    Lang stopped just inside his front door, watching the blankets come off. Underneath was a huge stove. Six gas burners, grill, two ovens. The thing was larger than his entire kitchen.
    "Where you want it?" one of the men asked.
    "The enlisted men's mess at Fort Benning, maybe?" Lang responded. "That isn't what I ordered."
    The other man looked at a slip of paper before showing it to Lang. "This is what the order form shows."
    Lang groaned inwardly.
    Home Depot had been founded right here in Atlanta and had grown into the largest home supply company in the world. Its two founders had retired, one bestowing on the city the world's biggest aquarium. The other had purchased the suppurating sore of sports, the Atlanta football team. Only fantasy and hubris could have made him think he could lift the team to a level of mediocrity for which it had vainly struggled for forty years.
    Rumor had it that since the founders' departure, the company's service had sunk to the same performance level as the football team.
    "I don't care what the paper shows," Lang said. "You can see this stove won't fit into that kitchen."
    The man shrugged. "You can take that up with the appliance department. All we do is deliver."
    "Well, you can't leave it here."
    "Yeah, we can. Fact, we can't take it back without orders from them, the appliance department."
    Lang eased the door shut, leaving just a crack. "You're not bringing that thing in here ."
    With the disinterest Lang thought exclusive to the US Postal Service, the men simply collected the blankets, took the pallet and left the huge stove in the hallway.
    Lang almost swore until he remembered the small boy at his side. Instead, he took out his BlackBerry and punched in a number.
    "Sara? I need you to call Home Depot, see if you can get someone on the phone with at least a room-temperature IQ...?
    Outside, a taxi was waiting to take him to meet Gurt and the SUV he had rented until he regained his agility. He hated the lumbering gas guzzler but a more nimble vehicle provided little room to maneuver with in a cast or to store crutches. Lang was unable to drive his manual shift Porsche still garaged here at Park Place. His frustration at having to rely on others tended to make him ill-tempered except where Manfred was concerned. He was impatient for the time