The Julian Secret (Lang Reilly Thrillers) by Gregg Loomis Page A

asked.
    “I never see before in twenty years,” the inspector answered. “To kill for a book . . . ? It is not thinkable. I tell you, Señor, Mr. Reilly, we will not quit until we find man who do it.”
    The inspector stood, indicating the interview was over. He had demonstrated a talent for packing a maximum number of words into a minimum of information.
    Lang remained seated, indicating he was not quite through. “Could we see the papers you took from the house?”
    “Ho-kay.” The policeman handed a cardboard box across the desk. “If they tell you anything, you call?”
    “Sure.”
    “Ah, I forget.” The inspector handed Lang an envelope. “CD. Only one has anything on it, pictures, old pictures, maybe sixty years old.”
    As Lang and Gurt reached the door, Mendezo said, “One more thing, Mr. Reilly.”
    Lang turned.”Yes?”
    “Any assistance you give your friend’s daughter is kindness. Interfering with professional police investigation is something else. You will please leave that job to us.”
    Lang nodded. “Of course, Inspector. Thank you for your time.”
    “Amateurs,” he muttered to Gurt as they stepped outside the building, “constructed the ark. It was the professionals who built the
Titanic
.”
    Once back in the old section of town, Gurt led Lang to one of the tapas bars that seemed to occupy every corner. Since the average Spaniard ate dinner after 10:30, the small appetizers at least abated the hunger pangs. From what Lang could see, a couple or a group would enter one of the places, or sit outside if seats were available, have a glass of beer or the sweet, spicy sangria along with two or three tapas, and move along to an identical establishment a few blocks away where they greeted other people.
    In the third tapas bar, he noted a pair of men who had been in the other two.
    He could feel the old familiar tingling at the back of his neck, the sensation he had whenever danger was close.
    He leaned across the small table, using the excuse of refilling Gurt’s glass of sangria to get close enough to speak in a whisper. “Did you notice those two guys who came in right behind us?”
    He knew she was too well trained to turn around. “You mean the two that have been in each place we have?”
    He smiled as though acknowledging a clever remark,no more than conversation between a man and a woman to any observer. “When did you first pick them up?”
    She was rummaging around in the huge purse she carried, one large enough to contain a complete change of clothes for several days. “When we got out of the cab, they from a car got. Everywhere they looked but at us.”
    She had recognized what they were doing a good thirty minutes before he had. But then, she was still in the spook business. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    She retrieved a pack of cigarettes and began further exploration for matches. “You did not notice them until now? You are losing your corner.”
    “Edge,” he corrected tartly. “I’m a lawyer now, not an operative.”
    She found a book of matches and struck one. “You do not have to be sharp to be a lawyer?”
    He filled his own glass, using his hand across the spout of the pitcher to keep the assorted fruit from splattering onto the table. This conversation was going nowhere. “And why, do you suppose, are we being followed?”
    She shrugged. “We do not know certainly that we are. There are at least three other couples in this place that were in the first one we went to.”
    Lang was not about to admit this was a revelation.
    Instead, he drained his glass. “We’ll soon find out. You know how. Go straight back to the hotel.”
    Gurt let smoke trickle from her lips. No matter how much Lang wanted her to quit, he found this sexy. “Why do not
you
go back to the hotel? It is you, not I, who is years removed from recurrent Agency training. I resent being treated as though I cannot take care of myself.”
    “Tell it to Dr. Phil.
You
will go back to the hotel.”
    If