Free Collar Robber by Hillary Bell Locke

Szulz and I ran into each other at the Monongahela Athletic Club yesterday morning. He mentioned that we had the same lawyer, and just like that I conformed to an ethnic stereotype. Ran off at the mouth. Told him more than I should have about our canon law matter.”
    â€œWell, consider yourself scolded. Willy gets about seven good ideas a day. Generally at least one of them is dangerous. The trick is figuring out which one it is. I’ll call him and say something about the virtues of discretion.”
    â€œI’m sure you’ll come across as your usual persuasive self. I’ll touch base tomorrow if I get a chance.”
    So, exit Sean and, a few minutes later, exit Abbey. Time to call Willy. It didn’t strike me as urgent or anything, but no sense putting it off, either.
    â€œHey, Willy here,” his recorded voice said. “I’ll be away from the office for a few days, with limited access to voice-mail and email. Really wanna talk to you, though, so leave a number and I’ll get back to you fast as I can.”
    Limited access to voice-mail and email . Hmm. I got a little tingle from that one. Not a real belly-drop, just a hint of a shiver. Willy’s a big boy, but he gets a kick out of skating close to the line. He was now mixed up in two legal messes intersecting at C. Talbot Rand—and I wasn’t sure where the line was on either of them.

Chapter Fourteen
    Jay Davidovich
    Seven o’clock sharp in Vienna and I got out of bed. Hungry. Simple as that. Nine o’clock would find me even hungrier and with less time, so I figured I might as well bite the bullet. Cold water splash on the face, comb through my hair, good to go. On my way out of the room I dug up a web page that Rachel had printed for me about Frank’s American Bar & Restaurant in Vienna. What I was hungry for wouldn’t pass for schnitzel with noodles.
    I told a clerk at the front desk where I’d be in case Herr Nesselrode came calling before I returned. I didn’t see any way I’d be late getting back, but just in case. He nodded and smiled. After I gave him five euros of Transoxana’s money, he nodded again and smiled again and fetched a Valkyrie type who could speak English. Another five euros, a decisive nod from Her Aryan Highness, and I figured there’d be floggings all ’round if the staff managed to miss Nesselrode.
    Here’s my key travelogue take-away from downtown Vienna at night: bikes. Coming out of the hotel to look for a taxi, I saw gently weaving white lights coming toward me like midget cyclopses, moving too slowly and rhythmically for car headlights. And I saw small, flickering red and green lights that made me think of drunken fairies describing clumsy up-and-down ovals as they moved away from me. I had to stare at the scene like a moron for four or five seconds before I got it: bikes. The white lights were headlamps and the colored ones were leg-lights, wrapped around riders’ calves. Full dark for going on two hours now, and still way more bicycles than cars filling the street.
    The taxi took close to half-an-hour to get me to Frank’s American et cetera. Longer than I’d expected. I guess it takes time to dodge all those bikes. If I managed to get lost wandering around this strange city, getting back to the hotel by ten could turn into an adventure. So I over-tipped the cabbie and asked him to pop back here at a quarter of nine to pick me up. Wasn’t at all sure we’d communicated until he said, “Twenty-forty-five, Mac, got it,” and grinned.
    A little snag getting seated. Frank’s apparently didn’t specialize in parties of one. Finally got it done. Ordered my New York strip medium rare, my onion rings, my Miller Genuine Draft and, while I was dining, picked up snatches of tourist conversation. Mostly in American English, with an occasional Brit accent thrown in. A lot of sports chat, because the NCAA basketball tournament