Trojan Gold - Elizabeth Peters [17]
“All right, Dieter,” I said. “Come on out and fight like a man.”
He straightened up and brushed his thick brown hair back from his flushed, grinning face. “Caught you, didn’t I? Herr Gott, what a scream! You could play Isolde—”
“Caught me is right.” I displayed my finger. Dieter’s wide mouth drooped; he caught my hand and pressed it to his lips.
“I will kiss it and make it well. Ach, Vicky, I am so sorry; the spring must have broken—”
“Oh, yeah?” I retrieved my hand and retreated to my desk. In the act of sitting, I had second thoughts and sprang up as if I had been stung. Dieter’s mouth still sagged in clownish chagrin, but his brown eyes sparkled with amusement as he watched me. “No, no,” he said soothingly. “There is nothing on the chair; I have given up the whoopee cushion. It was too crude.”
I lowered myself cautiously into the chair. Nothing burped, whooped, or grabbed my bottom, so I relaxed. Dieter picked up the little plastic snake and shoved it under my nose. “See, there is no needle or pin to sting. As I thought, the spring was too tight; the wire broke and scratched you. Let me kiss it again—”
“Never mind. I’ll live.” Studying his arrangements behind the screen—a chair, a half-drunk cup of coffee—I added, “You made yourself comfy, I see.”
“But I could not smoke.” Dieter lit one of his awful Gauloises and puffed out a cloud of blue smoke. “I thought you would smell it and be suspicious. Can I get you some coffee?”
“No, thanks, it might be loaded with saltpeter or laxatives. What are you doing here?”
He pulled up a chair and provided himself with an ashtray by dumping out the paperclips in a small ceramic bowl. He was dressed pour le sport, as he was fond of saying, in well-cut boots and ski pants and a cable-knit sweater in a heavenly heather blend that set off his rosy cheeks and bright brown hair. The antique silver ring on his right hand glowed in the lamplight as he knocked ashes off his cigarette.
“I am in Munich to consult with Frick at the Glyptothek,” he explained seriously.
“No, you’re not.”
“Of course I am not.” Dieter grinned. “I could not get the museum to pay my travel expenses unless I consulted with Frick. I am on holiday, in fact; I hoped I could persuade you to join me for a few days of skiing.”
“No, thanks. When I go on holiday I want to relax, not be on guard for snakes in the bed and buckets of water on the top of the door.”
“I don’t play jokes on the ladies who share my bed,” Dieter said, reaching for my hand.
“That’s not what I hear. Elise—”
“Oh, Elise.” Dieter’s fingers wriggled under the cuff of my sweater and squirmed up my arm. “One cannot resist teasing Elise; she is so funny when she is angry. You are different.”
“How?”
“You are much bigger than Elise,” Dieter explained. “You might strike me.”
“Good point.” Dieter’s arm was now entirely inside the sleeve of my sweater, and his eyes were crossed in intense concentration as he tried to stretch his fingers a strategic inch farther. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” I inquired with genuine curiosity.
Dieter put his cigarette in the ashtray. “I am thinking perhaps it would be better to start from the other direction—”
I pushed him away and pulled my sleeve down. “You are weird, Dieter. If I ever did decide to play games with you, it wouldn’t be in my office.”
“In a mountain chalet, then, with the snow falling and a fire on the hearth and a large furry bearskin in front of the fire—”
“I’m afraid not. I can’t get away right now.”
“Next week, then?”
“Sorry, I’m busy.”
“You are always busy.” Dieter lit another cigarette. “Why is it you always say no to me?”
I wasn’t sure myself. Dieter’s round face and dimples made him look like a kid, but he was well past the age of consent and not unattractive. Stocky and compactly built, he was an inch or two shorter than I, a consideration that didn’t seem to concern him any more than it did me. He was good company, when he wasn’t pulling chairs out from under people, and very good at his job. In a few years, when Dr. Fessl retired, he would probably