“Still a smart ass,” Giovanni chuckled.

“Still a dark and twisted demon of the night,” Caspar retorted as he hung the pressed shirts on the racks.

He grinned.  “Don’t tell the priest.”

Caspar looked over in surprise.  “Is Carwyn coming to town?”

Giovanni nodded and bent to tie his charcoal grey shoes.  “December, most likely.  He said he’ll make a proper visit and stay for a few months.”

“Excellent,” Caspar replied.  “I’ll make sure his rooms are ready for him.”

“I think he’s bringing one of his beasts, as well.”

The cat curled around Caspar’s legs and chirped until he reached down to stroke its thick grey fur.

“Sorry, Doyle.  I guess you’ll have to sleep inside for a bit while the wolfhound is in town.”

Doyle made his displeasure known by lifting his tail and leaping back onto the bed.

Giovanni glanced at the cat as it tiptoed across his pillows.  “Make sure the gardeners check the fences, as well.  I know his dogs are well-trained, but I’d hate to have one wander off like last year.  Also, prepare them for the massacre that will no doubt ensue in the flower beds.”

“Of course.”  Caspar paused, quietly observing his friend’s evening preparations and looking at his watch to check the time.  “It will be pleasant to see him for a longer visit this time.  More like the old days.”

“Yes, it will.”  He trailed off, his mind already darting to his agenda for the evening.

Caspar noted his friend straightening the collar of his white shirt.  “You shouldn’t wear white, you know.  It washes you out, and you’re already pale as a corpse.”

Giovanni frowned and turned to him.  “Funny.  You’ve been watching the English women again, the ones with the clothing show, haven’t you?”  He shook his head in mock sorrow tsk’ing his friend as he looked in the mirror, trying to tame his hair.

Caspar sighed.  “I can’t help it.  Their sardonic British humor and impeccable fashion sense lures me in every time.  I do love an ironic woman.”

Giovanni snorted and turned, grabbing his black coat from the chair by the dressing table and checking it for cat hair.  “When was the last time you had a date with a woman who wasn’t on the television?”

“Six months.  When was the last time you did?”

“Last week.”  Giovanni shrugged on his jacket, satisfied it was free of grey fur.

Caspar scowled.  “That doesn’t count and you know it.”

Giovanni walked toward the door, chuckling.  “That didn’t seem to be her opinion, or at least, she wasn’t complaining.”

Caspar listened to his steps recede down the hallway and turned to Doyle.  He looked into the cat’s thoughtful copper-colored eyes.  “It doesn’t count if they can’t remember, Doyle.”

Doyle looked at Caspar critically, curled into a ball, and began purring on Giovanni’s pillow.

“Last week?” Caspar muttered as he left the room, turning out the lights behind him.  “More like thirty years.”

Giovanni walked down the stairs, pausing to grab his car keys from a drawer in the kitchen before he walked into the dim light of the evening.  Unwilling to waste the dark, he sped over surface streets, hoping to reach his destination before closing.

When he pulled the Mustang into the parking spot near the University of St. Thomas, he looked at the clock on the dashboard of his car.  He only had fifteen minutes left before the chapel closed, so he strode across the green lawn and headed toward the octagonal brick building which housed Mark Rothko’s black canvases.

As he entered the deserted chapel he had not been able to visit in months, he nodded at the docent, bypassed the various books of worship near the door, and took a seat on one of the plain wooden benches.  He quieted his mind and allowed his senses to reach outward as he stared at the seemingly static paintings that lined the white walls.

His skin prickled in awareness of the lone human by the door.  He allowed himself to concentrate on the solid beat of the man’s heart as his ears filtered the myriad noises flowing in and around the small building.

Giovanni’s eyes rested on the black canvas in front of him.  The longer he stared, the more the texture and subtle swirls of paint leapt out from its depths.  No longer merely black, the paintings whirled and grew, taking on dimension never noticed by the casual observer.

He sat completely still and let his soul rest in the simplicity of the quiet room.  Too soon, he heard the guard’s heartbeat approaching.  He stood and turned, not willing to have his peace interrupted by the words of the docent asking him to leave.

As he exited the chapel, he saw the cover of the Holy Bible sitting on the shelf by the door.  He was reminded of his phone call that afternoon with one of his oldest friends.

“I’m coming for a visit,” the priest had informed him.  “A proper one.”

“Out of whiskey or deer?”

“Neither, Sparky.  You’re getting in one of your moods again, I can tell.”  Carwyn’s Welsh accent tripped across the phone line.

“Oh, you can tell from across an ocean?  You must be old,” Giovanni quipped in the library as he spoke on the old rotary phone.  “I don’t need last rites yet, Father.”