Hot Ice

his trade.”
    “Ah, a traditionalist.”
    “Yeah, well, in his way, he was. I caught on quick. I had a hell of a lot more fun tripping a lock than I did conjugating verbs, but Jack had this thing about education. He wouldn’t take me on a real job until I had my high-school diploma. And a little math and science come in handy when you’re dealing with security systems.”
    With his talent, she imagined Doug could’ve been one of the top engineers in the business. She let it pass. “Very sensible.”
    “We went on the road. Did pretty well for ourselves for about five years. Small, clean jobs. Hotels mostly. One memorable night we picked up ten thousand at the Waldorf.” He smiled, reminiscently. “We went to Vegas and dropped most of it, but it was a hell of a time.”
    “Easy come, easy go?”
    “If you can’t have fun with it, there’s no use taking it.”
    She had to smile at that. Her father was fond of saying if you couldn’t have fun with it, there was no use making it. She supposed he’d appreciate Doug’s slight variation on the theme.
    “Jack had this idea about hitting this jewelry store. Would’ve set us up for years. We only had a few details to work out.”
    “What happened?”
    “Jack fell off the wagon. He tried to pull the job on his own, what you might call an ego thing. I was getting better, and he was slipping a bit. I guess it was hard to take. Anyway, he got sloppy. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t broken the rules and taken a gun with him.” Doug swung his arm back on the seat and shook his head. “That little flourish cost him ten good years.”
    “So Uncle Jack went up the river. And you?”
    “Up the river,” he murmured, amused. “I hit the streets. I was twenty-three and a hell of a lot greener than I thought I was. But I learned fast enough.”
    He’d given up a Princeton scholarship to climb in second-story windows. The education might have bought him some of the luxury he seemed to crave. And yet… And yet, Whitney couldn’t see him choosing the well-trod road.
    “What about your parents?”
    “They tell the neighbors I work for General Motors. My mother keeps hoping I’ll get married and settle down. Maybe become a locksmith. By the way,” he added as one thought led to another, “who’s Tad Carlyse IV?”
    “Tad?” Whitney noticed that the sky in the east was beginning to lighten. She might’ve closed her eyes and slept if her eyelids hadn’t felt filled with grit. “We were sort of engaged for a time.”
    He immediately and completely detested Tad Carlyse IV. “Sort of engaged?”
    “Well, let’s say Tad and my father considered us engaged. I considered it a matter for debate. They were both rather annoyed when I opted out.”
    “Tad.” Doug visualized a blond with a weak jaw in a blue blazer, white deck shoes, and no socks. “What does he do?”
    “Do?” Whitney fluttered her lashes. “Why I suppose you’d say Tad delegates. He’s the heir to Carlyse and Fitz, they manufacture everything from aspirin to rocket fuel.”
    “Yeah, I’ve heard of them.” More megamillions, he thought and hit the next three ruts rather violently. The kind of people who stepped on an ordinary man without ever noticing the bump. “So why aren’t you Mrs. Tad Carlyse IV?”
    “Probably for the same reason you didn’t become a plumber. It didn’t seem like a great deal of fun.” She crossed her feet at the ankles. “You might want to back up, Douglas. I believe you missed that last pothole.”
    It was full morning when they stood on the rise of a mountain overlooking Diégo-Suarez. From that distance, the water in the bay was achingly blue. But the pirates who’d once roamed there wouldn’t have recognized it. The ships that dotted the water were gray and sturdy. There were no sleek sails billowing, no wooden hulls rolling.
    The bay that had once been a pirate’s dream and an immigrant’s hope was now a major French naval base. The town that had once been the pride of buccaneers was a tidy modern city of some fifty thousand Malagasy, French, Indian, Oriental, British, and American. Where there had once been thatched huts stood steel and concrete buildings.
    “Well, here we are.” Whitney linked her arm with his. “Why don’t we go down, book into a hotel, and have a hot bath?”
    “We’re here,” he murmured. He thought he could feel the papers growing warm in his pocket. “First we find it.”
    “Doug.” Whitney turned