Hot Ice

and cities where he wouldn’t sleep at all. But Paris. His luck had always held in Paris.
    He made it a point to arrange a trip twice a year, for no other reason than the food. As far as Doug was concerned no one cooked better than the French, or those educated in France. Because of that, he had managed to bluff his way into several courses. He’d learned the French way, the correct way, to prepare an omelette at the Cordon Bleu. Of course, he kept a low profile on that particular interest. If word got out that he’d worn an apron and whisked eggs, he’d lose his reputation on the streets. Besides, it would be embarrassing. So he always covered his trips to Paris for cooking interests with business.
    A couple of years back, he’d stayed there for a week, playing the wealthy playboy and riffling the rooms of the rich. Doug remembered he’d hocked a very good sapphire necklace and paid his bill in full. You never knew when you’d want to go back.
    But there wasn’t time on this trip for a quick course in soufflés or a handy piece of burglary. There would be no sitting still in one place until the game was over. Normally he preferred it that way—the chase, the hunt. The game itself was more exciting than the winning. Doug had learned that after his first big job. There’d been the tension and pressure of planning, the rippling thrill and half terror of execution, then the rushing excitement of success. After that, it was simply another job finished. You looked for the next. And the next.
    If he’d listened to his high-school counselor, he’d probably be a very successful lawyer right now. He’d had the brains and the glib tongue. Doug sipped smooth scotch and was grateful he hadn’t listened.
    Imagine, Douglas Lord, Esquire, with a desk piled with papers and luncheon meetings three days a week. Was that any way to live? He skimmed another page of the book he’d stolen from a Washington library before they’d left. No, a profession that kept you in an office owned you, not the other way around. So, his IQ topped his weight, he’d rather use his talents for something satisfying.
    At the moment, it was reading about Madagascar, its history, its topography, its culture. By the time he finished this book, he’d know everything he needed to know. There were two other volumes in his case he’d save for later. One was a history of missing gems, the other a long, detailed history of the French Revolution. Before he found the treasure, he’d be able to see it, and to understand it. If the papers he’d read were fact, he had pretty Marie Antoinette and her penchant for opulence and intrigue to thank for an early retirement. The Mirror of Portugal diamond, the Blue Diamond, the Sancy—all fifty-four carats of it. Yeah, French royalty had had great taste. Good old Marie hadn’t rocked tradition. Doug was grateful for it. And for the aristocrats who had fled their country guarding the crown jewels with their lives, holding them in secret until the royal family might rule France again.…
    He wouldn’t find the Sancy in Madagascar. Doug was in the business and knew the rock was now in the Astor family. But the possibilities were endless. The Mirror and the Blue had dropped out of sight centuries before. So had other gems. The Diamond Necklace Affair—the straw that had broken the peasants’ back—was riddled with theory, myth, and speculation. Just what had become of the necklace that had ultimately insured Marie of not having a neck to wear it on?
    Doug believed in fate, in destiny, and just plain luck. Before it was over, he was going to be knee-deep in sparkles—royal sparkles. And screw Dimitri.
    In the meantime, he wanted to learn all he could about Madagascar. He was going far off his own turf—but so was Dimitri. If Doug could beat his adversary in anything, he prided himself on being able to top him in intelligent research. He read page after page and tallied fact after fact. He’d find his way around the little island in the Indian Ocean the same way he went from East-Side to West-Side Manhattan. He had to.
    Satisfied, he set the book aside. They’d been at cruising altitude for two hours. Long enough, Doug decided, for Whitney to brood in silence.
    “Okay, knock it off.”
    She turned and gave him a long, neutral look. “I beg your pardon?”
    She did it well, Doug reflected. The ice-bitch routine peculiar to women with money or guts. Of course, he was learning that Whitney had both. “I