The Devil's Code

rather than white or black. The worst were on her arms; the biggest burn, under her chin, was the size of her palm.
    “What do you think?” she asked, holding her hands away from her body, palms up. She was hurting.
    “You probably ought to have a doctor look at it,” I said.
    “Then the police will know.”
    “ . . . but if you can stand it, we could catch our flight, and you could go to the doctor—or to an emergency room—out on the West Coast. We could tell them that you burned yourself with charcoal lighter at a barbecue, but didn’t think it was bad until it started hurting overnight.”
    “It hurts now,” she said.
    “Which is good,” I said. “Really bad burns don’t hurt right away: the nerve endings are destroyed.”
    She actually smiled, which suddenly made me like her a lot, and said, “If the burns aren’t too bad . . .”
    “I really don’t think they are, but they’ll hurt,” I said.
    “Then I can stand it. Better than going to jail,” she said.
    “ . . . and I’m not a doctor.”
    “Do you think the airline people will notice?” she asked.
    I shook my head: “No. You don’t look bad at all. Keep your jacket over your arms, let me handle the tickets.”
    “Then let’s go.”
    I checked my watch: “We’ve got some time yet. I’m gonna find a pharmacy, see if I can get some sunburn painkiller, or whatever I can get. That could help.”
    “Good . . . I held on to the disks.” She turned herhead up to smile at me again, and winced. “I guess I don’t want to move my head too fast,” she said.
    “I’ll go get the stuff.”
    “Don’t tarry,” she said, the woman with the big dark eyes.

 5 
    ST. JOHN CORBEIL
    S t. John Corbeil was sitting in a leather armchair, reading, light from the floor lamp glinting from the steel rims of his military spectacles. As he read—Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia —he threaded and rethreaded a diamond necklace between his stubby fingers, as though it were a string of worry beads.
    He liked the cool sensuality of the necklace, and the money it represented. He’d had it made to his specifications by Harry Winston of New York. One hundred diamonds, excellent cut, clarity, and color in each, and each a single carat in size. The Winston people had thought that curious—he’d seen the curiosity, unspoken, in their eyes—because a hundred-diamond necklace doesn’t carry the flash of say, a big central stone or two, surrounded by a constellation of smaller diamonds.
    Corbeil had good reasons: one-carat diamonds were easy to move, easy to sell, and anonymous. The necklace was a bank account. If you popped the diamonds out of their settings, you could put $300,000 in the toes of your shoes . . .
    Another good reason was the sensuality of the stones. Corbeil’s face might have been chopped from a block of oak, but he was a sensual man. He liked the feel of a woman, the sound of a zipper coming down on the back of a woman’s dress, the smell of Chanel. He liked fast cars driven fast, French cooking and California wine, Italian suits and English shoes and diamonds. He hadn’t been able to afford the very best in women, wine, and song until AmMath. Now he had them, and he would be damned if he would give them up . . .
    T he doorbell rang; he’d been expecting it. He put the book down, slipped the necklace into a shirt pocket, crossed to the intercom, and pushed the button. “Yes?”
    “Hart and Benson.” William Hart’s voice. Four men were involved in various parts of the operation. Corbeil himself, as coordinator; Hart and Benson, as security and technicians; and Tom Woods, a computer-encryption expert who loved only money more than codes. Woods was not aware of the Morrison, Lighter, or Ward difficulties, other than that Morrison had been killed in a break-in. He was a nervous man.
    “Come in.” Corbeil pressed the door-release button, buzzing them in.
    D one,” Hart said.
    Corbeil nodded. “So. There’s no reason to think that anything remains here in Texas.”
    “Not as far as we know.”
    Corbeil turned away, fished the diamond necklace out of his pocket, and began unconsciously pouring it from hand to hand, as though it were a slinky. “There remains the possibility that he sent his sister something.”
    “He could have sent something to anybody; but we can’t find any really close friends. No girlfriends, right now. The sister’s the obvious candidate. I mean, we’re still backgrounding him, but