The Devil's Code

trying to find a two-inch article in ten years’ worth of newspapers.”
    Lane wanted to continue: “Fifteen more minutes,” she said. “Twenty minutes. We’re in, who knows whether they’ll change all the protocols or something?”
    LuEllen wasn’t doing anything, and bored, said, “I’m going down the street to that Randy’s place and get coffee and a doughnut. Anybody want anything?”
    “I’ll walk along,” I said. To Lane: “Fifteen minutes . . .”
    “Yeah, yeah.”
    R andy’s was a combination greasy spoon and greasy bakery. We bought doughnuts and coffee and a diet Coke, and talked about not much at all; two people carrying a couple of white bakery sacks along the highway. We were a hundred yards from the motel when we saw the flashes. LuEllen said, “Did you see that?”
    I was already trotting toward the motel. Night-time gun flashes are hard to mistake, and even with the background noise of the highway we could now hear the rapid pop-pop-pop of gunfire.
    We got closer and saw two men break away from the motel, from the end where our room was. Another couple, young kids, college kids, maybe, both carrying book bags, stopped to look at them as they crossed the parking lot to a waiting car. The shorter of the two men was hobbling. One of the kids broke away from the other, running toward the motel. Then the other one followed, and I ditched the white bags behind a car and the car with the two guys screeched out of the parking lot, fishtailed once in the street and disappeared into traffic.
    We turned the corner of the motel and saw an older guy, white-haired in a burgundy windbreaker, walking toward our room, the college kids just coming up. I wasten steps back now, LuEllen a few steps farther behind and the college kid, a boy, went inside and then popped back out and started screaming, “Call an ambulance call an ambulance . . .”
    I pushed past his white face to the door and saw Lane on the bed. She was dead, her face gone. Couldn’t see Green; the bathroom door was mostly closed and shot to pieces. I stepped over to the door and knuckled it open. Green was in the bathtub, looking up at me, a gun in one hand.
    “Got an ambulance coming,” I said. “Are you hurt bad?”
    “Hit twice,” he groaned. “What about Lane?”
    “Gone.”
    “Get out of here,” he said.
    I went back out into the main room. The college girl was inside with LuEllen and I shouted at her, “Go out to the street, wave the ambulance in.”
    “What?”
    “I dunno, I dunno,” I shouted at her. She stepped back, frightened of me, and turned and ran toward the street. “Flag the ambulance,” I shouted after her. To the old guy in the burgundy windbreaker I yelled, “Two people shot. Run down to the office and make sure that kid’s called an ambulance . . .”
    He turned and ran. The minute he was gone, I stepped past the bed, not looking at Lane, ripped the phone wire out of the telephone, bundled up the laptop, which had fallen on the floor, and stuck it in the back of my waistband, under my jacket.
    LuEllen had stopped to take a close look at Lane—Lane had been hit at least twice in the side of the head, and laid sprawled face-up, eyes open just a crack, on the yellow bedspread. LuEllen shook her head. Lane’s purse was lying on the floor. LuEllen rolled it with her foot, took the pistol out, and slid it into her jacket pocket. Without another word, we were out of the room. Two motel people were running toward us, and I waved at them: “In here, in here . . . hurry, hurry, get an ambulance.”
    More people came running, and LuEllen and I eased to the outside of the group, and then turned, and then were around the corner, and in the car. We went out the back of the parking lot, slowly, onto a service road, down a block, and were out of sight when the first cop car arrived.
    “She had no chance,” LuEllen said grimly. “Executed.”
    “Green’s alive, but he was hit a couple of times,” I said. “He was in the tub. He was still thinking. He said to get out, so he’ll cover us.”
    “Fingerprints?”
    “Not from me,” I said.
    “The only hard surface I touched was the TV remote, and Green was using it after I did, so I should be okay.”
    “You used the bathroom.”
    “I was careful. You used the telephone . . .”
    “Just plugged into the side, never picked up the receiver. I don’t think I touched anything with my fingertips.”
    “Guys from AmMath,” she