Firebreak

of some Old Master appeared in conjunction with any kind of crime.

Like the burglary at Paxton Marino's hunting lodge, for instance. An early report, from the local police, had listed among the valuables that had attracted the thieves but had not been spirited away a Rembrandt and a Titian, without tides or descriptions.

That caught Hayes's attention. Usually, he would just glance at such a report and move on to the next, but this time, surprised that such works should be in such a remote setting, he asked for a follow-up, and his curiosity was doubled when the follow-up left the paintings off the list.

Trying to work out what was going on, Hayes started making phone calls, but couldn't get a satisfactory answer from anybody in Montana. Finally, at a time when work had brought him to Los Angeles anyway, he stopped in to see Marino in his little hilltop palace in Bel Air, where the man was so patronizing that Hayes's jaw ached for three days afterward, from clenching his teeth.

And certainly not, Marino had said, there were no paintings at his hunting lodge in Montana. Why on earth would he have a Rembrandt in Montana? Was this an example of government detail work at its best?

Brooding on his Marino encounter afterward, Hayes eventually came to the conclusion that the man was up to something. There was no real reason to believe he was up to something, except for the inconsistency between the two reports, but Hayes had himself convinced of it. So the question was, what was Marino up to, and what could Hayes do about it?

He had no justification to take time off to go to Montana, and wouldn't have known what to do when he got there, but he could make phone calls, and after a while he got to be phone pals with a state CID inspector named Moxon who'd had his own single meeting with Marino, which had been enough to make him loathe the man for life. Moxon agreed to keep an eye on Marino's lodge, and let Hayes know if anything unusual happened.

And now something had. Moxon phoned to say, 'A private plane came up from Texas to Great Falls with a shipment of wooden crates. A fella I know at Customs there told me about it.'

Hayes said, 'Customs wouldn't have anything to do with it, if it came from Texas.'

'No, but it isn't that big an airport, and my friend saw the stuff, and wondered about it. They're big thin padded crates.'

Hayes sat up. 'Like crates you'd use to ship paintings?'

'Could be, I wouldn't know that sort of thing myself. But here's the two things about them. There's labels on all of them, say they're property of the Horace Griffith gallery in Dallas.'

Writing that down, Hayes said, 'And the other thing?'

'Well, they're empty,' Moxon said. 'This Horace Griffith is spending a bunch of money and a private plane to send Paxton Marino a dozen empty crates. Thought you'd like to know.'

6

'Released today from the federal minimum-security facility at Broadghent, Brad Grenholz, one-time highflying Internet innovator...'

He's out, Lloyd thought, and frowned at the small screen. Because the terms of his parole included his agreement to stay away from the Net and from computers entirely, the components he'd assembled into this supposed music equipment in his study were all miniaturized, including the screen. He could see the entire picture, very small, or a quarter of the picture at a time. But with most text, by leaning in close and removing his glasses, he could read enough to get the idea. This time, he had the idea all right.

Brad was out. His so-called partner, the man who'd cheated him, the man he'd tried to kill and to steal from, the man who had so unbalanced him that he'd done all those things that had led him straight into prison, that rotten son of a bitch was out.

And he wasn't even supposed to be. He'd been stealing from the feds, and was supposed to stay inside another three or four years at the least. But, reading deeper into the news report, Lloyd saw that Brad had become part of a federal housecleaning project, thinning out the population in overcrowded prisons by early release of some non-violent inmates with good career and rehabilitation prospects.

Brad fit that profile because he was going back into business with George Carew, his one-time lawyer and still brother-in-law, who would bring Brad into his new and already successful on-line legal consultancy. George would also take legal responsibility for Brad, and house him until he got back on his feet.

In that case, Lloyd knew where Brad was. With all his new money, some of it stolen from Lloyd, George Carew had built himself a mansion on Cape Ann, east of Ipswich, less than forty miles north of Boston, a gabled and turreted monstrosity on a rocky height overlooking the cape and the Atlantic beyond, something straight out of the Bronte sisters. George had rooms in that place he hadn't even named yet, much less furnished and occupied; there would be plenty of room for Brad there.

And George would take Brad in, help him 'until he got back on his feet,' because Brad, unlike Lloyd, had kept his mouth shut. The time Brad had done had been for George as well.

I could go there, Lloyd thought. He switched off the machine and left the study and spent the rest of that day and evening thinking how he and Brad were in the same state now, less than three hours apart, and he could go see Brad if he wanted, talk to him if he wanted.

But why would he want to? He had no desire to lose his self-control again, so what point was there in confrontation? He could only show himself to be weak, a loser, a second-rater stuck in the past. Winners move on to the new game.

I'll be a winner, Lloyd told himself. I'll move on to the new game, and this robbery in Montana will make it possible. I won't try to meet with Brad, not now. Not until I'm back on my feet.

Unsure he'd be able to sleep, he'd taken a pill when going to bed, so they had to pound on the door quite a while before they roused him, which made them even more impatient and angry, pushing him around for no reason at all. Half a dozen state cops, four in uniform and two in plainclothes, questioning him about anything and everything in his life, demanding to make a complete search of the entire house, an intrusion much more serious