Two ladder-back chairs had been knocked over. A large blue-flowered ceramic
cookie jar lay in pieces on the tile floor, and oatmeal cookies were scattered
across the room, some whole and some broken and some squashed. The runner was
sitting in a corner, his bare legs pulled up, hands crossed defensively on his
chest. One of the man’s shoes was missing, and Travis suspected the dog had
gotten hold of it. The runner’s right hand was bleeding, which was evidently
Nora Devon’s work. He was also bleeding from his left calf, but that wound
appeared to be a dog bite. Einstein was guarding him, staying back out of range
of a kick, but ready to tear at the runner if the guy was foolish enough to
attempt to leave the corner.
“Nice job,” Travis told the dog. “Very nice indeed.”
Einstein made a whining sound that indicated acceptance of the praise. But when
the runner started to move, the happy whine turned instantly to a snarl.
Einstein snapped at the man, who jerked back into the corner again.
“You’re finished,” Travis told the runner.
“He bit me! They both bit me.” Petulant rage. Astonishment. Disbelief. “flit
me.”
Like a lot of bullies who’d had their way all of their lives, this man was
shocked to discover he could be hurt, beaten. Experience had taught him that
people would always back down if he pressed them hard enough and if he kept a
crazy-mean look in his eyes. He thought he could never lose. Now, his face was
pale, and he looked as if he was in a state of shock.
Travis went to the phone and called the police.
FIVE
1
Late Thursday morning, May 20, when Vincent Nasco returned from his one-day
vacation in Acapulco, he picked up the Times at the Los Angeles International
Airport before taking the commuter van—they called it a limousine, but it was a
van—back to Orange County. He read the newspaper during the trip to his
townhouse in Huntington Beach, and on page three he saw the story about the fire
at Banodyne Laboratories in Irvine.
The blaze had broken out shortly after six o’clock yesterday morning, when Vince
had been on his way to the airport to catch the plane to Acapulco. One of the
two Banodyne buildings had been gutted before the firemen had brought the flames
under control.
The people who had hired Vince to kill Davis Weatherby, Lawton Haines, the
Yarbecks, and the Hudstons had almost certainly employed an arsonist to torch
Banodyne. They seemed to be trying to eradicate all records of the Francis
Project, both those stored in Banodyne files and those in the minds of the
scientists who had participated in the research.
The newspaper said nothing about Banodyne’s defense contracts, which were
apparently not public knowledge. The company was referred to as “a leader in the
genetic-engineering industry, with a special focus on the development of
revolutionary new drugs derived from recombinant-DNA research.”
A night watchman had died in the blaze. The Times offered no explanation as to
why he had been unable to flee the fire. Vince figured the guy had been killed
by intruders, then incinerated to cover the murder.
The commuter van ferried Vince to the front door of his townhouse. The rooms
were cool and shadowy. On the uncarpeted floors, each footstep was hard and
clearly defined, echoing hollowly through the nearly empty house.
He had owned the place for two years, but he had not fully furnished it. In
fact, the dining room, den, and two of the three bedrooms contained nothing
except cheap drapes for privacy.
Vince believed that the townhouse was a way station, a temporary residence from
which he would one day move to a house on the beach at Rincon, where the surf
and the surfers were legendary, where the vast rolling sea was the overwhelming
fact of life. But his failure to furnish his current residence had nothing to do
with its temporary status in his plans. He simply liked bare white walls, clean
concrete floors, and empty rooms.
When he eventually purchased his dream house, Vince intended to have polished
white ceramic tile installed on the floors and walls in every one of its big