Jack, and Jaidee as well, felt safer staying on the move. They had boarded the Sukhumvit Line at Thong Lor station and were now traveling east toward Siam station. It was just after 7:00 a.m., and already the Skytrain was jam-packed, taking commuters to work in the central districts. The sky was slate gray and formless. There was almost no wind. Before he opened the packet, though, he took out the pad that had been secreted in the bedclothes Legere had been sleeping in at Connaston’s apartment. It was a small oblong of thick cream-colored sheets backed by a slab of cardboard. Leafing through the sheets, he found them all blank, but when he ran his thumb over the top sheet he felt indentations. The paper was so thick Legere must have been pressing down hard to make such an imprint. Reaching down, Jack swiped up a fingertip of soot from the floor and gently smeared it across the face of the top sheet. What appeared in reverse relief was a line of eight numbers: 24026188.
