by Child, Lee
‘I can’t stay anywhere a week.’
‘They have our name. I’m sure we can be traced. There must be old paperwork still around. One level down from the phone book.’
‘Tell me about the lawyers.’
‘They’re working for free,’ Shevick said. ‘How good can they be?’
‘Sounds like another country song.’
Shevick didn’t answer. Mrs Shevick looked up.
‘There are three of them,’ she said. ‘Three nice young men. From a public law project. Paying their dues. Good intentions, I’m sure. But the law moves slow.’
Reacher said, ‘Plan B could be the police. A week from now, if the other thing hasn’t happened yet, you could head over to the station house and tell them the story.’
Shevick asked, ‘How well would they protect us?’
‘I guess not very,’ Reacher said.
‘And for how long?’
‘Not very,’ Reacher said again.
‘We would be burning our boats,’ Mrs Shevick said. ‘If the other thing hasn’t happened yet, then we need those people more than ever. Who else could we turn to when the next bill comes in? Going to the police would leave us with no access to anything.’
‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘No police. Seven chances. I’m sorry about Meg. I really am. I really hope she makes it.’
He stood up, and felt large in the small boxy space.
Shevick said, ‘Are you going?’
Reacher nodded.
‘I’ll get a hotel in town,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll swing by in the morning. To say so long, before I hit the road. If I don’t, it was a pleasure meeting you. I wish you the best of luck with your troubles.’
He left them there, sitting quiet in the half empty room. He let himself out the front door, and he walked down the narrow concrete path to the street, and onward past parked cars and dark silent houses, and when he hit the main drag he turned towards town.
TEN
There was a particular block on the west side of Center Street that had two restaurants side by side fronting on the sidewalk, and a third on the north side of the block, and a fourth on the south side, and a fifth in back, fronting on the next street over. All five were doing well. They were always busy. Always buzzing. Always talked about. They were the city’s gourmet quarter, right there, packed tight. The produce trucks and the linen services loved it. One stop, five customers. Deliveries were easy.
So were collections. It was a Ukrainian block, being west of Center. They came by for their protection money regular as clockwork. One stop, five customers. They loved it. They came late in the evening, when the registers were full. Before anyone else got paid. They would walk in, always two guys, always together, dark suits and black silk ties and pale blank faces. Nothing was ever said. Technically it would have been difficult to prove illegality. In fact nothing had been said, even back at the beginning, many years before, except a subjective aesthetic opinion, and then a concerned and sympathetic murmur. Nice place you’ve got here. Be a shame if anything happened to it. Polite conversation. After which a hundred dollar bill was offered, but was greeted with a shake of the head, until a second hundred was added, which was greeted with a nod. After the first encounter the cash was usually left in an envelope, usually at the maître d’ station. Usually it was handed over without a word. Technically a voluntary activity. No overt demands had been made. No offers had been solicited. A thousand dollars for a stroll around the block. Almost legal. Nice work if you could get it. Naturally there was competition for the gig. Naturally it was won by the big dogs. The senior lieutenants, looking for a quiet life.
That particular evening, they didn’t get one.
They had parked their car on the kerb on Center Street, and they had started with the two establishments right there, fronting on the sidewalk, and then they had worked the block counterclockwise, making their third stop on the north side, and their fourth on the back street, and their fifth on the south side. After which they kept on going, intending to turn the last corner, and thereby complete the square, and arrive back at their car.
All of which they did. Without noticing a couple of important things. Up ahead on the next block was a tow truck, facing away, parked, but idling with its reversing lights showing. And about level with it, on the opposite sidewalk, was a man in a black raincoat, walking fast towards them. What did that mean? They didn’t ask. They were senior lieutenants, looking for a quiet life.
They split up around the hood of their car, the passenger going one way, and the driver going the other. They pulled their doors, not exactly synchronized, but close. They glanced around, still standing, one last time, chins up, in case anyone was in doubt who owned the block.
They missed the tow truck start to move, slowly, backward, straight towards them. They missed the man in the raincoat step off the far sidewalk, at an angle, straight towards them.
They slid into their seats, butts, knees, feet, but before they could get their doors closed a shape had peeled out of the shadows on one side, and the man in the raincoat had arrived on the other, both with small semiautomatic .22-calibre pistols in their hands, both pistols with long fat suppressors screwed to their muzzles, which went blat blat blat as multiple rounds were fired close range into the seated heads, which were right there at waist level. Both guys in the car fell forward and inward, away from the guns. Their shattered heads bumped together, near the clock on the dash, as if they were fighting for space.
Then their doors were slammed shut. The tow truck backed up. The shape from the shadows and the man in the raincoat ran to meet it. The driver jumped out. Together they got the car craned up. All three jumped back in the tow truck. They drove off, slow and sedate. A common sight. A disabled vehicle, undignified, being dragged backward through the streets on its front wheels, with its butt way up in the air. Nothing was visible above the window line. Gravity was making sure of that. By then both guys would be piled in the foot wells. Limp and floppy. Rigor was still some hours away.
They drove direct to the crushing plant. They unhooked the car and left it on a patch of oil-soaked dirt. A huge backhoe drove over. Instead of a bucket it had giant forklift spears on the front. It lifted the car and drove it to the crusher. It set it down on a steel floor in a three-sided box not much bigger than the car itself. It backed away. The box’s fourth side folded up into place. Its top folded down.
Engines roared and hydraulics clanked and the box’s sides crushed inward, relentlessly, grating, groaning, scraping, tearing, a hundred and fifty tons of force behind each one. Then they stopped, and wheezed back to where they had started, and a piston pushed out a cube of crushed metal about a yard on a side. It rested for a moment on a heavy iron grille. For leaking fluids to drain away. Gasoline and oil and brake fluid and whatever it was in the air conditioner. Plus other fluids, on this occasion. Then a brother to the first backhoe came along. Instead of forklift spears it had a claw. It picked up the cube and drove it away and stacked it in a wall of a hundred other cubes.
Only then did the man in the raincoat call Dino. Total success. Two for two. Honour even. They had effectively traded the moneylending for the gourmet quarter. Which was a short term loss, but maybe a long term gain. It was a foot in the door. It was a landing zone that could be first defended, and then expanded. Above all it was proof the map could be redrawn.
Dino went to bed happy.
Reacher had been glad of the lucky taxi in the supermarket parking lot. Partly for the time it had saved. He had figured the Shevicks would be worried. And partly for the effort it had saved, especially right then, all bruised and battered. But it had done him no favours. It had let him stiffen up. His walk back to town was painful.
His sense of direction told him the best route was the one he already knew. Back past the bar, past the bus depot, and onward to Center Street, where the chain hotels would be clustered, maybe a little ways south, all within a block or two. He knew cities. He walked faster than he wanted to, and paid at
tention to his posture, head up, shoulders back, arms loose, back straight, finding all the aches and pains, fighting them, chasing them out, yielding nothing.
There was no one in the street outside the bar. No parked car, no insolent muscle. Reacher backed up and looked in the grimy window. Past the dusty harps and shamrocks. The pale guy was still at the table in the far corner. Still luminescent. There was no one with him. No hapless customer, down in the sewer.
Reacher moved on, getting looser, walking better. He came out of the old blocks at the four-way light, and walked on past the bus depot, watching the sky ahead for the glow of neon. For skyline buildings with lit-up names. Which could be banks or insurance companies or local TV. Or hotels. Or all of the above. There were six of them in total. Six towers, standing proud. The downtown cluster. A brave statement.
Most of the glow was to his half left, which was south of west. He decided to cut the corner and head straight there. He made a left and crossed Center Street, on a thoroughfare that in its bones was no better than the street with the bar, but a lot of money had been spent on it, and it was all gussied up. The street lights were working. The brick was clean. No establishments were boarded up. Most of them were offices of one kind or another. Not necessarily commercial ventures. Mostly worthy causes. Municipal services, and so on. A family counsellor. The local HQ of a political party. All were dark, except for one. Across the street, at the far end of the block. It was lit up bright. It had been rebuilt like a traditional old storefront. It had a sign in the window. Printed on the glass, in big letters, in an old-fashioned style, like the Marine Corps typewriters of Reacher’s youth. The sign said: The Public Law Project.
There are three of them, Mrs Shevick had said.
From a public law project.
Three nice young men.
Behind the window was a modern blond-wood workspace, crammed with old-fashioned khaki-and-white paperwork. There were three guys sitting at desks. Young, certainly. Reacher couldn’t tell if they were nice. He wasn’t prepared to venture an opinion. They were all dressed the same, in tan chino pants and blue button-down shirts.
Reacher crossed the street. Up close he saw what were presumably their names, printed on the glass of the door. Same typewriter style, but smaller. The names were Julian Harvey Wood, Gino Vettoretto, and Isaac Mehay-Byford. Which Reacher thought was a whole lot of names, for just three guys. They all had a lot of letters after their names. All kinds of doctoral degrees. One from Stanford Law, one from Harvard, one from Yale.
He pulled the door and stepped inside.
ELEVEN
All three guys looked up, surprised. One was dark, one was fair, and one was in the middle. They all looked to be in their late twenties. They all looked tired. Hard work, late nights, pizza and coffee. Like law school all over again.
The dark one said, ‘Can we help you?’
‘Which one are you?’ Reacher said. ‘Julian, Gino, or Isaac?’
‘I’m Gino.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Gino,’ Reacher said. ‘Any chance you know an old couple named Shevick?’
‘Why?’
‘I just spent a little time with them. I became familiar with their troubles. They told me they had three lawyers from a public law project. I’m wondering if that’s you. In fact I’m assuming it is. I’m asking myself how many public law projects a city this size could support.’
The fair one said, ‘If they’re our clients, then obviously we can’t discuss their case.’
‘Which one are you?’
‘I’m Julian.’
The neither dark nor fair one said, ‘And I’m Isaac.’
‘I’m Reacher. Pleased to meet you all. Are the Shevicks your clients?’
‘Yes, they are,’ Gino said. ‘So we can’t talk about them.’
‘Make it like a hypothetical example. In a case like theirs, is either one of the no-fault funds likely to pay out within the next seven days?’
Isaac said, ‘We really shouldn’t discuss it.’
‘Just theoretically,’ Reacher said. ‘As an abstract illustration.’
‘It’s complicated,’ Julian said.
‘By what?’
‘I mean, theoretically speaking, such a case would start out simple, but then it would get very complicated if family members stepped in to act as guarantors. Such a move would downgrade the urgency. I mean that literally. It would mark it down a grade. The no-fault funds are dealing with tens of thousands of cases. Maybe hundreds of thousands. If they know for sure a patient is currently receiving care anyway, they assign a different code. Like a lower grade. Not exactly bottom of the pile, but more like back burner. While more urgent stuff is handled first.’
‘So the Shevicks made a mistake by signing the paper.’
‘We can’t discuss the Shevicks,’ Gino said. ‘There are confidentiality issues.’
‘Theoretically,’ Reacher said. ‘Hypothetically. Would it be a mistake for hypothetical parents to sign the paper?’
‘Of course it would,’ Isaac said. ‘Think about it from a bureaucrat’s point of view. The patient is getting treatment. The bureaucrat doesn’t care how. All he knows is there’s no negative PR liability for him. So he can take his sweet time. The hypothetical parents should have stood firm and said no. They should have refused to sign.’
‘I guess they couldn’t bring themselves to do that.’
‘I agree, it would have been tough, under the circumstances. But it would have worked. The bureaucrat would have been obliged to get his chequebook out. Right there and then. No choice.’
‘It’s an education thing,’ Gino said. ‘People need to know their rights ahead of time. It can’t be done in the moment. It’s your kid, lying on a gurney. There’s too much emotion.’
Reacher asked, ‘Is anything going to happen in the next seven days?’
No one answered.
Which Reacher figured was an answer in itself.
Eventually Julian said, ‘The problem is, now they have time to argue. The government fund is taxpayer money. The legislation is unpopular. Therefore the government will want the insurance fund to pay. The insurance fund is shareholder money. Bonuses depend on it. Therefore the insurance fund will bounce it back to the government, over and over again, as long as it takes.’
‘For what?’
‘For the patient to die,’ Isaac said. ‘That’s the big prize for the insurance fund. Because then we’re into a whole other argument. The surrogate contractual relationship was between the no-fault fund and the deceased. What is there to reimburse? The deceased spent no money. Her care was funded by the generosity of relatives. Which happens all the time. Medical donations between family members are so common the IRS has a whole separate category. But it’s not like buying stock in a corporation. You don’t benefit from an eventual upside. There’s a clue in the name. It’s a donation. It’s a gift, freely given. It doesn’t get reimbursed. Especially not by and to parties who weren’t even in the original voided agreement. It’s a matter of legal principle. Precedents are unclear. It could go all the way to the Supreme Court.’
‘So nothing in the next seven days?’
‘We’d be happy with the next seven years.’
‘They’re deep into loan sharks.’
‘The bureaucrat doesn’t care how.’
‘Do you?’
Julian said, ‘Our clients won’t let us anywhere near their financial business.’
Reacher nodded.
He said, ‘They don’t want you to burn their boats.’
‘Their words exactly,’ Gino said. ‘They feel busting the loan sharks would leave them with no access to money in the future, should they need it, which experience tells them they probably will.’
Reacher asked, ‘Do they have other legal remedies anywhere?’
‘Hypothetically,’ Julian said. ‘The obvious strategy would be a civil suit against the delinquent employer. Absolutely couldn’t fail. But obviously never pursued in a case like
this, because the cause of action itself will have already exposed the defendant as a fraud, thereby ruining him, thereby giving the successful plaintiff no assets to collect against.’
‘Nothing else they can do?’
‘We petition the court on their behalf,’ Gino said. ‘But they stop reading where it says she’s getting treatment anyway.’
‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Let’s hope for the best. Someone just told me a week is a long time. Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.’
He backed away and pushed the door and stepped out to the street. He stopped on the corner to fine tune his direction. A right and a left, he thought. That should do it.
Behind him he heard the door open again. He heard footsteps on the sidewalk. He turned and saw Isaac walking towards him. The one who was neither dark nor fair. He was five-nine, maybe, and solid as a bull seal. His pants were cuffed.
He said, ‘I’m Isaac, remember?’
‘Isaac Mehay-Byford,’ Reacher said. ‘J.D. from Stanford Law. Tough school. Congratulations. But I’m guessing you’re from the other coast originally.’
‘Boston,’ he said. ‘My dad was a cop there. You remind me of him, a little bit. He noticed things, too.’
‘Now you’re making me feel old.’
‘Are you a cop?’
‘I was,’ Reacher said. ‘Once upon a time. In the army. Does that count?’
‘It might,’ Isaac said. ‘You could give me some advice.’
‘About what?’
‘How did you come to know the Shevicks?’
‘I helped him out of a jam this morning. He hurt his knee. I walked him home. They told me the story.’
‘His wife calls me now and then. They don’t have many friends. I know what they’re doing for money. Sooner or later they’re going to run out of room.’
‘I think they already have,’ Reacher said. ‘Or they will, in seven days.’
‘I have a crazy personal theory,’ Isaac said.
‘About what?’
‘Or maybe I’m just deluding myself.’