by Child, Lee
The guy looked at Reacher, but spoke to the waitress.
He said, ‘Run along now, kid.’
Reacher glanced at her.
She mouthed something at him. Could have been, Watch where I go. Then she ran along. Not literally. She turned and crossed the street at a brisk walk, and Reacher glanced over his shoulder twice, just briefly, not long between, like frames from a video, the first of which showed her already half a block away, striding north on the far sidewalk, and the second of which showed her gone completely. Through a doorway, therefore. Towards the end of the block.
The guy on his right said, ‘I would need your name, before I could put you in touch with Max Trulenko. And maybe first we should talk it through, you and me, about how you came to know him, just to put his mind at rest.’
‘When could we do that?’ Reacher asked.
‘We could do that right now,’ the guy said. ‘Come inside. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.’
Detain and delay, Reacher thought. Until the snatch squad showed up. He looked left and right along the street. No headlights. Nothing coming. Not yet.
He said, ‘Thanks, but I just had dinner. I’m all set. I’ll come back tomorrow. About the same time.’
The guy took out his phone.
‘I could text him your photo,’ he said. ‘As a first step. That would be quicker.’
‘No thanks,’ Reacher said.
‘I need you to tell me how you know Max.’
‘Everyone knows Max. He was famous here for a spell.’
‘Tell me the message you have for him.’
‘His ears only,’ Reacher said.
The guy didn’t answer. Reacher checked the street. Both ends. Nothing coming. Not yet.
The guy said, ‘We shouldn’t get off on the wrong foot. Any friend of Max’s is a friend of mine. But if you know Max, obviously you know we have to check you out. You wouldn’t want anything less for him.’
Reacher checked the street. Now there was something coming. There was a pair of bucking, bouncing headlight beams coming around the southwest corner of the block, faster than the front suspension could comfortably handle. They swept and dipped and settled straight and then rose up high, as the rear end of the car squatted down under heavy acceleration.
Straight at them.
‘I’ll see you again,’ Reacher said. ‘I hope.’
He turned and crossed the street and went north, away from the car. And saw a second car coming around the northwest corner of the block. Same bouncing headlight beams. From the other direction. Heavy acceleration. Straight at him. Probably two guys in each car. Decent numbers, and their response time was quick. They were on Defcon One. Therefore Trulenko was important. Therefore their rules of engagement would be pretty much whatever they wanted them to be.
Right then Reacher was the meat in a bright light sandwich.
Watch where I go.
A doorway, towards the end of the block.
He turned around, hunching away from the light, and he saw one doorway after another, looming up out of the jagged moving shadows. Most of the doors belonged to retail operations, with nothing but dusty grey dimness inside, like closed stores everywhere, and some of the doors were plainer and stoutly made of wood, presumably for private quarters above, but none of them were open, not even a tempting inch, and none of them had a rim of light around the frame. He moved north, because the waitress had been going north, and the shadows gave up more doors, one by one, but they were all the same as before, mute and grey and stubbornly closed.
The cars came closer. Their lights got brighter. Reacher gave up on doorways. He figured he had misheard. Or misread her lips. At that point his brain started cycling through scenarios involving two guys from the south and two from the north, no doubt all four of them armed, although probably not with shotguns, so close to downtown, therefore handguns only, possibly suppressed, depending on their de facto arrangement with the local police department. As in, don’t frighten the voters. But against any instinct towards caution would be extreme reluctance to disappoint their bosses.
The cars slowed to a stop.
Reacher was pinned right in the middle.
Rule one, set in stone since he was a tiny kid, back when he first realized he could be either frightened or frightening, was to run towards danger, not away from it. Which right then gave him his pick of forward or backward. He chose forward. North, the way he was already going. No break in his stride. No reversal of momentum. Faster and harder. Glare ahead of him and glare behind him. He kept on going. Instinctive, but also sound tactics. As sound as they could be, under the dismal circumstances. In the sense of making the best of a very bad hand. He was distorting the picture, at least. What the pointy-heads would call altering the battle space. The guys ahead would feel mounting pressure the closer he got. The guys behind would have longer shots. Both conditions would impair efficiency. Ultimately below fifty per cent, with a bit of luck. Because the guys behind would worry about friendly fire. Their buddies up ahead were right next to the target.
The guys behind might take themselves out of the fight voluntarily.
Making the best of a very bad hand.
Reacher hustled onward.
He heard car doors open.
On his left, as he hustled, he saw retail store doorways jumping in and out of the headlight shadows, one by one, all of them mean and closed tight. Until one of them wasn’t. Because it wasn’t a doorway. It was an alley. On his right the traffic kerb was unbroken, but on his left there was a gloomy eight-foot gap between buildings, paved the same way as the municipal sidewalk. A pedestrian thoroughfare of some kind. Public. Leading where? He didn’t care. It was dark. It was guaranteed to let out somewhere a whole lot better than an empty street lit up bright by four headlight beams from two face to face automobiles.
He ducked into the alley.
He heard footsteps start behind him.
He hustled on. The depth of a building later the alley widened out to a narrow street. Still dark. The footsteps behind him kept on coming. He stayed close to the buildings, where the shadows were deepest.
A door opened in the darkness ahead.
A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him inside.
FOURTEEN
The door closed again softly and three seconds later the footsteps clattered by outside, at a slow and wary jog. Then silence came back. The hand on Reacher’s arm pulled him deeper into darkness. Small fingers, but strong. They passed into a different space. A different acoustic. A different smell. A different room. He heard the scrabble of fingertips, searching for a light switch on a wall.
The light came on.
He blinked.
The waitress.
Watch where I go.
An alley, not a doorway. Or an alley leading to a doorway. An alley leading to a doorway with a door left open a tempting inch.
‘You live here?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said.
She was still dressed for work. Black denim pants, black button-up shirt. Petite, gamine, short dark hair, eyes full of concern.
‘Thank you,’ Reacher said. ‘For inviting me in.’
‘I tried to think what kind of tip I would like,’ she said. ‘If I was a stranger the doorman was looking at sideways.’
‘Was he?’
‘You must have stirred something up.’
He didn’t answer. The room they were in was a cosy space with muted colours, full of worn and comfortable items, some of them maybe from the pawn shop, cleaned and fixed up, and some of them bolted together from the remains of old industrial components. The frame from some kind of an old machine held up the coffee table. Same kind of thing with a bookshelf. And so on. Repurposing, it was called. He had read about it in a magazine. He liked the style. He liked the result. It was a nice room. Then he heard a voice in his head: Be a shame if anything happened to it.
‘You work for them,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be offering me refuge.’
‘I don’t work for them,’ she said. ‘I work for the couple who own the bar. The guy on the door is the cost of doing business. It would be the same wherever I worked.’
‘He seemed to think he could boss you around.’
‘They all do. Part of inviting you in is paying them back.’
‘Thank you,’ he said again.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘I’m Jack Reacher,’ he said. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’
‘Abigail Gibson,’ she said. ‘People call me Abby.’
‘People call me Reacher.’
She said, ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Reacher.’
They shook hands, quite formally. Small fingers, but strong.
He said, ‘I stirred it up on purpose. I wanted to see if and how fast and how hard they would react to something.’
‘What something?’
‘The name Maxim Trulenko. You ever heard of him?’
‘Sure,’ Abby said. ‘He just went bankrupt. Some kind of dot-com bust. He was famous here for a spell.’
‘I want to find him.’
‘Why?’
‘He owes people money.’
‘Are you a debt collector? You told me you were out of work.’
‘Pro bono,’ Reacher said. ‘Temporary. For an old couple I met. So far exploratory only. Just a toe in the water.’
‘Doesn’t matter if he owes people money. He hasn’t got any. He’s bankrupt.’
‘There’s a theory he hid some private cash under his mattress.’
‘There’s always a theory like that.’
‘I think in this case it might be right. Purely as a logical proposition. If he was broke, he would have been found by now. But he hasn’t been found by now, therefore he can’t be broke. Because the only way not to be found by now is to pay the Ukrainians to hide him. Which requires money. Therefore he still has some. If I find him soon, there might be some left.’
‘For your old couple.’
‘Hopefully enough to cover their needs.’
‘The only way not to be found is not to be broke,’ she said. ‘Sounds like something out of a fortune cookie. But I guess they proved it was true tonight.’
Reacher nodded.
‘Two cars,’ he said. ‘Four guys. He’s getting good value.’
‘You shouldn’t mess with these people,’ Abby said. ‘I’ve seen them up close.’
‘You’re messing with them. You opened your door.’
‘That’s different. They’ll never know. There are a hundred doors.’
He said, ‘Why did you open your door?’
‘You know why,’ she said.
‘Maybe they just wanted a cosy chat.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Maybe all I would have gotten was a stern talking-to.’
She didn’t answer.
‘You knew they wanted worse than that,’ he said. ‘That’s why you opened your door.’
‘I’ve seen them up close,’ she said again.
‘What would they have done?’
‘They don’t like people getting in their business,’ she said. ‘I think they would have messed you up bad.’
‘Have you seen that kind of thing happen before?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Anyway,’ Reacher said. ‘Thanks again.’
‘You need anything?’
‘I should get going. You’ve done enough for me already. I have a hotel room.’
‘Where?’
He told her. She shook her head.
‘That’s west of Center,’ she said. ‘They have eyes in there. The texts will have already gone out, with your description.’
‘They seem to be taking it very seriously.’
‘I told you,’ she said. ‘They don’t like people in their business.’
‘How many of them are there?’
‘Enough,’ she said. ‘I was going to make coffee. You want some?’
‘Sure,’ Reacher said.
She led the way to her kitchen, which was small and mismatched but clean and tidy. It felt like home. She knocked old grounds out of a filter basket, and rinsed a pot, and set the whole thing going. It burped and slurped and filled the room with a rich aroma.
‘I guess it doesn’t keep you awake,’ Reacher said.
‘This is my evening time,’ she said. ‘I go to bed when the sun comes up. Then I sleep all day.’
‘Makes sense.’
She opened a wall cupboard and took down two white china mugs.
‘I’m going to take a shower,’ she said. ‘Help yourself if it’s ready before I am.’
A minute later he heard running water, and after that the gentle whine of a hairdryer. The coffee machine tinkled and sputtered. Abby got back just as it finished. She looked pink and damp and she smelled of soap. She was wearing a knee-length dress that looked like a man’s button-down shirt, but longer and slimmer. Probably not a whole lot underneath it. Certainly her feet were bare. After-work attire. A cosy evening at home. They poured their coffee and took their mugs back to the living room.
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ she said. ‘I guess you didn’t get a chance.’
‘What question?’ he said.
‘What kind of work do you like to do?’
In response he gave her his capsule bio. Easy to understand at first, then harder later. Son of a Marine, childhood in fifty different places, then West Point, then the military police in a hundred different places, then the reductions in force when the Cold War ended, leading directly to his sudden head-first introduction to civilian life. A straightforward story. Followed by the wandering, which was not so straightforward. No job, no home, always restless. Always moving. Just the clothes on his back. No particular place to go, and all the time in the world to get there. Some people found it hard to understand. But Abby seemed to get it. She asked none of the usual dumb questions.
Her own story was shorter, because she was younger. Born in a suburb in Michigan, raised in a suburb in California, loved books and philosophy and theatre and music and dance and experiment and performance art. Came to town as an undergraduate student, and never left. A temporary gig waiting tables for a month turned into ten years. She was thirty-two. Older than she looked. She said she was happy.
They went back and forth to the kitchen for refills of coffee and ended up facing each other at opposite ends of the sofa, Reacher sprawling comfortably, Abby sitting cross-legged, with the tails of her shirt dress tucked down demurely between her bare knees. Reacher didn’t know much about philosophy or theatre or dance or experiment or performance art, but he read books when he could, and he heard music when he could, so he was able to keep up. A couple of times they found they had read the same stuff. Same with music. She called it her retro phase. He said it felt like yesterday. They laughed about it.
It got to two o’clock in the morning. He figured he could get a room at an Albanian hotel. One block further east. Just as good. He could afford to waste what he had already laid out. He was more annoyed about the five minutes of his life. At the desk. He would never get that back.
Abby said, ‘You can stay here, if you like.’
He was pretty certain there was one more button undone than before, on the front of her shirt dress. He felt he could trust his judgement on the matter. He was an observant man. He had previously inspected the original gap many times. It had been very appealing. But the new gap was better.
He said, ‘I didn’t see a guest room.’
She said, ‘I don’t have one.’
‘Would this be a lifestyle experiment?’
‘As opposed to what?’
‘Normal reasons.’
‘I guess a mixture.’
‘Works for me,’ Reacher said.
FIFTEEN
Dino’s two guys were simply missing all night. From the liquor store onward, not a trace. Their phones were dead. No one had seen their car. They had disappeared into thin air. Which of course w
as impossible. But still, no one woke Dino. A small-scale search was mounted instead. All the likely neighbourhoods. No results. The two guys stayed missing. Until seven o’clock in the morning, right there on their own property, when a guy stacking lumber with a forklift in a side yard backed up and found them, behind the last of the ten-by-two cedar.
Then they woke Dino.
The side yard was separated from direct contractor access by a wire fence eight feet high. The two guys had been hung upside down from the top of the fence. They had been slit open. Gravity had tumbled their guts out, on their chests, on their faces, on the ground beneath them. After death, happily. They both had crusted gunshot wounds. One had his head mostly gone.
No sign of their car. No tracks, no nothing.
Dino called a meeting in the back office boardroom. Just fifty yards from the gruesome discovery. Like a battlefield general, on hand to examine the terrain up close.
He said, ‘Gregory must be out of his mind. We were the original victims here, we got the short end of every stick, and now he wants to rub it in by making it four for two as well? That’s bullshit. How lopsided does he want it to get? What the hell is he thinking?’
‘But why so nasty?’ his right-hand man said. ‘Why all the drama with their intestines hanging out? Surely that’s the key to this thing.’
‘Is it?’
‘Got to be. It was already gratuitous. This was unnecessary. Like they were mad at us. Like revenge for something. As if we had gotten the better of them somehow.’
‘Well, we didn’t.’
‘Maybe there’s something we don’t know. Maybe we actually did get the better of them somehow, but we haven’t caught on to it yet.’
‘Caught on to what?’
‘We don’t know yet. That’s the point.’
‘All we got is the restaurant block.’
‘So maybe it’s special in some way. Maybe it’s a good producer. Maybe we get better access to people. All the bigwigs must eat there. With their wives and so on. Where else would they go?’
Dino didn’t answer.
His guy said, ‘Why else would they get so angry?’
Still Dino didn’t answer.
Then he said, ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe the restaurant block is worth more than the moneylending. I sincerely hope so. We got lucky, they got resentful. But whatever, four for two is bullshit. We can’t live with that. Put the word out. Level the score by sunset.’