by Child, Lee
‘Possibly related. Possibly an elderly aunt or cousin.’
The guy nodded.
‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘But then I got another alert, and another photograph. The same old woman is in it. But her name is different. In the new alert they’re calling her Joanna Reacher. But this morning for me she signed Maria Shevick.’
NINETEEN
Reacher and Abby left the Shevicks in their kitchen and headed out to the Toyota. Reacher was already packed. His toothbrush was in his pocket. But Abby wanted to drop by her place to pick up some stuff. Which was reasonable. In turn Reacher decided he wanted to drop by the public law project to get an answer to a question. Both destinations were in Ukrainian territory. But it would be safe enough, he thought. Possibly. On the downside, there were two photographs out there, plus potentially the Toyota’s description and licence plate. On the upside, it was broad daylight, and they would be in and out real fast.
Safe enough, he thought. Possibly.
They drove in through the still-shabby blocks and he found the law project again, near the hotels, just west of Center, at the end of its gentrified street. Which had a different feel by day than night. All the other offices were open. People were going in and out. There were cars parked both sides on the kerb. But no black Lincolns and no unexplained pale men in suits.
Safe enough. Possibly.
Abby backed into a space and parked. She and Reacher got out and walked to the door. Only two guys were at their desks. No sign of Isaac Mehay-Byford. Just Julian Harvey Wood and Gino Vettoretto. Harvard and Yale. Good enough. They greeted Reacher and shook Abby’s hand and said they were pleased to meet her.
Reacher said, ‘What if Max Trulenko has hidden money stashed away?’
‘That’s Isaac’s theory,’ Gino said.
‘There’s always a rumour like that,’ Julian said.
‘I think this time it’s true,’ Reacher said. ‘Last night I dropped Trulenko’s name to the doorman where Abby works. About three minutes later four guys showed up in two cars. Which was a pretty impressive response. It was platinum-level protection. These guys don’t do anything except for cash. Therefore Trulenko is paying them. Top dollar, to get four guys in two cars inside three minutes. Therefore he still has money of his own.’
‘What happened with the four guys?’ Gino asked.
‘They lost me,’ Reacher said. ‘But along the way I think they might have proved Isaac’s point.’
‘Do you know where Trulenko is?’ Julian asked.
‘Not precisely.’
‘We would need an address, to serve the papers. And to get his bank accounts frozen. How much money do you suppose he has?’
‘I have no idea,’ Reacher said. ‘More than me, I’m sure. More than the Shevicks, I’m damn sure.’
‘I guess we would sue him for a hundred million dollars, and settle for whatever he has left. With a bit of luck it will be enough.’
Reacher nodded. Then he asked what he had come to ask. He said, ‘How long would all that take?’
Gino said, ‘They would never go to court. They couldn’t afford to. They know they would lose. They would settle ahead of a trial. They would beg us to let them. It would be lawyer to lawyer, back and forth, mostly by e-mail. The only issue would be letting Trulenko keep a couple cents on the dollar, so he doesn’t have to live under a bridge the rest of his life.’
‘How long would all that take?’ Reacher asked again.
‘Six months,’ Julian said. ‘Certainly no more than that.’
The law moves slow, Maria Shevick had said, more than once.
‘No way of hurrying it along?’
‘That is hurrying it along.’
‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Say hey to Isaac for me.’
They hustled back to the Toyota. It was still there. Unnoticed, unwatched, unsurrounded, and unticketed. They got in. Abby said, ‘It’s like one movie is playing in slow motion, and the other one is running all speeded up.’
Reacher said nothing.
Abby’s place was close by in terms of physical distance, but it was three sides of a square away in terms of one-way streets. They came on it from the north.
There was a car outside the door.
Parked on the kerb. A black Lincoln, facing away. It had dark glass in the rear compartment. From a distance it was impossible to tell who was inside.
‘Pull over,’ Reacher said.
Abby stopped thirty yards north of the Lincoln.
Reacher said, ‘Worst case there are two guys in it and I bet their doors are locked.’
‘What would the army tell you to do?’
‘Fire armour-piercing rounds in sufficient quantity to subdue resistance. And then fire tracer at the gas tank in sufficient quantity to subdue evidence.’
‘We can’t do that.’
‘Sadly. But we better do something. That’s your house. They’re poking their noses where they don’t belong.’
‘Safer to ignore them, surely.’
‘Only in the short term,’ Reacher said. ‘We can’t let them have it all their own way. We need to send a message. They’re out of line. They squeezed your address out of an innocent couple with enough taste to hire you and book that band. They need to know there are certain things they shouldn’t do. And they need to know they’re messing with the wrong people. We need to scare them a little bit.’
Abby was quiet a beat.
‘You’re nuts,’ she said. ‘You’re one guy. You can’t take them on.’
‘Someone has to. I’m used to it. I was a military policeman. I got all the lousy jobs.’
She was quiet another beat.
‘Your concern is their doors are locked,’ she said. ‘Because if they are, you can’t get to them.’
‘Correct,’ Reacher said.
‘I could walk around the block and go in the back door. I could turn on all the lights inside. That might get them out of the car for you.’
‘No,’ Reacher said.
‘OK, I could leave the lights off and at least get my stuff.’
‘No,’ Reacher said again. ‘For the same reason. They might be waiting inside the house. The car could be empty. Or one and one.’
‘That’s creepy.’
‘I told you. There are certain things they shouldn’t do.’
‘I could live without my stuff. I mean, you do. It’s clearly possible. It could be part of the experiment.’
‘No,’ Reacher said again. ‘It’s a free country. If you want your stuff, you should have it. And if they need a message, they should get one.’
‘OK, works for me. But how do we do it?’
‘That depends on how experimental you want to be.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I’m pretty sure it will work out fine.’
‘What will?’
‘But you’ll probably worry about it ahead of time.’
‘Try me.’
‘Ideally I would like you to drive up behind the Lincoln and nudge it in the back bumper at about walking pace.’
‘Why?’
‘The doors will unlock. For the first responders. The car will think it’s in a minor accident. There’s a little doo-dad in there somewhere. A safety mechanism.’
‘So then you can open the doors from the outside.’
‘That would be the first tactical objective. All else would follow.’
‘They might have guns.’
‘For a limited period only. After which I would have them.’
‘What if the guys are in the house?’
‘I suppose we could set the car on fire. That would send a message.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘Let’s take it one step at a time.’
‘Will my car get wrecked?’
‘It has federal bumpers. Should be good up to five miles an hour. Conceivable you could need another electrical tie.’
‘OK,’ she said.
‘Remember to keep
your foot on the clutch pedal. You don’t want to stall out. You want to be ready to reverse away.’
‘Then what?’
‘You park and go get your stuff, while I tell the guys in the car what they need to do.’
‘Which is what?’
‘Follow you to some dubious place east of Center. After that it’s up to them.’
She was quiet another long beat.
Then she nodded. A bob of her short dark hair. A gleam in her eye. A smile on her lips, half grim, half excited.
‘OK,’ she said again. ‘Let’s do it.’
At that moment Gregory’s right-hand man was laying out what little he knew. He was in the inner office, across the desk from his boss. Which was an intimidating place to be. The desk was massive, ornately carved from toffee-coloured wood. The desk chair was huge, made of tufted green leather. Behind the chair was a tall heavy bookcase, that matched the desk. Altogether imposing. Not a comfortable place to be, when telling a confusing story.
He said, ‘At six o’clock last night Aaron Shevick was a big ugly sadsack nobody paying back a loan. At eight he was a big ugly sadsack nobody taking out a new loan. But at ten he was different. He was a man about town, enjoying the band, flirting with the waitress, eating bite-size pizzas and drinking six-dollar cups of coffee. Then on the way out of the bar he was different again. He was a tough guy talking about Max Trulenko. He’s like three people in one. We have no idea who he really is.’
Gregory asked, ‘Who do you think he is?’
His guy didn’t answer. Instead he said, ‘Meanwhile we dug up his last known address. But he wasn’t there. He moved out a year ago. The new tenants are an old retired couple named Jack and Joanna Reacher. Their granddaughter was visiting. Her name is Abigail Reacher. Except it isn’t. Her name is Abigail Gibson. She’s the waitress Shevick was flirting with last night. We know all about her. She’s a troublemaker.’
‘How so?’
‘A year or so ago she told the police about something she saw. We straightened it out. We showed her the error of her ways. She promised to reform, which is why we let her keep working.’
Gregory bent his neck to the left, and held it, and to the right, and held it. As if it was hurting.
He said, ‘But now she’s flirting with Shevick, and showing up at his last known address under a phony name.’
‘It gets worse,’ his guy said. ‘Grandma Reacher was in our pawn shop this morning, but she signed her name Shevick.’
‘Really?’
‘Maria Shevick.’
‘And then she showed up at Aaron Shevick’s last known address.’
‘We have no idea who these people really are.’
‘Who do you think they are?’ Gregory asked again.
‘We didn’t get where we are by being stupid,’ his guy said. ‘We should consider every possibility. Start with Abigail Gibson. We’re getting a new police commissioner. Maybe he’s getting a jump on reading the files. Her name is in there. Maybe he reached out. Maybe he put the big guy in the field to work with her.’
‘He’s not commissioner yet.’
‘All the more reason. We think we’re still safe.’
Gregory said, ‘You think Shevick is a cop?’
‘No,’ his guy said. ‘We know the cops. We would have heard. Someone would have talked to us.’
‘Then who is he?’
‘Maybe he’s FBI. Maybe the police department asked for outside help.’
‘No,’ Gregory said. ‘A new commissioner wouldn’t do that. He would want his own people on the job. He would want all the glory for himself.’
‘Then maybe he’s an ex-cop or ex-FBI and Dino hired him to mess with us.’
‘No,’ Gregory said again. ‘Same as the new commissioner. Dino wouldn’t hire outside help. He doesn’t trust anyone enough. Like we don’t.’
‘Then who is he?’
‘He’s a guy who borrowed money and then asked about Max. Which I agree is an odd combination.’
‘What do you want to do about him?’
‘Watch the house you found,’ Gregory said. ‘If he lives there, he’ll show up sooner or later.’
Abby kept her seat belt on. Reacher took his off. He braced his palm against the dash. She put the gear stick in first.
‘Ready?’ she said.
‘Walking speed,’ he said. ‘It’s going to seem awful fast when you get there. But don’t slow down. Maybe better to close your eyes for the last bit.’
She pulled away from the kerb and rolled down the street.
TWENTY
Walking speed was customarily reckoned to be about three miles an hour, which was about two hundred seventy feet a minute, so it took the battered white Toyota twenty whole agonizing seconds to close the gap on the parked Lincoln. Abby lined it up and took a nervous breath and held it and closed her eyes. The Toyota rolled on unchecked and smacked hard into the Lincoln’s back bumper. Walking speed, but still a big noisy impact. Abby was thrown forward against her belt. Reacher used both hands on the dash. The Lincoln bucked forward a foot. The Toyota bounced backward a foot. Reacher stumbled out, one fast pace, two, three, straight ahead to the Lincoln’s rear right-hand door. He grabbed the handle.
The safety doo-dad had done its work.
The door opened. There were two guys inside. Elbow to elbow in the front, belts off, reclined, recently comfortable, now a little shaken up and bounced around. Their heads had come to rest on their seat backs, which made them waist-high to Reacher as he slid in behind them, which made them easy to grab, one in each palm, which made them easy to crash together like the guy in back of the orchestra with the cymbals. And again, after a little more bouncing around, and then ramrod straight forward, the left-hand guy into the rim of the steering wheel, and the right-hand guy into the dashboard roll above the glove box.
Then it was both hands inside their suit coats, leaning over their shoulders from the rear compartment, searching, finding leather straps, and shoulder holsters, and pistols, which he took. He found nothing more in their waistbands, and, leaning all the way forward, he found nothing more strapped around their ankles.
He sat back. The pistols were H&K P7s. German police issue. Beautifully engineered. Almost delicate. But also steely and hard edged. Therefore manly.
Reacher said, ‘Wake up now, guys.’
He waited. Through the window he saw Abby step through her door, into her house.
‘Wake up, guys,’ he said again.
And they did, soon enough. They came back groggy and blinking, looking around, trying to piece it together.
Reacher said, ‘Here’s the deal. There’s an incentive attached. You’re going to drive me east. Along the way I’m going to ask you questions. If you lie to me, I’ll feed you to the Albanians when we get there. If you tell me the truth, I’ll get out and walk away and let you turn around and drive home again unharmed. That’s the incentive. Take it or leave it. Are we clear?’
He saw Abby come out of her house, with a bulging bag. She heaved it across the sidewalk to her car. She dumped it in the back. She got in the front.
Inside the Lincoln the guy behind the wheel clutched his head and said, ‘Are you crazy? I can’t even see straight. I can’t drive you anywhere now.’
‘No such word,’ Reacher said. ‘My advice is try very hard.’
He buzzed down his window and stuck his arm out and signalled Abby to go ahead and pull around and lead the way. He watched her hesitant manoeuvre. The Toyota’s front bumper was no longer horizontal. It was hanging down diagonally, way lower than it should have been. The passenger-side corner was about an inch away from scraping on the blacktop. Maybe two electrical ties would be required. Possibly three.
‘Follow that car,’ he said.
The guy behind the Lincoln’s wheel took off as clumsy as a first-timer. Beside him his partner craned around as far as a cricked neck would let him, and he looked out the corner of his eye, straight at Reacher.
Who sa
id nothing. Up ahead the battered white Toyota was making good progress. Heading east on the cross streets. The Lincoln followed behind it. The guy at the wheel got better at driving. Much smoother.
Reacher said, ‘Where is Max Trulenko?’
At first neither one of them spoke. Then the guy with the bad neck said, ‘You’re a lousy cheat.’
‘How so?’ Reacher said.
‘What our own people would do to us if we told you Trulenko’s location is worse than anything the Albanians could do to us. Which makes it a phony choice. It’s not an incentive. Plus we’re guys who sit in cars and watch doors. You think they would tell folks like us where Trulenko is? So the truthful answer is we don’t know. Which you will say is a lie. Which makes it another phony choice, not an incentive. So do what you got to do. Just spare us the pious bullshit along the way.’
‘But you know who Trulenko is.’
‘Of course we do.’
‘And you know someone is hiding him somewhere.’
‘No comment.’
‘But you don’t know where.’
‘No comment.’
‘If your life depended on it, where would you look?’
The guy with the neck didn’t answer. Then the driver’s cell phone rang. In his pocket. A jaunty little marimba tune, plinking away, over and over, muffled. Reacher thought about coded warnings and secret SOS alerts, and he said, ‘Don’t answer it.’
The driver said, ‘They’ll come looking for us.’
‘Who will?’
‘They’ll send a couple of guys.’
‘Like you two? Now I’m really scared.’
No answer. The phone stopped.
Reacher asked, ‘What’s your boss’s name?’
‘Our boss?’
‘Not the boss of sitting in cars watching doors. The top boy. The capo di tutti capi.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Italian,’ Reacher said. ‘The boss of all bosses.’
No response. Not at first. They glanced at each other, as if trying to share a mute decision. How far could they go? On the one hand, omerta. Also Italian. A code of absolute silence. A code to live by, and to die for. On the other hand, they were currently in deep trouble. Personally and individually. In the real world, in the here and now. Dying for a code was all well and good in theory. In practice things were different. Right then number one on their to-do list was not honourable or glorious sacrifice, but living long enough to drive home afterwards.