by Child, Lee
‘Good,’ Hogan said.
‘But in our business we take process very seriously. We like numbers. At some point I’m sure to be asked, with what exact degree of confidence do I make that assessment?’
‘Hundred per cent,’ Hogan said again.
‘I hear you, but at the end of the day, that’s just a verbal report by an interested party.’
‘All you got.’
‘My point exactly,’ the guy said. ‘It would really help me out if I could take a walk through your property and see for myself. Then we got a foundation of solid evidence to go on. Case closed. We wouldn’t need to bother you again. Maybe you would get an invitation to the July Fourth picnic. One of the family now. A solid guy who helps out.’
‘It’s not my property,’ Hogan said. ‘I rent a room. I don’t think I have the authority.’
‘Maybe the other gentleman, in the living room.’
‘You need to take our word for it, and you need to leave now.’
‘Don’t worry about the weed,’ the guy said. ‘Is that it? I could smell it down the street. I don’t care about weed. I’m not a cop. I’m not here to bust you. I’m a representative from the local mutual aid society. We work hard in the community. We achieve impressive results.’
‘Take our word for it,’ Hogan said again.
‘Who else is in the house?’
‘No one.’
‘Been alone all night?’
‘We had people over for the evening.’
‘What people?’
‘Friends,’ Hogan said. ‘We had Chinese food and a little wine.’
‘Did they stay over?’
‘No.’
‘How many friends?’
‘Two.’
‘A man and a woman, by any chance?’
‘Not the man and woman you’re looking for.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because they can’t be. They’re just regular folks. Like you said.’
‘You sure they didn’t stay over?’
‘I saw them leave.’
‘OK,’ the guy said. ‘Then you have nothing to worry about. I’ll just take a quick glance around. I’ll know right away anyway. I have some experience in these matters. I was a police detective back in Tirana. Usually I found it impossible for a person to be in a house without leaving visible clues somewhere, including about who they were, and why they were there.’
Hogan had no answer.
Reacher and Abby heard footsteps in the hallway directly below them. The guy had stepped inside.
Abby whispered, ‘I can’t believe Hogan let him in. Obviously this guy will look everywhere. It won’t be a quick glance around. Hogan fell for it.’
‘Hogan is doing fine,’ Reacher said. ‘He’s a U.S. Marine. He has a sound grasp of strategy. He gave us plenty of time to get dressed and make the bed and get the window open, so that right about now, as the guy steps inside, we climb outside, and we hide on the roof or in the yard, and the guy doesn’t find us, and he goes away happy, all without a single moment of confrontation. The best fights are the ones you don’t have. Even Marines understand that.’
‘But we’re not climbing out the window. We’re just standing here. We’re not following the plan.’
‘There might be an alternative approach.’
‘Like what?’
‘Maybe something more army than Marine Corps.’
‘Like what?’ she said again.
‘Let’s wait and see what happens,’ he said.
Below them they heard the guy tramp his way into the parlour.
They heard him say, ‘You’re musicians?’
‘Yes.’
‘You play our clubs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not any more, unless your attitude improves.’
No reply. Silence for a second. Then from above they heard the guy move out to the hallway again, and onward into the kitchen.
‘Chinese food,’ they heard him say. ‘Lots of containers. You were telling the truth.’
‘Plus wine,’ Hogan said. ‘Like I told you.’
They heard a clink. Two empty bottles, picked up or knocked together or otherwise examined or inspected or disturbed.
Then silence.
Then they heard the guy say, ‘What’s this?’
They heard the air suck out of the room.
No sound at all.
Until they heard the guy answer his own question.
They heard him say, ‘It’s a scrap of paper with the Albanian word for ugly written on it.’
THIRTY
Reacher and Abby stepped out the bedroom door, to the upstairs hallway. Below them in the kitchen there was no sound. Just some kind of silent tension, hissing and crackling off the tile. Reacher pictured worried glances, Barton to Hogan, Hogan to Barton.
Abby whispered, ‘We should go down there and help them out.’
‘We can’t,’ Reacher said. ‘If that guy sees us here, we can’t let him leave.’
‘Why not?’
‘He would report back. This address would be blown for ever. Barton could get all kinds of problems in the future. They would stop him playing their clubs, for sure. Hogan, too. Same boat. They got to eat.’
Then he paused.
Abby said, ‘What do you mean, can’t let him leave?’
‘There are a number of options.’
‘You mean take him prisoner?’
‘Maybe this house has a cellar.’
‘What are the other options?’
‘There’s a range. I’m pretty much a whatever works kind of guy.’
Abby said, ‘I guess this is my fault. I shouldn’t have left the paper.’
‘You were defending me. It was nice of you.’
‘Still a mistake.’
‘Spilled milk,’ Reacher said. ‘Move on. Don’t waste mental energy.’
Below them the conversation started up again.
They heard the guy ask, ‘Are you learning a new language?’
No answer.
‘Probably better not to start with Albanian. And probably better not to start with this particular word. It’s kind of subtle. It has a bunch of meanings. Country people use it. I guess originally it’s an old folk word, from long ago. It’s quite rare now. Not used often.’
No response.
‘Why did you write it on a scrap of paper?’
No reply.
‘Actually I don’t think you did. I think this is a woman’s handwriting. I told you, I have experience in these matters. I was a police detective in Tirana. I like to keep abreast of relevant data. Especially concerning my new country. The woman who wrote this word is too young to have learned formal cursive penmanship in school. She’s less than forty.’
No answer.
‘Perhaps she’s your friend, who came to dinner. Because the paper was left on the table among the cartons of food. In what they call the same archaeological layer. Which means they were deposited at the same time.’
Hogan said nothing.
The guy asked, ‘Is your friend who came to dinner less than forty?’
Hogan said, ‘She’s about thirty, I guess.’
‘And she came over for Chinese food and a little wine.’
No answer.
‘And maybe some weed, and some gossip about people you both know, and then some serious conversation, about your lives, and the state of the world.’
‘I suppose,’ Hogan said.
‘In the middle of which she suddenly jumped up and found a scrap of paper and wrote a single rare and subtle word in a foreign language completely unknown to most Americans. Can you explain that to me?’
‘She’s a smart person. Maybe she was talking about something. Maybe it was the exact right word, if it’s so rare and subtle. Smart people do that. They use foreign words. Maybe she wrote it down for me. So I could look it up later.’
‘Possible,’ the guy said. ‘Some other time, I might have shrugged my shoulders and let it
go at that. Stranger things have happened. Except I don’t like coincidences. Especially not four all at once. First coincidence is she wasn’t here alone. She had a male partner. Second coincidence is, I’ve seen that rare word a lot in the last twelve hours. In text messages on my phone. Contained in descriptions of our male fugitive. Like I said at the beginning, a man and a woman. I said she’s small and dark, and he’s big and ugly.’
Upstairs in the hallway Abby whispered, ‘This is going to turn bad.’
Like a waitress smelling a bar fight coming.
‘Probably,’ Reacher said.
Below them they heard the guy say, ‘The third coincidence is that a phone with copies of those same messages on it was stolen last night. At one point recently it was switched on for twenty minutes. No calls were made or received. But twenty minutes is long enough to read plenty of texts. Long enough to note down the hard words to work on later.’
Hogan said, ‘Lighten up, man. No one had a stolen phone.’
‘The fourth coincidence is that the stolen phone was stolen by the big ugly guy in the description. We know that for sure. We got a full report. The guy was acting alone at the time, but he is known to associate with a small dark woman. Who was undoubtedly your dinner guest, because she wrote the word on the paper. Undoubtedly she copied it from the stolen phone. Because how else would she know that word? Why else would she be interested in that word right now?’
‘I don’t know, man,’ Hogan said. ‘Maybe we’re talking about different people.’
‘He went out and stole the phone and brought it back to her. Did she instruct him to, ahead of time? Is she his boss? Did she send him on a mission?’
‘I have no clue what you’re talking about, man.’
‘Then you better get a clue,’ the guy said. ‘You have been caught harbouring enemies of the community. Doesn’t reflect well on you.’
‘Whatever,’ Hogan said.
‘You want to move out of state?’
‘I would prefer you to.’
Silence for a long moment.
Then the guy spoke again. Some new menace in his voice. Some new thought. He said, ‘Did they walk or drive?’
‘Who?’
‘The man and the woman you were harbouring.’
‘We weren’t harbouring diddly squat. We had friends over for dinner.’
‘Walk or drive?’
‘When?’
‘When they left your house at the end of the evening. When they didn’t stay over.’
‘They walked.’
‘Do they live close by?’
‘Not very,’ Hogan said, cautiously.
‘So a walk of some length. We’re watching these blocks very carefully. We didn’t see a man and a woman walking home.’
‘Maybe they had a car parked around the corner.’
‘We didn’t see a man and a woman driving home, either.’
‘Maybe you missed them.’
‘I don’t think we would have.’
‘Then I can’t help you, man.’
The guy said, ‘I know they were here. I saw the food they ate. I have the note they transcribed from the stolen phone. Tonight these are the most heavily watched blocks in the city. They were not seen leaving. Therefore they’re still here. I think they’re upstairs, right now.’
Silence for another long moment.
Then Hogan said, ‘You’re a pain in the ass, man. Go ahead up and take a look. Three rooms, all of them empty. Then get out of the house and don’t come back. Don’t send an invitation to the picnic.’
In the hallway upstairs Abby whispered, ‘We could still climb out the window.’
‘We didn’t make the bed,’ Reacher whispered back. ‘And I decided we need this guy’s car. We can’t let him leave anyway.’
‘Why do we need his car?’
‘Something I just realized we need to do.’
Below them the guy’s footsteps crossed the hallway. Towards the bottom of the stairs. A heavy tread. The old floor creaked and yielded under it. Reacher left his gun in his pocket. He didn’t want to use it. A gunshot on a city street at night is going to get a reaction. Too many complications. Evidently the Albanian guy thought the same way. His right hand snaked into view and gripped the stair rail. No gun. His left hand followed. No gun. But they were big hands. Smooth and hard, broad and discoloured, thick blunt fingers, with what looked like a manicure done by a steak mallet.
The guy stepped up on the bottom stair. Big shoe. Large size. Wide fitting. Thick heavy legs. Bulky shoulders, a too-tight suit jacket. Maybe six-two, maybe two-twenty. Not a scrappy little Adriatic guy. A big side of beef. Once upon a time a police detective in Tirana. Maybe size was a requirement. Maybe it got better results.
The guy kept on climbing. Reacher backed away, out of sight. He figured he would step up and say hello just as the guy got to the top. From where he had the furthest to fall. All the way back down again. Maximum distance. Better than just falling on the floor. More efficient. The footsteps kept on coming. Every board squeaked. Reacher waited.
The guy got to the top.
Reacher stepped out.
The guy stared at him.
Reacher said, ‘Tell me about the rare and subtle word.’
In the hallway below, he heard Hogan say, ‘Oh, shit.’
The guy at the top of the stairs didn’t answer.
Reacher said, ‘Tell me about the bunch of meanings. Repulsive to the eye, no doubt, unpleasant to look at, hideous, offensive, unsightly, base, degraded, vile, repellent. All that good modern-day stuff. But if it’s originally an old folk word from years ago, then it’s mostly about fear. In most languages the words share a root. Things you feared, you called ugly. The creature who lived in the forest was never handsome.’
The guy didn’t answer.
Reacher said, ‘Are you guys scared of me?’
No reply.
Reacher said, ‘Take out your phone and place it on the floor at your feet.’
The guy said, ‘No.’
‘And your car keys.’
‘No.’
‘I’m going to take them anyway,’ Reacher said. ‘Up to you when and how.’
The same gaze. Steady, calm, amused, predatory, unhinged.
At that point the guy had two basic choices. He could think of something clever to say back, or he could skip the whole talk-fest altogether, and move straight to the action. Reacher was genuinely uncertain which way he would jump. Downstairs he had seemed to like the sound of his own voice. That was for sure. Once upon a time a police detective. He liked holding court. He liked revealing how the crime was solved. On the other hand, banter alone wasn’t going to win the day. He knew that. Sooner or later something of substance would have to be thrown in the mix. Why not start at the end?
The guy launched off the head of the stairs, off powerful legs, shoulders up, head down, aiming to charge, aiming to plant a shoulder in Reacher’s chest, aiming to knock him backward off balance. But Reacher was at least fifty per cent ready, and he twitched forward towards the guy and threw a vicious right uppercut, except not vertically, more out at a forty-five degree angle, so that the guy’s charging, ducking face met it exactly square on, his own onrushing two-twenty meeting Reacher’s opposite-direction two-fifty in a colossal rupture of kinetic energy, face against fist, enough to lift the guy up off his heels, and dump him down on his butt, except the floor wasn’t there, so the guy somersaulted backward down the stairs, one complete flailing rotation, wide and high, and then he crashed against the bottom wall in a spatter of limbs.
Like a train wreck.
From which he got up. More or less immediately. He blinked twice and staggered once and then stood up straight. Like in an afternoon movie. Like a monster taking an artillery shell to the chest, and swiping absentmindedly at a scorched patch of fur with a battered paw, all the while staring forward implacably.
Reacher started down the stairs. The hallway at the bottom was narrow. Barton and Hoga
n were backing away into the front parlour. Through the open door. The Albanian guy was standing still. Tall and proud and hard as a rock. Apparently resentful at his recent treatment. His nose was bleeding. Hard to tell if it was broken. Hard to tell if there was anything left to break. The guy was no spring chicken. He had lived a hard life. A police detective in Tirana.
The guy took a step forward.
Reacher matched it. They both knew. Sooner or later all you could do was slug it out. The guy feinted left and threw a snap right, low, aimed for Reacher’s centre mass, the straightest path to the target, but Reacher saw it coming and twisted away and took it on a slab of muscle high on his side, which hurt, but not as much as it would have, where it was headed before. The twist away was a pure reflex action, a jammed-wide-open panic response from his autonomic nervous system, a sudden breathtaking gasp of adrenalin, no finesse at all, no modulation, no precision, just maximum available torque, instantly applied, which was a lot, which meant there was a lot of stored energy just hanging there for a split second, like a giant spring tightly wound, ready to suddenly unwind in the opposite direction, with exactly the same violent speed and force, a perfect equal and opposite reaction, but this time controlled, and timed, and aimed, and crafted. This time with the returning elbow setting out on an arc of its own, like a guided missile, coming up, riding the background rotation of his centre mass, adding extra relative velocity of its own, then chopping down hard against the side of the guy’s head, a fraction above and in front of his ear, a colossal blow, like getting hit with a baseball bat or an iron bar. It would have bust most skulls it met. It would have killed most guys. All it did to the Albanian was bounce him off the parlour doorframe and drop him to his knees.
From which he got up immediately. He rose vertically on straightening legs, hands out wide and moving, as if seeking extra leverage, or balance, as if swimming through a thick and viscous fluid. Reacher stepped in and hit him again, the same elbow, but from the other direction, on the forehand not the backhand, above the left eye, bone against bone, jarring, the guy falling back, eyes blank, but inevitably recovering, and blinking, and stepping up once more, this time not stopping, this time swinging straight into a snapping roundhouse right, aimed at the left side of Reacher’s face, but not getting there, because Reacher hunched into it and let it glance off his shoulder. And this time Reacher didn’t stop either. He spun out of the hunch, this time with his left elbow leading, unexpected, scything around, clubbing down, hitting the guy in the face, below the eye, to the side of the nose, where the roots of the front teeth run. Whatever that part was called.