by Lee Child
He knew what the sandwich and the coffee cost, because the prices had been printed on the menu. He knew what the local sales tax percentage was, and he was capable of calculating it for himself in his head. He knew how to work out a fifteen percent tip, for the college-age waitress who had also stayed well away from him.
He folded small bills lengthwise and left them on the table. Got up and headed for the door. At the last minute he changed direction and stepped over to the young woman’s booth and slid in opposite her.
“My name is Reacher,” he said. “I think you wanted to talk to me.”
The girl looked at him and blinked and opened her mouth and closed it again and spoke at the second attempt.
She said, “Why would you think that?”
“I met a cop called Vaughan. She told me.”
“Told you what?”
“That you were looking for someone who had been to Despair.”
“You’re mistaken,” the girl said. “It wasn’t me.”
She wasn’t a great liar. Not great at all. Reacher had come up against some real experts, in his previous life. This one had all the tells on display. The gulps, the false starts, the stammers, the fidgets, the glances to her right. Psychologists figured that the memory center was located in the left brain, and the imagination engine in the right brain. Therefore people unconsciously glanced to the left when they were remembering things, and to the right when they were making stuff up. When they were lying. This girl was glancing right so much she was in danger of getting whiplash.
“OK,” Reacher said. “I apologize for disturbing you.”
But he didn’t move. He stayed where he was, sitting easy, filling most of a vinyl bench made for two. Up close the girl was prettier than she had looked from a distance. She had a dusting of freckles and a mobile, expressive mouth.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Just a guy,” Reacher said.
“What kind of a guy?”
“The judge in Despair called me a vagrant. So I’m that kind of a guy, I guess.”
“No job?”
“Not for a long time.”
She said, “They called me a vagrant, too.”
Her accent was unspecific. She wasn’t from Boston or New York or Chicago or Minnesota or the Deep South. Maybe somewhere in the Southwest. Arizona, perhaps.
He said, “In your case I imagine they were inaccurate.”
“I’m not sure of the definition, exactly.”
“It comes from the Old French word waucrant,” Reacher said. “Meaning one who wanders idly from place to place without lawful or visible means of support.”
“I’m in college,” she said.
“So you were unfairly accused.”
“They just wanted me out of there.”
“Where do you go to school?”
She paused. Glanced to her right.
“Miami,” she said.
Reacher nodded. Wherever she went to school, it wasn’t Miami. Probably wasn’t anywhere in the East. Was probably somewhere on the West Coast. Southern California, possibly. Unskilled liars like her often picked a mirror image, when lying about geography.
“What’s your major?” he asked.
She looked straight at him and said, “The history of the twentieth century.” Which was probably true. Young people usually told the truth about their areas of expertise, because they were proud of them, and they were worried about getting caught out on alternatives. Often they didn’t have alternatives. Being young, it came with the territory.
“Feels like yesterday to me,” he said. “Not history.”
“What does?”
“The twentieth century.”
She didn’t reply. Didn’t understand what he meant. She remembered maybe eight or nine years of the old century, maximum, and from a kid’s perspective. He remembered slightly more of it.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She glanced to her right. “Anne.”
Reacher nodded again. Whatever her name was, it wasn’t Anne. Anne was probably a sister’s name. Or a best friend’s. Or a cousin’s. Generally people liked to stay close to home with phony names.
The girl who wasn’t called Anne asked, “Were you unfairly accused?”
Reacher shook his head. “A vagrant is exactly what I am.”
“Why did you go there?”
“I liked the name. Why did you go there?”
She didn’t answer.
He said, “Anyway, it wasn’t much of a place.”
“How much of it did you see?”
“Most of it, the second time.”
“You went back?”
“I took a good look around, from a distance.”
“And?”
“It still wasn’t much of a place.”
The girl went quiet. Reacher saw her weighing her next question. How to ask it. Whether to ask it. She put her head on one side and looked beyond him.
“Did you see any people?” she asked.
“Lots of people,” Reacher said.
“Did you see the airplane?”
“I heard one.”
“It belongs to the guy with the big house. Every night he takes off at seven and comes back at two o’clock in the morning.”
Reacher asked, “How long were you there?”
“One day.”
“So how do you know the plane flies every night?”
She didn’t answer.
“Maybe someone told you,” Reacher said.
No reply.
Reacher said, “No law against joyriding.”
“People don’t joyride at night. There’s nothing to see.”
“Good point.”
The girl was quiet for another minute, and then she asked, “Were you in a cell?”
“Couple of hours.”
“Anyone else in there?”
“No.”
“When you went back, what people did you see?”
Reacher said, “Why don’t you just show me his picture?”
“Whose picture?”
“Your boyfriend’s.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Your boyfriend is missing. As in, you can’t find him. That was Officer Vaughan’s impression, anyway.”
“You trust cops?”
“Some of them.”
“I don’t have a picture.”
“You’ve got a big bag. Probably all kinds of things in there. Maybe a few pictures.”
She said, “Show me your wallet.”
“I don’t have a wallet.”
“Everyone has a wallet.”
“Not me.”
“Prove it.”
“I can’t prove a negative.”
“Empty your pockets.”
Reacher nodded. He understood. The boyfriend is some kind of a fugitive. She asked about my job. She needs to know I’m not an investigator. An investigator would have compromising ID in his wallet. He lifted his butt off the bench and dug out his cash, his old passport, his ATM card, his motel key. His toothbrush was in his room, assembled, standing upright in a plastic glass next to the sink. The girl looked at his stuff and said, “Thanks.”
He said, “Now show me his picture.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Isn’t he?”
“He’s my husband.”
“You’re young, to be married.”
“We’re in love.”
“You’re not wearing a ring.”
Her left hand was on the table. She withdrew it quickly, into her lap. But there had been no ring on her finger, and no tan line.
“It was kind of sudden,” she said. “Kind of hurried. We figured we’d get rings later.”
“Isn’t it a part of the ceremony?”
“No,” she said. “That’s a myth. I’m not pregnant either, just in case that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Not for a minute.”
“Good.”
“Show me the picture.”
She hauled the gray messenger bag into her lap and rooted around for a moment and came out with a fat leather wallet. There was a billfold part straining against a little strap, and a change-purse part. There was a plastic window on the outside with a California driver’s license behind it, with her picture on it. She unpopped the little strap and opened the billfold and riffled through a concertina of plastic photograph windows. Slid a slim fingertip into one of them and eased a snapshot out. She passed it across the table. It had been cut down out of a standard six-by-four one-hour print. The edges were not entirely straight. It showed the girl standing on a street with golden light and palm trees and a row of neat boutiques behind her. She was smiling widely, vibrant with love and joy and happiness, leaning forward a little as if her whole body was clenching with the onset of uncontrollable giggles. She was in the arms of a guy about her age. He was very tall and blond and heavy. An athlete. He had blue eyes and a buzz cut and a dark tan and a wide smile.
“This is your husband?” Reacher asked.
The girl said, “Yes.”
15
Reacher squared the snapshot on the tabletop in front of him. Looked at the girl across from him and asked, “How old is this photo?”
“Recent.”
“May I see your driver’s license?”
“Why?”
“Something I need to check.”
“I don’t know.”
“I already know your name isn’t Anne. I know you don’t go to school in Miami. My guess would be UCLA. This photograph looks like it was taken somewhere around there. It has that LA kind of feel.”
The girl said nothing.
Reacher said, “I’m not here to hurt you.”
She paused and then slid her wallet across the table. He glanced at her license. Most of it was visible behind the milky plastic window. Her name was Lucy Anderson. No middle name. Anderson, hence Anne, perhaps.
“Lucy,” he said. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“I’m sorry about not telling you the truth.”
“Don’t worry about it. Why should you?”
“My friends call me Lucky. Like a mispronunciation. Like a nickname.”
“I hope you always are.”
“Me too. I have been so far.”
Her license said she was coming up to twenty years old. It said her address was an apartment on a street he knew to be close to the main UCLA campus. He had been in LA not long before. Its geography was still familiar to him. Her sex was specified as female, which was clearly accurate, and her eyes were listed as blue, which was an understatement.
She was five feet eight inches tall.
Which made her husband at least six feet four. Maybe six feet five. He towered over her. He was huge. He looked to be well over two hundred pounds. Maybe Reacher’s own size. Maybe even bigger. His arms were as thick as the palm trunks behind him.
Not the guy in the dark. Not even close. Way too big. The guy in the dark had been Lucy Anderson’s size.
Reacher slid the wallet back across the table. Followed it with the photograph.
Lucy Anderson asked, “Did you see him?”
Reacher shook his head.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“He has to be there somewhere.”
“What’s he running from?”
She looked to the right. “Why would he be running from something?”
“Just a wild guess,” Reacher said.
“Who are you?”
“Just a guy.”
“How did you know my name wasn’t Anne? How did you know I’m not in school in Miami?”
“A long time ago I was a cop. In the military. I still know things.”
Her skin whitened behind her freckles. She fumbled the photograph back into its slot and fastened the wallet and thrust it deep into her bag.
“You don’t like cops, do you?” Reacher asked.
“Not always,” she said.
“That’s unusual, for a person like you.”
“Like me?”
“Safe, secure, middle class, well brought up.”
“Things change.”
“What did your husband do?”
She didn’t answer.
“And who did he do it to?”
No answer.
“Why did he go to Despair?”
No response.
“Were you supposed to meet him there?”
Nothing.
“Doesn’t matter, anyway,” Reacher said. “I didn’t see him. And I’m not a cop anymore. Haven’t been for a long time.”
“What would you do now? If you were me?”
“I’d wait right here in town. Your husband looks like a capable guy. He’ll probably show up, sooner or later. Or get word to you.”
“I hope so.”
“Is he in school, too?”
Lucy Anderson didn’t answer that. Just secured the flap of her bag and slid off the bench sideways and stood up and tugged the hem of her skirt down. Five-eight, maybe one-thirty, blonde and blue, straight, strong, and healthy.
“Thank you,” she said. “Good night.”