by Lee Child
“The whole city is out,” Hemingway said.
“Listen,” Reacher said.
“To what?”
“Exactly. The sound of a billion electric motors not running. And a billion electric circuits switched off.”
Chrissie said, “This is unbelievable.”
Hemingway said, “There’s going to be trouble. Give it an hour or so, and there’s going to be rioting, and arson, and a whole lot of looting. So you two, right now, head north as far and as fast as you can. Do not go east or west. Do not use the tunnels. Do not stop until you’re north of 14th Street.”
Reacher said, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to work.”
“You’re suspended.”
“I can’t stand by and do nothing. And you have to get your friend back where you found her. I think those are our basic obligations.” And then she ran, south toward Houston Street, and was lost in the dark within seconds.
—
The street light on Great Jones was no longer working, but the blue Chevette was still under it, gray and formless in the dark, as yet unmolested. Chrissie opened it up, and they got in, and she started the motor and put it in gear. She didn’t turn on the lights, which Reacher understood. Disturbing the massive darkness didn’t seem right. Or possible, even. The great city felt stunned and passive, an immense organism laid low, implacable and indifferent to tiny scurrying humans. Of which there was a growing number within view. Windows were opening, and folks on lower floors were walking downstairs and coming out, standing near their doors and peering about, full of wonder and apprehension. The heat was still way up there. It wasn’t cooling down at all. A hundred degrees, maybe more, clamping down and now smug and settled and supreme, unchallenged by fans or air-conditioning or any other kind of man-made mediation.
Great Jones Street was one-way west, and they crossed Lafayette and Broadway, and continued on West Third, Chrissie driving slow and tentative, not much faster than walking pace, a dark car in the dark, one of very few about. Maybe drivers had felt compelled to pull over, as part of the general paralysis. The traffic lights were all out. Each new block was newly weird, still and silent, blank and gray, absolutely unlit. They turned north on LaGuardia Place, and went counterclockwise around the bottom right-hand corner of Washington Square, back to the coffee shop. Chrissie parked where she had before, and they got out into the soupy air and the silence.
The coffee shop was dark, obviously, with nothing to see behind its dusty glass window. The air conditioner above the door was silent. And the door was locked. Reacher and Chrissie cupped their hands and pressed them to the glass and peered through, and saw nothing except vague black shapes in the dark. No staff. No customers. Maybe a health board thing. If the refrigerators went out, maybe they had to abandon ship.
Reacher said, “Where will your friends have gone?”
Chrissie said, “No idea.”
“You said there was a plan.”
“If one of us gets lucky, we meet back here at midnight.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get luckier.”
“I feel OK now.”
“We’re still south of 14th Street.”
“They won’t find you in the dark, surely.”
“Will we find your friends in the dark?”
“Why would we want to? They’ll get back by midnight. Until then we should hang out and experience this. Don’t you think? This is pretty amazing.”
And it was. There was a hugeness to it. Not just a room or a building or a block, but the entire city, slumped inert and defeated all around them, as if it was ruined, as if it was dead, like a relic from the past. And maybe it was more than just the city. There was no glow on any horizon. Nothing from across either river, nothing from the south, nothing from the north. Maybe the whole Northeast was out. Maybe all of America. Or the whole world. People were always talking about secret weapons. Maybe someone had pulled a trigger.
Chrissie said, “Let’s go look at the Empire State Building. We may never see it like this again.”
Reacher said, “OK.”
“In the car.”
“OK.”
They went up University, and used Ninth Street across to Sixth Avenue, where they turned north. Sixth Avenue was nothing at all. Just a long black hole, and then a small rectangle of night sky where it ended at Central Park. There were a few cars on it. All were moving slow. Most had their lights off. Like the Chevette. Instinctive, somehow. A shared assumption. Crowd behavior. Reacher caught a sudden whiff of fear. Hide in the dark. Don’t stand out. Don’t be seen.
Herald Square had people in it. Where Broadway cut across, at 34th Street. Most of them were out in the middle of the triangle, away from the buildings, trying to see the sky. Some of them were formed up in moving bunches, like sports fans leaving the stadium after a win, with the same kind of boisterous energy. But Macy’s windows were all intact. So far.
They kept going all the way to West 38th, crawling past the dead traffic lights and the cross streets, unsure every time whether they should yield or keep on going, but it turned out there was no real danger of either fender benders or confrontation, because everyone was moving slow and acting deferential, all after you, no, after you. Clearly the spirit so far was cooperation. On the roads, at least. Reacher wondered how long it would last.
They went east on 38th and turned on Fifth four blocks north of the Empire State. Nothing to see. Just a broad dark base, like both sides of every other block, and then nothing above. Just spectral darkness. They parked on the Fifth Avenue curb, on the block north of 34th Street, and got out for a closer look. Thirty-fourth was a double-wide street, with a clear view east and west, dark all the way, except for an orange glow in the far distance above what must have been Brooklyn. Fires were burning there.
“It’s starting,” Reacher said.
They heard a cop car coming north on Madison, and they saw it cross the six-lane width of 34th Street one block over. Its lights looked amazingly bright. It drove on out of sight, and the night went quiet again. Chrissie said, “Why did the power go out?”
“Don’t know,” Reacher said. “Overload from all the AC, or a lightning strike somewhere. Or the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion. Or maybe someone didn’t pay the bill.”
“Nuclear explosion?”
“It’s a known side effect. But I don’t think it happened. We’d have seen the flash. And depending where it was, we’d have been burned to a crisp.”
“What kind of military are you?”
“No kind at all. My dad’s a Marine, and my brother is going to be an army officer, but that’s them, not me.”
“What are you going to be?”
“I have no idea. Probably not a lawyer.”
“Do you think your FBI friend was right about riots and looting?”
“Maybe not so much in Manhattan.”
“Are we going to be OK?”
Reacher said, “We’re going to be fine. If all else fails, we’ll do what they did in the olden days. We’ll wait for morning.”
—
They turned onto 34th Street and drove over as close as they could get to the East River. They stopped on a trash-strewn triangle half under the FDR Drive, and they stared through the windshield over the water to the dark lands beyond. Queens dead ahead, Brooklyn to the right, the Bronx way far to the left. The fires in Brooklyn looked pretty big already. There were fires in Queens, too. And the Bronx, but Reacher had been told there were always fires in the Bronx. Nothing behind them, in Manhattan. Not yet. But there were plenty of sirens. The darkness was getting angry. Maybe because of the heat. Reacher wondered how Macy’s windows were doing.
Chrissie kept the engine running, for the AC. The gas was about half full. The tails of her shirt hid her shorts completely. She looked like she was wearing nothing else. Just the shirt. Which looked great. She was very pretty. He asked, “How old are you?”
She said, “Nineteen.”
“Where are you from?”
“California.”
“You like it here?”
“So far. We get seasons. Heat and cold.”
“Especially heat.”
She asked, “How old are you?”
“I’m legal,” he said. “That’s really all you need to know.”
“Is it?”
“I hope so.”
She smiled, and turned off the engine. She locked her door, and leaned over to lock his. She smelled of hot clean girl. She said, “It’s going to get warm in here.”
“I hope so,” he said again. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close and kissed her. He knew how to do it. He had more than three years of practice. He put his free hand on the curve of her hip. She was a great kisser. Warm, wet, plenty of tongue. Closed eyes. He pushed her shirt up a little and ducked his hand under it. She was lean and firm. Hot, and a little damp. She brought her spare hand over and put it under his shirt. She smoothed it up over his side, over his chest, and down to his waist. She put the tips of her fingers under his waistband, which he took to be an encouraging sign.
They came up for air, and then they started again. He moved his free hand to her knee, and slid it up the wondrous smooth skin of her thigh, on the outside, with his thumb on the inside, to the hem of her shorts, and back again, to the other knee, and up her other leg, just as smooth and luscious, his fingers on the inside this time, his thumb on the outside, all the time trying to imagine anything more splendid than the feel of a warm girl’s skin, and failing. And this time he went a little further, until his leading finger was jammed against the hard seam between her legs, at the bottom of her zip. She clamped hard on his hand, which at first he took as an admonition, but then he realized she had another purpose in mind, so he kept his hand there, pushing hard as she ground away, almost lifting her off the seat. Then she sighed and gasped and went all rubbery, and they came up for air again, and he moved his crushed hand to the buttons on her shirt, and he tried to make his fingers work. Which they did, reasonably well, one button, two, three, all the way down until her shirt fell open.
They kissed again, the third marathon, and his free hand went to work in a different area, first outside a silky bra, and then inside, from below, until it was all pushed up and her small damp breasts were his. He moved his mouth to her neck, and then to her nipples, and he put his hand back where it had been before, and she started grinding again, long and slow, long and slow, breathing hard, until for a second time she sighed and gasped and fell against him, as if she had no bones in her body.
Then she put a hand on his chest and pushed him away, back toward his window, which again he took as a reproach, until she smiled like she knew something he didn’t, and unbuttoned his pants. Slim brown fingers took care of his zip, at which exact point for the first time in his life he truly understood the phrase died and gone to heaven. Her head went down into his lap, and he felt cool lips and a tongue, and he closed his eyes, and then he opened them again and stared about, determined to remember every last detail of his situation, the where and the when, and the how, and the who and the why, especially the why, because his conscious mind could find no logical path between the Port Authority Bus Terminal and what had to be some kind of enchanted kingdom. New York, New York. It’s a wonderful town. That was for damn sure. So he stared around, locking it all in, the river, the formless boroughs beyond, the distant fires, the wire fences, the bleak concrete pillars holding up the road above.
He saw a man standing thirty yards away in the dark, silhouetted against the glow coming off the water. Mid-twenties, maybe, judging by his posture, medium height, thick in the upper body, a geeky shape to his head, because of uncooperative hair. He had the kind of hair that should have been cut much shorter, but it was 1977. He was holding something in his right hand.
Chrissie was still busy. She was unquestionably the best ever. No comparison. None at all. He wondered if Sarah Lawrence was coed. He could go there. Just as good as NYU. Not that they were likely to get married or anything. But maybe she had friends. Or a sister. In fact he knew she had friends. The two blondes. They’ll wait. That’s part of the deal. They had two hours until midnight, which suddenly seemed like nothing at all.
The guy moved in the dark. He rolled around a pillar, light on his feet, staying covered, checking the blind spot at ninety degrees, checking the other direction, and then moving forward, fast and straight to the next pillar.
Toward the Chevette.
The guy eased around the new pillar, just to check his new blind spot, and then he pulled back and merged with the concrete, barely visible again, all the time being very careful with the thing in his hand, as if it was valuable or especially fragile.
Chrissie was still busy. And she was doing a fine, fine job. Died and gone to heaven wasn’t even close. It was an underestimate of the most serious kind. Egregious, even. It was the kind of faint praise that could cause a diplomatic incident.
The guy moved again. He went through the same routine, reflexively, glance, glance, move, to the next pillar, closer still to the Chevette, and he blended in, bringing his right arm to rest last, solicitous of the thing he was holding, taking care not to bring it into contact with the concrete.
Thereby bringing it separately through the river’s glow, all by itself.
Reacher knew what it was.
It was an upside-down revolver, swinging by the trigger guard on the guy’s right-hand index finger. A squat shape, thick in the upper body like the guy himself, rounded in the grips, a two-and-a-half-inch barrel, smooth, with few projections. Could have been a Charter Arms Bulldog, a five-shooter, sturdy, most often chambered for the .44 Special. Double action. Easy to service. Not a target shooter’s gun. But good close up.
Chrissie was still busy. The guy moved again. Closer still to the Chevette. He stared right at it. Before he had gotten on the bus in Pohang Reacher’s mother had made him read her newspapers. New York City. A killing spree. The Son of Sam. Named from his crazy letters. But before the letters came he had been called something else. He had been called the .44 Caliber Killer. Because he used .44 caliber bullets. From a revolver.
Specifically, the NYPD said, from a Charter Arms Bulldog.
Chrissie was still busy. And this was no kind of a time to stop. No kind of a time at all. In fact stopping was not a possibility. Physically, mentally, every other way. It was absolutely not on the agenda. It was in a whole different hemisphere than the agenda. Maybe a whole different universe. It was a biological fact. It was not going to happen. The guy stared. Reacher stared back. He’s killing people. Couples sitting in cars. Way to go, Reacher thought. Do it now. I’ll go out on a high note. The highest possible note in the whole history of high notes. Jack Reacher, RIP. He died young, but he had a smile on his face.
The guy made no move. He just stared.
Reacher stared back.
The guy made no move.
Couples sitting in cars.
But they weren’t. Not from an exterior perspective. Chrissie’s head was in his lap. Reacher was alone in the car. Just a driver, off the road in the emergency, waiting in the passenger seat, for the extra legroom. The guy stared. Reacher stared back. Chrissie was still busy. The guy moved on. To the next pillar, and the next, and then he was lost to sight.
And then Chrissie’s work was done.
—
Afterward they repaired the damage as well as they could, straightening and zipping and buttoning and combing. Chrissie said, “Better than Blondie?”
Reacher said, “How could I tell?”
“Better than Blondie live onstage at CBGB, I mean.”
“A lot better. No real comparison.”
“You like Blondie, right?”
“Best ever. Well, top five. Or ten.”
“Shut up.” She started the engine again and put the air on max. She slid down in her seat and lifted her shirt tails so the vents blew straight up against her skin.
“When?”
“Just now.”
“Doing what?”
“Peering into this car.”
“Who?”
“Some guy.”
“For real? That’s kind of creepy.”
Reacher said, “I know. And I’m real sorry, but I have to go find Jill Hemingway. I should tell her first. She needs some favors.”
“Tell her what?”
“What I saw.”
“What did you see?”
“Something she should know about.”
“Was it one of Croselli’s guys?”
“No.”
“So how is it important?”
“She might be able to use it.”
“Where is she?”
“I have no idea. Let me out in Washington Square and I’ll walk. I bet she’s north of Houston.”
“You would be going right back in there, where we got chased out before.”
“Let’s call that phase our reconnaissance.”
“What would you do this time?”
“Fastest way to find Hemingway is to look for Croselli.”
“I’m not going to let you.”
“How could you stop me?”
“I would tell you not to. I’m your girlfriend. At least until midnight.”
“Is this what they teach you at Sarah Lawrence?”
“Pretty much.”
“Works for me,” Reacher said. “We’ll just hang out, see if she comes by.”
“Really?”
“I mean it.”
“Why?”
“Laws of physics. A random encounter doesn’t get more likely just because both parties are moving.”
“OK, where?”
“Let’s say the corner of Bleecker and Broadway. That might make the encounter less random.”
“That’s way down there.”
“It’s a block from Houston. We can break out south if we need to.”
“We?”
“Was it you who wanted me to stick close by?”
“This is a whole different type of crazy.”