“Because they’re his people.”
“Correct. And that’s why Vassel and Coomer ran last night. They didn’t run, as such. They’re just giving Willard time and space to deal with us.”
“Willard knows he didn’t sign our travel vouchers.”
I nodded. “That’s for sure.”
“So we’re in serious trouble now. We’re AWOL and we’re traveling on stolen vouchers.”
“We’ll be OK.”
“How exactly?”
“When we get a result.”
“Are we going to?”
I didn’t answer.
After lunch we crossed the river and walked a long roundabout route back to the hotel. We looked just like tourists, in our casual clothes, carrying our Samaritaine bags. All we needed was a camera. We window-shopped in the Boulevard St.-Germain and looked at the Luxembourg Gardens. We saw Les Invalides and the École Militaire. Then we walked up the Avenue Bosquet, which took me within fifty yards of the back of my mother’s apartment house. I didn’t tell Summer that. She would have made me go in and see her. We crossed the Seine again at the Pont de l’Alma and got coffee in a bistro on the Avenue New-York. Then we strolled up the hill to the hotel.
“Siesta time,” Summer said. “Then dinner.”
I was happy enough to go for a nap. I was pretty tired. I lay down on the bed in the pale blue room and fell asleep within minutes.
Summer woke me up two hours later by calling me on the phone from her room. She wanted to know if I knew any restaurants. Paris is full of restaurants, but I was dressed like an idiot and I had less than thirty bucks in my pocket. So I picked a place I knew on the Rue Vernet. I figured I could go there in jeans and a sweatshirt without getting stared at and without paying a fortune. And it was close enough to walk. No cab fare.
We met in the lobby. Summer still looked great. Her skirt and jacket looked as good for the evening as they had for the afternoon. She had abandoned her beret. I had kept mine on. We walked up the hill toward the Champs-Élysées. Halfway there, Summer did a strange thing. She took my hand in hers. It was going dark and we were surrounded by strolling couples and I guessed it felt natural to her. It felt natural to me too. It took me a minute to realize she had done it. Or, it took me a minute to realize there was anything wrong with it. It took her the same minute. At the end of it she got flustered and looked up at me and let go again.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Don’t be,” I said. “It felt good.”
“It just happened,” she said.
We walked on and turned into the Rue Vernet. Found the restaurant. It was early in the evening in January and the owner found us a table right away. It was in a corner. There were flowers and a lit candle on it. We ordered water and a pichet of red wine to drink while we thought about the food.
“You’re at home here,” Summer said to me.
“Not really,” I said. “I’m not at home anywhere.”
“You speak pretty good French.”
“I speak pretty good English too. Doesn’t mean I feel at home in North Carolina, for instance.”
“But you like some places better than others.”
I nodded. “This one is OK.”
“Done any long-term thinking?”
“You sound like my brother. He wants me to make a plan.”
“Everything is going to change.”
“They’ll always need cops,” I said.
“Cops who go AWOL?”
“All we need is a result,” I said. “Mrs. Kramer, or Carbone. Or Brubaker, maybe. We’ve got three bites of the cherry. Three chances.”
She said nothing.
“Relax,” I said. “We’re out of the world for forty-eight hours. Let’s enjoy ourselves. Worrying isn’t going to get us anywhere. We’re in Paris.”
She nodded. I watched her face. Watched her try to get past it. Her eyes were expressive in the candlelight. It was like she had troubles in front of her, maybe piled high into stacks, like cartons. I saw her shoulder her way around them, to the quiet place in the back of the closet.
“Drink your wine,” I said. “Have fun.”
My hand was resting on the table. She reached out and squeezed it and picked up her glass.
“We’ll always have North Carolina,” she said.
We ordered three courses each off the fixed-price page of the menu. Then we took three hours to eat them. We kept the conversation away from work. We talked about personal things instead. She asked me about my family. I told her a little about Joe, and not much about my mother. She told me about her folks, and her brothers and sisters, and enough cousins that I lost track about who was who. Mostly I watched her face in the candlelight. Her skin had a copper tone mixed behind pure ebony black. Her eyes were like coal. Her jaw was delicate, like fine china. She looked impossibly small and gentle, for a soldier. But then I remembered her sharpshooter badges. More than I had.
“Am I going to meet your mom?” she said.
“If you want to,” I said. “But she’s very sick.”
“Not just a broken leg?”
I shook my head.
“She has cancer,” I said.
“Is it bad?”
“As bad as it gets.”
Summer nodded. “I figured it had to be something like that. You’ve been upset ever since you came over here the first time.”
“Have I?”
“It’s bound to bother you.”
I nodded in turn. “More than I thought it would.”
“Don’t you like her?”
“I like her fine. But, you know, nobody lives forever. Conceptually these things don’t come as a surprise.”
“I should probably stay away. It wouldn’t be appropriate if I came. You should go with Joe. Just the two of you.”
“She likes meeting new people.”
“She might not be feeling good.”
“We should wait and see. Maybe she’ll want to go out for lunch.”
“How does she look?”
“Terrible,” I said.
“Then she won’t want to meet new people.”
We sat in silence for a spell. Our waiter brought the check. We counted our cash and paid half each and left a decent tip. We held hands all the way back to the hotel. It felt like the obvious thing to do. We were alone together in a sea of troubles, some of them shared, some of them private. The guy with the top hat opened the door for us and wished us bonne nuit. Good night. We rode up in the elevator, side by side, not touching. When we got out on our floor Summer had to go left and I had to go right. It was an awkward moment. We didn’t speak. I could see she wanted to come with me and I sure as hell wanted to go with her. I could see her room in my mind. The yellow walls, the smell of perfume. The bed. I imagined lifting her new sweater over her head. Unzipping her new skirt and hearing it fall to the floor. I figured it would have a silk lining. I figured it would make a rustling sound.
I knew it wouldn’t be right. But we were already AWOL. We were already in all kinds of deep shit. It would be comfort and consolation, apart from whatever else it would be.
“What time in the morning?” she said.
“Early for me,” I said. “I have to be at the airport at six.”
“I’ll come with you. Keep you company.”
“Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” she said.
We stood there.
“We’ll have to get up about four,” she said.
“I guess,” I said. “About four.”
We stood there.
“Good night then, I guess,” she said.
“Sleep well,” I said.
I turned right. Didn’t look back. I heard her door open and close a second after mine.
It was eleven o’clock. I went to bed but I didn’t sleep. I just lay there and stared at the ceiling for an hour. There was city light coming in the window. It was cold and yellow and hazy. I could see the pulses from the Eiffel Tower’s party lights. They flashed
gold, on and off, somewhere between fast and slow and relentless. They changed the pattern on the plaster above my head, once a second. I heard the sound of brakes on a distant street, and the yap of a small dog, and lonely footsteps far below my window, and the beep of a faraway horn. Then the city went quiet and silence crowded in on me. It howled all around me, like a siren. I raised my wrist. Checked my watch. It was midnight. I dropped my wrist back down on the bed and was hit by a wave of loneliness so bad it left me breathless.
I put the light on and rolled over to the phone. There were instructions printed on a little plate below the dial buttons. To call another guest’s room, press three and enter the room number. I pressed three and entered the room number. She answered, first ring.
“You awake?” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Want company?”
“Yes,” she said.
I pulled my jeans and sweatshirt on and walked barefoot down the corridor. Knocked at her door. She opened it and reached out her hand and pulled me inside. She was still fully dressed. Still in her skirt and sweater. She kissed me hard at the door and I kissed her back, harder. The door swung shut behind us. I heard the hiss of its closer and the click of its latch. We headed for the bed.
She wore dark red underwear. It was made of silk, or satin. I could smell her perfume everywhere. It was in the room and on her body. She was tiny and delicate and quick and strong. The same city light was coming in the window. Now it bathed me in warmth. Gave me energy. I could see the Eiffel Tower’s lights on her ceiling. We matched our rhythm to their rhythm, slow, fast, relentless. Afterward we turned away from them and lay like spoons, burned out and breathing hard, close but not speaking, like we weren’t sure exactly what we had done.
I slept an hour and woke up in the same position. I had a strong sensation of something lost and something gained, but I couldn’t explain either feeling. Summer stayed asleep. She was nestled solidly into the curve of my body. She smelled good. She felt warm. She felt lithe and strong and peaceful. She was breathing slow. My left arm was under her shoulders and my right arm was draped across her waist. Her hand was cupped in mine, half-open, half-curled.
I turned my head and watched the play of light on the ceiling. I heard the faint noise of a motorbike maybe a mile away, on the other side of the Arc de Triomphe. I heard a dog bark in the distance. Other than that the city was silent. Two million people were asleep. Joe was in the air, somewhere on the Great Circle route, maybe closing in on Iceland. I couldn’t picture my mother. I closed my eyes. Tried to sleep again.
The alarm clock in my head went off at four. Summer was still asleep. I eased my arm out from under her and worked some kind of circulation back into my shoulder and slid out of bed and padded across the carpet to the bathroom. Then I put my pants on and shrugged into my sweatshirt and woke Summer with a kiss.
“Rise and shine, Lieutenant,” I said.
She stretched her arms up high and arched her back. The sheet fell away to her waist.
“Good morning,” she said.
I kissed her again.
“I like Paris,” she said. “I had fun here.”
“Me too.”
“Lots of fun.”
“Lobby in half an hour,” I said.
I went back to my own room and called room service for coffee. I was through shaving and showering before it arrived. I took the tray at the door wearing just a towel. Then I dressed in fresh BDUs and poured my first cup and checked my watch. It was four-twenty in the morning in Paris, which made it ten-twenty in the evening on the East Coast, which made it well after the end of bankers’ hours. And which made it seven-twenty in the evening on the West Coast, which was early enough that a hardworking guy might still be at his desk. I checked the plate on the phone again and hit nine for a line. Dialed the only number I had ever permanently memorized, which was the Rock Creek switchboard back in Virginia. An operator answered on the first ring.
“This is Reacher,” I said. “I need a number for Fort Irwin’s MP XO.”
“Sir, there’s a standing order from Colonel Willard that you should return to base immediately.”
“I’ll be right there, soon as I can. But I need that number first.”
“Sir, where are you now?”
“In a whorehouse in Sydney, Australia,” I said. “Give me that Irwin number.”
He gave me the number. I repeated it to myself and hit nine again and dialed it. Calvin Franz’s sergeant answered, second ring.
“I need Franz,” I said.
There was a click and then silence and I was settling in for a long wait when Franz came through.
“I need you to do something for me,” I said.
“Like what?”
“You’ve got a XII Corps guy called Marshall there. You know him?”
“No.”
“I need him to stay there until I can get there myself. It’s very important.”
“I can’t stop people leaving the post unless I arrest them.”
“Just tell him I called from Berlin. That should do it. As long as he thinks I’m in Germany, he’ll stay in California.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what he’s been told to do.”
“Does he know you?”
“Not personally.”
“Then that’s an awkward conversation for me to have. Like, I can’t just walk up to a guy I never met and say, Hey, hot news, another guy you never met called Reacher wants you to know he’s stuck in Berlin.”
“So be subtle,” I said. “Tell him I asked you to ask him a question for me, because there’s no way I can get there myself.”
“What question?”
“Ask him about the day of Kramer’s funeral. Was he at Arlington? What did he do the rest of the day? Why didn’t he drive his guys to North Carolina? What reason did they give him for wanting to drive themselves?”
“That’s four questions.”
“Whatever, just make it sound like you’re asking on my behalf because California isn’t in my travel plans.”
“Where can I get back to you?”
I looked down at the phone and read out the George V’s number.
“That’s France,” he said. “Not Germany.”
“Marshall doesn’t need to know that,” I said. “I’ll be back here later.”
“When are you coming to California?”
“Within forty-eight hours, I hope.”
“OK,” he said. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” I said. “Call Fort Bird for me and ask my sergeant to get histories on General Vassell and Colonel Coomer. Specifically I want to know if either one of them has a connection with a town called Sperryville in Virginia. Born there, grew up there, family there, any kind of connection that would indicate they might know what kind of retail outlet was where. Tell her to sit on the answers until I get in touch.”
“OK,” he said again. “Is that it?”
“No,” I said. “Also tell her to call Detective Clark in Green Valley and have him fax his street canvasses relating to the night of New Year’s Eve. She’ll know what I’m talking about.”
“I’m glad someone will,” Franz said.
He paused. He was writing stuff down.
“So is that it?” he said.
“For now,” I said.
I hung up and made it down to the lobby about five minutes after Summer. She was waiting there. She had been much faster than me. But then, she didn’t have to shave and I don’t think she had made any calls or taken time for coffee. Like me, she was back in BDUs. Somehow she had cleaned her boots, or had gotten them cleaned. They were gleaming.
We didn’t have money for a cab to the airport. So we walked back through the predawn darkness to the Place de l’Opéra and caught the bus. It was less crowded than the last time but just as uncomfortable. We got brief glimpses of the sleeping city and then we crossed the Périphérique and ground slowly through the dismal outer suburbs.
&n
bsp; We got to Roissy–Charles de Gaulle just before six. It was busy there. I guessed airports worked on floating time zones all their own. It was busier at six in the morning than it would be in the middle of the afternoon. There were crowds of people everywhere. Cars and buses were loading and unloading, red-eyed travelers were coming out and going in and struggling with bags. It looked like the whole world was on the move.
The arrivals screen showed that Joe’s flight was already on the ground. We hiked around to the customs area’s exit doors. Took our places among a big crowd of meeters and greeters. I figured Joe would be one of the first passengers through. He would have walked fast from the plane and he wouldn’t have checked any luggage. No delays.
We saw a few stragglers coming out from the previous flight. They were mostly families slowed by young children or individuals who had waited for odd-sized luggage. People in the crowd turned toward them expectantly and then turned away again when they realized they weren’t who they were looking for. I watched them do it for a spell. It was an interesting physical dynamic. Just subtle adjustments of posture were enough to display interest, and then lack of interest. Welcome, and then dismissal. A half-turn inward, and then a half-turn away. Sometimes it was nothing more than a transfer of body weight from one foot to the other.
The last stragglers were mixed in with the first people off of Joe’s flight. There were businessmen moving fast, humping briefcases and suit carriers. There were young women in high heels and dark glasses, expensively dressed. Models? Actresses? Call girls? There were government people, French and American. I could pick them out by the way they looked. Smart and serious, plenty of eyeglasses, but their shoes and suits and coats weren’t the best quality. Low-level diplomats, probably. The flight was from D.C., after all.
Joe came out about twelfth in line. He was in the same overcoat I had seen before, but a different suit and a different tie. He looked good. He was walking fast and carrying a black leather overnight bag. He was a head taller than anyone else. He came out of the door and stopped dead and scanned around.
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