“So what was it?”
“Something else entirely. Something real.”
“Should we take it to Emerson?”
“No,” Reacher said.
“I think we should.”
“There are reasons not to.”
“Like?”
“For one, Emerson’s got the best done deal he ever saw. He’s not going to pick at the seams now. No cop would.”
“So what should we do?”
“We should ask ourselves three basic questions,” Reacher said. “Like who, and how, and why. It was a transaction. We need to figure out who benefits. Because James Barr certainly didn’t.”
“The who was whoever set those guys on you last night. Because he liked the way the transaction was going and he didn’t want the boat rocked by some new guy showing up.”
“Correct,” Reacher said.
“So I need to look for that person.”
“You might not want to do that.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“It might get your client killed,” Reacher said.
“He’s in the hospital, guarded night and day.”
“Your client isn’t James Barr. It’s Rosemary Barr. You need to think about what kind of a threat can have made James Barr do what he did. He was looking at life without parole at best. Getting strapped to the gurney at worst. He knew that well in advance. He must have. So why would he go along? Why would he walk meekly into all that? It had to have been one hell of an effective threat, Helen. And what’s the only thing Barr’s got to lose? No wife, no kids, no family at all. Except a sister.”
Helen Rodin said nothing.
“He was told to keep quiet, to the end. Obviously. That’s why he asked for me. It was like a coded communication. Because the puppet can’t talk about the puppet master, not now, not ever, because the threat is still out there. I think he might be trading his life for his sister’s. Which gives you a big problem. If the puppet master sees you poking around, he’ll think the puppet talked. That’s why you can’t go to Emerson.”
“But the puppet didn’t talk. You figured it out.”
“We could put an announcement in the paper. Think anyone would believe it?”
“So what should I do?”
“Nothing,” Reacher said. “There’s nothing you can do. Because the more you try to help James Barr, the more likely you are to get Rosemary Barr killed for it.”
Helen Rodin was quiet for a long moment.
“Can we protect her?” she asked.
“No,” Reacher said. “We can’t. There’s only two of us. We’d need four guys minimum, and a safe house. That would cost a lot of money.”
Helen Rodin came out from behind her desk. Walked around and stood next to Reacher and gazed out of the window. She put her hands on the sill, lightly, like a pianist’s on a keyboard. Then she turned around and leaned against the glass. She was fragrant. Some clean scent a little like soap.
“You could look for him,” she said.
“Could I?” he answered, nothing in his voice.
She nodded. “He made a mistake. He gave you a reason that’s not connected to James Barr. Not directly. He set those boys on you. Therefore you’ve got a legitimate interest in finding their employer. An independent interest. You could go after him and he wouldn’t necessarily conclude that James Barr had talked.”
“I’m not here to help the defense.”
“Then look at it as helping the prosecution. If two people were involved, then two people deserve to go down. Why let the patsy take the fall on his own?”
Reacher said nothing.
“Just look at it as helping me,” Helen said.
Grigor Linsky dialed his cell phone.
“They’re back in her office,” he said. “I can see both of them in the window.”
CHAPTER 6
Reacher rode the elevator to the top of the black glass tower and found a maintenance stairwell that led to the roof. He came out through a triangular metal hutch next to the water tank and the elevator winding gear. The roof was gray tar paper covered with gravel. It was fifteen stories up, which wasn’t much in comparison with some cities. But it felt like the highest point in Indiana. He could see the river to the south. South and west, he could see where the raised highway separated. He walked to the northwest corner, and wind whipped at him and flattened his shirt against his body and his pants against his legs. Directly below him the highway spur curled around behind the library and the tower and ran away due east. Far beyond it in the distance the northward spur carried on straight and met a cloverleaf about two miles away in the haze. A long straight road came off the cloverleaf and ran back toward him. He fixed its position in his mind, because that was the road he wanted.
He rode down to the lobby and set out walking. At street level the air was warm and still. He went north and west, which meant he missed the sports bar by a block. The road he wanted came in at a shallow angle south of it and diverted him away. It was straight and wide. Four lanes. Closest to downtown it had small run-down establishments. There was a gun store with heavy mesh on the windows. There was a barbershop with a sign: Any Style $7. There was an old-fashioned motor court on a lot that once must have stood on the edge of town. Then there was a raw cross street and beyond it the lots got bigger and the buildings got newer. Fresh commercial territory. No existing leases, nothing to tear down. Once-virgin land, now paved over.
He kept on walking and after a mile he passed a fast-food drive-through. Then a tire store. Four New Radials $99! Then a lube franchise and a dealership for small cars from Korea. America’s Best Warranty! He looked ahead, because he figured he was getting close.
Are you a hooker?
No way. I work at the auto parts store.
Not an auto parts store. The auto parts store. Maybe the only one, or at least the main one. The biggest one. Which in any city is always right there on the same strip as the tire stores and the auto dealers and the lube shops. Which in any city is always a wide new strip near a highway cloverleaf. Cities are all different, but they’re also all the same.
He spent ten minutes hiking past a Ford dealership with about a thousand new pickup trucks lined up shoulder to shoulder with their front wheels up on ramps. Behind them was a giant inflatable gorilla tied down with guy wires. The wires had tinsel bunting attached to them. Beyond the new trucks were old trucks. Trade-ins, Reacher guessed, looking for new homes. Beyond the used lot was a fire road.
And then an auto parts store.
It was a franchise operation, long and low, neat and clean. New blacktop in the lot, urgent messages in the windows. Cheap oil filters, cheap antifreeze, guaranteed brake parts, superduty truck batteries. The parking lot was about a quarter full. There were slammed Hondas with wide pipes and blue headlight bulbs and rubber-band tires on chrome wheels. There were listing pickup trucks with broken springs. There were tired sedans halfway through their third hundred thousand miles. There were two cars alone together in the end bays. The store staff’s cars, Reacher figured. They weren’t allowed to park in the prime front-and-center slots, but they wanted their rides where they could see them through the windows. One was a four-cylinder Chevy, and the other was a small Toyota SUV. The Chevy had chromed silhouettes of reclining women on the mud flaps, which made the Toyota the redhead’s car. That was Reacher’s conclusion.
He went inside. The air was set very cold and smelled of sharp chemical flavors. There were maybe a half-dozen customers walking around, looking. At the front of the store were racks full of glass and chrome things. Dress-up accessories, Reacher guessed. In back were racks of things in red cardboard boxes. Clutch plates, brake pads, radiator hoses, stuff like that, he guessed. Parts. He had never put parts on a car. In the army there had been guys to do it for him, and since the army he had never had a vehicle of his own.
Between the glamour stuff and the boring stuff was a service corral made of four counters boxed together. There were registers and computers a
nd thick paper manuals. Behind one of the computers was a tall boy somewhere in his early twenties. Not someone Reacher had seen before. Not one of the five from the sports bar. Just a guy. He looked to be in charge. He was wearing red coveralls. A uniform, Reacher guessed, partly practical and partly suggestive of the kind of thing an Indy 500 pit mechanic might wear. Like a symbol. Like an implied promise of fast hands-on help with all kinds of matters automotive. The guy was a manager, Reacher guessed. Not the franchise owner. Not if he drove a four-cylinder Chevy to work. His name was embroidered on the left of his chest: Gary. Up close he looked sullen and unhelpful.
“I need to speak with Sandy,” Reacher said to him. “The redhead.”
“She’s in back right now,” the guy called Gary said.
“Shall I go through or do you want to go get her for me?”
“What’s this about?”
“Personal.”
“She’s here to work.”
“It’s a legal matter.”
“You’re not a cop.”
“I’m working with a lawyer.”
“I need to see some ID.”
“No, Gary, you don’t. You need to go get Sandy.”
“I can’t. I’m short-staffed today.”
“You could call her on the phone. Or page her.”
The guy called Gary just stood still. Did nothing. Reacher shrugged and bypassed the corral of counters and headed for a door in back marked No Admittance. It would be an office or a lunchroom, he guessed. Not a stockroom. A place like that, stock was unloaded directly onto the shelves. No hidden inventory. Reacher knew how modern retail worked. He read the papers people left behind on buses and in diner booths.
It was an office, small, maybe ten-by-ten, dominated by a large white laminate desk with oily handprints on it. Sandy was sitting behind it, wearing red coveralls. Hers looked a whole lot better than Gary’s. They were cinched in tight around her waist with a belt. The zipper was open about eight inches. Her name was embroidered on the left, displayed a lot more prominently than Gary’s was. Reacher figured that if he owned the franchise he would have Sandy working the counter and Gary in the office, no question.
“We meet again,” he said.
Sandy said nothing. Just looked up at him. She was working with invoices. There was a stack of them on her left, and a stack of them on her right. One of them was in her hand, frozen in midair on its journey from one stack to the other. She looked smaller than Reacher remembered, quieter, less energetic, duller. Deflated.
“We need to talk,” he said. “Don’t we?”
“I’m very sorry for what happened,” she said.
“Don’t apologize. I wasn’t offended. I just want to know how it went down.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You do, Sandy. You were there.”
She said nothing. Just placed the invoice on top of the stack to her right and used her fingers to line it up exactly.
“Who set it up?” Reacher asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You must know who told you about it.”
“Jeb,” she said.
“Jeb?”
“Jeb Oliver,” she said. “He works here. We hang out sometimes.”
“Is he here today?”
“No, he didn’t show.”
Reacher nodded. The guy called Gary had said: I’m short-staffed today.
“Did you see him again last night? Afterward?”
“No, I just ran for it.”
“Where does he live?”
“I don’t know. With his mother somewhere. I don’t know him that well.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That I could help with something he had to do.”
“Did it sound like fun?”
“Anything sounds like fun on a Monday night in this town. Watching a barn plank warp sounds like fun.”
“How much did he pay you?”
Sandy didn’t answer.
“A thing like that, nobody does it for free,” Reacher said.
“Hundred dollars,” she said.
“What about the other four guys?”
“Same for them.”
“Who were they?”
“His buddies.”
“Who came up with the plan? The brothers thing?”
“It was Jeb’s idea. You were supposed to start pawing me. Only you didn’t.”
“You improvised very well.”
She smiled a little, like it had been a small unscripted success in a life that held very few of them.
“How did you know where to find me?” Reacher asked.
“We were cruising in Jeb’s truck. Around and around. Kind of standing by. Then he got word on his cell.”
“Who called him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would his buddies know?”
“I don’t think so. Jeb likes to know things that nobody else knows.”
“You want to lend me your car?”
“My car?”
“I need to go find Jeb.”
“I don’t know where he lives.”
“You can leave that part to me. But I need wheels.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m old enough to drive,” Reacher said. “I’m old enough to do lots of things. And I’m pretty good at some of them.”
She half-smiled again, because he was using her own line from the night before. She looked away, and then she looked back at him, shy, but curious.
“Was I any good?” she asked. “You know, last night, with the act?”
“You were great,” he said. “I was preoccupied, or I would have given up on the football in a heartbeat.”
“How long would you need my car for?”
“How big is this town?”
“Not very.”
“Not very long, then.”
“Is this a big deal?”
“You got a hundred bucks. So did four other guys. That’s five hundred right there. My guess is Jeb kept another five for himself. So someone paid a thousand bucks to put me in the hospital. That’s a moderately big deal. For me, anyway.”
“I wish I hadn’t gotten involved now.”
“It turned out OK.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“Maybe,” Reacher said. “But maybe not. We could deal. You could lend me your car and I could forget all about you.”
“Promise?”
“No harm, no foul,” Reacher said.
She ducked down and lifted her purse off the floor. Rooted through and came out with a set of keys.
“It’s a Toyota,” she said.
“I know,” Reacher said. “End of the row, next to Gary’s Chevy.”
“How did you know that?”
“Intuition,” he said.
He took the keys and closed the door on her and headed back to the corral of counters. Gary was ringing some guy up for some unidentifiable purchase. Reacher waited in line behind him. Got to the register inside about two minutes.
“I need Jeb Oliver’s address,” he said.
“Why?” Gary said.
“A legal matter.”
“I want to see some ID.”
“You had a criminal conspiracy running out of your store. If I were you, the less I knew about it, the better.”
“I want to see something.”
“What about the inside of an ambulance? That’s the next thing you’re going to see, Gary, unless you give me Jeb Oliver’s address.”
The guy paused a moment. Glanced beyond Reacher’s shoulder at the line forming behind him. Apparently decided that he didn’t want to start a fight he knew he couldn’t win, with a whole bunch of people watching. So he opened a drawer and took out a file and copied an address onto a slip of paper torn off the top of a memo pad provided by an oil filter manufacturer.
“North of here,” he said. “About five miles.”
“Thank you,” Reacher said, and took the slip of paper.
The redhead
’s Toyota started on the first turn of the key. Reacher let the engine idle and racked the seat back and adjusted the mirror. Clipped his belt and propped the slip of paper against the instrument panel. It meant he couldn’t see the tachometer, but he wasn’t very interested in whatever information that dial might supply. All he cared about was how much gas was in the tank, and there looked to be more than enough for five miles out and five miles back.
Jeb Oliver’s address was nothing more than a house number on a rural route. Easier to find than a road with a name, like Elm Street, or Maple Avenue. In Reacher’s experience some towns had more roads named after trees than trees themselves.
He moved out of the parking lot and drove north to the highway cloverleaf. There was the usual forest of signs. He saw the route number he wanted. It was going to be a dogleg, right and then left. East, and then north. The little SUV hummed along OK. It was tall for its width, which made it feel tippy on the turns. But it didn’t fall over. It had a small engine that kept itself working hard. The interior smelled of perfume.
The west-east part of the dogleg was some kind of a major county road. But after the turn north the blacktop narrowed and the shoulders grew ragged. There was agriculture going on to the left and the right. Some kind of a winter crop was planted in giant circles. Radial irrigation booms turned slowly. The corners where the booms didn’t reach were unplanted and stony. Superimposing circles on squares wasted more than twenty-one percent of every acre, but Reacher figured that might be an efficient trade-off in places where land was plentiful and irrigation hardware wasn’t.
He drove four more miles through the fields and passed a half-dozen tracks with mailboxes at the end of them. The mailboxes were painted with numbers and the tracks led away west and east to small swaybacked farm dwellings maybe two hundred yards off the road. He watched the numbers and slowed before he got to the Oliver place. It had a mailbox like all the others, up on a post made out of two figure-eight concrete blocks stacked end on end. The number was daubed in white on a weathered plywood rectangle wired to the concrete. The track was narrow with two muddy ruts flanking a weedy center hump. There were sharp tire tracks in the mud. New treads, wide, aggressive, from a big truck. Not the kind of tires you bought at the $99-for-four place.
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