Lee Child - [Jack Reacher 01-16]

by Jack Reacher Series (epub)

  Then he looked up again, because he sensed movement in the corner of his eye at the Marriott’s door two blocks away. He saw a squad car’s hood. It moved into his field of view and dipped once as it braked and stopped. Then two cops appeared, in uniform, walking forward. He glanced at his watch. Twenty-three minutes. He smiled. Emerson was good, but not unbelievable. The cops went in through the door. They would spend five minutes with the desk clerk. The clerk would give up Hutton’s room number without a fight. Generally speaking, hotel clerks from small heartland cities weren’t ACLU activists. And guests were gone tomorrow, but the local PD was always there.

  So the cops would go to Hutton’s room. They would knock on her door. Hutton would let them in. She had nothing to hide. The cops would poke around and be on their way. Ten minutes, tops, beginning to end.

  Reacher checked his watch again, and waited.

  The cops were back out after eight minutes. They paused outside the doors, tiny figures far in the distance. One of them ducked his head to his collar and used his radio, calling in a negative progress report, listening for the next destination. The next likely haunt. The next known associate. Pure routine. Have a fun evening, boys, Reacher thought. Because I’m going to. That’s for damn sure. He watched them drive off and waited another minute in case they were driving his way. Then he stepped out of the brick corral and headed for Eileen Hutton.

  Grigor Linsky waited in his car in a fire lane in a supermarket parking lot, framed against a window that was entirely pasted over with a gigantic orange advertisement for ground beef at a very low price. Old and spoiled, Linsky thought. Or full of Listeria. The kind of thing the Zec and I would once have killed to eat. And killed was the truth. Linsky had no illusions. None at all. The Zec and he were bad people made worse by experience. Their shared suffering had conferred no grace or nobility. Quite the reverse. Men in their situation inclined toward grace and nobility had died within hours. But the Zec and he had survived, like sewer rats, by abandoning inhibition, by fighting and clawing, by betraying those stronger than themselves, by dominating those weaker.

  And they had learned. What works once works always.

  Linsky watched in his mirror and saw Raskin’s car coming toward him. It was a Lincoln Town Car, the old square style, black and dusty, listing like a holed battleship. It stopped nose-to-tail with him and Raskin got out. He looked exactly like what he was, which was a second-rate Moscow hoodlum. Square build, flat face, cheap leather jacket, dull eyes. Forty-some years old. A stupid man, in Linsky’s opinion, but he had survived the Red Army’s last hurrah in Afghanistan, which had to count for something. Plenty of people smarter than Raskin hadn’t come back whole, or come back at all. Which made Raskin a survivor, which was the quality that meant more than any other to the Zec.

  Raskin opened the rear door and slid into the back seat behind Linsky. He didn’t speak. Just handed over four copies of Emerson’s Wanted poster. A delivery from the Zec. How the Zec had gotten the posters, Linsky wasn’t sure. But he could make a guess. The posters themselves were pretty good. The likeness was pretty accurate. It would serve its purpose.

  “Thank you,” Linsky said politely.

  Raskin didn’t respond.

  Chenko and Vladimir showed up two minutes later, in Chenko’s Cadillac. Chenko was driving. Chenko always drove. He parked behind Raskin’s Lincoln. Three large black cars, all in a line. Jack Reacher’s funeral procession. Linsky smiled to himself. Chenko and Vladimir got out of their car and walked forward, one small and dark, the other big and fair. They got into Linsky’s own Cadillac, Chenko in the front, Vladimir in the back next to Raskin, so that counting clockwise there was Linsky in the driver’s seat, then Chenko, then Vladimir, then Raskin. The proper pecking order, instinctively obeyed. Linsky smiled again and handed out three copies of the poster. He kept one for himself, even though he didn’t need it. He had seen Jack Reacher many times already.

  “We’re going to start over,” he said. “Right from the beginning. We can assume the police will have missed something.”

  ______

  Reacher pulled the fire door open and removed the cardboard plug from the lock and put it in his pocket. He stepped inside and let the door latch behind him. He followed the back corridor to the elevator and rode up to three. Knocked on Hutton’s door. He had a line in his head, from Jack Nicholson playing a hard-ass Marine colonel in some movie about Navy lawyers: Nothing beats a woman you have to salute in the morning.

  Hutton took her time opening the door. He guessed she had settled down somewhere after getting rid of the cops. She hadn’t expected to be disturbed again so soon. But eventually the door opened and she was standing there. She was wearing a robe, coming fresh out of the shower. The light behind her haloed her hair. The corridor was dim and the room looked warm and inviting.

  “You came back,” she said.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

  He stepped into the suite and she closed the door behind him.

  “The cops were just here,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “I watched them all the way.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In a garbage dump two blocks away.”

  “You want to wash up?”

  “It was a very clean garbage dump. Behind a shoe store.”

  “You want to go out to dinner?”

  “I’d prefer room service,” he said. “I don’t want to be walking around more than I have to.”

  “OK,” she said. “That makes sense. Room service it is.”

  “But not just yet.”

  “Should I get dressed?”

  “Not just yet.”

  She paused a beat.

  “Why not?” she said.

  “Unfinished business,” he said.

  She said nothing.

  “It’s good to see you again,” he said.

  “It’s been less than three hours,” she said.

  “I mean today,” he said. “As a whole. After all this time.”

  Then he stepped close and cupped her face in his hands. Pushed his fingertips into her hair like he used to and traced the contours of her cheekbones with his thumbs.

  “Should we do this?” she said.

  “Don’t you want to?”

  “It’s been fourteen years,” she said.

  “Like riding a bicycle,” he said.

  “Think it will be the same?”

  “It’ll be better.”

  “How much better?” she asked.

  “We were always good,” he said. “Weren’t we? How much better could it get?”

  She held still for a long moment. Then she put her hands behind his head. She pulled and he bent down and they kissed. Then again, harder. Then again, longer. Fourteen years melted away. Same taste, same feel. Same excitement. She pulled his shirt out of his pants and unbuttoned it from the bottom upward, urgently. When the last button was open she smoothed the flat of her hands over his chest, his shoulders, his back, down to his waistband, around to the front. His boat shoes came off easily. And his socks. He kicked his pants across the room and untied her belt. Her robe fell open.

  “Damn, Hutton,” he said. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “You either,” she said.

  Then they headed for the bed, stumbling, fast and urgent, locked together like an awkward four-legged animal.

  Grigor Linsky took the south side of town. He checked the salad place and then cruised down to the docks. Turned around and quartered the narrow streets, covering three sides of every block, pausing at the turns to scan the sidewalks on the fourth. The Cadillac idled along. The power steering hissed at every corner. It was slow, patient work. But it wasn’t a large city. There was no bustle. No crowds. And nobody could hide forever. That had been Grigor Linsky’s experience.

  ______

  Afterward Hutton lay in Reacher’s arms and used her fingertips to trace a long slow inventory of the body she had known so well. It had changed in fourte
en years. He had said You haven’t changed a bit and she had said You either, but she knew both of them had been generous. Nobody stays the same. The Reacher she had known in the desert had been younger and baked lean by the heat, as fluid and graceful as a greyhound. Now he was heavier, with knotted muscles as hard as old mahogany. The scars she remembered had smoothed out and faded and were replaced by newer marks. There were lines in his forehead. Lines around his eyes. But his nose was still straight and unbroken. His front teeth were still there, like trophies. She slid her hand down to his and felt his knuckles. They were large and hard, like walnut shells matted with scar tissue. Still a fighter, she thought. Still trading his hands for his nose and his teeth. She moved up to his chest. He had a hole there, left of center. Ruptured muscle, a crater big enough for the tip of her finger. A gunshot wound. Old, but new to her. Probably a .38.

  “New York,” Reacher said. “Years ago. Everyone asks.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Who sees it.”

  Hutton snuggled in closer. “How many people see it?”

  He smiled. “You know, on beaches, stuff like that.”

  “And in bed?”

  “Locker rooms,” he said.

  “And in bed,” she said again.

  “I’m not a monk,” he said.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “I don’t remember. I was out for three weeks.”

  “It’s right over your heart.”

  “It was a little revolver. Probably a weak load. He should have tried a head shot. That would have been better.”

  “For him. Not for you.”

  “I’m a lucky man. Always have been, always will be.”

  “Maybe. But you should take better care.”

  “I try my best.”

  ______

  Chenko and Vladimir stayed together and took the north side of town. They kept well away from the motor court. The cops had that situation buttoned up, presumably. So their first stop was the sports bar. They went in and walked around. It was dark inside and not very busy. Maybe thirty guys. None of them matched the sketch. None of them was Reacher. Vladimir stayed near the door and Chenko checked the men’s room. One stall had a closed door. Chenko waited until the toilet flushed and the guy came out. It wasn’t Reacher. It was just a guy. So Chenko rejoined Vladimir and they got back in the car. Started quartering the streets, slowly, patiently, covering three sides of every block and pausing at the turns to scan the sidewalks on the fourth.

  Hutton propped herself on an elbow and looked down at Reacher’s face. His eyes were still the same. Set a little deeper, maybe, and a little more hooded. But they still shone blue like ice chips under an Arctic sun. Like a color map of twin snowmelt lakes in a high mountain landscape. But their expression had changed. Fourteen years ago they had been rimmed red by the desert sandstorms and clouded with some kind of bitter cynicism. They had been army eyes. Cop eyes. She remembered the way they would swing slow and lazy across a room like deadly tracers curling in toward a target. Now they were clearer. Younger. More innocent. He was fourteen years older, but his gaze was like a child’s again.

  “You just had your hair cut,” she said.

  “This morning,” he said. “For you.”

  “For me?”

  “Yesterday I looked like a wild man. They told me you were coming. I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of a bum.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Some kind, I guess.”

  “What kind?”

  “The voluntary kind.”

  “We should eat,” she said.

  “Sounds like a plan,” he said.

  “What do you want?”

  “Whatever you get. We’ll share. Order big portions.”

  “You can choose your own if you want.”

  He shook his head. “A month from now some DoD clerk is going to go through your expenses. Better for you if he sees one meal rather than two.”

  “Worried about my reputation?”

  “I’m worried about your next promotion.”

  “I won’t get one. I’m terminal at Brigadier General.”

  “Not now that this Petersen guy owes you a big one.”

  “Can’t deny two stars would be cool.”

  “For me too,” Reacher said. “I got screwed by plenty of two-stars. To think I screwed one myself would be fun.”

  She made a face.

  “Food,” Reacher said.

  “I like salads,” she said.

  “Someone’s got to, I guess.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Get a chicken Caesar to start and a steak to follow. You eat the rabbit food, I’ll eat the steak. Then get some kind of a big dessert. And a big pot of coffee.”

  “I like tea.”

  “Can’t do it,” Reacher said. “There are some compromises I just can’t make. Not even for the DoD.”

  “But I’m thirsty.”

  “They’ll send ice water. They always do.”

  “I outrank you.”

  “You always did. You ever see me drink tea because of it?”

  She shook her head and got out of bed. Padded naked across to the desk. Checked the menu and dialed the phone. Ordered chicken Caesar, a sixteen-ounce sirloin, and a big pie with ice cream. And a six-cup pot of coffee. Reacher smiled at her.

  “Twenty minutes,” she said. “Let’s take a shower.”

  ______

  Raskin took the heart of downtown. He was on foot with the sketch in his hand and a list in his head: restaurants, bars, diners, sandwich shops, groceries, hotels. He started at the Metropole Palace. The lobby, the bar. No luck. He moved on to a Chinese restaurant two blocks away. In and out, fast and discreet. He figured he was pretty good for this kind of work. He wasn’t a very noticeable guy. Not memorable. Average height, average weight, unremarkable face. Just a hole in the air, which in some ways was a frustration, but in others was a major advantage. People looked at him, but they didn’t really see him. Their eyes slid right on by.

  Reacher wasn’t in the Chinese place. Or the sub shop, or the Irish bar. So Raskin stopped on the sidewalk and decided to dodge north. He could check the lawyer’s office and then head toward the Marriott. Because according to Linsky those places were where the women were. And in Raskin’s experience guys who weren’t just holes in the air got to hang out with women more than the average.

  Reacher got out of the shower and borrowed Hutton’s toothbrush and toothpaste and comb. Then he toweled off and walked around and collected his clothes. Put them on and tucked his shirt in. He was dressed and sitting on the bed when he heard the knock at the door.

  “Room service,” a foreign voice called.

  Hutton put her head out the bathroom door. She was dressed but halfway through drying her hair.

  “You go,” Reacher said.

  “Me?”

  “You have to sign for it.”

  “You can write my name.”

  “Two hours from now the cops won’t have found me and they’ll come back here. Better that we don’t have a guy downstairs who knows you’re not alone.”

  “You never relax, do you?”

  “The less I relax, the luckier I get.”

  Hutton patted her hair into shape and headed for the door. Reacher heard the rattle of a cart and the clink of plates and the scratch of a pen. Then he heard the door close and he stepped through to the living room and found a wheeled table set up in the middle of the floor. The waiter had placed one chair behind it.

  “One knife,” Hutton said. “One fork. One spoon. We didn’t think of that.”

  “We’ll take turns,” Reacher said. “Kind of romantic.”

  “I’ll cut your steak up and you can use your fingers.”

  “You could feed it to me. We should have ordered grapes.”

  She smiled.

  “Do you remember James Barr?” he asked.

  “Too much water over the dam,” she said. “But I reread his file yesterday.”


  “How good a shooter was he?”

  “Not the best we ever had, not the worst.”

  “That’s what I remember. I was just in the garage, taking a look. It was impressive shooting. Very impressive. I don’t remember him being that good.”

  “There’s a lot of evidence there.”

  He nodded. Said nothing.

  “Maybe he’s been practicing hard,” she said. “He was in six years but he’s been out nearly three times as long. Maybe he was a late developer.”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  She looked at him. “You’re not staying, are you? You’re planning on leaving right after dinner. Because of this thing with the cops. You think they’ll come back to the room.”

  “They will,” Reacher said. “Count on it.”

  “I don’t have to let them in.”

  “A place like this, the cops will do pretty much what they want. And if they find me here, you’re in trouble.”

  “Not if you’re innocent.”

  “You’ve got no legitimate way of telling what I am. That’s what they’ll say.”

  “I’m the lawyer here,” Hutton said.

  “And I was a cop,” Reacher said. “I know what they’re like. They hate fugitives. Fugitives drive them nuts. They’ll arrest you along with me and sort it all out next month. By which time your second star will be in the toilet.”

  “So where are you going?”

  “No idea. But I’ll think of something.”

  The street door at the bottom of the black glass tower was locked for the night. Raskin knocked on it, twice. The security guard at the lobby desk looked up. Raskin waved the sketch at him.

  “Delivery,” he mouthed.

  The guard got up and walked over and used a key from a bunch on a chain to unlock the door. Raskin stepped inside.

  “Rodin,” he said. “Fourth floor.”

  The guard nodded. The law offices of Helen Rodin had received plenty of deliveries that day. Boxes, cartons, guys with hand trucks. One more was to be expected. No big surprise. He walked back to his desk without comment and Raskin walked over to the elevator. Got in and pressed 4.