FaceOff

by Lee Child

  The Yankee pitcher was throwing the last of his warm-ups. He was dismayingly good. Graceful, and a great arm. A knuckleballer. He had a mean slider and a nasty power changeup with serious depth and fade. Most important, he wasn’t wasting his stuff. He was saving it for the game. This wasn’t a pitcher who’d burn out long before one hundred pitches, like so many others did.

  Of course he was good: he’d been one of the Red Sox’s best starters until the Yankees hired him away for money no one could turn down. The best pitching money can buy. Yankee fans used to boo him relentlessly when the Sox came to Yankee Stadium. But as soon as he started pitching no-hitters for them, they switched allegiances.

  Heller wasn’t a guy who switched allegiances.

  The bottom of the first started and the Red Sox batter stepped up to the plate and hit a smash off the first pitch. A home run. It sailed over the Green Monster, that ridiculously high left-field wall that had turned many a surefire homer into a double. The ball probably broke a store window somewhere over on Lansdowne Street. The bar erupted in cheers, predictably.

  Then Heller noticed three interesting things.

  Jerry DeLong hadn’t been paying attention to the game. He turned to the set searchingly, a beat too late, trying to figure out what had just happened.

  And the big bruiser on his left wasn’t cheering. Not even smiling. He’d been watching the game closely, but obviously wasn’t a Sox fan. He winced at the home run and made a little snort. He didn’t look happy. A New Yorker, then. A Yankees fan. It took a fair measure of chutzpah for a Yankees fan to watch a Sox-Yankees game in a bar like this one. Either that or not caring what other people thought. The latter, Heller decided.

  Then the fat guy’s cell phone rang and he took it out of his pocket and held it up to his ear, next to the pouch of flesh below his jowls. He cupped his other hand around the phone, shielding it from the clamor of the bar.

  “Hey, honey,” he said, easy and familiar, but also a little panicked, like husbands in bars everywhere. “No, not at all—I’m watching the game with Howie and Ken.”

  Which was the third interesting thing. The fat man was lying to his wife.

  Men lie to their wives for a long list of reasons, infidelity being right at the top. But this was no Craigslist assignation. He wasn’t here for sex. He didn’t have that freshly scrubbed look of a guy on the make. He hadn’t combed his hair or splashed on fresh cologne.

  He looked scared.

  REACHER’S FIRST NAME WAS JACK, and he was pretty damn sure the guy with the muscles wasn’t called either Howie or Ken. He could have been born with either moniker, obviously, but he would have abandoned it fast, in favor of something harder, if he wanted to survive the kind of world he evidently had. Which meant the fat guy was lying through his teeth. He wasn’t watching the game with Howie and Ken. In fact he wasn’t watching the game at all. When the lucky fly ball had left the tiny bandbox the guy had been a long beat behind. He had looked up with a blank expression because of the sudden noise. He was watching the mirror. He was watching the door. He was expecting someone he didn’t know by sight. Hence the half-expectant welcome a minute earlier. Jerry DeLong, the guy had said, as if it might mean something.

  Reacher snaked a long arm behind DeLong’s immense back and poked the guy with the muscles in the shoulder. The guy leaned back, but kept his eyes on the game. As did Reacher. The guy in the two-hole for the Sox swung and missed. Strike three. Better.

  Reacher said, “Who got here first, you or him?”

  The guy said, “Him.”

  “Did you get the same thing I got?”

  “Identical.”

  “Was he saving the seats?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “So now he’s expecting a tap on the shoulder, and then they’ll go somewhere to do their business?”

  “That’s how I see it.”

  The third batter for the Sox stepped up. Reacher said, “What kind of business? Am I in the kind of place I don’t want to be?”

  “You from New York?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “But you’re rooting for them.”

  “No crime in being a sane human being.”

  “This place is okay. I don’t know what the tub of lard wants.”

  Reacher said, “You could ask him.”

  “Or you could.”

  “I’m not very interested.”

  “Me, either. But he’s worried about something.”

  The third Sox batter popped up, way high, in the infield. Comfortable for the Yankees’ second baseman. The guy with the muscles said, “You got a name?”

  Reacher said, “Everyone’s got a name.”

  “What is it?”

  “Reacher.”

  “I’m Heller.” The guy offered his left fist. Reacher bumped it with his right, behind DeLong’s back. Not the first time his knuckles had touched a Sox fan, but by far the gentlest.

  The Sox cleanup hitter grounded weakly back to the pitcher, and the inning was over. One–zip Boston. Bad, but not a humiliating disaster. Yet.

  Reacher said, “If we keep on talking about him like this, eventually he might clue us in.”

  Heller said, “Why would he?”

  “He’s in trouble.”

  “What are you, Santa Claus?”

  “I don’t like our pitching. I’m looking for a diversion.”

  “Suck it up.”

  “Like you did for a hundred years?”

  At that point the bar was quiet. Just the natural ebb and flow, but the barman heard what Reacher said, and he stared, hard.

  Reacher said, “What?”

  Heller said, “It’s okay, Sully.”

  And then Jerry DeLong looked left, looked right, and said, “I’m waiting for someone to break my legs.”

  HELLER GAVE REACHER A GLANCE.

  Reacher seemed to have an intuition about the fat guy. He knew something was off, somehow. Something was wrong. Funny, Heller’d had the same sort of intuition. Same way he realized pretty quickly that this Reacher guy was really sharp.

  The fat man had blurted it out. He was genuinely terrified.

  But then he said no more.

  The top of the second started. Two balls, a strike, ball three. The Boston pitcher stared in. He didn’t want to give up a lead-off walk.

  “Changeup coming,” Reacher said. “Right down the pike.”

  The Yankee batter knew it. He smiled like a wolf.

  Not a changeup. A full-on fastball. The batter swung as the ball hit the catcher’s glove.

  Reacher looked away.

  He said, “Maybe this guy’ll tell us what’s going on. With his legs and all.”

  “Ya think?” Heller replied.

  “Or not,” Reacher said.

  “Not unless I want my arms broken, too,” the fat man said.

  Full count, and another fastball. Another whiff. One down.

  Heller gave the fat guy a searching look. “Haven’t seen you here before, have I?”

  “I haven’t been here before, no.”

  “But you’re from here.”

  From here: very Boston. Bostonians always want to know if you’re one of them or not. You can’t always tell from the accent. But there’s the language. Do you drink soda or “tonic”? Is something a “pisser”? Do you go to a liquor store or a packie? Take a U-turn or “bang a uey”? They’re expert at sussing out fakes and posers. Heller was born outside New York but moved as a teenager to a town north of Boston called Melrose. A working-class place. Heller’s father went to prison and his mother was left with nothing. So Heller could sound Boston if and when he wanted. Or not.

  And this guy DeLong was definitely from around here.

  DeLong shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “You work around here?”

  DeLong shrugged again. “Government Center.”

  “Don’t like the Irish pub right there?”

  “Well, my office is on Cambridge Street.”

  DeLong wa
s stingy with the information. For some reason he didn’t want to talk about what he did or where he worked, which was, for Heller, like a blinking neon arrow. That meant he did something sensitive, or classified, or unpleasant. But he had the look of a bureaucrat, a government functionary, and Heller took a guess.

  “The good old Saltonstall Building.” One of the office towers in the bleak ghetto of big government buildings at the foot of Beacon Hill. “How’s the asbestos?”

  The Saltonstall Building, which held an assortment of state bureaucracies, had been abandoned after it was found to be contaminated with asbestos. They did some renovation and dragged the office workers back in, and some of them were mad as a wasp’s nest that’s been kicked.

  “Yeah, that’s gone.”

  “Uh-huh.” Heller smiled. A state worker, for sure. He thought of maps of America where the states are resized by population and Rhode Island is twice the size of Wyoming. If you did a map of state employees in the Saltonstall building, the biggest state would be the Department of Revenue.

  “So you’re a tax man.”

  “Something like that,” DeLong said. He didn’t look happy about it. Like he was being put down somehow. But at the same time he didn’t seem to want to say more.

  “One of those forensic accountant types, aren’t you?”

  DeLong looked away uneasily, which just confirmed Heller’s theory.

  “What do you say, Reacher?” Heller said, reaching around DeLong and bumping Reacher’s shoulder. “Someone’s trying to dodge an audit by some direct means, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Sounds like it,” Reacher said. “Wonder how often that works.”

  Jerry DeLong said, “It’s not going to work this time.” He sounded like he was trying to be brave, but without much success.

  “Huh,” Heller said, looking into the mirror behind the bar. He saw a blinged-out guy sitting by himself at a small table near the front. Tinted sunglasses, necklaces, and rings. A curious upright posture. The chief enforcer for the Albanian gang in Boston, Alek Dushku. Allie Boy, as he was called, was known for all sorts of colorful executions, including strangling an old man with a shoelace until his eyes popped out of his head. On the table in front of him was a grocery sack, bulky with something.

  Heller said, “You’re meeting Allie Boy?”

  Jerry DeLong looked in the mirror and his face paled.

  He said, “Is that him?”

  “Sure is.” Heller gestured with his head, straight at the guy. “No time like the present.”

  DeLong said nothing.

  Reacher said, “What’s in the grocery sack?”

  DeLong said, “Money. A hundred grand.”

  “What for?”

  “Me.”

  “So what is this? A bribe or a threat?”

  “Both.”

  “He’s going to break your legs and then give you a hundred grand?”

  “Maybe the money first.”

  “Why?”

  DeLong didn’t answer.

  Heller said, “It’s an Albanian thing. One of them read a law book. They like to give good and valuable consideration. They think it cements the deal. And legs heal. Money never goes away. It’s either in your house or your bank. It means you’re theirs forever.”

  Reacher said, “I never heard of that before.”

  “You’re not from here.”

  “Ethical gangsters?”

  “Not really. Like I said, legs heal.”

  “But it’s definitely a two-part deal?”

  “All part of the culture.”

  The top of the second ended with a limp swing-and-miss, strike three. Still one–zip Boston. The zip didn’t look likely to change. The one did. Reacher turned to the fat guy and said, “He’s supposed to make contact with you, right?”

  DeLong nodded yes.

  “When?”

  “I’m not sure. Soon, I guess. I don’t really know what he’s waiting for.”

  “Maybe he’s watching the game.”

  “He isn’t,” Heller said.

  “Not as dumb as he looks, then.”

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Depends when the audit starts, I guess.”

  “Tomorrow morning,” DeLong said.

  “And what happens if you’re in the orthopedic ward?”

  “Someone else does it. Less well.”

  The bottom of the second started. A four-pitch lead-off walk. Hopeless. Reacher rocked back and looked at Heller and said, “Do you live here?”

  Heller said, “Not in this actual bar.”

  “But in town?”

  “Shouldn’t I?”

  “I guess someone has to. You worried about these Albanians?”

  “Altogether less hassle if Allie Boy doesn’t remember my face.”

  “Where did you serve?”

  “With General Hood.”

  “Did you get out in time?”

  “Unscathed.”

  “Good for you.”

  “What were you?”

  “MPs,” Reacher said. “Hood’s still in Leavenworth, as far as I know.”

  “Where he belongs.”

  “You armed, by any chance?”

  “No, or I’d have shot you already. When you said a hundred years. It was less than ninety.”

  “Is the Albanian guy armed?”

  “Probably. A Sig, most likely. In the back of his pants. See how he’s sitting?”

  “I don’t think we can get it done during the commercials. We’re going to have to give up half an inning.”

  “Top of the next.”

  Now Boston had two runners on. Reacher said, “I’m not sure our corpulent friend can wait that long.”

  The fat guy said, “What are you talking about?”

  Reacher saw the Albanian moving in the mirror, shifting in his chair, putting his hand on the grocery sack.

  Heller said, “Now.”

  Reacher turned back to DeLong and said, “Get up, right now, and walk out, straight line, fast, don’t look back, and keep on going.”

  “Out?”

  “To the street. Right now.”

  “Which way?”

  “Turn left. If in doubt, always turn left. That’s a rule that will serve you well.”

  “Left?”

  “Or right. It really doesn’t matter. Fast as you can.”

  Which wasn’t lightning-quick, but it was reasonably speedy. The guy swiveled and kind of fell forward off his stool, and waited while his fat bounced and jiggled and settled, and then he set off through the crowd, surprisingly light on his dainty feet, and he was already past the blinged-out Albanian before the guy really noticed. Reacher and Heller paused a beat and slid off their stools in turn, and made up the third and fourth places in a determined little procession through the throng, first DeLong, then the Albanian with the sack, then Reacher, with Heller right behind him. DeLong had the advantage. He was cruising like a ship. People were scattering in front of him, for fear of getting run over. The Albanian guy wasn’t getting the same physical deference. From a distance he wasn’t imposing. Reacher and Heller didn’t have that problem. People were stepping smartly aside, out of their way.

  DeLong pushed through the bar door and was gone. The Albanian got there a second later. Reacher and Heller followed him out, practically close enough to touch. The street was quiet and dark and narrow. Old Boston. The fat guy had turned left. His pale bulk was twenty yards away, on the sidewalk. The Albanian had seen him. He was getting ready to hustle in pursuit.

  “Here?” Reacher asked.

  Heller said, “It’s as good a place as any.”

  Reacher called, “Allie Boy?”

  The guy missed a step, but kept on walking.

  “Yes, you, asshole,” Reacher said.

  The guy glanced back.

  “All those rings and chains,” Reacher said. “Didn’t your momma tell you it’s dumb to walk around like that in a poor part of town?”

  The guy
stopped and turned and said, “What?”

  “You could get mugged,” Heller said.

  The guy said, “Mugged?”

  Reacher said, “Where a couple of guys take all your stuff. You don’t have that in Albania?”

  “You know who I am?”

  “Obviously. I just used your name and said you’re from Albania. This stuff ain’t rocket science.”

  “You know what will happen to you?”

  “Nobody knows what will happen to them. The future’s not ours to see. But in this case I don’t suppose much will happen. We might get a couple bucks for the bling. We’re certainly not going to wear it. We got more taste.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Was that a comedy club we were just in?”

  There was a dull roar from inside the bar. Likely a three-run homer. Reacher winced. Heller smiled. The Albanian hitched the paper sack higher to the crook of his left elbow. Which left his right hand free.

  Heller stepped forward, going right, and Reacher went left. At that point the Albanian guy should have turned and run. That was the smart play. He was probably fast enough. But he didn’t, inevitably. He was a tough guy. The streets were his. He went for his gun.

  Which was very dumb, because it took both his hands out of the game. One was cradling his grocery sack, and the other was snaking around behind his back. Reacher hit him with a straight right, hard, in the center of his face, and after that it didn’t really matter where his hands were. Command and control were temporarily unavailable. The guy dropped the sack and rocked back on rubber legs, blood already spurting, ready for a standing count.

  Which he didn’t get. Street-fighting’s first rule: there are no rules. Heller kicked him dead-on in the nuts, hard enough to take his weight off his feet, and then the guy collapsed down to about half his size in a crouch, and Heller used the flat of his sole to tip him over on his side, and Reacher kicked him in the head, and the guy lay still.

  “Was that hard enough?” Heller said.

  “For amnesia? Difficult to judge. Amnesia is unpredictable.”

  “Best guess?”

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  So Heller picked his spot and kicked the guy again, in the left temple, going for lateral displacement of the brain in the pan. Generally four times more effective than front-to-back. No surprise. One of General Hood’s boys would have learned stuff like that pretty early. Hood wasn’t all bad. Mostly, but not all.