by Lee Child
“He made a mistake.”
“No, he couldn’t force himself to do it. That was my impression. Even to the point of compromising his art. He’s into something, and right now it’s under threat somehow, and he feels the people posing the threat are literally too loathsome to touch. That’s the impression I got. So I was curious about what kind of a thing could make a person feel that way.”
“Now I might not sleep OK.”
“They’ll come for me first,” Reacher said. “I’m downstairs. I’ll be sure to make plenty of noise. You’ll get a head start.”
Chapter 10
Reacher sat in a chair in his room, in the dark, six feet back from the window, invisible from the outside, just watching. Fifteen minutes, then twenty, then twenty-five. As long as it took. The one-eyed guy in his plastic chair was a pale smudge in the gloom, about a hundred feet away. He had gotten comfortable. He was tipped back a little. He was maybe asleep, but lightly. Noise or movement would alert him, probably. Not the best sentry Reacher had ever seen, but not the worst, either.
Above the guy and to the right, up on the second floor, the center room had a rim of light around the drapes. Room 203. The guy from the train, probably. The recent arrival, no doubt unpacking his little leather bag, and getting all his ducks in a row. Unguents and potions in the bathroom, some things in the closet, other things in the drawers. Although the size of the bag was a serious issue, in Reacher’s opinion. It had looked like a high quality item, well used, but not battered or destroyed. Heavy pebbled leather, brown in color, with brass fitments. A classic shape, presumably formed by hinges and some kind of an internal skeleton structure. But not large. And the guy was in town for at least twenty-four hours. Maybe more. With a bag too small for a spare suit, or spare shoes.
Which was unusual, in Reacher’s experience. Most civilians carried spare everything, in case of spills, or changes in the weather, or unanticipated invitations.
Ten minutes later the rim of light clicked off, and room 203 went full dark. The one-eyed guy stayed where he was, tipped back, maybe watching, maybe not. Reacher gazed back from the shadows, fifteen more minutes, as long as it took, until he was sure there was nothing doing. Then he stripped and folded his clothes the way he always did, the same pants under a new mattress, and he took a brief shower, and climbed into bed. He left the drapes open, and set the alarm in his head to wake him at six in the morning, or if there was noise or commotion in the night, whichever came first.
The dawn was silent, and it was golden again, but infinitely pale. The elevators threw weak shadows long enough to hit the motel. Reacher sat up in bed and watched. The plastic chair was still there, on the sidewalk under the office window, a hundred feet away, but the one-eyed guy had gone. At four in the morning, Reacher guessed. The lowest ebb. To a couch in the back, no doubt.
Room 203’s drapes were still closed. The guy from the train. Still asleep, probably. Reacher got up and came back from the bathroom with a towel around his waist. He opened his window. For the air. And for the sound. He could hear vehicles on the wide street. Regular gasoline V-8s, and thick tires pattering on the rail lines embedded in the blacktop. Pick-up trucks, probably. Heading for breakfast in the diner. People were up with the sun.
He sat and watched, without coffee. He ran a pleasant fantasy through his head, of calling the diner and ordering a pot from the waitress, his new best friend, and having her show up with it minutes later. Except he didn’t have the diner’s number, and there was no phone in his room. And he wasn’t dressed. A hundred feet away across the horseshoe there was light in the office window. But no movement. Just a faded old motel, two-thirds empty, not long after dawn.
He sat and watched, patiently, expecting to be rewarded eventually, and eventually he was, after almost an hour. First the one-eyed guy came out his office door, and stood and sniffed the air, the way people do in the morning. Then the guy glanced all around, at the inside perimeter of his little domain, and his parking spaces, and the sidewalk passing the first-floor rooms, and the walkway passing the second-floor rooms, a leisurely visual inspection, born mostly of duty, Reacher thought, but with a small slice of pride in there somewhere. Then the guy remembered the unexamined territory directly behind him, and he turned around to check, and he saw his misplaced lawn chair. He dragged it back to 102, and left it lined up in perfect uniformity with all its ground-floor equivalents, which were all directly underneath their second-floor counterparts.
Which made it more duty than pride. Because he hadn’t bothered the day before. He had left the chair any old place it had wanted to be. Wherever it hung its hat was its home. But this new day was different. Somehow. The guy was acting like a nervous CO ahead of a one-star’s visit.
Reacher waited. The shadows retreated, yard by yard, as the sun climbed higher. He heard the seven o’clock train. It rolled in, and vibrated, and rolled out again.
He waited.
The drapes opened in room 203. The window was sideways to the sun, and like everything else the glass was covered in crop dust, but even so Reacher saw the guy clearly, in his suit, standing with his arms held wide, his hands still on the drapes, staring out at the morning, as if in wonder, as if it was a big surprise the sun had come up again. As if it had been maybe fifty-fifty at best. The guy stood like that for a whole minute, and then he turned away and was lost to sight.
A white sedan drove into the lot. A Cadillac, Reacher thought. But not new. It was from a previous generation. It was long and low, all road-hugging weight and boulevard ride. Like a limousine. Therefore an unusual color, outside of Florida or Arizona. An unusual sight in any case, in farm country. It was the first sedan Reacher had seen in about three hundred miles. It was pretty clean. Recently rinsed, at least, if not actually washed. Reacher couldn’t see the driver. The glass was too dark.
The car swooped right and backed left and reversed into the slot below room 203. It had no front license plate. The driver didn’t get out. Above the car, room 203’s door opened, and the man in the suit stepped out. He had the brown leather bag in his hand. He stood still for a long moment, and did the air-sniffing thing. As if in wonder. Then he snapped out of his trance and headed for the stairs, definitely gaunt but light on his feet, and a fluent, fluid mover, not muscle-bound like an athlete, but graceful like a dancer, or a stage actor. He came down the stairs, and the driver got out of the Cadillac, to greet him.
The driver was a man Reacher hadn’t seen before. He was about forty, tall and well built, not fat but certainly fleshed out, with a full head of hair, and a guileless face. Another junior executive, possibly. The man in the suit shook his hand, and ducked into the back of the car. The driver carried the brown leather bag to the trunk, and placed it inside, like a little ceremony. Then he got back behind the wheel, and the car pulled forward, and drove away.
No rear license plate, either.
Reacher went and took a shower.
Chang was already in the diner, at the corner two-top they had used before. She had her back to the wall. She had reserved the table next to her, by hanging her coat on the chair. Reacher passed it back to her and sat down, side by side, with his own back to the wall. Which was tactically sound, but a shame in every other way. Chang looked just fine in a T-shirt. Her hair was still damp, which made it look like ink. Her arms were long and faintly muscled, and her skin was smooth.
She said, “The guy in the suit left already. He took his bag, so he isn’t coming back. Lucky him.”
“I saw,” Reacher said. “From my room.”
“I was on my way back from the railroad. Keever wasn’t on the morning train.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So now’s the time. No more waiting for him. I have to start looking for him. His room is 215. I peeked through the window. There’s a big shirt hanging on a closet door. Room 213 is completely empty.”
“OK. We’ll get in somehow.”
“We?”
“Figure of spee
ch,” Reacher said. “I have nothing else to do today.”
“Should we go do it now?”
“Let’s eat first. Eat when you can. That’s the golden rule.”
“Now could be a good time to do it.”
“Could be, but later will be better. When the maid has started work. She might open the door for us.”
The waitress came over, with coffee.
Chapter 11
After breakfast they found the motel maid had indeed started work, but she was nowhere near Keever’s room. She was fully occupied on the other side of the horseshoe, making 203 ready-to-rent again after the man in the suit’s departure. She had a big stacked cart on the walkway, and the room door was standing open. She was visible inside, stripping the bed.
She would have a pass key on her belt, or in her pocket, or chained to her cart handle.
Reacher said, “I guess I’ll walk over there and say hello.”
He turned left at 211, and left again at 206, and he stopped level with the cart and looked in 203’s door.
The maid was crying.
And working, both at the same time. She was a white woman, thin as a rail, no longer young, hauling a sack of towels from the bathroom. She was bawling and sniveling and tears were streaming down her face.
From outside the room Reacher said, “Ma’am, are you OK?”
The woman stopped, and let go of the sack, and straightened up. She huffed and puffed and took a breath and stared blankly at Reacher, and then she turned and stared blankly in the mirror, and then she turned back again without a reaction, as if her appearance was already too far gone to worry about.
She smiled.
She said, “I’m very happy.”
“OK.”
“No, really. I’m sorry. But the gentleman who just checked out left me a tip.”
“What, your first ever?”
She said, “My best ever.”
She had a smock with a wide catch-all pocket on the bottom hem. She used both hands carefully and came out with an envelope. Smaller than a regular letter. Like a reply to a fancy invitation. On it the words Thank You were handwritten with a fountain pen.
She flipped up the flap with her thumb, and took out a fifty-dollar bill. Ulysses S. Grant, right there on the front.
“Fifty bucks,” she said. “The most I ever got before was two dollars.”
“Outstanding,” Reacher said.
“This is going to make such a big difference to me. You can’t imagine.”
“I’m happy for you,” Reacher said.
“Thank you. I guess sometimes miracles happen.”
“Do you know why this town is called Mother’s Rest?”
The woman paused a beat.
She said, “Are you asking me or are you going to tell me?”
“I’m asking you.”
“I don’t know.”
“You never heard any stories?”
“About what?”
“About mothers,” Reacher said. “Resting, either literally or figuratively.”
“No,” she said. “I never heard anything about that.”
“Can you let me into 215?”
The woman paused a beat. She said, “Are you the gentleman from 113? And 106, the night before?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t open a room except for the registered occupant. I’m sorry.”
“It was a corporate booking. We all work together. We need to be in and out. It’s a teamwork thing.”
“I could go check with the manager.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Reacher said. “I’ll go check with him myself.”
But the one-eyed guy wasn’t in his office. An impromptu absence, clearly, because the desk looked like work had been interrupted recently and temporarily. Files and ledgers were open, and pens were dropped on notebooks, and there was a go-cup of coffee that looked pretty warm.
But the guy wasn’t there.
Behind the desk was a door in the wall. Private space, Reacher guessed. The sleeping couch for sure, and maybe a kitchenette, and certainly at least a half-size bathroom. Which was maybe where the guy was right then. Some things can’t wait.
Reacher listened hard, and heard nothing.
He stepped around the desk to the private side.
He glanced at the ledgers. And the files. And the notebooks. Routine motel stuff. Accounts, orders, to-do lists, percentages.
He listened again. Heard nothing.
He opened a drawer. Where the guy kept the room keys. He put 113 in, and took 215 out.
He closed the drawer.
He stepped back to the public side.
He breathed out.
The one-eyed guy didn’t come back. Maybe he had a digestive disorder. Reacher turned around, and strolled out of the office. He crossed the horseshoe and went up Chang’s stairs. He showed her the key, and she asked, “How long have we got it?”
He said, “As long as Keever paid for. All week, probably. I’m taking over his room. The motel guy can’t complain. He’s had his money. And Keever isn’t here to express an opinion.”
“Will that work?”
“It might. Unless they get up a posse.”
“In which case we call 911. Like Keever should have.”
“The guy in the suit left a fifty-dollar tip for the maid.”
“That’s a lot of money. You give that for a week on a cruise ship.”
“She was very happy.”
“She would be. It’s like a free week’s wages.”
“Makes me feel bad. I never leave more than five.”
“He was a rich man. You said so yourself.”
Reacher said nothing, and stepped up to Keever’s door. He put the key in the lock. He opened the door and stepped back and said, “After you.”
Chang went inside, and Reacher followed. Evidence of Keever was all over the room. The shirt on the door knob, a neat travel kit in the bathroom, a linen jacket in the closet, a battered valise open against a wall, full of clothes. Everything had been lined up with great precision by the maid. The room was clean and tidy.
No briefcase. No computer bag, no fat notebooks, no handwritten pages.
Not on open view, anyway.
Reacher turned back and closed the door. He had searched maybe a hundred motel rooms in his long and unglamorous career, and he was good at it. He had found all kinds of things in all kinds of places.
He said, “What was Keever, before he joined the Bureau?”
Chang said, “He was a police detective, with a night-school law degree.”
Which meant he had searched motel rooms too. Which meant he wouldn’t have used anywhere obvious. He knew the tricks. Not that the room offered many opportunities. It was not architecturally complex.
Chang said, “We’re fooling ourselves, surely. The motel clerk could have been in here half a dozen times already. Or let someone else in. We have to assume this room was searched long ago.”
Reacher nodded. “But how well? That’s the question. Because we know one thing for sure. Keever was in this room at one point, and then he left. He had three possible ways of leaving. First, he left on an innocent errand that turned bad later. Second, he was dragged out of here kicking and screaming by persons unknown. Or third, he was sitting here on the bed, running things through his mind, and he made a sudden random connection, like a real oh-shit moment, and he stood up and hustled over to the pay phone in the general store to call 911 without further ado. Except he didn’t make it.”
“Didn’t make it? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying the guy is missing. Tell me where and why, and I’ll close down the other theories.”
“None of those three ways of leaving means we should expect to find something in this room. Something that everyone else missed.”
“No, I think the third one does. Just possibly. Imagine the moment. Oh shit. You’re stunned. And as of that split second you’re in grave danger. The danger is so bad you need to run
straight for the phone. But you’ll be exposed. This is not the same as using a cell behind a locked door. This is a walk in the open air. Which carries a risk now. So maybe you’re tempted to leave a marker behind. You scribble a note and you hide it. Then you go for the phone.”
“And don’t make it.”
“That’s what the math says. Sometimes.”
“But this note is hidden so well no one has found it. But not so well we won’t find it. If there is a note at all. If it was the third of the three possibilities. If it wasn’t something completely different.”
“It was a sequence,” Reacher said. “Had to be, right? It was two oh-shit moments. A small one, maybe the day before, after which he calls you for back-up, and then the big one, after which he goes to call the cops.”
“After leaving a note.”
“I think it’s worth considering.”
When Reacher searched a room, he started with the room, not the contents. Hiders and therefore seekers tended to ignore the physical structure, which was often rich with possibility. Especially for a sheet of paper. An under-window HVAC unit could be opened up, and nine times out of ten there was a plastic pocket expressly designed to hold paperwork, often an instruction manual or a warranty card, among which an enterprising person could conceal dozens of pages.
Or if there was forced-air heating and cooling, there would be grills, easily unscrewed. Pocket doors were good for hiding papers. Ceilings had removable panels for maintenance purposes. A folding door on a closet had an inside face no one ever saw. And so on.
Only then came the furniture. In this case a bed, two night tables, an upholstered chair, a dining chair at the desk, the desk itself, and a small chest of drawers.
They looked everywhere, but they found nothing.
Afterward Chang said, “Worth a try, I guess. In a way I’m glad we didn’t find anything. Makes it less final. I want him to be OK.”
Reacher said, “I want him to be in Vegas with a nineteen-year-old. But until we get a postcard, we have to assume he isn’t. Just so we stay sharp.”