by Lee Child
“He was a cop and a special agent. How far is it from here to the general store? What could have happened?”
“It’s about two hundred feet. Past the diner. Lots of things could have happened.”
Chang didn’t answer. Reacher’s hands felt dirty. From moving furniture, and touching surfaces not regularly cleaned. He stepped into the bathroom and flipped up the tap to wet his hands. The soap was a new cake, still wrapped in tissue paper. Light blue, all pleated and stuck down with a gold label. Not the worst place Reacher had ever seen. He pulled off the paper and balled it up. The trash can was under the vanity. The vanity was deep. A kind of underhand through-the-slot change-up was required. Left-handed, too. Which he executed. And then he washed his hands, the new soap hard at first, and then better later. He dried his hands on a fresh towel, and then his conscience got the better of him, and he bent down to check his tissue-paper spitball had in fact hit the target.
It hadn’t.
The trash can was round, like a short cylinder, but it was jammed up in a left-hand corner, which meant there was a shallow space behind. The kind of space that got ignored, especially by maids with mops. Not for two-dollar tips. It was the kind of space that ended up the graveyard of errant throws.
Three of them.
One was his own spitball. He could tell by the dampness. One was an older version of the same thing. Bone dry. A previous cake of soap.
And one was a piece of furred paper, like junk from a pocket.
Chapter 12
The paper was a stiff white square, about three and a half inches on a side, with one gummed edge. A sheet from a memo block or cube. Reacher had seen such things before. It had been folded in four, and it had ridden in a pocket for a month or more. The folds were worn, and the corners had deteriorated, and the surfaces were rubbed. Reacher guessed it had been flicked toward the trash can, maybe two-fingered like a trick with a playing card, but it had sailed too far, and hit the deck in no-man’s-land.
He unfolded it and smoothed it flat. What could be called the outer face was blank. Just a rub of grime, and faint indigo staining, probably from denim. From the back pocket of a pair of blue jeans, he thought.
He turned the paper over.
What could be called the inner face had writing on it. Ballpoint pen, a hurried note. A scrawl, really. There was a phone number, and the words 200 deaths.
Reacher asked, “Is this Keever’s handwriting?”
Chang said, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen Keever’s handwriting. And it isn’t a great sample. So we can’t be certain. Think like a defense attorney. There’s no unbroken chain of custody. Anyone could have left this here. At any time.”
“Sure,” Reacher said. “But suppose it’s Keever’s. What would it be?”
“Be? A note, probably made during a phone call. In his office. His spare bedroom, anyway. Maybe an initial contact, or a follow-up call. High stakes, with two hundred deaths, and a phone number, which might be either the client, or a source of independent corroboration. Or a source of further information.”
“Why would he throw it away?”
“Because later he wrote it up in longer form, so he didn’t need it anymore. Maybe he was standing here at the mirror, checking himself over, like people do. Maybe he dumped his old Kleenex and took new, and maybe he checked his other pockets at the same time. Maybe he hadn’t used those pants for a while.”
The phone number’s area code was 323. Reacher said, “Los Angeles, right?”
Chang nodded and said, “Either a cell or a land line.”
“Two hundred deaths. That would qualify as serious danger.”
“If it’s Keever’s. If it was about this current case. It could be anybody’s about anything.”
“Who else would pass through here with two hundred deaths on his mind?”
“Who says they did? Even if it’s Keever’s, it could have been an old case. Or a different case. Or it could have been a liability lawyer a year ago, chasing ambulances. How could there even be two hundred deaths here? That’s twenty percent of the population. Someone would have noticed. You wouldn’t need a private investigator.”
“Let’s call the number,” Reacher said. “Let’s see who answers.”
Reacher locked up the room, and they went down the metal stairs, and a hundred feet away the one-eyed guy came out of his office and bustled across toward them, waving and gesturing. When he arrived he said, “Excuse me, sir, but 215 is not your registered room.”
Reacher said, “Then amend your register. The room was paid for by an associate of ours, and I’m going to be using it until he returns.”
“You can’t do that.”
“No such word.”
“How did you get the key?”
“I found it under a bush. Just lucky, I guess.”
“This is not allowed.”
“Then call the cops,” Reacher said.
The guy said nothing. He just huffed and puffed for a moment, and then he turned around and headed back, without another word.
Chang said, “Suppose he does call the cops?”
“He won’t,” Reacher said. “He would have made a big point of telling us he was about to, yes sir, right there and then. Plus the cops are probably fifty miles away. Or a hundred. They wouldn’t come out for a room that was already paid for. Plus if these people have something to hide, the last thing they’ll do is call the cops.”
“What will he do instead?”
“I’m sure we’ll find out.”
They stepped out to the wide street and walked past the front of the diner, to the general store. The sun was up and the town was quiet. No activity, and no big crowds. There was a pick-up truck fifty yards ahead, making a turn into a side street. There was a kid throwing a tennis ball against a wall, and hitting the rebound with a stick. Like baseball practice. He was pretty good. Maybe he should have his picture in a magazine. There was a FedEx truck crossing the rails on the old trail, and heading into town.
The general store was a classic rural building, a plain flat-roofed structure end-on to the street, with a fancy gabled frontage made of lap boards painted dull red. There was a sign, painted in circus letters colored gold: Mother’s Rest Dry Goods. There was a single door, and a single window, which was small, and purely for light, rather than for the display of tempting goods. The glass was covered with decals, all with names Reacher didn’t know. Brand names, he assumed, for arcane but vital country stuff.
Inside the door was a boxed-in vestibule, which had a pay phone mounted on the wall. No acoustic hood. Just the instrument itself, all metal, including the cord. Chang fed coins in the slot, and dialed. She listened for a spell, and then she hung up without speaking.
She said, “Voice mail. The phone company’s standard announcement. Not personalized. No name. Sounded like a cell phone.”
Reacher said, “You should have left a message.”
“No point. I can’t get calls here.”
“Try Keever again. Just in case.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to hear him not answer.”
“He’s either OK or he isn’t. Calling him or not calling him doesn’t change anything.”
She used her own cell to look up the number, but she dialed on the older technology. As before, she listened for a spell, and then she hung up without speaking. She tried a second number. Same result.
She shook her head.
She said, “No answer.”
Reacher said, “We should go to Oklahoma City.”
Chapter 13
The train would have been faster, but its departure was still eight hours away, so they drove, in Chang’s rental car. It was a compact Ford SUV, green in color. Inside it was bland and unmarked, and it smelled strongly of upholstery shampoo. They were out of town within a minute, on the old wagon train trail, and then they turned south and west and south again, through the immense checkerboard of endless golden fields, until they found a county road that promised a
highway entrance two hundred miles ahead.
Chang was driving, in her T-shirt. Reacher had the passenger seat racked back, and he was watching her. She had one hand low on the wheel, and the other resting in her lap. Her eyes were always moving, to the road ahead, to the mirrors, back to the road ahead. Sometimes she half-smiled briefly, and then half-grimaced, as thoughts ran through her head. Her shoulders were rolled forward an inch, in a tiny hunch. Which Reacher took to mean she wanted to be a smaller person. Which ambition he could not endorse. She looked exactly the right size to him. She was long-limbed and solid, but not where she shouldn’t be.
I think I’m a nice person, but I know I’m not the reason.
He said nothing.
She looked in the mirror again, and she said, “There’s a pick-up truck behind us.”
He said, “How far back?”
“About a hundred yards.”
“How long has it been there?”
“A mile or so.”
“It’s a public road.”
“It came on real fast, but now it’s hanging back. Like it was looking for us, and now it’s found us.”
“Just one?”
“That’s all I can see.”
“Not much of a posse.”
“Two men, I think. A driver and a passenger.”
Reacher didn’t want to turn around to look. Didn’t want to show either guy the pale flash of a concerned face in the rear window. So he hunched down a little and moved sideways until he could see the image in Chang’s door mirror. A pick-up truck, about a hundred yards back. A Ford, he thought. A serious machine, big and obvious, keeping pace. It was dull red, like the general store. There were two guys in it, side by side, but far from each other, because of the vehicle’s extravagant width.
Reacher sat up again and looked through the windshield. Wheat to the right, wheat to the left, and the road running dead straight ahead until it fell below the far horizon. The shoulders were graveled for drainage, but there were no ditches. No turns, either. The fields were endless. Almost literally. Maybe the same field ran all the way to the highway ramp. Two hundred miles. It looked possible.
There were no other cars in sight.
He said, “Did you train for this stuff at Quantico?”
She said, “To a certain extent. But a long time ago. And in a different environment. Mostly urban. With traffic lights and four-way stops and one-way streets. We don’t have many options here. Did you train for it?”
“No, I was never any good at driving.”
“Should we let them make the first move?”
“First we need to figure out what they’ve been told to do. If it’s surveillance only, we can lead them all the way to Oklahoma City and lose them there. The only fights you truly win are the ones you don’t have.”
“What if it’s not surveillance only?”
“Then they’ll do it like the movies. They’ll bump us from behind.”
“To scare us? Or worse than that?”
“That would be a very big step for them to take.”
“They’ll make it look like an accident. Tourist lady fell asleep on the long straight road and crashed. I’m sure it happens all the time.”
Reacher said nothing.
“We can’t outrun them,” Chang said. “Not in this thing.”
“So let them get close and then switch to the other lane and hit the brakes. Send them on ahead.”
“When?”
“Don’t ask me,” Reacher said. “I failed defensive driving. I lasted less than a day. They made me go qualify on something else. When they get big in the mirror, I guess.”
Chang drove on. Two-handed now. One minute. Two. She said, “I want to see their moves. We need to force their hand.”
“You sure?”
“They’re the home team. We need to shake them up.”
“OK. Speed up a bit.”
She hit the gas and he turned around and stared out the back window. The pale flash of a concerned face. He said, “Faster.”
The little green Ford jumped ahead, almost two hundred yards, and then the pick-up reacted, and its grille rose up, and it came charging closer. Chang said, “Give me a real-time distance countdown. I can’t judge in the mirrors.”
“They’re at eighty yards now,” Reacher said. “Which gives us about eight seconds.”
“Less, because I’m going to slow down. This thing might tip over.”
“Sixty yards.”
“OK, I’m clear ahead.”
“And behind. It’s just the two of us on the road. Forty yards.”
“I’m slowing some more. We can’t do this over sixty.”
“Twenty yards.”
“I’m going to do it at ten yards.”
“OK, now, do it now.”
And she did. She swerved left and braked hard and the pick-up came within an inch of clipping her right back corner, but it missed, and it sped on ahead, braking hard but much later. Meanwhile the little green Ford did a lot of side-to-side rocking and tipping, but soon enough it was stopped dead, safe, back in the correct lane, a hundred yards behind the pick-up truck, their relative positions completely inverted after a noisy few seconds.
Chang said, “Of course, this begs the fairly obvious question, what now? We turn around, they turn around. And then they’re chasing us all over again.”
“Drive straight at them,” Reacher said.
“And crash?”
“That’s always an option.”
But the pick-up moved first. It turned around in the road and came back toward them, but very slowly, just creeping along, barely more than idle speed. Which Reacher took as a message. Like a white flag.
“They want to talk,” he said. “They want to do this face to face.”
The truck stopped ten yards ahead and both doors opened. Two men climbed out. Sturdy individuals, both about six feet and two hundred pounds, both somewhere in their middle thirties, both with mirrored sunglasses, both with thin cotton jackets over T-shirts. They looked cautious but confident. Like they knew what they were doing. Like they were the home team.
Chang said, “They must be armed. They wouldn’t be doing it this way otherwise.”
“Possible,” Reacher said.
The two men took up position in the middle of the no-man’s-land between the two vehicles. One was on the left of the center line, and one was on the right. They stood easy, just waiting, hands by their sides.
Reacher said, “Run them over.”
“I can’t do that.”
“OK, I guess I’ll go see what they want. Any problems, take off for Oklahoma City without me, and best of luck.”
“No, don’t get out. It’s too dangerous.”
“For me or for them? They’re just a couple of country boys.”
“We should assume they have guns.”
“But only temporarily.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Maybe,” Reacher said. “But never forget it was Uncle Sam who made me this way. I passed every other course, except driving.”
He opened his door, and stepped out.
Chapter 14
The little green Ford had regular front-hinged doors, like most cars, and the doors had a restraint about two-thirds of the way through their travel, so stepping out meant stepping back too, which improved Reacher’s angle. It put the engine block between him and the two guys. If they drew down immediately and started shooting from the get-go, he could hit the deck behind a bulletproof shield. If they had guns. Which was not proven. Except even if they did, he couldn’t imagine why they would start shooting from the get-go. Which was gone anyway. They could have fired through the windshield. That was the real get-go. Unless they wanted to preserve the car for a convincing accident. It would be hard to explain bullet holes in the glass, if the tourist lady had merely fallen asleep at the wheel. In which case how would they explain bullet holes in the dead passenger? And they would have to get his body back in the car. Which wouldn’t
be easy. He would be a lot of dead weight.
He figured they weren’t going to shoot.
If they had guns.
He said, “Guys, you’ve got thirty seconds, so go ahead and state your case.”
The guy on the right folded his arms high across his chest, like a bouncer at a nightclub door. A show of support, Reacher figured, for the other guy, who was presumably the spokesperson.
The other guy said, “It’s about the motel.”
His hands were still by his sides.
Reacher said, “What about it?”
“That’s our uncle who runs it. He’s a poor old handicapped man, and you’re giving him a hard time. You’re breaking all kinds of laws.”
His hands were still by his sides. Reacher stepped out from behind the door and moved up next to the Ford’s right-hand headlight. He could feel the heat from the engine. He said, “What laws am I breaking?”
“You’re in another guest’s room.”
“Who isn’t using it right now.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
His hands were still by his sides. Reacher took a step, and another, until he was level with the Ford’s left-hand headlight, but much further forward, on a diagonal. Which put him ten feet from the two guys, in a narrow triangle in no-man’s-land, the guy with the folded arms on one corner, and the spokesperson on another, and Reacher all alone at the thin end.
The guy on the left said, “So we’re here to collect the key.”
Reacher took another step. Now he was seven feet away. Now they were in an intimate little cluster. No other cars in sight. The wheat moved slowly, in waves, like an immense golden sea.
Reacher said, “I’ll return the key when I check out.”
The guy on the left said, “You’re already checked out. As of right now. And you won’t get a room if you come back again. Management reserves the right to refuse admission.”
Reacher said nothing.
The guy on the left said, “And there’s nowhere else in Mother’s Rest. My uncle’s place is the only game in town. You getting the message?”