by Lee Child
They put Reacher in the center of the elevator car and crowded in around him. The woman, the sandy guy, the driver, the two local boys. Five people, five weapons. The four men took a corner each and the woman stood in the center, close to Reacher, like she was claiming him as hers. One of the local boys touched a button and the door rolled shut and the elevator took off.
It traveled upward for a long time and stopped hard with 21 showing on the floor indicator. The door thumped back and the local boys led the way out into a blank corridor. It was gray. Thin gray carpet, gray paint, gray light. It was quiet, like everyone except the hard-core enthusiasts had gone home hours before. There were closed doors spaced along the corridor wall. The guy who had driven the sedan down from Garrison paused in front of the third and opened it up. Reacher was maneuvered to the doorway and looked in at a bare space, maybe twelve by sixteen, concrete floor, cinder-block walls, all covered in thick gray paint like the side of a battleship. The ceiling was unfinished, and the ducting was all visible, square trunking made from thin flecked metal. Fluorescent fittings hung from chains and threw a flat glare across the gray. There was a single plastic garden chair in the corner. It was the only thing in the room.
“Sit down,” the woman said.
Reacher walked away from the chair to the opposite corner and sat on the floor, wedged into the angle of the cinder-block walls. The cinder block was cold and the paint was slick. He folded his arms over his chest and stretched his legs out straight and crossed his ankles. Rested his head on the wall, forty-five degrees to his shoulders, so he was gazing straight at the people standing by the door. They backed out into the corridor and closed the door on him. There was no sound of a lock turning, but there didn’t need to be, because there was no handle on the inside.
He felt the faint shudder of footsteps receding through the concrete floor. Then he was left with nothing but silence floating on a whisper of air from the vents above his head. He sat in the silence for maybe five minutes and then he felt more footsteps outside and the door opened again and a man stuck his face inside the room and stared straight in at him. It was an older face, big and red and bloated with strain and puffy with blood pressure, full of hostility, and its frank stare said so you’re the guy, huh? The stare lasted three or four long seconds and then the face ducked back out and the door slammed and the silence came back again.
The same thing happened over again five minutes later. Footsteps in the corridor, a face around the door, the same frank stare. So you’re the guy. This time the face was leaner and darker. Younger. Shirt and tie below it, no jacket. Reacher stared back, three or four seconds. The face disappeared and the door slammed.
This time the silence lasted longer, somewhere around twenty minutes. Then a third face came to stare. Footsteps, the rattle of the handle, the door opening, the stare. This is the guy, huh? This third face was older again, a man somewhere in his fifties, a competent expression, a thatch of gray hair. He wore thick glasses and behind them his eyes were calm. Serious speculation in both of them. He looked like a guy with responsibilities. Maybe some kind of a Bureau chief. Reacher stared back at him, wearily. No words were spoken. No communication took place. The guy just stared for a spell and then his face disappeared and the door closed again.
Whatever was happening outside kept on happening for the best part of an hour. Reacher was left alone in the room, sitting comfortably on the floor, just waiting. Then the waiting was over. A whole crowd of people came back together, noisy in the corridor, like an anxious herd. Reacher felt the stamp and shuffle of footsteps. Then the door opened and the gray-haired guy with the eyeglasses stepped into the room. He kept his trailing foot near the threshold and leaned his weight inside at an angle.
“Time to talk,” he said.
The two junior agents pushed in behind him and took up station like an escort. Reacher waited a beat and then he jacked himself upright and stepped away from his corner.
“I want to make a call,” he said.
The gray-haired guy shook his head.
“Calling comes later,” he said. “Talking comes first, OK?”
Reacher shrugged. The problem with getting your rights abused was that somebody had to witness it for it to mean anything. Somebody had to see it happen. And the two young agents were seeing nothing. Or maybe they were seeing Moses himself coming down and reading the whole Constitution off of big tablets of stone. Maybe that’s what they would swear to later.
“So let’s go,” the gray-haired guy said.
Reacher was crowded out into the gray corridor and into a big knot of people. The woman was there, and the sandy guy with the mustache, and the older guy with the blood pressure, and the younger guy with the lean face and the shirtsleeves. They were buzzing. It was late in the evening, but they were all pumped up with excitement. They were up on their toes, weightless with the intoxication of progress. It was a feeling Reacher recognized. It was a feeling he had experienced, more times than he cared to remember.
But they were divided. There were two clear teams. There was tension between them. It became obvious as they walked. The woman stuck close to his left shoulder, and the sandy guy and the blood pressure guy stuck close to her. That was one team. On his right shoulder was the guy with the lean face. He was the second team, alone and outnumbered and unhappy about it. Reacher felt his hand near his elbow, like he was ready to make a grab for his prize.
They walked down a narrow gray corridor like the bowels of a battleship and spilled into a gray room with a long table filling most of the floor space. The table was curved on both long edges and chopped off straight at the ends. On one long side, backs to the door, were seven plastic chairs in a line, well spaced out, with the curve of the table edge focusing them all across toward a single identical chair placed in the exact center of the opposite side.
Reacher paused in the doorway. Not too difficult to work out which chair was his. He looped around the end of the table and sat down in it. It was flimsy. The legs squirmed under his weight and the plastic dug into the muscle under his shoulder blades. The room was cinder block, painted gray like the first one, but this ceiling was finished. There was stained acoustic tile in warped framing. There was track lighting bolted to it, with large can-shaped fixtures angled down and toward him. The tabletop was cheap mahogany, thickly lacquered with shiny varnish. The light bounced off the varnish and came up into his eyes from below.
The two junior agents had taken up position against the walls at opposite ends of the table, like sentries. Their jackets were open and their shoulder holsters were visible. Their hands were folded comfortably at their waists. Their heads were turned, watching him. Opposite him, the two teams were forming up. Seven chairs, five people. The gray-haired guy took the center chair. The light caught his eyeglasses and turned them into blank mirrors. Next to him on his right-hand side was the guy with the blood pressure, and next to him was the woman, and next to her was the sandy guy. The guy with the lean face and the shirtsleeves was alone in the middle chair of the left-hand three. A lop-sided inquisition, hunching toward him, indistinct through the glare of the lights.
The gray-haired guy leaned forward, sliding his forearms onto the shiny wood, claiming authority. And subconsciously separating the factions to his left and right.
“We’ve been squabbling over you,” he said.
“Am I in custody?” Reacher asked.
The guy shook his head. “No, not yet.”
“So I’m free to go?”
The guy looked over the top of his eyeglasses. “Well, we’d rather you stayed right here, so we can keep this whole thing civilized for a spell.”
There was silence for a long moment.
“So make it civilized,” Reacher said. “I’m Jack Reacher. Who the hell are you?”
“What?”
“Let’s have some introductions. That’s what civilized people do, right? They introduce themselves. Then they chat politely about the Yankees or the stock market or
something.”
More silence. Then the guy nodded.
“I’m Alan Deerfield,” he said. “Assistant Director, FBI. I run the New York Field Office.”
Then he turned his head to his right and stared at the sandy guy on the end of the line and waited.
“Special Agent Tony Poulton,” the sandy guy said, and glanced to his left.
“Special Agent Julia Lamarr,” the woman said, and glanced to her left.
“Agent-in-Charge Nelson Blake,” the guy with the blood pressure said. “The three of us are up here from Quantico. I run the Serial Crimes Unit. Special Agents Lamarr and Poulton work for me there. We came up here to talk to you.”
There was a pause and the guy called Deerfield turned the other way and looked toward the man on his left.
“Agent-in-Charge James Cozo,” the guy said. “Organized Crime, here in New York City, working on the protection rackets.”
More silence.
“OK now?” Deerfield asked.
Reacher squinted through the glare. They were all looking at him. The sandy guy, Poulton. The woman, Lamarr. The hypertensive, Blake. All three of them from Serial Crimes down in Quantico. Up here to talk to him. Then Deerfield, the New York Bureau chief, a heavyweight. Then the lean guy, Cozo, from Organized Crime, working on the protection rackets. He glanced slowly left to right, and right to left, and finished up back on Deerfield. Then he nodded.
“OK,” he said. “Pleased to meet you all. So what about those Yankees? You think they need to trade?”
Five different people facing him, five different expressions of annoyance. Poulton turned his head like he had been slapped. Lamarr snorted, a contemptuous sound in her nose. Blake tightened his mouth and got redder. Deerfield stared and sighed. Cozo glanced sideways at Deerfield, lobbying for intervention.
“We’re not going to talk about the Yankees,” Deerfield said.
“So what about the Dow? We going to see a big crash anytime soon?”
Deerfield shook his head. “Don’t mess with me, Reacher. Right now I’m the best friend you got.”
“No, Ernesto A. Miranda is the best friend I got,” Reacher said. “Miranda versus Arizona, Supreme Court decision in June of 1966. They said his Fifth Amendment rights were infringed because the cops didn’t warn him he could stay silent and get himself a lawyer. ”
“So?”
“So you can’t talk to me until you read me my Miranda rights. Whereupon you can’t talk to me anyway because my lawyer could take some time to get here and then she won’t let me talk to you even when she does.”
The three agents from Serial Crime were smiling broadly. Like Reacher was busy proving something to them.
“Your lawyer is Jodie Jacob, right?” Deerfield asked. “Your girlfriend?”
“What do you know about my girlfriend?”
“We know everything about your girlfriend,” Deerfield said. “Just like we know everything about you, too.”
“So why do you need to talk to me?”
“She’s at Spencer Gutman, right?” Deerfield said. “Big reputation as an associate. They’re talking about a partnership for her, you know that?”
“So I heard.”
“Maybe real soon.”
“So I heard,” Reacher said again.
“Knowing you isn’t going to help her, though. You’re not exactly the ideal corporate husband, are you?”
“I’m not any kind of a husband.”
Deerfield smiled. “Figure of speech, is all. But Spencer Gutman is a real white-shoe operation. They consider stuff like that, you know. And it’s a financial firm, right? Real big in the world of banking, we all know that. But not much expertise in the field of criminal law. You sure you want her for your attorney? Situation like this?”
“Situation like what?”
“Situation you’re in.”
“What situation am I in?”
“Ernesto A. Miranda was a moron, you know that?” Deerfield said. “A couple of smokes short of a pack? That’s why the damn court was so soft on him. He was a subnormal guy. He needed the protection. You a moron, Reacher? You a subnormal guy?”
“Probably, to be putting up with this shit.”
“Rights are for guilty people, anyway. You already saying you’re guilty of something?”
Reacher shook his head. “I’m not saying anything. I’ve got nothing to say.”
“Old Ernesto went to jail anyhow, you know that? People tend to forget that fact. They retried him and convicted him just the same. He was in jail five years. Then you know what happened to him?”
Reacher shrugged. Said nothing.
“I was working in Phoenix at the time,” Deerfield said. “Down in Arizona. Homicide detective, for the city. Just before I made it to the Bureau. January of 1976, we get a call to a bar. Some piece of shit lying on the floor, big knife handle sticking up out of him. The famous Ernesto A. Miranda himself, bleeding all over the place. Nobody fell over themselves rushing to call any medics. Guy died a couple minutes after we got there.”
“So?”
“So stop wasting my time. I already wasted an hour stopping these guys fighting over you. So now you owe me. So you’ll answer their questions, and I’ll tell you when and if you need a damn lawyer.”
“What are the questions about?”
Deerfield smiled. “What are any questions about? Stuff we need to know, is what.”
“What stuff do you need to know?”
“We need to know if we’re interested in you.”
“Why would you be interested in me?”
“Answer the questions and we’ll find out.”
Reacher thought about it. Laid his hands palms up on the table.
“OK,” he said. “What are the questions?”
“You know Brewer versus Williams, too?” the guy called Blake said. He was old and overweight and unfit, but his mouth worked fast enough.
“Or Duckworth versus Eagan?” Poulton asked.
Reacher glanced across at him. He was maybe thirty-five, but he looked younger, like one of those guys who stay looking young forever. Like some kind of a graduate student, preserved. His suit was an awful color in the orange light, and his mustache looked false, like it was stuck on with glue.
“You know Illinois and Perkins?” Lamarr asked.
Reacher stared at them both. “What the hell is this? Law school?”
“What about Minnick versus Mississippi?” Blake asked.
Poulton smiled. “McNeil and Wisconsin?”
“Arizona and Fulminante?” Lamarr said.
“You know what those cases are?” Blake asked.
Reacher looked for the trick, but he couldn’t see it.
“More Supreme Court decisions,” he said. “Following on from Miranda. Brewer was 1977, Duckworth 1989, Perkins 1990, Minnick 1990, McNeil 1991, Fulminante 1991, all of them modifying and restating the original Miranda decision.”
Blake nodded. “Very good.”
Lamarr leaned forward. The light scatter off the shiny tabletop lit her face from below, like a skull.
“You knew Amy Callan pretty well, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Who?” Reacher said.
“You heard, you son of a bitch.”
Reacher stared at her. Then a woman called Amy Callan came back at him from the past and slowed him just enough to allow a contented smile to settle on Lamarr’s bony face.
“But you didn’t like her much, did you?” she said.
There was silence. It built around him.
“OK, my turn,” Cozo said. “Who are you working for?”
Reacher swung his gaze slowly to his right and rested it on Cozo.
“I’m not working for anybody,” he said.
“Don’t start a turf war with us,” Cozo quoted. “Us is a plural word. More than one person. Who is us, Reacher?”
“There is no us.”
“Bullshit, Reacher. Petrosian put the arm on that restaurant, but you were alrea
dy there. So who sent you?”
Reacher said nothing.
“What about Caroline Cooke?” Lamarr called. “You knew her too, right?”
Reacher turned slowly back to face her. She was still smiling.
“But you didn’t like her either, did you?” she said.
“Callan and Cooke,” Blake repeated. “Give it up Reacher, from the beginning, OK?”
Reacher looked at him. “Give what up?”
More silence.
“Who sent you to the restaurant?” Cozo asked again. “Tell me right now, and maybe I can cut you a deal.”
Reacher turned back the other way. “Nobody sent me anywhere.”
Cozo shook his head. “Bullshit, Reacher. You live in a half-million-dollar house on the river in the Garrison and you drive a six-month-old forty-five-thousand-dollar sport-utility vehicle. And as far as the IRS knows, you haven’t earned a cent in nearly three years. And when somebody wanted Petrosian’s best boys in the hospital, they sent you to do it. Put all that together, you’re working for somebody, and I want to know who the hell it is.”
“I’m not working for anybody,” Reacher said again.
“You’re a loner, right?” Blake asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Reacher nodded. “I guess.”
He turned his head. Blake was smiling, satisfied.
“I thought so,” he said. “When did you come out of the Army?”
Reacher shrugged. “About three years ago.”
“How long were you in?”
“All my life. Officer’s kid, then an officer myself.”
“Military policeman, right?”
“Right.”
“Several promotions, right?”
“I was a major.”
“Medals?”
“Some.”
“Silver Star?”
“One.”
“First-rate record, right?”
Reacher said nothing.
“Don’t be modest,” Blake said. “Tell us.”
“Yes, my record was good.”
“So why did you muster out?”