by Lee Child
“Father-in-law, then. How do we know he’s not in the house right now? Maybe you took over the lease and he squats in a room. We know he’s not exactly swimming in cash right now.”
Shevick said nothing.
The same voice said, “We’re coming in to take a look.”
There was the sound of Shevick getting shoved aside, and then footsteps in the hallway. Reacher stood up and moved behind the kitchen door. He opened a drawer, and another, and another, until he found a cooking knife. Better than nothing. He heard Abby and Maria move out of the living room and into the hallway.
The footsteps kept on coming.
He heard Abby say, “Who are you?”
“We’re looking for Mr. Aaron Shevick,” one of the guys said.
“Who?”
“What’s your name?”
“Abigail,” Abby said.
“Abigail what?”
“Reacher,” she said. “These are my grandparents, Jack and Joanna.”
“Where’s Shevick?”
“He was the last tenant. He moved out.”
“Where did he go?”
“He didn’t leave a forwarding address. He gave the impression he was having serious financial problems. I think basically he skipped in the night. He ran away.”
“You sure?”
“I know who lives here, mister. This is a two-bedroom house. One for my grandparents, and one for me, when I’m here. For guests, when I’m not. There are no squatters. I think I would have noticed.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Aaron Shevick.”
“No.”
“I met him,” Maria Shevick said. “When we first saw the house.”
“What did he look like?”
“I remember him as being tall and powerfully built.”
“That’s the guy,” the voice said. “How long has he been gone?”
“About a year.”
No response. The footsteps moved on, to the living room door. The voice said, “You’ve been here a year and you don’t have a TV yet?”
“We’re retired,” Maria said. “These things are expensive.”
The voice said, “Huh.”
Reacher heard a quiet, scratchy click. Then the footsteps retreated. Back down the hallway. To the front door. To the front step. To the narrow concrete path. Reacher heard the car start up, and then he heard it drive away. The soft hiss and squelch of a big sedan.
Silence came back.
He put the knife in its place in the drawer, and he stepped out of the kitchen.
“Nice work, everyone,” he said.
Aaron looked shaky. Maria looked pale.
“They took a photograph,” Abby said. “Like a parting shot.”
Reacher nodded. The quiet, scratchy click. A cell phone, imitating a camera.
“A photograph of what?” he said.
“The three of us. Partly for their report. Partly for their just-in-case database. But mostly to intimidate. It’s what they do. People feel vulnerable.”
Reacher nodded again. He remembered the luminous guy in the bar. Raising his phone. The little snitch of a sound. If I was a real client, I wouldn’t have liked it.
The Shevicks stepped into the kitchen, to make more coffee. Reacher and Abby went to the living room, to wait for it.
Abby said, “Intimidation is not the only issue with that photograph.”
“What else?” Reacher said.
“They’ll text the picture. Among themselves. That’s what they do. In case someone can fill in another part of the puzzle. Sooner or later everyone will get the text. The guy on the door at work will get it. He knows I’m not Abigail Reacher. He knows I’m Abby Gibson. So do a lot of other guys on a lot of other doors, because I’ve worked a lot of other places. They’ll start asking questions. They already don’t like me.”
“Do they know where you live?”
“I’m sure they could make my boss tell them.”
“When will they send the text?”
“I’m sure they already have.”
“Is there someplace else you could stay?”
She nodded.
“I have a friend,” she said. “East of Center Street. Albanian territory, happily.”
“Can you work there?”
“I have before.”
Reacher said, “I sincerely apologize for the disruption.”
“I’m thinking of it as an experiment,” she said. “Someone once told me that every day a woman should do something that scared her.”
“She could join the army.”
“You need to be based east of Center anyway. We can stick together. At least tonight.”
“Will that be OK with your friend?”
“I hope so,” she said. “Will the Shevicks be OK tonight?”
Reacher nodded.
“People believe their own eyes,” he said. “In this case their own eyes were the luminous guy’s in the bar. He met me. His phone took my picture. I am Aaron Shevick. It’s set in stone. In their minds Shevick is a big tall guy from a younger generation. You could tell by the things they said. They accused him of being Shevick’s dad, or his father-in-law, but they never accused him of being Shevick himself. So they’ll be OK. As far as those guys are concerned, they’re just an old couple named Reacher.”
Then Maria called through to say the coffee was ready.
* * *
—
The manager of the grimy pawn shop across the narrow street from the taxi dispatcher and the bail bond office came out the door and dodged a truck and ducked into the taxi place. He ignored the weary guy on the radio and pushed on through to the back. To Gregory’s outer office. Gregory’s right-hand man looked up and asked him what he wanted. He said something had happened. Quicker to walk it across the street than put it in a text.
“Put what in a text?” the right-hand man asked.
“This morning I got an alert and a photograph about a man named Shevick. A big ugly son of a bitch.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Is Shevick a common name in America?”
“Why?”
“I had a client named Shevick this morning. But a small old woman.”
“Possibly related. Possibly an elderly aunt or cousin.”
The guy nodded.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “But then I got another alert, and another photograph. The same old woman is in it. But her name is different. In the new alert they’re calling her Joanna Reacher. But this morning for me she signed Maria Shevick.”
Chapter 19
Reacher and Abby left the Shevicks in their kitchen and headed out to the Toyota. Reacher was already packed. His toothbrush was in his pocket. But Abby wanted to drop by her place to pick up some stuff. Which was reasonable. In turn Reacher decided he wanted to drop by the public law project to get an answer to a question. Both destinations were in Ukrainian territory. But it would be safe enough, he thought. Possibly. On the downside, there were two photographs out there, plus potentially the Toyota’s description and license plate. On the upside, it was broad daylight, and they would be in and out real fast.
Safe enough, he thought. Possibly.
They drove in through the still-shabby blocks and he found the law project again, near the hotels, just west of Center, at the end of its gentrified street. Which had a different feel by day than night. All the other offices were open. People were going in and out. There were cars parked both sides on the curb. But no black Lincolns and no unexplained pale men in suits.
Safe enough. Possibly.
Abby backed into a space and parked. She and Reacher got out and walked to the door. Only two guys were at their desks. No sign of Isaac Mehay-Byford. Just Julian Ha
rvey Wood and Gino Vettoretto. Harvard and Yale. Good enough. They greeted Reacher and shook Abby’s hand and said they were pleased to meet her.
Reacher said, “What if Max Trulenko has hidden money stashed away?”
“That’s Isaac’s theory,” Gino said.
“There’s always a rumor like that,” Julian said.
“I think this time it’s true,” Reacher said. “Last night I dropped Trulenko’s name to the doorman where Abby works. About three minutes later four guys showed up in two cars. Which was a pretty impressive response. It was platinum-level protection. These guys don’t do anything except for cash. Therefore Trulenko is paying them. Top dollar, to get four guys in two cars inside three minutes. Therefore he still has money of his own.”
“What happened with the four guys?” Gino asked.
“They lost me,” Reacher said. “But along the way I think they might have proved Isaac’s point.”
“Do you know where Trulenko is?” Julian asked.
“Not precisely.”
“We would need an address, to serve the papers. And to get his bank accounts frozen. How much money do you suppose he has?”
“I have no idea,” Reacher said. “More than me, I’m sure. More than the Shevicks, I’m damn sure.”
“I guess we would sue him for a hundred million dollars, and settle for whatever he has left. With a bit of luck it will be enough.”
Reacher nodded. Then he asked what he had come to ask. He said, “How long would all that take?”
Gino said, “They would never go to court. They couldn’t afford to. They know they would lose. They would settle ahead of a trial. They would beg us to let them. It would be lawyer to lawyer, back and forth, mostly by e-mail. The only issue would be letting Trulenko keep a couple cents on the dollar, so he doesn’t have to live under a bridge the rest of his life.”
“How long would all that take?” Reacher asked again.
“Six months,” Julian said. “Certainly no more than that.”
The law moves slow, Maria Shevick had said, many times.
“No way of hurrying it along?”
“That is hurrying it along.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “Say hey to Isaac for me.”
They hustled back to the Toyota. It was still there. Unnoticed, unwatched, unsurrounded, and unticketed. They got in. Abby said, “It’s like one movie is playing in slow motion, and the other one is running all speeded up.”
Reacher said nothing.
Abby’s place was close by in terms of physical distance, but it was three sides of a square away in terms of one-way streets. They came on it from the north.
There was a car outside the door.
Parked on the curb. A black Lincoln, facing away. It had dark glass in the rear compartment. From a distance it was impossible to tell who was inside.
“Pull over,” Reacher said.
Abby stopped thirty yards north of the Lincoln.
Reacher said, “Worst case there are two guys in it and I bet their doors are locked.”
“What would the army tell you to do?”
“Fire armor-piercing rounds in sufficient quantity to subdue resistance. And then fire tracer at the gas tank in sufficient quantity to subdue evidence.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Sadly. But we better do something. That’s your house. They’re poking their noses where they don’t belong.”
“Safer to ignore them, surely.”
“Only in the short term,” Reacher said. “We can’t let them have it all their own way. We need to send a message. They’re out of line. They squeezed your address out of an innocent couple with enough taste to hire you and book that band. They need to know there are certain things they shouldn’t do. And they need to know they’re messing with the wrong people. We need to scare them a little bit.”
Abby was quiet a beat.
“You’re nuts,” she said. “You’re one guy. You can’t take them on.”
“Someone has to. I’m used to it. I was a military policeman. I got all the lousy jobs.”
She was quiet another beat.
“Your concern is their doors are locked,” she said. “Because if they are, you can’t get to them.”
“Correct,” Reacher said.
“I could walk around the block and go in the back door. I could turn on all the lights inside. That might get them out of the car for you.”
“No,” Reacher said.
“OK, I could leave the lights off and at least get my stuff.”
“No,” Reacher said again. “For the same reason. They might be waiting inside the house. The car could be empty. Or one and one.”
“That’s creepy.”
“I told you. There are certain things they shouldn’t do.”
“I could live without my stuff. I mean, you do. It’s clearly possible. It could be part of the experiment.”
“No,” Reacher said again. “It’s a free country. If you want your stuff, you should have it. And if they need a message, they should get one.”
“OK, works for me. But how do we do it?”
“That depends on how experimental you want to be.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I’m pretty sure it will work out fine.”
“What will?”
“But you’ll probably worry about it ahead of time.”
“Try me.”
“Ideally I would like you to drive up behind the Lincoln and nudge it in the back bumper at about walking pace.”
“Why?”
“The doors will unlock. For the first responders. The car will think it’s in a minor accident. There’s a little doo-dad in there somewhere. A safety mechanism.”
“So then you can open the doors from the outside.”
“That would be the first tactical objective. All else would follow.”
“They might have guns.”
“For a limited period only. After which I would have them.”
“What if the guys are in the house?”
“I suppose we could set the car on fire. That would send a message.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Let’s take it one step at a time.”
“Will my car get wrecked?”
“It has federal bumpers. Should be good up to five miles an hour. Conceivable you could need another electrical tie.”
“OK,” she said.
“Remember to keep your foot on the clutch pedal. You don’t want to stall out. You want to be ready to reverse away.”
“Then what?”
“You park and go get your stuff, while I tell the guys in the car what they need to do.”
“Which is what?”
“Follow you to some dubious place east of Center. After that it’s up to them.”
She was quiet another long beat.
Then she nodded. A bob of her short dark hair. A gleam in her eye. A smile on her lips, half grim, half excited.
“OK,” she said again. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
—
At that moment Gregory’s right-hand man was laying out what little he knew. He was in the inner office, across the desk from his boss. Which was an intimidating place to be. The desk was massive, ornately carved from toffee-colored wood. The desk chair was huge, made of tufted green leather. Behind the chair was a tall heavy bookcase that matched the desk. Altogether imposing. Not a comfortable place to be, when telling a confusing story.
He said, “At six o’clock last night Aaron Shevick was a big ugly sadsack nobody paying back a loan. At eight he was a big ugly sadsack nobody taking out a new loan. But at ten he was different. He was a man about town, enjoying the band, flirting with the waitress, eating bite-size pizzas and drinking
six-dollar cups of coffee. Then on the way out of the bar he was different again. He was a tough guy talking about Max Trulenko. He’s like three people in one. We have no idea who he really is.”
Gregory asked, “Who do you think he is?”
His guy didn’t answer. Instead he said, “Meanwhile we dug up his last known address. But he wasn’t there. He moved out a year ago. The new tenants are an old retired couple named Jack and Joanna Reacher. Their granddaughter was visiting. Her name is Abigail Reacher. Except it isn’t. Her name is Abigail Gibson. She’s the waitress Shevick was flirting with last night. We know all about her. She’s a troublemaker.”
“How so?”
“A year or so ago she told the police about something she saw. We straightened it out. We showed her the error of her ways. She promised to reform, which is why we let her keep working.”
Gregory bent his neck to the left, and held it, and to the right, and held it. As if it was hurting.
He said, “But now she’s flirting with Shevick, and showing up at his last known address under a phony name.”
“It gets worse,” his guy said. “Grandma Reacher was in our pawn shop this morning, but she signed her name Shevick.”
“Really?”
“Maria Shevick.”
“And then she showed up at Aaron Shevick’s last known address.”
“We have no idea who these people really are.”
“Who do you think they are?” Gregory asked again.
“We didn’t get where we are by being stupid,” his guy said. “We should consider every possibility. Start with Abigail Gibson. We’re getting a new police commissioner. Maybe he’s getting a jump on reading the files. Her name is in there. Maybe he reached out. Maybe he put the big guy in the field to work with her.”
“He’s not commissioner yet.”
“All the more reason. We think we’re still safe.”
Gregory said, “You think Shevick is a cop?”
“No,” his guy said. “We know the cops. We would have heard. Someone would have talked to us.”
“Then who is he?”
“Maybe he’s FBI. Maybe the police department asked for outside help.”
“No,” Gregory said. “A new commissioner wouldn’t do that. He would want his own people on the job. He would want all the glory for himself.”