by Lee Child
I waited.
“My son explained your predicament,” he said. It was the same phrase his wife had used.
“The law of unintended consequences,” I said.
“It presents me with difficulties,” he said. “I’m just an ordinary businessman, trying to work out where my responsibilities lie.”
I waited.
“We’re grateful, naturally,” he said. “Please don’t misunderstand that.”
“But?”
“There are legal issues, aren’t there?” He said it with a little annoyance in his voice, like he was being victimized by complexities beyond his control.
“It’s not rocket science,” I said. “I need you to turn a blind eye. At least temporarily. Like one good turn deserves another. If your conscience can accommodate that kind of a thing.”
The room went quiet again. I listened to the ocean. I could hear a full spectrum of sounds out there. I could hear brittle seaweed dragging on granite and a drawn-out undertow sucking backward toward the east. Zachary Beck’s gaze was moving all over the place. He was looking at the table, then at the floor, then into space. His face was narrow. Not much of a jaw. His eyes were set fairly close together. His brow was lined with concentration. His lips were thin and his mouth was pursed. His head was moving a little. The whole thing was a reasonable facsimile of an ordinary businessman struggling with weighty issues.
“Was it a mistake?” he asked.
“The cop?” I said. “In retrospect, obviously. At the time, I was just trying to get the job done.”
He spent a little more time thinking, and then he nodded.
“OK,” he said. “In the circumstances, we might be willing to help you out. If we can. You did a great service for the family.”
“I need money,” I said.
“Why?”
“I’m going to need to travel.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
“Is that wise?”
“Not really. I’d prefer to wait here a couple of days until the initial panic is over. But I don’t want to push my luck with you.”
“How much money?”
“Five thousand dollars might do it.”
He said nothing to that. Just started up with the gazing thing again. This time, there was a little more focus in his eyes.
“I’ve got some questions for you,” he said. “Before you leave us. If you leave us. Two issues are paramount. First, who were they?”
“Don’t you know?”
“I have many rivals and enemies.”
“That would go this far?”
“I’m a rug importer,” he said. “I didn’t intend to be, but that’s the way things worked out. Possibly you think I just deal with department stores and interior decorators, but the reality is I deal with all kinds of unsavory characters in various foreign hellholes where enslaved children are forced to work eighteen-hour days until their fingers bleed. Their owners are all convinced I’m ripping them off and raping their cultures, and the truth is I probably am, although no more than they are. They aren’t fun companions. I need a certain toughness to prosper. And the point is, so do my competitors. This is a tough business all around. So between my suppliers and my competitors I can think of half a dozen separate people who would kidnap my son to get at me. After all, one of them did, five years ago, as I’m sure my son told you.”
I said nothing.
“I need to know who they were,” he said, like he really meant it. So I paused a beat and recounted the whole event for him, second by second, yard by yard, mile by mile. I described the two tall fair-haired DEA guys in the Toyota accurately and in great detail.
“They mean nothing to me,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
“Did you get the Toyota’s license plate?” he asked.
I thought back and told him the truth.
“I only saw the front,” I said. “There was no plate.”
“OK,” he said. “So they were from a state that doesn’t require a front license plate. That narrows it down a little, I guess.”
I said nothing. A long moment later he shook his head.
“Information is in very short supply,” he said. “An associate of mine contacted the police department down there, in a roundabout way. One town cop is dead, one college cop is dead, two unexplained strangers in a Lincoln Town Car are dead, and two unexplained strangers in a Toyota pickup truck are dead. The only surviving eyewitness is a second college cop, and he’s still unconscious after a car wreck nearly five miles away. So right now nobody knows what happened. Nobody knows why it happened. Nobody has made a connection to an attempted kidnap. All anybody knows is there was a bloodbath down there for no apparent reason. They’re speculating about gang warfare.”
“What happens when they run the Lincoln’s plate?” I asked.
He hesitated.
“It’s a corporate registration,” he said. “It doesn’t lead directly here.”
I nodded. “OK, but I want to be on the West Coast before that other college cop wakes up. He got a good look at me.”
“And I want to know who stepped out of line here.”
I glanced at the Anacondas on the table. They had been cleaned and lightly oiled. I was suddenly very glad I had ditched the spent shells. I picked up my glass. Wrapped my thumb and all four fingers around it and sniffed the contents. I had no idea what they were. I would have preferred a cup of coffee. I put the glass back on the table.
“Is Richard OK?” I asked.
“He’ll live,” Beck said. “I’d like to know who exactly is attacking me.”
“I told you what I saw,” I said. “They didn’t show me ID. They weren’t known to me personally. I just happened to be there. What’s your second paramount issue?”
There was another pause. The surf crashed and boomed outside the windows.
“I’m a cautious man,” Beck said. “And I don’t want to offend you.”
“But?”
“But I’m wondering who you are, exactly.”
“I’m the guy who saved your boy’s other ear,” I said.
Beck glanced at Duke, who stepped forward smartly and took my glass away. He used the same awkward pincer movement with his thumb and his index finger, right down at the base.
“And now you’ve got my fingerprints,” I said. “Nice and clear.”
Beck nodded again, like a guy making a judicious decision. He pointed at the guns, where they lay on the table.
“Nice weapons,” he said.
I said nothing back. He moved his hand and nudged one of them with his knuckles. Then he sent it sliding across the wood toward me. The heavy steel made a hollow reverberant sound on the oak.
“You want to tell me why there’s a mark scratched against one of the chambers?”
I listened to the ocean.
“I don’t know why,” I said. “They came to me like that.”
“You bought them used?”
“In Arizona,” I said.
“From a gun store?”
“From a gun show,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t like background checks,” I said.
“Didn’t you ask about the scratches?”
“I assumed they were reference marks,” I said. “I assumed some gun nut had tested them and marked the most accurate chamber. Or the least accurate.”
“Chambers differ?”
“Everything differs,” I said. “That’s the nature of manufacturing.”
“Even with eight-hundred-dollar revolvers?”
“Depends on how discriminating you want to be. You feel the need to measure down to the hundred-thousandths of an inch, then everything in the world is different.”
“Does it matter?”
“Not to me,” I said. “I point a gun at somebody, I don’t care which individual blood cell I’m targeting.”
He sat quiet for a moment. Then he went into his pocket and came out with a bullet. Shin
y brass case, dull lead point. He stood it upright in front of him like a miniature artillery shell. Then he knocked it over and rolled it under his fingers on the table. Then he placed it carefully and flicked it with his fingertip so that it rolled all the way along to me. It came in a wide graceful curve. It made a slow droning sound on the wood. I let it roll off the end of the table and caught it in my hand. It was an unjacketed Remington .44 Magnum. Heavy, probably more than three hundred grains. It was a brutal thing. Probably cost the best part of a dollar. It was warm from his pocket.
“You ever played Russian roulette?” he asked.
“I need to get rid of the car I stole,” I said.
“We’ve already gotten rid of it,” he said.
“Where?”
“Where it won’t be found.”
He went quiet. I said nothing. Just looked at him, like I was thinking Is that the sort of thing an ordinary businessman does? As well as registering his limousines through shell corporations? And instantly recalling the retail on a Colt Anaconda? And trapping a guest’s prints on a whiskey tumbler?
“You ever played Russian roulette?” he asked again.
“No,” I said. “I never did.”
“I’m under attack,” he said. “And I just lost two guys. Time like this I need to be adding guys, not losing them.”
I waited, five seconds, ten. I made out like I was struggling with the concept.
“You asking to hire me?” I said. “I’m not sure I can stick around.”
“I’m not asking anything,” he said. “I’m deciding. You look like a useful guy. You could have that five thousand dollars to stay, not to go. Maybe.”
I said nothing.
“Hey, if I want you, I’ve got you,” he said. “There’s a dead cop down in Massachusetts and I’ve got your name and I’ve got your prints.”
“But?”
“But I don’t know who you are.”
“Get used to it,” I said. “How do you know who anybody is?”
“I find out. I test people. Suppose I asked you to kill another cop? As a gesture of good faith?”
“I’d say no. I’d repeat that the first one was an unfortunate accident I regret very much. And I’d start wondering about what kind of an ordinary businessman you really are.”
“My business is my business. It needn’t concern you.”
I said nothing.
“Play Russian roulette with me,” he said.
“What would that prove?”
“A federal agent wouldn’t do it.”
“Why are you worried about federal agents?”
“That needn’t concern you, either.”
“I’m not a federal agent,” I said.
“So prove it. Play Russian roulette with me. I mean, I’m already playing Russian roulette with you, in a manner of speaking, just letting you into my house without knowing exactly who you are.”
“I saved your son.”
“And I’m very grateful for that. Grateful enough that I’m still talking to you in a civilized manner. Grateful enough that I might yet offer you sanctuary and employment. Because I like a man who gets the job done.”
“I’m not looking for work,” I said. “I’m looking to hide out for maybe forty-eight hours and then move on.”
“We’d look after you. Nobody would ever find you. You’d be completely safe here. If you pass the test.”
“Russian roulette is the test?”
“The infallible test,” he said. “In my experience.”
I said nothing. The room was silent. He leaned forward in his chair.
“You’re either with me or against me,” he said. “Either way, you’re about to prove it. I sincerely hope you choose wisely.”
Duke moved against the door. The floor creaked under his feet. I listened to the ocean. Spray smashed upward and the wind whipped it and heavy foam drops arced lazily through the air and tapped against the window glass. The seventh wave came booming in, heavier than the others. I picked up the Anaconda in front of me. Duke pulled a gun out from under his jacket and pointed it at me in case I had something other than roulette on my mind. He had a Steyr SPP, which is most of a Steyr TMP submachine gun cut down into pistol form. It’s a rare piece from Austria and it was big and ugly in his hand. I looked away from it and concentrated on the Colt. I thumbed the bullet into a random chamber and closed the cylinder and spun it free. The ratchet purred in the silence.
“Play,” Beck said.
I spun the cylinder again and raised the revolver and touched the muzzle to my temple. The steel was cold. I looked Beck straight in the eye and held my breath and eased the trigger back. The cylinder turned and the hammer cocked. The action was smooth, like silk rubbing on silk. I pulled the trigger all the way. The hammer fell. There was a loud click. I felt the smack of the hammer pulse all the way through the steel to the side of my head. But I felt nothing else. I breathed out and lowered the gun and held it with the back of my hand resting on the table. Then I turned my hand over and pulled my finger out of the trigger guard.
“Your turn,” I said.
“I just wanted to see you do it,” he said.
I smiled.
“You want to see me do it again?” I said.
Beck said nothing. I picked up the gun again and spun the cylinder and let it slow and stop. Raised the muzzle to my head. The barrel was so long my elbow was forced up and out. I pulled the trigger, fast and decisive. There was a loud click in the silence. It was the sound of an eight-hundred-dollar piece of precision machinery working exactly the way it should. I lowered the gun and spun the cylinder a third time. Raised the gun. Pulled the trigger. Nothing. I did it a fourth time, fast. Nothing. I did it a fifth time, faster. Nothing.
“OK,” Beck said.
“Tell me about Oriental rugs,” I said.
“Nothing much to tell,” he said. “They go on the floor. People buy them. Sometimes for a lot of money.”
I smiled. Raised the gun again.
“Odds are six to one,” I said. I spun the cylinder a sixth time. The room went completely silent. I put the gun to my head. Pulled the trigger. I felt the smack of the hammer falling on an empty chamber. Nothing else.
“Enough,” Beck said.
I lowered the Colt and cracked the cylinder and dumped the bullet out on the table. Lined it up carefully and rolled it all the way back to him. It droned on the wood. He stopped it with the heel of his hand and sat there and said nothing for two or three minutes. He was looking at me like I was an animal in a zoo. Like maybe he wished there were some bars between him and me.
“Richard tells me you were a military cop,” he said.
“Thirteen years,” I said.
“Were you good?”
“Better than those bozos you sent to pick him up.”
“He speaks well of you.”
“So he should,” I said. “I saved his ass. At considerable cost to myself.”
“You going to be missed anywhere?”
“No.”
“Family?”
“Haven’t got any.”
“Job?”
“I can’t go back to it now,” I said. “Can I?”
He played with the bullet for a moment, rolling it under the pad of his index finger. Then he scooped it up into his palm.
“Who can I call?” he said.
“For what?”
He jiggled the bullet in his palm, like shaking dice.
“An employment recommendation,” he said. “You had a boss, right?”
Mistakes, coming back to haunt me.
“Self-employed,” I said.
He put the bullet back on the table.
“Licensed and insured?” he said.
I paused a beat.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Reasons,” I said.
“Got a registration for your truck?”
“I might have mislaid it.”
He rolled the bullet un
der his fingers. Gazed at me. I could see him thinking. He was running things through his head. Processing information. Trying to make it fit with his own preconceptions. I willed him onward. An armed tough guy with an old panel van that doesn’t belong to him. A car thief. A cop-killer. He smiled.
“Used records,” he said. “I’ve seen that store.”
I said nothing. Just looked him in the eye.
“Let me take a guess,” he said. “You were fencing stolen CDs.”
His type of guy. I shook my head.
“Bootlegs,” I said. “I’m not a thief. I’m ex-military, trying to scrape a living. And I believe in free expression.”
“Like hell,” he said. “You believe in making a buck.”
His type of guy.
“That too,” I said.
“Were you doing well?”
“Well enough.”
He scooped the bullet into his palm again and tossed it to Duke. Duke caught it one-handed and dropped it into his jacket pocket.
“Duke is my head of security,” Beck said. “You’ll work for him, effective immediately.”
I glanced at Duke, than back at Beck.
“Suppose I don’t want to work for him?” I said.
“You have no choice. There’s a dead cop down in Massachusetts, and we have your name and your prints. You’ll be on probation, until we get a feel for exactly what kind of a person you are. But look on the bright side. Think about five thousand dollars. That’s a lot of bootleg CDs.”
The difference between being an honored guest and a probationary employee was that I ate dinner in the kitchen with the other help. The giant from the gatehouse lodge didn’t show, but there was Duke and one other guy I took to be some kind of an all-purpose mechanic or handyman. There was a maid and a cook. The five of us sat around a plain deal table and had a meal just as good as the family was getting in the dining room. Maybe better, because maybe the cook had spat in theirs, and I doubted if she would spit in ours. I had spent enough time around grunts and NCOs to know how they do things.
There wasn’t much conversation. The cook was a sour woman of maybe sixty. The maid was timid. I got the impression she was fairly new. She was unsure about how to conduct herself. She was young and plain. She was wearing a cotton shift and a wool cardigan. She had clunky flat shoes on. The mechanic was a middle-aged guy, thin, gray, quiet. Duke was quiet too, because he was thinking. Beck had handed him a problem and he wasn’t sure how he should deal with it. Could he use me? Could he trust me? He wasn’t stupid. That was clear. He saw all the angles and he was prepared to spend a little time examining them. He was around my age. Maybe a little younger, maybe a little older. He had one of those hard ugly corn-fed faces that hides age well. He was about my size. I probably had heavier bones, he was probably a little bulkier. We probably weighed within a pound or two of each other. I sat next to him and ate my food and tried to time it right with the kind of questions a normal person would be expected to ask.