by Lee Child
“Please answer the question.”
“I have a bank balance,” Reacher said.
The guy wrote it all down. Then he sniffed and skipped his pen back over the lines he had already completed and paused. Asked, “What was your last address?”
“An APO box.”
“APO?”
“Army Post Office.”
“You’re a veteran?”
“Yes, I am.”
“How long did you serve?”
“Thirteen years.”
“Until?”
“I mustered out ten years ago.”
“Unit?”
“Military Police.”
“Final rank?”
“Major.”
“And you haven’t had a permanent address since you left the army?”
“No, I haven’t.”
The guy made a pronounced check mark against one of his lines. Reacher saw his pen move four times, twice in one direction and twice in the other. Then the guy asked, “How long have you been out of work?”
“Ten years,” Reacher said.
“You haven’t worked since you left the army?”
“Not really.”
“A retired major couldn’t find a job?”
“This retired major didn’t want to find a job.”
“Yet you have a bank balance?”
“Savings,” Reacher said. “Plus occasional casual labor.”
The guy made another big check mark. Two vertical scratches, two horizontal. Then he asked, “Where did you stay last night?”
“In Hope,” Reacher said. “In a motel.”
“And your bags are still there?”
“I don’t have any bags.”
The guy made another check mark.
“You walked here?” he asked.
“Yes,” Reacher said.
“Why?”
“No buses, and I didn’t find a ride.”
“No. Why here?”
“Tourism,” Reacher said again.
“What had you heard about our little town?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Yet you decided to visit?”
“Evidently.”
“Why?”
“I found the name intriguing.”
“That’s not a very compelling reason.”
“I have to be somewhere. And thanks for the big welcome.”
The guy made a fourth big check mark. Two vertical lines, two horizontal. Then he skipped his pen down his list, slowly and methodically, fourteen answers, plus four diversions to the margin for the check marks. He said, “I’m sorry, but I find you to be in contravention of one of Despair’s town ordinances. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”
“Leave?”
“Leave town.”
“What ordinance?”
“Vagrancy,” the guy said.
7
Reacher said, “There’s a vagrancy ordinance here?”
The judge nodded and said, “As there is in most Western towns.”
“I never came across one before.”
“Then you’ve been very lucky.”
“I’m not a vagrant.”
“Homeless for ten years, jobless for ten years, you ride buses or beg rides or walk from place to place performing occasional casual labor, what else would you call yourself?”
“Free,” Reacher said. “And lucky.”
The judge nodded again, and said, “I’m glad you see a silver lining.”
“What about my First Amendment right of free assembly?”
“The Supreme Court ruled long ago. Municipalities have the right to exclude undesirables.”
“Tourists are undesirable? What does the Chamber of Commerce think about that?”
“This is a quiet, old-fashioned town. People don’t lock their doors. We don’t feel the need. Most of the keys were lost years ago, in our grandparents’ time.”
“I’m not a thief.”
“But we err on the side of caution. Experience elsewhere shows that the itinerant jobless have always been a problem.”
“Suppose I don’t go? What’s the penalty?”
“Thirty days’ imprisonment.”
Reacher said nothing. The judge said, “The officer will drive you to the town line. Get a job and a home, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms. But don’t come back until you do.”
The cop took him downstairs again and gave him back his cash and his passport and his ATM card and his toothbrush. Nothing was missing. Everything was there. Then the cop handed over his shoelaces and waited at the booking desk while he threaded them through the eyelets in his shoes and pulled them tight and tied them off. Then the cop put his hand on the butt of his gun and said, “Car.” Reacher walked ahead of him through the lobby and stepped out the street door. It was late in the day, late in the year, and it was getting dark. The cop had moved his cruiser. Now it was parked nose-out.
“In the back,” the cop said.
Reacher heard a plane in the sky, far to the west. A single engine, climbing hard. A Cessna or a Beech or a Piper, small and lonely in the vastness. He pulled the car door and slid inside. Without handcuffs he was a lot more comfortable. He sprawled sideways, like he would in a taxi or a Town Car. The cop leaned in after him, one hand on the roof and one on the door, and said, “We’re serious. You come back, we’ll arrest you, and you’ll spend thirty days in that same cell. Always assuming you don’t look at us cross-eyed and we shoot you for resisting.”
“You married?” Reacher asked.
“Why?”
“I thought not. You seem to prefer jerking off.”
The cop stood still for a long moment and then slammed the door and got in the front. He took off down the street and headed north. Six blocks to Main Street, Reacher figured. If he turns left, takes me onward, to the west, maybe I’ll let it go. But if he turns right, takes me back east to Hope, maybe I won’t.
Reacher hated turning back.
Forward motion was his organizing principle.
Six blocks, six stop signs. At each one the cop braked gently and slowed and looked left and looked right and then rolled forward. At Main Street he came to a complete halt. He paused. Then he hit the gas and nosed forward and swung the wheel.
And turned right.
East.
Back toward Hope.
8
Reacher saw the dry goods emporium and the gas station and the abandoned motor court and the vacant unbuilt lot slide by and then the cop accelerated to a steady sixty miles an hour. The tires rumbled over the rough road and stray pebbles spattered the underside and bounced and skittered away to the shoulders. Twelve minutes later the car slowed and coasted and braked and came to a stop. The cop climbed out and put his hand on the butt of his gun and opened Reacher’s door.
“Out,” he said.
Reacher slid out and felt Despair’s grit under his shoes.
The cop jerked his thumb, to the east, where it was darker.
“That way,” he said.
Reacher stood still.
The cop took the gun off his belt. It was a Glock nine millimeter, boxy and dull in the gloom. No safety catch. Just a latch on the trigger, already compressed by the cop’s meaty forefinger.
“Please,” the cop said. “Just give me a reason.”
Reacher stepped forward, three paces. Saw the moon rising on the far horizon. Saw the end of Despair’s rough gravel and the start of Hope’s smooth blacktop. Saw the inch-wide trench between, filled with black compound. The car was stopped with its push bars directly above it. The expansion joint. The boundary. The line. Reacher shrugged and stepped over it. One long pace, back to Hope.
The cop called, “Don’t bother us again.”
Reacher didn’t reply. Didn’t turn around. Just stood and faced east and listened as the car backed up and turned and crunched away across the stones. When the sound was all gone in the distance he shrugged again and started walking.
He walked less than t
wenty yards and saw headlights a mile away, coming straight at him out of Hope. The beams were widely spaced, bouncing high, dipping low. A big car, moving fast. It came at him out of the gathering darkness and when it was a hundred yards away he saw it was another cop car. Another Crown Vic, painted black and white, police spec, with push bars, lights, and antennas. It stopped short of him and a spotlight mounted on the windshield pillar lit up and swiveled jerkily and played its beam all the way up and down him twice, coming to rest on his face, blinding him. Then it clicked off again and the car crept forward, tires hissing on the smooth asphalt surface, and stopped again with the driver’s door exactly alongside him. The door had a gold shield painted on it, with HPD scrolled across the middle. Hope Police Department. The window buzzed down and a hand went up and a dome light came on inside. Reacher saw a woman cop at the wheel, short blonde hair backlit by the weak yellow bulb above and behind her.
“Want a ride?” she asked.
“I’ll walk,” Reacher said.
“It’s five miles to town.”
“I walked out here, I can walk back.”
“Riding is easier.”
“I’m OK.”
The woman was quiet for a moment. Reacher listened to the Crown Vic’s engine. It was idling patiently. Belts were turning, a muffler was ticking as it cooled. Then Reacher moved on. He took three steps and heard the car’s transmission go into reverse and then the car came alongside him again, driving backward, keeping pace as he walked. The window was still down. The woman said, “Give yourself a break, Zeno.”
Reacher stopped. Said, “You know who Zeno was?”
The car stopped.
“Zeno of Cittium,” the woman said. “The founder of Stoicism. I’m telling you to stop being so long-suffering.”
“Stoics have to be long-suffering. Stoicism is about the unquestioning acceptance of destinies. Zeno said so.”
“Your destiny is to return to Hope. Doesn’t matter to Zeno whether you walk or ride.”
“What are you anyway—a philosopher or a cop or a cab driver?”
“The Despair PD calls us when they’re dumping someone at the line. As a courtesy.”
“This happens a lot?”
“More than you’d think.”
“And you come on out and pick us up?”
“We’re here to serve. Says so on the badge.”
Reacher looked down at the shield on her door. HPD was written across the scroll in the center, but To Protect was written at the top of the escutcheon, with And Serve added at the bottom.
“I see,” he said.
“So get in.”
“Why do they do it?”
“Get in and I’ll tell you.”
“You going to refuse to let me walk?”
“It’s five miles. You’re grumpy now, you’ll be real cranky when you arrive in town. Believe me. We’ve seen it before. Better for all of us if you ride.”
“I’m different. Walking calms me down.”
The woman said, “I’m not going to beg, Reacher.”
“You know my name?”
“Despair PD passed it on. As a courtesy.”
“And a warning?”
“Maybe. Right now I’m trying to decide whether to take them seriously.”
Reacher shrugged again and put his hand on the rear door handle.
“Up front, you idiot,” the woman said. “I’m helping you, not arresting you.”
So Reacher looped around the trunk and opened the front passenger door. The seat was all hemmed in with radio consoles and a laptop terminal on a bracket, but the space was clear. No hat. He crammed himself in. Not much legroom, because of the security screen behind him. Up front the car smelled of oil and coffee and perfume and warm electronics. The laptop screen showed a GPS map. A small arrow was pointing west and blinking away at the far edge of a pink shape labeled Hope Township. The shape was precisely rectangular, almost square. A fast and arbitrary land allocation, like the state of Colorado itself. Next to it Despair township was represented by a light purple shape. Despair was not rectangular. It was shaped like a blunt wedge. Its eastern border matched Hope’s western limit exactly, then it spread wider, like a triangle with the point cut off. Its western line was twice as long as its eastern and bordered gray emptiness. Unincorporated land, Reacher figured. Spurs came off I-70 and I-25 and ran through the unincorporated land and clipped Despair’s northwestern corner.
The woman cop buzzed her window back up and craned her neck and glanced behind her and K-turned across the road. She was slightly built under a crisp tan shirt. Probably less than five feet six, probably less than a hundred and twenty pounds, probably less than thirty-five years old. No jewelry, no wedding band. She had a Motorola radio on her collar and a tall gold badge bar pinned over her left breast. According to the badge her name was Vaughan. And according to the badge she was a pretty good cop. She seemed to have won a bunch of awards and commendations. She was good-looking, but different from regular women. She had seen stuff they hadn’t. Reacher was familiar with the concept. He had served with plenty of women, back in the MPs.
He asked, “Why did Despair run me out?”
The woman called Vaughan turned out the dome light. Now she was front-lit by red instrument lights from the dash and the pink and purple glow from the GPS screen and white scatter from the headlight beams on the road.
“Look at yourself,” she said.
“What about me?”
“What do you see?”
“Just a guy.”
“A blue-collar guy in work clothes, fit, strong, healthy, and hungry.”
“So?”
“How far did you get?”
“I saw the gas station and the restaurant. And the town court.”
“Then you didn’t see the full picture,” Vaughan said. She drove slow, about thirty miles an hour, as if she had plenty more to say. She had one hand on the wheel, with her elbow propped on the door. Her other hand lay easy in her lap. Five miles at thirty miles an hour was going to take ten minutes. Reacher wondered what she had to tell him, that less than ten minutes wouldn’t cover.
He said, “I’m more green-collar than blue.”
“Green?”
“I was in the army. Military cop.”
“When?”
“Ten years ago.”
“You working now?”
“No.”
“Well, then.”
“Well what?”
“You were a threat.”
“How?”
“West of downtown Despair is the biggest metal recycling plant in Colorado.”
“I saw the smog.”
“There’s nothing else in Despair’s economy. The metal plant is the whole ballgame.”
“A company town,” Reacher said.
Vaughan nodded at the wheel. “The guy who owns the plant owns every brick of every building. Half the population works for him full time. The other half works for him part time. The full-time people are happy enough. The part-time people are insecure. They don’t like competition from outsiders. They don’t like people showing up, looking for casual labor, willing to work for less.”
“I wasn’t willing to work at all.”
“You tell them that?”
“They didn’t ask.”
“They wouldn’t have believed you anyway. Standing around every morning waiting for a nod from the foreman does things to people. It’s kind of feudal. The whole place is feudal. The money the owner pays out in wages comes right back at him, in rents. Mortgages too. He owns the bank. No relief on Sundays, either. There’s one church and he’s the lay preacher. You want to work, you have to show up in a pew from time to time.”
“Is that fair?”
“He likes to dominate. He’ll use anything.”
“So why don’t people move on?”
“Some have. Those who haven’t never will.”
“Doesn’t this guy want people coming in to work for less?”
“He likes the people he owns, not strangers.”
“So why were those guys worried?”
“People always worry. Company towns are weird.”
“And the town judge toes their line?”
“It’s an elected position. And the vagrancy ordinance is for real. Most towns have one. We do, for sure, in Hope. No way around it, if someone complains.”
“But nobody complained in Hope. I stayed there last night.”
“We’re not a company town.”
Vaughan slowed. Hope’s first built-up block was ahead in the distance. Reacher recognized it. A mom-and-pop hardware store. That morning an old guy had been putting stepladders and wheelbarrows out on the sidewalk, building a display. Now the store was all closed up and dark.
He asked, “How big is the Hope PD?”
Vaughan said, “Me and two others and a watch commander.”
“You got sworn deputies?”
“Four of them. We don’t use them often. Traffic control, maybe, if we’ve got construction going on. Why?”
“Are they armed?”
“No. In Colorado, deputies are civilian peace officers. Why?”
“How many deputies does the Despair PD have?”
“Four, I think.”
“I met them.”
“And?”
“Theoretically, what would the Hope PD do if someone showed up and got in a dispute with one of your deputies and busted his jaw?”
“We’d throw that someone’s sorry ass in jail, real quick.”
“Why?”
“You know why. Zero tolerance for assaults on peace officers, plus an obligation to look after our own, plus pride and self-respect.”
“Suppose there was a self-defense issue?”
“Civilian versus a peace officer, we’d need some kind of amazing reasonable doubt. You’d have felt the same in the MPs.”
“That’s for damn sure.”
“So why did you ask?”
Reacher didn’t answer directly. Instead he said, “I’m not a Stoic, really. Zeno preached the passive acceptance of fate. I’m not like that. I’m not very passive. I take challenges personally.”
“So?”
“I don’t like to be told where I can go and where I can’t.”
“Stubborn?”