Night School

by Child, Lee

  Neagley tapped her chest. I’ll go first. She kept close to the wall, approaching the fish’s eye at a ninety-degree angle, and when she was an arm’s length away she clamped her left palm over the lens, and took out her Colt, and used the muzzle to press the bell.

  Chapter 37

  There was no response. Neagley pressed the bell again. Reacher heard a soft chime inside the apartment. Gentle, melodious, not urgent.

  No response.

  Nothing.

  Silence.

  Neagley stood back.

  Griezman said, “We need a warrant.”

  Reacher said, “Are you sure?”

  “In Germany it is essential.”

  “But he’s American. And we’re American. Let’s do this the American way.”

  “You need a warrant also. I have seen it in the movies. You have an Amendment.”

  “And credit cards.”

  “What for? To buy something? To pay someone off?”

  “For ingenuity and self-reliance. That’s the American way.”

  Neagley asked Sinclair for a credit card, and got a government Amex in return. She took it to Wiley’s door, and stood sideways, her back to the hinge, her inside hand on the handle, her outside hand holding the card, fingertips only. She pressed on the door with her shoulder, and hauled straight back on the handle, against whatever extra compression the hinges could give her, and she slid the government Amex into the frame and touched it to the tongue of the lock. She dabbed it and tapped it, and moved the door a fraction one way by pushing with her shoulder, and a fraction another way by hauling on the handle a degree more or less, trying random combinations, until finally the lock snicked back and the door came open. At which point she ducked low, because she knew Reacher would be aiming center-mass at anyone standing behind it.

  There was no one there.

  There was no one anywhere.

  They cleared the place room by room, first with hasty left-right glances over iron sights, and then again patiently, and slower.

  Still no one there.

  They gathered in the kitchen. There was a map folded open on the counter. Large scale, plenty of detail. The center section of a country. Ocean to the left, ocean to the right. A perfect square rubbed greasy by a finger. The city of Buenos Aires in the top right corner.

  “Argentina,” Reacher said. “He’s buying a ranch. Has to be a thousand square miles. He changed his money for pesos at the railroad station. He’s going to South America.”

  Neagley opened cupboards, and checked the dishwasher, and pulled drawers. She reached into the recycle bin and came out with a dark bottle with a thin neck. Rinsed and empty. A dull gold label. Dom Perignon. Then she checked the trash. Crusts and rinds and coffee grounds. And a bloody shirt, and spattered pants, and a red file folder. Made of stiff board covered in vinyl, with four rings inside, and pre-punched pages with lines of handwritten code, in five separate columns.

  “That’s Schlupp’s,” Griezman said. “That’s all the evidence I need.”

  Sinclair came back from the bedroom.

  “He packed a bag,” she said. “But it’s still in the closet. He’s still in town.”

  —

  At that moment Wiley was nine floors below them, in the lobby. But not yet approaching the elevator bank. He was standing in the middle of the floor, half turned, looking back at the car parked on the curb. He knew about cars. He had been a broker. Other people stole them, he sold them. To Mexico, mostly. Sometimes the Caribbean. He was a good judge of value. It was a price-sensitive market, the same as anything else. The car on the curb was a Mercedes, about three or four years old. It looked well maintained and very clean. But under the polish it was worn and scuffed. It had done a lot of city miles. It had an antenna on the trunk lid. Like a taxi or a town car. But it was not a taxi or a town car. No light, no meter. As a town car it was too old to be from an upmarket service. If it had been sold on secondhand to a downmarket service, it would be covered in stickers and phone numbers.

  And it wasn’t a town car because the driver’s seat was crushed way back into the rear passenger space. No date night couple would tolerate that.

  It was a cop car. Not a plain vanilla detective’s ride, but a sheriff’s, or a captain’s. Why? Not for him, surely. He was invisible. He was confident of that. So who? There were nearly two hundred apartments in the block. There had to be a bad guy in one of them. Statistically certain, in the new Germany.

  He needed his bag, obviously, and he wanted his map. He planned to have it framed. He planned to hang it on a fieldstone fireplace, in a great room with a soaring cathedral ceiling. Where it belonged. It was of great sentimental value to him. It had gotten him through many a long night. It was his inspiration. He couldn’t just leave it. He could re-buy the stuff in the bag if he needed to. That would be a trivial task. Although he would have to change pesos back to marks, which would be a nuisance. But he couldn’t abandon the map. Apart from anything else it was a clue. A penciled square, rubbed away with his fingertip. He had killed the hooker for less. So he had to get it.

  But later, he thought. Not now. Just in case. The cops could be on his floor. There was a one-in-fifteen chance. He didn’t want to get involved with witness statements. What could he say? He didn’t know his neighbors. Which would be taken as weird. So he turned back and walked out of the lobby, to the footpath toward the water, past the next building, between the last two, to a bench set at the feet of a preserved dockside crane. He sat down and slid along until he had a clear line of sight back the way he had come. About three hundred yards. The car was a speck. Therefore so was he, from the other direction. He waited.

  —

  Dremmler made his calls from his fourth-floor office, and the people he called made calls of their own, like a cascade through a certain section of society, where the deals were done, where everyone knew a guy who could get it cheaper, where everyone knew who was up and who was down. Then calls came back, like distant sonar pings, and a consensus grew around a guy who would never admit it. Because it stemmed from failure. The guy had bought some dockland south of St. Georg. He was going to sell it for apartments. But the city fathers developed St. Pauli instead. The guy was left with nothing but a bunch of tumbledown warehouses. Having paid a premium price. He was embarrassed.

  But Dremmler was a leader, and like all leaders a man of charisma, so he called the guy and asked for the story. And sure enough he got it, after five minutes of obfuscation and delay, all because it was a cash deal. The warehouse guy was hiding it. His creditors were all over his bank accounts. But he needed walking-around money. So no questions asked. Wiley had shown up seven months ago. They met face to face. Wiley had a red ball cap and his chin tucked low. And wads of cash. He was impatient, as if the clock was ticking on an urgent plan. He paid well above the market rate. He didn’t think twice.

  The guy told Dremmler where the warehouse was located. Dremmler knew the spot. He knew the boxy bridge. He thought, you honestly believed they would put apartments there? No wonder you’re bankrupt.

  He said, “Thank you so much for your help. When the time comes, your service will not be forgotten.”

  —

  They debated waiting in the apartment for Wiley to come home, but Sinclair said since Helmsworth’s testimony the game had changed, and the long-wheelbase high-roof panel van was now the new number one priority. Not Wiley himself. He was now the number two priority. So Griezman made a call on Wiley’s phone, and kidnapped a surveillance unit from the mayor’s office, where the panic was dying down a little. The guy said he could be on station outside Wiley’s building in about five minutes. So as close as they could they left the apartment the way they had found it, and they went back down to the street the same way they came up, for the same reasons. Both elevators and the stairs, all at once.

  They stepped out to the sidewalk. To the left was a footpath toward the water. In the distance Reacher could see an old dockyard crane, repainted black and gold
, stooped like an ancient carnivore. There was a park bench at its feet, and maybe a guy sitting on it. Too far to see. Just a speck. Beyond the crane was a footbridge, to the next pier, which had two more, like a branching tree.

  He said, “What happens over there?”

  “At first it’s like an urban park,” Griezman said. “Then farther out it’s undeveloped.”

  Reacher glanced around and lined himself up, north, south, east and west. He looked straight ahead, beyond the crane, into what would be a fan-shaped spread, first of neat urban parkland, and then of derelict lots. Which had to be the same fan shape he had seen from the side, the night before. If his mental map was correct. Beyond the boxy metal bridge. Where he turned back. He remembered moonlight on black water.

  Derelict lots.

  Old buildings.

  Places to hide a long-wheelbase panel van.

  He said, “We should go take a look.”

  They walked four abreast, at Griezman’s pace, which was slow. They passed the next building and kept on going. In the distance the speck on the bench got up and wandered away. Break over. Back to work. They walked on, between the last two buildings, toward the old dockyard crane. Beyond it the footbridge skipped ahead to the next pier, and then there was a choice of two bridges, half left or half right, to two more piers, each one different in the way it had been restored, with different sculptures, like different rooms in the same museum. From those piers the number of footbridges doubled again, two choices on the left, and two on the right, fanning out like fingers. The piers were massive granite constructions, worn and black and slimy, and the bridges were new and light and airy, spidering their way from one to two to four and onward. Whimsical. Like a maze, but not exactly. The city had spent some money.

  But not enough. Beyond the last sculptures in the far distance were weeds and broken brick and clusters of swaybacked old buildings. Back there the footbridges were old iron affairs. A dismal panorama, covering acres.

  A lot to search.

  But logical.

  Reacher said, “He wouldn’t want to park on the other side of town. He’d want to keep it local. These footbridges help him out. He’s got a hundred derelict warehouses within walking distance. Maybe a thousand. I bet half of them have no owners. He could move right in. Change the locks, and the place is his.”

  Sinclair said, “Is that where we’ll find it?”

  “It would make a lot of sense. It’s close at hand. It’s a short drive to the port, when the time comes.”

  They walked back to the car. The surveillance vehicle had arrived. It was a good one. It blended in well. They got in the Mercedes and drove out of the complex, around the new traffic circle, and back to the crossroads, with the high brick buildings. They turned right, on the road Reacher knew, past a body of water, some kind of a deep-water dock or a basin, and then they turned right again, on the narrow cobblestone track that led to the boxy metal bridge Reacher had seen in the moonlight.

  Beyond the bridge were the ruins of a lost civilization. Longshoring, nineteenth-century style. There were cobbled streets wide enough for flatbed trailers with iron rims and teams of horses. There were sheds and warehouses of every old-time style and size, some of which had fallen down, and some of which were about to. Walls bulged, and small trees grew in the rainwater gutters. There were side streets everywhere. It was like a city within a city. A lot to search.

  Griezman said, “I could check the rental records, for the name Kempner.”

  “He probably paid cash,” Reacher said. “Off the books. Or he’s squatting.”

  “I’ll check anyway. There might be reports of unusual activity. We can’t do this at random. It’s too big.”

  Griezman turned around in the gap between a rope maker and a sail loft, and drove away again, over the boxy metal bridge.

  “We need a car at the bridge,” Reacher said. “It’s a basic requirement. This bridge is the only way in or out. He can’t drive his van to the port any other way.”

  Griezman said, “The mayor’s office hasn’t released my men.”

  “You got one out.”

  “I can’t get two.”

  Reacher said nothing.

  Griezman said, “I suppose I could ask the traffic division. They’re not involved at the hotel garage. I’m sure Deputy Chief Muller would be willing to do us a favor.”

  “Tell him in German,” Reacher said. “His English is lousy.”

  —

  By that point Wiley was more than two miles away. A fast walk in the opposite direction, and then a short ride in a bus. He had gotten a very strange feeling. Not exactly a fright, but a powerful sense of something. He had seen the four tiny specks come out of the building and stand by their car. But then they had started walking toward him. Slowly and ominously. Past the next-door building and onward. He started to make out detail. Two men, two women. Somehow staring at him. As if they knew. Either the women were tiny or the men were huge. One was wearing gray and the other was wearing khaki. Faraway, nothing more than a grainy thumbnail smear of color, but the shape looked boxy. Like a Levi’s jean jacket. Like his own. One of which he had seen, not long ago, in a park, from the bus. With the chuckleheads from the bar.

  Impossible.

  He was invisible.

  Wasn’t he?

  He got up and walked away. Slowly, not a care in the world. Until he was out of sight. Then he hustled.

  Now he crossed the street to a mid-grade Turkish coffee shop and went to the phone on the wall. He had plenty of coins. A waste, almost certainly, because it was too early, but he was suddenly nervous. The guy in the jean jacket had upset him. Staring, like he knew.

  He dialed Zurich, and he gave his passcode number.

  He asked, “Has there been a deposit to my account today?”

  A keyboard pattered.

  There was a pause.

  “Not yet, sir,” was the answer.

  Chapter 38

  Muller called Dremmler from his office. He said, “Griezman’s division has asked mine for a favor. Their people are all tied up at the hotel. They want one of my officers to watch the bridge, right where the warehouse is. They already know about it.”

  “They don’t,” Dremmler said. “Only that the van is in there somewhere. If they knew exactly where, they’d have it already. All they can do is watch the bottleneck.”

  “How long do you need until you’re ready?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose half an hour would be good.”

  “I can’t delay half an hour. That’s a lifetime. Griezman might check. I already didn’t do the thing south of Hanover.”

  “How much time can you give me?”

  “None at all,” Muller said. “I’m supposed to do it right away.”

  “Then do you have a reliable officer?” Dremmler said.

  “Reliable in what sense?”

  “I mean one of us. Someone who might be persuaded to be selective about what he reports. For the good of the cause.”

  Muller said, “That’s possible, I suppose.”

  “Tell him I’ll make him deputy chief,” Dremmler said.

  —

  Reacher met Griezman’s secretary outside his office. She was indeed a pleasant woman. Griezman spoke to her rapid-fire in German, and she bustled off and came back at intervals with men in suits from the city planning department, each one bearing sheaves of maps and plans and historic surveys. Griezman laid out the best and most relevant on his conference table. One map was of the new footbridge arrangement. Another was a brittle sheet from the archives showing the area in the olden days. Another showed how beautification was planned to march on outward, in a shape like a slice of pizza. No doubt one day it would be finished. But not soon. So far the pointed end was pretty well covered, and a couple inches more, but the bulk of the pie hadn’t been touched in fifty years, since hungry postwar women in tattered clothing had hauled bricks and made repairs.

  There were eight new footbridges at the outer ext
remity of the urban park, and clearly the idea was to use one, sniff the air, then turn around and come right back. But there were also circuitous onward routes, if desired, using old iron bridges, and catwalks, and doglegs, and detours. Not part of the park. But a person could get to the ghost town.

  Eight final footbridges. Eight onward options, plus a couple of left-right choices, and then more. An additive effect. In the end there were close to twenty possible itineraries. Close to twenty possible end-points. Each one of which was a five minute walk to block after block of sheds and garages and storehouses. The cumulative total was the size of a town.

  —

  Wiley took the same bus, in the opposite direction, and got off where he had gotten on. He walked over the footbridge, but used a different footpath, that led him behind a neighboring building, to its corner, where he could see his own stretch of curb from cover.

  The suspicious Mercedes was gone.

  But now closer to him was another Mercedes. Brand-new. The top model. A limousine. It was deep black, polished to an infinite shine. There was a driver with gloves and a peaked cap in the seat. An upmarket service for sure. Wiley knew about cars. A bank, maybe. Giving a junior executive a taste of the high life. To keep him hungry. To keep him in line. Or a couple with an anniversary. Going to Paris. Cars at both ends. Maybe the guy had done something wrong. Maybe he was making an effort.

  Wiley came out around the neighboring building and walked down to his lobby. Both elevators were on the ground floor. The middle of the day. Nothing going on. He rode up to nine and took out his key.

  —

  Out on the curb the limousine driver keyed his radio and said, “Wiley has come home. I repeat, Wiley is home.”

  His dispatcher said, “Stay on the air. I’m supposed to call Griezman.”