Текст книги "Make Me"

Автор книги: Lee Child

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Chapter 3

The diner was clean and pleasant and attractively decorated, but it was above all else a working place, designed to swap calories for money as fast as possible. Reacher took a two-top in the far right-hand corner, and he sat with his back to the angle, so he had the whole room in front of him. About half the tables were taken, mostly by people who seemed to be fuelling up ahead of a long day of physical labor. A waitress came by, busy but professionally patient, and Reacher ordered his default breakfast, which was pancakes, eggs, and bacon, but most of all coffee, first and always.

The waitress told him the establishment had a bottomless cup policy.

Reacher welcomed that news.

He was on his second mug when the woman from the railroad came in, alone.

She stood for a second, as if unsure, and then she looked all around, and saw him, and headed straight for him. She slid into the empty chair opposite. Up close and in the daylight she looked better than the night before. Dark lively eyes, and some kind of purpose and intelligence in her face. But some kind of worry, too.

She said, “Thanks for the knock on the door.”

Reacher said, “My pleasure.”

She said, “My friend wasn’t on the morning train either.”

He said, “Why tell me?”

“You know something.”

“Do I?”

“Why else get off the train?”

“Maybe I live here.”

“You don’t.”

“Maybe I’m a farmer.”

“You’re not.”

“I could be.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“You weren’t carrying a bag, when you got out of the train. That’s about the polar opposite of being rooted to the same patch of land for generations.”

Reacher paused a beat and said, “Who exactly are you?”

“Doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is who you are.”

“I’m just a guy passing through.”

“I’m going to need more than that.”

“And I’m going to need to know who’s asking.”

The woman didn’t reply. The waitress came by, with his plate. Pancakes, eggs, and bacon. There was syrup on the table. The waitress refilled his coffee. Reacher picked up his silverware.

The woman from the railroad put a business card on the table. She pushed it across the sticky wood. It had a government seal on it. Blue and gold.

Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Special Agent Michelle Chang.

Reacher said, “That’s you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” she said. “I hope.”

“Why is the FBI asking me questions?”

“Retired,” she said.

“Who is?”

“I am. I am no longer an FBI agent. The card is old. I took some with me when I left.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Probably not.”

“Yet you showed it to me.”

“To get your attention. And for credibility. I’m a private investigator now. But not the sort that takes pictures in hotels. I need you to understand that.”

“Why?”

“I need to know why you came here.”

“You’re wasting time. Whatever else your problem is, I’m just a coincidence.”

“I need to know if you’re here to work. We could be on the same side. We could both be wasting time.”

“I’m not here to work. And I’m on nobody’s side. I’m just a passerby.”

“You sure?”

“Hundred percent.”

“Why would I believe you?”

“I don’t care if you believe me.”

“Look at it from my point of view.”

Reacher said, “What were you before you joined the Bureau?”

Chang said, “I was a police officer in Connecticut. A patrol cop.”

“That’s good. Because I was a military cop. As it happens. So we’re brother officers. In a way. Take my word as a gentleman. I’m a coincidence.”

“What kind of military cop?”

Reacher said, “The army kind.”

“What did you do for them?”

“Mostly what they told me to. Some of everything. Criminal investigation, usually. Fraud, theft, homicide, and treason. All the things folks do, if you let them.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jack Reacher. Terminal at major. Late of the 110th MP. I lost my job too.”

Chang nodded once, slowly, and seemed to relax. But not completely. She said, but softer, “You sure you’re not working here?”

Reacher said, “Completely.”

“What do you do now?”

“Nothing.”

“What does that mean?”

“What it says. I travel. I move around. I see things. I go where I want.”

“All the time?”

“It works for me.”

“Where do you live?”

“Nowhere. In the world. Right here, today.”

“You have no home?”

“No point. I’d never be there.”

“Have you been to Mother’s Rest before?”

“Never.”

“So why now, if you’re not working?”

“I was passing by. It was a whim, because of the name.”

Chang paused a beat, and then she smiled, suddenly, and a little wistfully.

“I know,” she said. “I can see the movie in my head. The end shot is a big close-up of a leaning-over cross in the ground, two boards nailed together, with an inscription done by a hot poker from a camp fire, and behind it the wagon train clanks away and grows tiny in the distance. Then the credits roll.”

“You think an old woman died here?”

“That’s how I took it.”

“Interesting,” Reacher said.

“How did you take it?”

“I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe a younger woman stopped to have a baby. Maybe rested up a month and moved on. Maybe the kid became a senator or something.”

“Interesting,” Chang said.

Reacher pierced a yolk and took a dripping forkful of breakfast.

Thirty feet away the counterman dialed the wall phone and said, “She came back alone from the train station, and headed straight for last night’s guy, and now they’re deep in conversation, plotting and scheming, you mark my words.”

Chapter 4

The diner got less busy. The breakfast rush was clearly a crack-of-dawn thing. Farming, as bad as the military. The waitress came by and Chang ordered coffee and a danish, and Reacher finished his breakfast. He said, “So how does a private investigator like you spend her time, if you don’t get to take photographs in hotels?”

Chang said, “We aim to offer a range of specialized services. Corporate research, and a lot of on-line security now, of course, but personal security too. Close personal protection. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and that’s good news for the bodyguard business. And we do buildings security. Plus advice and background checks and threat assessments, and some general investigations too.”

“What brings you here?”

“We have an ongoing operation in the area.”

“Against what?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“How big of an operation?”

“We have one man in place. At least I thought we did. I was sent as back-up.”

“When?”

“I arrived yesterday. I’m based in Seattle now. I flew as far as I could and rented a car. It was a hell of a drive. These roads go on forever.”

“And your guy wasn’t here.”

“No,” Chang said. “He wasn’t.”

“You think he left temporarily and is coming back by train?”

“I hope that’s all it is.”

“What else could it be? This isn’t the Wild West anymore.”

“I know. He’s probably fine. He’s based out of Oklahoma City. It’s entirely possible he had to run back for some other business. He’d have used the train, because of the roads. Therefore he’ll come back by train. He’ll have to. He told me he doesn’t have a car here.”

“Have you tried calling him?”

She nodded. “I found a land line in the general store. But there’s no answer at his home and his cell is off.”

“Or out of range. In which case he isn’t in Oklahoma City.”

“Would he have gone further afield? Around here? Without a car?”

“You tell me,” Reacher said. “It’s your case, not mine.”

Chang didn’t answer. The waitress came back and Reacher got a jump on lunch by ordering a slice of peach pie. With more coffee. The waitress looked resigned. Her boss’s bottomless cup policy was taking a beating.

Chang said, “He was due to brief me.”

Reacher said, “Who was? The guy that isn’t here?”

“Obviously.”

“Brief you as in update you?”

“More than that.”

“So how much don’t you know?”

“His name is Keever. He works out of our Oklahoma City office. But we’re all on the same network. I can see what he’s doing. He’s got a couple of big things going on. But nothing out here. Nothing on his computer, anyway.”

“How did you get the back-up assignment?”

“I was available. He called me personally.”

“From here?”

“Definitely. He told me exactly how to get here. He referred to it as his current location.”

“Did it feel like a routine request?”

“Pretty much. It observed the protocols.”

“So procedure was followed, except the case isn’t on his computer?”

“Correct.”

“Which means what?”

“It must be a small thing. Maybe a favor for a friend, or something else too close to pro-bono to get past the boss. No money in it, either way. So it stays under the radar. But then I suppose it got to be a bigger thing. Big enough to justify the call for back-up.”

“So it’s a small thing that’s gotten bigger? Involving what?”

“I have no idea. Keever was going to brief me.”

“No idea at all?”

“What part don’t you understand? He was working on a hobby case, privately, in secret, and he was going to tell me all about it when I got here.”

“What was his tone on the phone?”

“He was relaxed. Mostly. I don’t think he likes this place much.”

“Did he say so?”

“More my impression. When he was explaining how to get here, he made it sound apologetic, like he was sucking me in to some sinister and creepy place.”

Reacher said nothing.

Chang said, “I guess you military people are too data-driven to follow that line of thinking.”

Reacher said, “No, I was about to agree. I didn’t like the store with the rubber aprons, for instance, and I had some weird kid following me everywhere I went this morning. Maybe ten or twelve. A boy. A slow kid, I assumed, fascinated by a stranger, but very shy. He ducked behind a wall every time I glanced his way.”

“I don’t know if that’s weird or sad.”

“You have absolutely no information at all?”

“I’m waiting for Keever to brief me.”

“Which means waiting for the trains.”

“Twice a day.”

“How long before you give up?”

“That’s very blunt.”

“I was kidding. This is like most bad things that ever happened to me, and to you too, probably, in your patrol car. This is a communications breakdown. A message hasn’t gotten through. That’s my guess. Because there’s no cell service, presumably. People can’t cope without it anymore.”

Chang said, “I’m going to give it twenty-four hours.”

“I’ll be gone,” Reacher said. “I guess I’ll take the evening train.”

Reacher left Chang in the diner, and walked back to the old trail, ready to look at the rest of the town. He didn’t see the weird kid again. He turned in at the veterinary supply office and re-checked the left-hand side of the street, all six blocks, and saw nothing of interest. He continued onward, out into open country, a hundred yards, two hundred, just in case the railroad had dragged the center of town eastward, leaving relics behind in their original locations. If Chang was right and an old lady had died, her stone wouldn’t necessarily be visible from a distance. It might be a low-built affair, a slab laid on the ground, an iron picket not more than a foot and a half high, all nested in a sea of wheat, with maybe a mown path leading to it from the shoulder.

But he saw no such path, and no stone, and no ceremonial iron fence. No larger structure either. No museum. No official billboard about a site of historic interest. He turned around and walked back and started quartering the southern quadrant, block by block, beginning on the east-west side street that ran behind the establishments directly on the trail. Which looked pretty much like its northern equivalent, but with more one-room places carved out of barns and garages, and fewer fruit stands. But no memorial stone, and no museum. Not where logic dictated. Mother’s Rest had not always been a crossroads. Not until the railroad. It had been a random speck alongside endless straight ruts through the prairie. The stone or the legend had brought the town to it. The town had grown up around it, like a pearl around a grain of sand.

But he couldn’t find it. Not the stone, or the museum. Not where they should be, which was a respectable distance from the original shoulder. Enough to create a feeling of excursion or pilgrimage. Which would be about a modern-day block behind the original shoulder, but there was nothing there.

He moved on, block by block, the same way he had before. He saw the same kind of things, and began to understand them. The town explained itself to him, gradually, street by street. It was a trading post for a vast and dispersed agricultural community. It shipped in all kinds of technical things and shipped out produce in immense quantities. Grain, mostly. But there was some pasture too. Evidently. Hence the supply companies and the large-animal veterinarian. And the rubber aprons, he supposed. Some folks were doing well and buying shiny new tractors, and some folks weren’t doing well, so they were getting their diesel engines repaired and sticking new soles on their boots.

Just a town, like any other.

It was the end of summer, and the day had stayed golden, and the sun was warm but not hot, so he kept on strolling, happy to be out of doors, until he found he had revisited every block he had been to, and seen everything again.

No memorial stone, and no museum.

No weird kid.

But there was a guy who looked at him oddly.

Chapter 5

It was two blocks off the old trail, on a parallel east-west side street, which had five developed blocks on one side, and four on the other. The semicircular shape was starting to bite. There was a bank office and a credit union. There were small lock-up workshops, all of them one-man businesses, with a blade sharpener, and a gearbox repairman, and even a barber with a lit-up pole. But in particular there was a spare-parts guy for several different brands of irrigation systems. He had a cramped store and he was penned in behind the register. Not a small guy. He was facing out and as Reacher passed by he got some kind of flicker in his eye, and he reached upward and backward for something behind his shoulder. Reacher didn’t see what it was. His momentum had carried him onward. The front part of his brain didn’t think much of it. But the back part nagged. Why did the guy react?

Easy. He saw a new face. A stranger. Did not compute.

What was he reaching for? A weapon?

Probably not. A random passerby was no immediate threat. And no one kept a baseball bat or an old .45 loud and proud on the wall. Not in plain sight. Under the counter worked better. Plus how dangerous was the irrigation business anyway? Bats and guns were for bars and bodegas, and maybe pharmacies.

So what was the guy reaching for?

The phone, most likely. An old-fashioned wall-mounted telephone. Shoulder height to most folks, for comfortable dialing. The guy grabbed at it backward because he was too cramped to turn all the way around.

Why would he make a call? Was seeing a stranger such an extraordinary event it required instant sharing?

Maybe he suddenly remembered something. Maybe he was due a sales call. Maybe he was supposed to send a package.

Or maybe he had been told to call in sightings.

Of what?

Strangers.

Told by who?

Maybe the weird kid, too. Maybe that was an attempt at actual surveillance. There’s a fine line between showy shyness and sheer incompetence.

Reacher stood in the plaza and turned a full circle.

No one there.

At that point he figured a cup of coffee would be a good idea, so he walked back to the diner. Chang was still in there, at the same table. Late morning. She had swapped seats, so her back was to the angle. Where his had been. He threaded his way through the room and sat down at the table next to hers, side by side, so his back was to the wall, too. Habit, mostly.

“Nice morning?” he asked.

She said, “Feels like a Sunday from my freshman year in college. No cell phone and nothing to do.”

“Doesn’t your guy at least check in with his office?”

She started to say something, but stopped. She looked all around the room, and at the people in it, as if counting the number of potential witnesses to what might turn out to be an embarrassing admission. Then she smiled a complex and expressive smile, part bold, part rueful, maybe even a little conspiratorial, and she said, “I might have glamorized our situation slightly.”

Reacher said, “In what way?”

“Our Oklahoma City office is Keever’s spare bedroom. Like our Seattle office is my spare bedroom. Our web site says we have offices everywhere. Which is true. Everywhere there’s an out-of-work ex–FBI agent with a spare bedroom and bills to pay. We’re not a multilayered organization. In other words, we have no support staff. Keever has no one to check in with.”

“But he has big things going on.”

Chang nodded. “We’re the real deal and we do good work. But we’re a business. Low overhead is the key to everything. And a good web site. No one knows exactly what you are.”

“What kind of a thing would he take on as a hobby case?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, obviously. Nothing corporate. There’s no such thing as a small corporate case. Some of them are like a license to print money. They go straight on the computer, believe me. It’s like giving yourself a gold star. This one has to be a private client, paying in cash, or handwriting checks. Nothing shady, necessarily, but probably dull and possibly nuts.”

“Except now Keever needs back-up.”

“Like I said, it started small, and then it got bigger.”

“Or the nuts part suddenly wasn’t nuts anymore.”

“Or got even crazier.”

The waitress came by and started Reacher’s second bottomless cup of the day. He pre-paid upfront, about four times the check. He liked coffee, and he liked waitresses.

Chang said, “How was your morning?”

He said, “I couldn’t find the old woman’s grave or any kind of information about the baby.”

“You think either one would still be around?”

“I’m pretty sure. There’s plenty of space. They’re not going to pave over someone’s grave. And there’s always room for a historical plaque. You see them all over. Some kind of cast metal, painted brown. I don’t know who makes them. Department of the Interior, maybe. But there isn’t one.”

“Have you talked to the locals?”

“Next on the list.”

“You should start with the waitress.”

“She has a professional obligation to give me the showbusiness answer. So the good word can get around, and then suddenly her diner is a tourist attraction.”

“Hasn’t worked so far.”

“You think many people ask?”

“Probably about five out of ten,” she said. “Except that’s about eleven years’ worth of visitors, right there. So it’s a high-percentage, low-frequency proposition. Depends what you mean by many.”

And right then the waitress set off toward them with the Bunn flask, for Reacher’s first refill of the session, and Chang asked her, “Why is this town called Mother’s Rest?”

The waitress stood back, favoring one hip over the other, like tired women do, with the coffee mid-air and level with her waist. She had hair the color of the wheat outside, and a red face, and she could have been thirty-five or fifty, and a thin person bulking up with age, or a heavy person burning down with work. It was impossible to tell. She looked very happy to take a minute, because Reacher was already her best friend forever, because of the tip, and because she’d just been asked a question that was neither offensive nor boring.

She said, “I like to think a grateful son in a faraway city built his mama a little country home to retire to, in exchange for all the good things she had done for him, and then some stores came to sell her what she needed, and some more houses, and pretty soon it was a town.”

Reacher said, “Is that the official version?”

The waitress said, “Honey, I don’t know. I’m from Mississippi. I can’t imagine how I washed up here. You should ask the counterman. I think he was born in the state at least.”

And then she bustled away, like waitresses do.

Chang asked, “Was that the showbusiness answer?”

Reacher nodded and said, “But from the creative side, not the marketing side. She needs to get with the program. Or go write for the movies. I saw one just like that. On the television set in a motel room. In the daytime.”

“Should we ask the counterman?”

Reacher glanced over. The guy was busy. He said, “First I’m going to find some real people. I saw some candidates while I was out walking. Then I’m going to find a place to take a nap. Or maybe I’ll get my hair cut. Maybe I’ll see you at the railroad stop at seven o’clock. Your guy Keever will be getting out, and I’ll be climbing aboard.”

“Even if you don’t know the story of the name yet?”

“It’s not that important. Not really worth sticking around for. I’ll believe my own version. Or yours. Depending on my mood.”

Chang said nothing in reply to that, so Reacher drained his mug, and slid out from behind his table, and threaded his way back through the room. He stepped outside. The sun was still warm. Next on the list. Real people. Starting with the spare-parts guy, for the irrigation systems.