Текст книги "Make Me"

Автор книги: Lee Child

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Chapter 6

The guy was still hemmed in behind his register. He had about two feet of room, which wasn’t enough. He was close to Reacher’s own height and weight, but slack and swollen, in a shirt as big as a circus tent, above a belt buckled improbably low, under a belly the size of a kettle drum. His face was pale, and his hair was colorless.

There was a phone on the wall, behind his right shoulder. Not an ancient item with a rotary dial and a curly wire, but a regular modern cordless telephone, with a base station screwed to the stud, and a handset upright in a cradle. Easy enough for the guy to flail blindly behind him, and then the numbers were right there, in the palm of his hand, for speedy dialing. Or speed dialing. The base station had a plastic window with ten spaces. Five were labeled, and five were not. The labels seemed to be the brands the guy sold parts for. Helplines for technical advice, possibly, or sales and service numbers.

The guy said, “Can I get you anything?”

Reacher said, “Have we met?”

“I’m pretty sure not. I’m pretty certain I’d remember.”

“Yet when I walked by the first time you jumped so high you practically bumped your head on the ceiling. Why was that?”

“I recognized you, from your old pictures.”

“What old pictures?”

“From Penn State, in ’86.”

“I wasn’t smart enough for Penn State.”

“You were in the football program. You were the linebacker everyone was talking about. You were in all the sports papers. I used to follow that stuff pretty closely back then. Still do, as a matter of fact. You look older now, of course. If you don’t mind me saying that.”

“Did you make a phone call?”

“When?”

“When you saw me walk by.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I saw your hand move toward the phone.”

“Maybe it was ringing. It rings all the damn time. Folks wanting this, folks wanting that.”

Reacher nodded. Would he have heard the phone ring? Possibly not. The door had been closed, and the phone was all electronic, with adjustable volume, and maybe it was set to ring very quietly, in such a small space. Especially if calls came in all the time. Right next to the guy’s ear. A loud ring could get annoying.

Reacher said, “What’s your theory about this town’s name?”

The guy said, “My what?”

“Why is this place called Mother’s Rest?”

“Sir, I honestly have no idea. There are weird names all over the country. It’s not just us.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m interested in the history.”

“I never heard any.”

Reacher nodded again.

He said, “Have a very pleasant day.”

“You too, sir. And congratulations on the rehab. If you don’t mind me saying that.”

Reacher squeezed out of the store and stood for a moment in the sun.

Reacher visited with twelve more merchants, for a total of thirteen, which gave him fourteen opinions, including the waitress’s. There was no consensus. Eight of the opinions were really no opinions at all, but merely shrugs and blank looks, along with a measure of shared defensiveness. There are weird names all over the country. Why single out Mother’s Rest, in a nation with towns called Why and Whynot, and Accident and Peculiar, and Santa Claus and No Name, and Boring and Cheesequake, and Truth or Consequences, and Monkeys Eyebrow, and Okay and Ordinary, and Pie Town and Toad Suck and Sweet Lips?

The other six opinions were variations on the waitress’s fantasy. And his own, Reacher supposed. And Chang’s. Folks were working backward from the name, and inventing picturesque scenarios to fit. There was no hard evidence. No one knew of a memorial stone or a museum, or a historical plaque, or even an old folk tale.

Reacher strolled back down the wide street, thinking: nap or haircut?

The spare-parts guy was the first to call it in. He said he was sure he had handled it safely, with the old football trick. It was a technique he had been taught many years before. Pick a good college team in a good year, and most guys were too flattered to be suspicious. Within an hour three more merchants had made the same kind of report. Except about the football. But in terms of substance the picture was clear. The one-eyed motel clerk took all the incoming calls, and he got the information straight in his mind, and then he dialed an outgoing number, and when it was answered he said, “They’re coming at it through the name. The big guy is all over town, asking questions.”

He got a long plastic crackle in exchange, calm, mellifluous, and reassuring. He said, “OK, sure,” but he didn’t sound sure, and then he hung up the phone.

The barbershop was a two-chair establishment, with one guy working in it. He was old, but not visibly shaking, so Reacher got a hot-towel shave, and then a clipper cut, short on the back and sides, fading longer up top. His hair was still the same color it always had been. A little thinner, but it was still there. The old guy’s labors produced a good result. Reacher looked in the mirror and saw himself looking back, all clean and crisp and squared away. The bill was eleven dollars, which he thought was reasonable.

Then he strolled back across the wide plaza, and outside the motel he saw the lawn chair he had seen before, all alone in the traffic lane. White plastic. He picked it up and put it down again the right side of the curb, on a patch of grass near a fence. Unobtrusive. In no one’s way. He rotated it with his foot, until it was lined up with the rays of the sun. Then he sat down and leaned back and closed his eyes. He soaked up the warmth. And at some point he fell asleep, outdoors in the summertime, which was the second-best way he knew.

Chapter 7

That evening Reacher walked up to the railroad a whole hour early, at six o’clock, partly because the sun had gone low in the sky and there was nowhere left to bask, and partly because he liked being early. He liked enough time to scope things out. Even something as simple as getting on a train.

The elevators were still and silent, presumably empty and awaiting the harvest. The giant warehouse was all closed up. The rails were quiet. The vapor lights were already on, ahead of the dusk, which was coming. The western sky was still gold, but the rest of it was dark. Not long, Reacher thought, before nightfall.

The tiny railroad building was open but empty. Reacher stepped inside. The interior was all wood in a gingerbread style, and it had been painted many times, in an institutional shade of cream. It smelled like wooden buildings always did, at sundown after a long hot day, all airless and dusty and baked.

The ticket window was arched, but it was small overall, and therefore intimate. It had a round hole in the glass, for talking. But behind the glass the shade was down. The shade was brown and pleated. It was made from some kind of primitive vinyl. It had the word Closed printed on it, in paint that looked like gold leaf.

There were restrooms off a short corridor. There was a table, with a six-day-old newspaper. There were lights hanging from the ceiling, milky bulbs in glass bowls, but there was no switch. Near the door, where it should have been, was a blank plate with a message taped to it: Ask at ticket window for lights.

The benches were magnificent. They could have been a hundred years old. They were made from solid mahogany, upright and severe, only grudgingly sculpted to the human form, and polished to a shine by use. Reacher picked a spot and sat down. The contour felt better than it should. The shape was stern and puritan, but it was very comfortable. The woodworker had done a fine, subtle job. Or maybe the wood itself had given up the struggle, and instead of fighting back had yielded and molded and learned to embrace. From all the shapes and sizes, with their various masses and temperatures. Literally steamed and pressed, like an industrial process, in super-slow motion. Was that possible, with wood as hard as mahogany? Reacher didn’t know.

He sat still.

Outside it went darker, and therefore inside it went darker, too. Ask at ticket window for lights. Reacher sat in the gloom and watched out the window. He guessed Chang was out there somewhere. In the shadows. That was how she had done it before. He guessed he could go find her. But for what? He wasn’t planning any kind of a big long speech. Five more minutes of small talk wouldn’t make a difference. He traveled. He moved on. People came and went. He was used to it. No big deal. A friendly wave would do the job, as he stepped across to the train. By which time she might be preoccupied anyway, talking to Keever, getting the story, finding out where the hell he had been.

If Keever was on the train.

He waited.

A long minute before the train was due Reacher heard the stones in the rail bed click and whisper. Then the rails themselves started to sing, a low steely murmur, building to a louder keening. He felt pressure in the air, and saw the headlight beam. The noise came next, hissing and clattering and humming. Then the train arrived, hot and brutal but infinitely slow, brakes grinding, and it stopped with the locomotive already out of sight, and the passenger cars lined up with the ramp.

The doors sucked open.

On his left Reacher saw Chang step out of the shadow. Like a reflex, because of the train. Out and back, like the flash of a camera.

A man stepped down from the train.

On his right Reacher saw the spare-parts guy from the irrigation store. He stepped out of a shadow and took one step forward and waited.

The man from the train stepped into a pool of light.

Not a big guy. Not Chang’s guy. Not Keever. This was a person a little above average height, but some way below average weight. He could have been fifty, and what might have been called slender in his youth was starting to look emaciated. His hair was dark, but probably colored, and he was wearing a suit and a collared shirt, with no tie. He had a bag in his hand, brown leather, larger than a doctor bag, smaller than a duffel.

No one else got out of the train.

The doors were still open.

On his right Reacher saw the spare-parts guy take another step forward. The man from the train spotted him. The spare-parts guy said a name and stuck out his hand. Polite, respectful, welcoming, and humble.

The man from the train shook hands.

The doors were still open.

But Reacher stayed where he was, in the dark.

The spare-parts guy carried the leather bag and led the man in the suit toward the exit gate. The train doors sucked shut, and the cars whined and shuddered, and the train moved away again, slowly, slowly, car after car.

The spare-parts guy led the man in the suit out of sight.

Reacher stepped out to the ramp and watched the tail light dance away in the distance.

From the shadows Chang said, “They’re heading for the motel.”

Reacher said, “Who are?”

“The man from the train, and his new pal.”

She stepped into the light.

She said, “You didn’t go.”

He said, “No, I didn’t.”

“I thought you would.”

“So did I.”

“I think I’m a nice person, but I know I’m not the reason.”

Reacher said nothing.

Chang said, “That came out wrong. I’m sorry. Not that kind of reason. Which is presumptuous anyway. I mean, no reason I should be that kind of reason. And now I’m making it worse. I mean, you didn’t stay just to help me out. Did you?”

“Did you see those guys shake hands?”

“Of course.”

“That’s why I stayed.”

Chapter 8

Reacher led Chang into the silent waiting room and they sat on a bench, side by side in the dark. Reacher said, “How would you characterize that handshake?”

Chang said, “In what way?”

“The narrative. The story. The body language.”

“It looked like a junior corporate executive had been sent to meet an important customer.”

“Had they met before?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I agree. And it was nicely done, by the local guy. Wasn’t it? A whole subtle performance. Deferential, but not obsequious. Different from when he shakes his buddy’s hand, I’m sure. Or his father-in-law’s. Or the loan officer at the bank. Or an old friend from high school he hasn’t seen for twenty years.”

“So?”

“Our local guy is a man with a wide variety of handshaking styles at his command, and we can assume he’s comfortable about using all of them. It’s part of his shtick.”

“How does this help us?”

“I saw that guy this morning. He runs a store with spare parts for irrigation systems. I walked by his window, and he jumped and went for the phone.”

“Why would he?”

“You tell me.”

“How paranoid do you want me to be?”

“Somewhere between common sense and a little bit.”

She said, “I would think nothing of it, if it wasn’t for Keever.”

“But?”

“You look like Keever. In a general way. Maybe Keever’s been snooping around, and people have been told to keep an eye out for him, or anyone like him.”

Reacher said, “I wondered about that too. Didn’t seem very likely, but unlikely things happen. So I went back later, to check. I asked the guy, why did you react? He said he recognized me, from college football in 1986. At Penn State. Apparently there were photographs of me in the magazines. He said he didn’t make a telephone call. He said maybe his hand was moving because the phone was ringing. He said it rings all the time.”

“Was it ringing?”

“I couldn’t hear.”

“You played football at Penn State?”

“No, I went to West Point and played football only once. Not very well, I’m afraid. I’m pretty sure I was never in a magazine.”

“Could have been an innocent mistake. 1986 was a long time ago. Your appearance would have changed considerably. And you look like you could have played football for Penn State.”

“That was my conclusion. At the time.”

“But now?”

“Now I think he was covering his ass. He was hiding behind a bullshit story. Maybe it’s a trick he learned. Don’t waste time with awkward denials, but jump right in with a plausible excuse. Some guys might find it flattering. Maybe they wanted to be football stars. Who wouldn’t? Maybe their heads get turned and the problem goes away. Plus he calibrated it to make me younger than I am. Which is flattering too, I suppose. I was already in the army in 1986. I graduated in ’83. The guy put on a whole big performance.”

“That’s not evidence of anything.”

“First up, I asked him, have we met? He said no.”

“Which was true, right?”

“But a guy like that, a fan who remembers college players from thirty years ago, if I had asked him if we’d met, he’d have said, no, but I’d sure like to shake your hand, sir. Or as I was leaving. There would have been a handshake in there somewhere. This is a handshaking guy. It’s important to some people. I’ve seen it before. Better than an autograph or a picture. Because it’s personal. It’s physical contact. I bet there’s a whole long list of people, when this guy sees them in the newspaper or on TV, he thinks to himself, I shook that guy’s hand once.”

“But he didn’t shake yours.”

“Which was a slip on top of a slip. He knew I wasn’t a famous football player. So now I’m back with your version. People have been told to keep an eye out for nosy strangers. Including maybe the weird kid from this morning. Plus, no Keever on the train. Where the hell is he? So I stayed. One more night, at least. For the fun of it.”

“Who was the guy in the suit, who got off the train?”

“I don’t know. An outsider, I guess, here to do business of some kind. Not staying long, because of the small bag. Rich, probably. People that thin are usually rich. We live in strange times. Poor people are fat, and rich people are thin. That never happened before.”

“Good business or bad business? Is it a coincidence the Penn State guy picked him up, or is he also connected to whatever Keever’s looking for?”

“Could be either thing.”

“Maybe he’s just an irrigation manufacturer. The CEO of a big corporation.”

“In which case I think the travel would have been the other way around. Our guy would have gone to a trade show somewhere. Maybe he would have met the big boss at a cocktail reception. Thirty seconds, maybe less. During which time he would have shaken the guy’s hand. That’s for damn sure.”

“I’m getting worried about Keever.”

“You should, I guess. But only a little. Because how bad can this be? With all due respect, this is a private investigator taking cash or grubby checks from a lone individual. Who may or may not be nuts. Your own words. And such a guy would always go to the cops first. After trying everywhere else from the White House downward. But apparently neither the White House nor the cops were interested. So how bad can this be?”

“You think cops always get everything right?”

“I think they have a threshold, where they at least take a look. If the guy had said the warehouse was full of fertilizer bombs, I think they would have come right over. If he’d said the elevators were broadcasting to his root canals, maybe not so much.”

“But the point is it seems to have been one thing, and now it’s another. Hence the call for back-up. Maybe now it’s over the threshold.”

“In which case Keever can dial 911 like anyone else. Or he could call the FBI direct. I’m sure he still knows the number.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Now we go back to the motel. I need a room for the night, apart from anything else.”

The one-eyed guy was on duty in the motel office. Chang picked up the key to 214, as before, and waited. Reacher went through the same grudging negotiation. Sixty bucks, forty, thirty, twenty-five, but not for 106. Reacher couldn’t let the guy win every round. He got 113 instead, middle of the opposite wing, ground floor, far from the metal stairs, and one away from directly under Chang’s room.

He asked, “Which room is Mr. Keever in?”

The clerk said, “Who?”

“Keever. The big guy from Oklahoma City. Checked in two or three days ago. Came by train. No car. Probably paid for a week upfront.”

“I’m not allowed to say. It’s a question of privacy. For our guests. I’m sure you understand. And I’m sure you would appreciate it, if the shoe was on the other foot.”

“Sure,” Reacher said. “That makes sense to me.”

He took his key and walked out with Chang. He said, “Don’t take this wrong, but I want to come up to your room.”

Chapter 9

They used the metal stairs on the right-hand tip of the horseshoe, and then Chang’s room was right there, 214, one door from the last room of the row, which was 215. Chang used her key and they stepped inside. The room was like every other room, but Reacher could tell a woman was using it. It was neat, and it was fragrant. There was a small rolling suitcase, with things folded tidily inside.

Reacher said, “What kind of notes would Keever carry?”

“Good question,” Chang said. “Normally we carry laptops and smartphones. So all our notes are entered by keyboard. Which can be laborious, but you have to do it anyway, because it all has to be in the record eventually. But the point of an under-the-radar case is to stay off the record, so why do all the typing? He’s probably got handwritten pages somewhere.”

“Where?”

“In his pocket, probably.”

“Or in his room. Depending on quantity. We should check.”

“We don’t know where his room is. And we don’t have a key. And we can’t get one, because apparently the Four Seasons here has a privacy policy.”

“I think it’s 212, 213, or 215.”

“Why?”

“I’m guessing Keever made your reservation, right? He probably stopped by the desk and told the clerk he had a colleague coming in. And this clerk seems to think if you have any kind of a vague connection, then you need rooms close together. You’re in 214 because Keever was already in 213 or 215 or maybe 212.”

“Why did you ask the guy, if you already knew?”

“He could have narrowed it down some. But mostly I felt like using Keever’s name in public. Simple as that. If people are watching, then maybe they’re listening too, in which case I want them to hear me say it.”

“Why?”

“To give them fair warning,” Reacher said.

Reacher and Chang walked two doors down, to 212. Which was easy to rule out. The drapes were closed, and the television was playing softly. Not Keever’s room. Both 213 and 215 were empty. Both had open drapes, but both were pitch dark inside. Serviced that morning, Reacher figured, and subsequently undisturbed. Law of averages said one was a vacancy, and one was Keever’s, paid for but not currently occupied, due to some kind of extraordinary circumstance. The vacancy would look completely bland, and Keever’s room would show some kind of sign, however small, like pajamas sticking out from under the pillow, or a book on the night stand, or the corner of a suitcase, placed out of sight behind a chair.

But it was too dark to see.

Reacher said, “Want to flip a coin or wait for morning?”

Chang said, “And do what? Kick the door down? We’re in full view of the office here.”

Reacher glanced down, and saw the one-eyed guy dragging a lawn chair across the blacktop. It was the chair Reacher had slept in, by the fence. The one-eyed guy lined it up on the sidewalk outside his office window, and he sat down, like an old-time sheriff on his boardwalk porch, just gazing. In this case not quite at room 214. Low, and a little right. Which meant not quite at 113, either.

Both rooms at once.

Interesting.

Then Reacher remembered the same chair, that morning, abandoned in the traffic lane, and he glanced across at 106, and he ran the angles.

Interesting.

He rested his elbows on the rail.

He said, “I guess whether we kick the door down depends on how urgent you feel this whole thing is.”

Alongside him Chang said, “No one gets those calls right. Not all the time.”

“But some of the time, right?”

“I guess.”

“So which kind of time is this?”

“What’s your opinion?”

“I’m not in your chain of command. My opinion should carry no weight.”

She said, “What is it anyway?”

“Every case is different.”

“Bullshit. Cases are the same all the time. You know that.”

“Cases like this are the same about half the time,” Reacher said. “They fall in two broad groups. Sometimes you get your guy back weeks later, no harm, no foul, and sometimes you’ve lost your guy before you even knew you had a problem. There isn’t much middle ground. The graph looks like a smiley face. Ironically.”

“Therefore the math says wait. Either we’re already beaten, or we have plenty of time.”

Reacher nodded. “That’s what the math says.”

“And operationally?”

“If we move now, we’re committing unconditionally into an unknown situation against forces we have no way of assessing. Could be five guys with convincing handshakes. Or five hundred, with automatic weapons and hollowpoint ammunition. In defense of something we never even heard of yet.”

“Which could be what, hypothetically?”

“Like I said, not fertilizer bombs in the warehouse. Something else, that started out weird and then suddenly wasn’t. Maybe they really are broadcasting to our root canals.”

Chang nodded down toward the one-eyed guy, far away in his white plastic chair. She said, “You picked the right channel to broadcast Keever’s name. This guy is in this thing hip deep.”

Reacher nodded. “Motel keepers are always useful, in any endeavor. But this guy is not high up in the organization. He’s squirming. He resents this. He thinks he’s better than all-night sentry duty. But apparently his bosses don’t.”

“And they’re the people we have to find,” Chang said.

“We?”

“Figure of speech. A leftover from the old days. It was all teamwork back then.”

Reacher said nothing.

Chang said, “You stayed here. I didn’t see a gun to your head.”

“My reasons for staying have nothing to do with how urgent you think this whole Keever thing is. That’s a separate matter, and it’s your call.”

“I’ll wait for morning.”

“You sure?”

“The math says so.”

“Will you sleep OK, with this guy watching?”

“What else can I do?”

“We could ask him to stop.”

“How different would that be than unconditionally committing?”

“That depends on his response.”

“I’ll sleep OK. But I’m going to double lock the door and put the chain on. We have no idea what’s happening here.”

“No,” Reacher said. “We don’t.”

“I like your haircut, by the way.”

“Thank you.”

“What were your reasons?”

“For the haircut?”

“For staying.”

He said, “Curiosity, mostly.”

“About what?”

“That thing with Penn State in 1986. It was really well done. It was a superb act. I’m sure he’s done it before, and I’m sure he’s practiced, and rehearsed, and critiqued himself, and relived his successes in his mind, and therefore I’m equally sure it’s completely inconceivable he doesn’t know there has to be a handshake in there. I bet every other time he’s shaken a hand. But not with me. Why was that?”

“He made a mistake.”

“No, he couldn’t force himself to do it. That was my impression. Even to the point of compromising his art. He’s into something, and right now it’s under threat somehow, and he feels the people posing the threat are literally too loathsome to touch. That’s the impression I got. So I was curious about what kind of a thing could make a person feel that way.”

“Now I might not sleep OK.”

“They’ll come for me first,” Reacher said. “I’m downstairs. I’ll be sure to make plenty of noise. You’ll get a head start.”