by Child, Lee
‘Pants now,’ she said.
‘I’m not wearing anything underneath.’
She smiled.
‘Me neither,’ she said.
He undid his button. He dropped his zip. He pushed the canvas over his hips. He stepped out. One step closer to the bed.
He said, ‘Your turn now.’
She sat up.
She smiled.
She took her shirt off.
She was everything he thought she would be, and she was everything he had ever wanted.
They woke very late the next morning, warm, drowsy, deeply satiated, roused from sleep only by the sound of automobile engines in the lot below their window. They yawned, and stretched, and kissed, long and slow and gentle.
Turner said, ‘We wasted Billy Bob’s money. With the two-room thing. My fault entirely. I’m sorry.’
Reacher asked, ‘What changed your mind?’
‘Lust, I suppose. Prison makes you think.’
‘Seriously.’
‘It was your T-shirt. I’ve never seen anything so thin. It was either very expensive or very cheap.’
‘Seriously.’
‘It was on my bucket list since we talked on the phone. I liked your voice. And I saw your photograph.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘You mentioned the girl in Berryville. That’s what changed my mind. With the arm. That offended you. And you’ve done nothing but chip away at my problem. You’re ignoring your own, with the Big Dog. Which is just as serious. Therefore you still care for others. Which means you can’t really be feral. I imagine caring for others is the first thing to go. And you still know right from wrong. Which all means you’re OK. Which all means my future self is OK, too. It’s not going to be so bad.’
‘You’re going to be a two-star general, if you want to be.’
‘Only two stars?’
‘More than that is like running for office. No fun at all.’
She didn’t answer. There was still motor noise in the lot. It sounded like multiple vehicles were driving around and around, in a big circle. Maybe three or four of them, one after the other. Up one side of the building, and down the other. An endless loop.
Turner asked, ‘What time is it?’
‘Nine minutes before noon.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I always know what time it is.’
‘What time is check-out?’
Then they heard footsteps on the walkway outside, and an envelope slid under the door, and the footsteps reversed direction, and faded away.
‘Check-out time is noon, I guess,’ Reacher said. ‘Because I assume that envelope is our copy of the invoice, paid in full.’
‘That’s very formal.’
‘They have a computer.’
The motor noise was still there. Reacher assumed the lizard part of his brain had already screened it for danger. Were they army vehicles? Cop cars? FBI? And apparently the lizard brain had made no comment. Correctly, in this case, because they were clearly civilian vehicles outside. All gasoline engines, including an out-of-tune V-8 with a holed muffler, and at least one weak four-cylinder cheap-finance-special-offer kind of a thing, plus crashing suspensions and rattling panels. Not military or paramilitary sounds at all.
They got louder and faster.
‘What is that?’ Turner said.
‘Take a look,’ Reacher said.
She padded slender and naked to the window. She made a peephole in the drapes. She looked out, and waited, to catch the whole show.
‘Four pick-up trucks,’ she said. ‘Various ages, sizes, and states of repair, all of them with two people aboard. They’re circling the building, over and over again.’
‘Why?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘What town are we in?’
‘Petersburg, West Virginia.’
‘Then maybe it’s an old West Virginia folk tradition. The rites of spring, or something. Like the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Except they do it in pick-up trucks, in Petersburg.’
‘But it looks kind of hostile. Like those movies you mentioned, where they say it’s too quiet. The parts where the Indians ride in a circle around the wagon with the busted wheel. Faster and faster.’
Reacher looked from her to the door.
‘Wait,’ he said.
He slid out of bed and picked up the envelope. The flap was not gummed down. Inside was a piece of paper. Nothing sinister. As expected. It was a tri-folded invoice showing a zero balance. Which was correct. Room eleven, thirty bucks, less thirty bucks cash upfront.
But.
At the bottom of the invoice was a cheery printed thank-you-for-staying-with-us line, and below that the motel owner’s name was printed like a signature, and below that there was a piece of completely gratuitous information.
‘Shit,’ Reacher said.
‘What?’
He met her by the bed and showed her.
We surely appreciated you staying with us!
John Claughton, Owner.
There have been Claughtons in Grant County for three hundred years!
THIRTY-SIX
REACHER SAID, ‘I guess they’re really serious about that Corvette. They must have gotten on some kind of a phone tree last night. A council of war. A call to action. Hampshire County Claughtons, and Grant County Claughtons, and Claughtons from other counties, too, I’m sure. Probably dozens of counties. Probably vast swathes of the entire Mountain State. And if Sleeping Beauty in the office last night was a son or a nephew, then he’s also a cousin. And now he’s a made man. Because he dimed us out.’
‘That Corvette is more trouble than it’s worth. It was a bad choice.’
‘But it was fun while it lasted.’
‘Got any bright ideas?’
‘We’ll have to reason with them.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Spread love and understanding,’ Reacher said. ‘Use force if necessary.’
‘Who said that?’
‘Leon Trotsky, I think.’
‘He was stabbed to death with an ice pick. In Mexico.’
‘That doesn’t invalidate his overall position. Not in and of itself.’
‘What was his overall position?’
‘Solid. He also said, if you can’t acquaint an opponent with reason, you must acquaint his head with the sidewalk. He was a man of sound instincts. In his private life, I mean. Apart from getting stabbed to death with an ice pick in Mexico, that is.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘We should start by getting dressed, probably. Except that most of my clothes are in the other room.’
‘My fault,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t make a whole big thing out of it. We’ll survive. You get dressed, and we’ll both go next door, and I’ll get dressed. Safe enough. We’ll only be out there a couple of seconds. But take a shower first. There’s no rush. They’ll wait. They won’t come in here. They won’t break down Cousin Asshole’s door. I’m sure that’s part of the Claughton family code.’
Turner matched Reacher’s habitual shower time exactly, dead on eleven minutes, from the first hand on the faucet to stepping out the door. Which in this instance involved a long pause, spent trying to time it right, to get to the next room unseen by a circling pick-up truck, and then deciding that with four of them each moving at close to thirty miles an hour, remaining unseen was not an available option. So they went for it, and for ten of the twenty feet they were ahead of the game, until a truck came around and Reacher heard a rush under its hood, as the driver reacted instinctively to the sudden appearance of his quarry, by stamping on the gas. Chasing it, Reacher supposed. Running it down. An evolutionary mechanism, like so many things. He unlocked his door and they spilled inside. He said, ‘Now they know for sure we’re here. Not that they didn’t know already. I’m sure Cyber Boy has been giving them chapter and verse.’
His room was undisturbed. His boots were under th
e window, with his socks nearby, and his underwear, and his second T-shirt on a chair, and his jacket on a hook. He said, ‘I should take a shower too. If they keep on driving circles like that, they’ll be dizzy before we come out.’
Reacher was ready in eleven minutes. He sat on the bed and laced his boots, and he put his coat on and zipped it up. He said, ‘I’m happy to do this by myself, if you like.’
Turner said, ‘What about the troopers across the street? We can’t afford for them to come over.’
‘I bet the troopers let the Claughtons do whatever they want. Because I bet the troopers are mostly Claughtons too. But I’m sure we’ll do it all out of sight, anyway. That’s what usually happens.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘Have you done this before?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Not too many times.’
‘They won’t all fight. There’ll be a congestion problem, apart from anything else. And we can kerb their enthusiasm by putting the first few down hard. The key is not to spend too much time on any one individual. The minimum, ideally. Which would be one blow, and then move on to the next. Elbows are better than hands, and kicking is better than both.’
‘OK.’
‘But I’ll talk to them first. It’s not like they don’t have a slight point.’
They opened the door and stepped out to the walkway and the bright noon light, and as Reacher expected they saw the four trucks drawn up tight, nose-in at the bottom of the concrete staircase, like suckerfish. Eight guys were leaning against their doors and their fenders and their load beds, patiently, like they had all the time in the world, which they did, because there was no way down from the second-floor walkway other than the concrete staircase. Reacher recognized the three guys from the night before, on the hill road, small, medium and large, the latter two looking more or less the same as they had before, and the small guy looking much better, like he was most of the way recovered from whatever binge had led to his accident. The other five were similar fellows, all hardscrabble types, the smallest of them a wiry guy all sinew and leathery skin, the largest somewhat bloated, by beer and fast food, probably. None of them was armed in any way. Reacher could see all sixteen hands, and all sixteen were empty. No guns, no knives, no wrenches, no chains.
Amateurs.
Reacher put his hands on the walkway’s rail, and he gazed out over the scene below, serenely, like a dictator in an old movie, ready to address a crowd.
He said, ‘We need to find a way of getting you guys home before you get hurt. You want to work with me on that?’
He had overheard a guy in a suit on a cell phone one time, who kept on asking, You want to work with me on that? He guessed it was a technique taught at expensive seminars in dowdy hotel ballrooms. Presumably because it mandated a positive response. Because civilized people felt an obligation to work with one another, if that option was offered. No one ever said, No, I don’t.
But the guy from the half-ton did.
He said, ‘No one is here to work with you, boy. We’re here to kick your butt and take our car and our money back.’
‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘We can go down that road, if you like. But there’s no reason why all of you should go to the hospital. You ever heard of Gallup?’
‘Who?’
‘It’s a polling organization. Like at election time. They tell you this guy is going to get fifty-one per cent of the vote, and this other guy is going to get forty-nine.’
‘I’ve heard of them.’
‘You know how they do that? They don’t call everyone in America. That would take too long. So they sample. They call a handful of people and scale up the scores.’
‘So?’
‘That’s what we should do. We should sample. One of us against one of you. We should let the result stand in for what would have happened if we’d all gone at it together. Like the Gallup organization does.’
No answer.
Reacher said, ‘If your guy wins, you get to trade your worst truck for the Corvette. And you get half of Billy Bob’s money.’
No answer.
Reacher said, ‘But if my side wins, we’ll trade the Corvette for your best truck. And we’ll keep all of Billy Bob’s money.’
No answer.
Reacher said, ‘That’s the best I can do, guys. This is America. We need wheels and money. I’m sure you understand that.’
No answer.
Reacher said, ‘My friend here is ready and willing. You got a preference? Would you prefer to fight a woman?’
The guy from the half-ton said, ‘No, that ain’t right.’
‘Then you’re stuck with me. But I’ll sweeten the deal. You can increase the size of your sample. Me against two of you. Want to work with me on that?’
No answer.
‘And I’ll fight with both hands behind my back.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Both hands behind your back?’
‘For the terms we just agreed. And they’re great terms, guys. I mean, either way you get to keep the Corvette. I’m being reasonable here.’
‘Two of us, and your hands behind your back?’
‘I’d put a bag on my head if I had one.’
‘OK, we’ll take a piece of that.’
‘Terrific,’ Reacher said. ‘Any of you got health insurance? Because that would be a good way to choose up sides.’
Then suddenly next to him Turner whispered, ‘I just remembered what I forgot. From last night. The thing in the original report.’
‘Was it the tribal guy?’ Reacher whispered back. An unknown American. A tribal elder. The grain of sand. The American was defined as unknown, but the tribal elder was not. ‘They told you his name?’
‘Not his name, exactly. Their names are all too complicated to remember. We use reference numbers instead. Assigned as and when they first become known to U.S. authorities. And the guy’s number was in the report. Which means he’s already in the system. He’s known to somebody.’
‘What was the number?’
‘I don’t remember. A.M. something.’
‘What does A.M. mean?’
‘Afghan male.’
‘That’s a start, I guess.’
Then from below the guy from the half-ton called up, ‘OK, we’re all set down here.’
Reacher glanced down. The small crowd had separated out, six and two. The two were the guy from the half-ton himself, and the bloated guy, full of McDonald’s and Miller High Life.
Turner said, ‘Can you really do this?’
Reacher said, ‘Only one way to find out,’ and he started down the stairs.
THIRTY-SEVEN
THE SIX SPECTATORS hung back, and Reacher and the chosen two moved together, into clear space, a tight little triangle of three men in lock step, two walking backward and one forward, all of them watchful, vigilant and suspicious. Beyond the parked trucks was an expanse of beaten dirt, about as wide as a city street. To the right was the back of the compound, where the Corvette was, behind the last building, and to the left the lot was open to Route 220, but the entrance was narrow, and there was nothing to see but the blacktop itself and a small stand of trees beyond it. The state police barracks was way to the west. No one on the beaten dirt could see it, and therefore the troopers could see no one on the beaten dirt.
Safe enough.
Good to go.
Normally against two dumb opponents Reacher would have cheated from the get-go. Hands behind his back? He would have planted two elbows into two jaws right after stepping off the last stair. But not with six replacements standing by. That would be inefficient. They would all pile in, outraged, up on some peculiar equivalent of a moral high horse, and thereby buzzed beyond their native capabilities. So Reacher let the triangle adjust and rotate and kick the ground until everyone was ready, and then he jammed his hands in his back pockets, with his palms against his ass.
‘Play ball,’ he said.
Whereupon he s
aw the two guys take up what he assumed were their combat stances, and then he saw them change radically. Tell a guy you’re going to fight with your hands behind your back, and he hears just that, and only that. He thinks, this guy is going to fight with his hands behind his back! And then he pictures the first few seconds in his mind, and the image is so weird it takes over his attention completely. No hands! An unprotected torso! Just like the heavy bag at the gym!
So guys in that situation see nothing but the upper body, the upper body, the upper body, and the head, and the face, like irresistible targets of opportunity, damage just waiting to be done, unanswerable shots just begging to be made, and their stances open wide, and their fists come up high, and their chins jut forward, and their eyes go narrow and wild with glee as they squint in at the gut or the ribs or the nose or wherever it is they plan to land their first joyous blow. They see nothing else at all.
Like the feet.
Reacher stepped forward and kicked the fat guy in the nuts, solid, right foot, as serious as punting a ball the length of the field, and the guy went down so fast and so hard it was like someone had bet him a million bucks he couldn’t make a hole in the dirt with his face. There was a noise like a bag hitting a floor, and the guy curled up tight and his blubber settled and went perfectly still.
Reacher stepped back.
‘Poor choice,’ he said. ‘Clearly that guy would have been better left on the bench. Now it’s just you and me.’
The guy from the half-ton had stepped back too. Reacher watched his face. And saw all the guy’s previous assumptions being hastily revised. Inevitably. Yeah, feet, he was thinking. I forgot about that. Which pulled his centre of gravity too low. Now it was all feet, feet, feet. Nothing but feet. The guy’s hands came down, almost to his pelvis, and he put one thigh in front of the other, and he hunched his shoulders so tight that overall he looked like a little kid with a stomach cramp.
Reacher said, ‘You can walk away now and we’ll call it done. Give us a truck, take the Corvette, and you’re out of here.’
