by Lee Child
Toward the Chevette.
The guy eased around the new pillar, just to check his new blind spot, and then he pulled back and merged with the concrete, barely visible again, all the time being very careful with the thing in his hand, as if it was valuable or especially fragile.
Chrissie was still busy. And she was doing a fine, fine job. Died and gone to heaven wasn’t even close. It was an underestimate of the most serious kind. Egregious, even. It was the kind of faint praise that could cause a diplomatic incident.
The guy moved again. He went through the same routine, reflexively, glance, glance, move, to the next pillar, closer still to the Chevette, and he blended in, bringing his right arm to rest last, solicitous of the thing he was holding, taking care not to bring it into contact with the concrete.
Thereby bringing it separately through the river’s glow, all by itself.
Reacher knew what it was.
It was an upside down revolver, swinging by the trigger guard on the guy’s right-hand index finger. A squat shape, thick in the upper body like the guy himself, rounded in the grips, a two-and-a-half-inch barrel, smooth, with few projections. Could have been a Charter Arms Bulldog, a five-shooter, sturdy, most often chambered for the .44 Special. Double action. Easy to service. Not a target shooter’s gun. But good close up.
Chrissie was still busy. The guy moved again. Closer still to the Chevette. He stared right at it. Before he had gotten on the bus in Pohang Reacher’s mother had made him read her newspapers. New York City. A killing spree. The Son of Sam. Named from his crazy letters. But before the letters came he had been called something else. He had been called the .44 Caliber Killer. Because he used .44 caliber bullets. From a revolver.
Specifically, the NYPD said, from a Charter Arms Bulldog.
Chrissie was still busy. And this was no kind of a time to stop. No kind of a time at all. In fact stopping was not a possibility. Physically, mentally, every other way. It was absolutely not on the agenda. It was in a whole different hemisphere than the agenda. Maybe a whole different universe. It was a biological fact. It was not going to happen. The guy stared. Reacher stared back. He’s killing people. Couples sitting in cars. Way to go, Reacher thought. Do it now. I’ll go out on a high note. The highest possible note in the whole history of high notes. Jack Reacher, RIP. He died young, but he had a smile on his face.
The guy made no move. He just stared.
Reacher stared back.
The guy made no move.
Couples sitting in cars.
But they weren’t. Not from an exterior perspective. Chrissie’s head was in his lap. Reacher was alone in the car. Just a driver, off the road in the emergency, waiting in the passenger seat, for the extra legroom. The guy stared. Reacher stared back. Chrissie was still busy. The guy moved on. To the next pillar, and the next, and then he was lost to sight.
And then Chrissie’s work was done.
* * *
Afterward they repaired the damage as well as they could, straightening and zipping and buttoning and combing. Chrissie said, “Better than Blondie?”
Reacher said, “How could I tell?”
“Better than Blondie live on stage at CBGB, I mean.”
“A lot better. No real comparison.”
“You like Blondie, right?”
“Best ever. Well, top five. Or ten.”
“Shut up.” She started the engine again and put the air on max. She slid down in her seat and lifted her shirt tails so the vents blew straight up against her skin.
Reacher said, “I saw someone.”
“When?”
“Just now.”
“Doing what?”
“Peering into this car.”
“Who?”
“Some guy.”
“For real? That’s kind of creepy.”
Reacher said, “I know. And I’m real sorry, but I have to go find Jill Hemingway. I should tell her first. She needs some favors.”
“Tell her what?”
“What I saw.”
“What did you see?”
“Something she should know about.”
“Was it one of Croselli’s guys?”
“No.”
“So how is it important?”
“She might be able to use it.”
“Where is she?”
“I have no idea. Let me out in Washington Square and I’ll walk. I bet she’s north of Houston.”
“You would be going right back in there, where we got chased out before.”
“Let’s call that phase our reconnaissance.”
“What would you do this time?”
“Fastest way to find Hemingway is to look for Croselli.”
“I’m not going to let you.”
“How could you stop me?”
“I would tell you not to. I’m your girlfriend. At least until midnight.”
“Is this what they teach you at Sarah Lawrence?”
“Pretty much.”
“Works for me,” Reacher said. “We’ll just hang out, see if she comes by.”
“Really?”
“I mean it.”
“Why?”
“Laws of physics. A random encounter doesn’t get more likely just because both parties are moving.”
“OK, where?”
“Let’s say the corner of Bleecker and Broadway. That might make the encounter less random.”
“That’s way down there.”
“It’s a block from Houston. We can break out south if we need to.”
“We?”
“Was it you who wanted me to stick close by?”
“This is a whole different type of crazy.”
Reacher nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “I really do. It’s your choice. You can let me out in Washington Square. That would be fine. Don’t think I’ll ever forget you.”
“Really?”
“If I’m done before midnight, I’ll come say goodbye.”
“I mean, really, you won’t forget me? That’s very sweet.”
“Also very true. As long as I live.”
Chrissie said, “Tell me more about the guy you saw.”
Reacher said, “I think it was the Son of Sam.”
“You are crazy.”
“I’m serious.”
“And you just sat there?”
“Seemed like the best thing to do.”
“How close did he get?”
“About twenty feet. He had a good look, and he walked away.”
“The Son of Sam was twenty feet from me?”
“He didn’t see you. I think that’s why he walked away.”
She glanced all around in the dark and put the car in gear. She said, “The Son of Sam is an NYPD case, not the FBI.”
Reacher said, “Whoever passes on a tip gets a brownie point. I imagine that’s how it works.”
“What’s the tip?”
“The way he moved.”
There were more sirens behind them. First Avenue, Second Avenue, uptown, downtown, crosstown, there were plenty of cops on the streets. The mood was changing. Reacher could taste it on the air.
“I’ll come with you,” Chrissie said. “For the experience. These are the big things we’ll always remember.”
* * *
They used 34th Street again, back toward the center of the island, back toward the heart of darkness. The city was still pitch black, still dead, like a giant creature fallen on its back. There were broken windows. There were people roaming in groups, carrying stuff. There were police cars and fire trucks speeding through the streets, all lit up and whooping and barking, but their lights didn’t make much impression on the blackness, and their sirens didn’t seem to worry the roaming people. They merely scuttled into doorways as the cars and trucks passed. The people reminded Reacher of tiny nighttime organisms working on a corpse, penetrating its skin, exploring it, disassembling it, feeding off it, recovering its nutrients, recycling its components, like a dead whale feeds a mi
llion sea creatures on the ocean bed.
They turned south on Fifth Avenue at the Empire State Building and drove slowly in the middle lane, passing knots of people in the roadway, two of whom were carrying a rolled-up carpet, three of whom were loading the trunk of a big battered car with something in boxes. They veered left onto Broadway at 23rd Street, past the ghostly Flatiron Building, and they continued south, around Union Square, across 14th Street, into enemy territory, and onward. The mayhem got a little worse the further south they went. Broadway looked narrow, like a dark trench through a dark landscape, and there were busted windows, and people everywhere, moving in groups, fast and furtive and silent, barely visible at all, except for the glow of cigarettes. They passed 4th Street, and 3rd, where they had been before, and Chrissie started to slow the car, and Reacher said, “Change of plan. I think Sixth Avenue and Bleecker might be better.”
Chrissie said, “Why?”
“What is Croselli worried about right now?”
“Getting his stuff ripped off. Like anyone. If he has stuff.”
“I think he does. I mean, how does he earn money between Houston and 14th? Maybe protection rackets and hookers and so on, but dope for sure. He must have a stash somewhere. But where? Not in an ancestral home in Little Italy, because that’s way south of Houston.”
“You know the geography pretty well.”
“I’ve studied it from afar. And he walked west from Waverly. After the slapping incident. Toward Sixth Avenue. Obviously he was heading back to make his phone calls. About me. So his HQ must be west of Waverly.”
“You think Hemingway knows where it is?”
“I’m sure she does. And I’m sure she’s watching it, right now. I’m assuming no one gave her an actual role tonight, because she’s suspended. So she’s still freelancing. I bet she’s hoping some bunch of guys busts down Croselli’s door, so she can get a record of what’s inside. Maybe she’ll even get Croselli defending it, which would be pretty much a slam dunk, wouldn’t it? Doesn’t matter what kind of deal he made. Some things can’t be ignored.”
“It will be more than just Croselli defending it. He’s got twelve guys.”
“Ten now,” Reacher said. “Two of them are in the hospital. Or trying to get there. But we’ll keep out of their way. It’s Hemingway we want.”
“Hard to find one woman in the dark.”
“All we can do is try.”
So they rolled onward, toward Houston Street, past a big stereo store with two busted windows and not much left inside, and they made the right and crept west, past the dark wasteland streets of Soho coming in from the left, Mercer, and Greene, and Wooster, and West Broadway, and Thompson, and Sullivan, and MacDougal. Then they turned right on Sixth, and headed north a block to where Bleecker and Downing and Minetta all met in an untidy little six-way split. Retail was down-market and scruffy in that location, some of it too scruffy even for looters, some of it already busted wide open and stripped. Looking north, Sixth was the same long black hole it had been before, with the same slim upright rectangle of night sky at the end of it.
Chrissie said, “Should I park here?”
Reacher said, “Let’s cruise a few blocks.”
“You said we would hang out and let her come to us.”
“Mission creep. Occupational hazard. Like the Navy transporting the Marines.”
“I’m an English major.”
“Just five minutes, OK?”
“OK,” she said.
But they didn’t need five minutes. They were done in barely sixty seconds. They made the tight left onto Downing, and a right on Bedford, and a right on Carmine, back toward Bleecker again, and in a doorway on the right side of the street Reacher caught a flash of pale skin and blonde hair, and he pointed, and Chrissie jammed to a stop, and Jill Hemingway stepped out of the dark and bent down to Reacher’s window, like a Seoul streetwalker talking to an enlisted man.
* * *
Reacher expected Hemingway to be mad at his reappearance, but she wasn’t. He figured she felt exposed. Or caught out in her own obsession. Which she was, basically. And she looked a little sheepish about it.
He asked, “Is his place near here?”
She pointed through the car at a pair of large blank doors across the street. They were tall and wide. Like a wagon entrance, from long ago, big enough for a cart and a team of horses. In the daylight the paint might have looked dark green. Set into the right-hand door was a judas gate, big enough for a person. Presumably the doors would lead to an interior ground floor yard. It was a two-story building. Offices above, possibly. Or storerooms. Behind the building was a bigger building, blank and dark and massive. A brick church of some kind, maybe.
Reacher asked, “Is he in there?”
Hemingway nodded.
Reacher asked, “With how many others?”
“He’s alone.”
“Really?”
“He runs protection rackets. Among other things. So now he has to deliver. His guys are all out, watching over his clients.”
“I didn’t know protection rackets worked that way. I thought they were just extortion, plain and simple.”
“They are, basically. But he needs to maintain some kind of credibility. And he needs to keep his best cash cows in business. There’s a lot of damage being done tonight. Plenty of places are going to go under. No more payoffs from them. And a wise man keeps an eye on his cash flow.”
Reacher turned and looked at the doors. “You hoping someone will break in?”
“I don’t know what’s taking them so long. That’s the problem with junkies. No get-up-and-go.”
“What has he got in there?”
“A little of everything. He keeps his inventory low because he’s got the New Jersey Turnpike and the Holland Tunnel for rapid resupply, which is apparently what they teach you in business school now, but still, I bet there’s a week’s worth in there.”
“Are we in the way? Should we go park somewhere else?”
“You should go home. This isn’t your business.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“The Son of Sam.”
“Croselli isn’t enough for you?”
“I saw him.”
“Who?”
“I saw a man carrying a Charter Arms Bulldog and peering into cars.”
“Are you serious?”
“It was our car he peered into.”
“Where?”
“The East River, at 34th Street.”
Hemingway said, “You know guns, right? Being a Marine and all?”
“Son of a Marine,” Reacher said. “It was the right gun.”
“It’s pitch dark.”
“The moon and the stars and the water.”
Hemingway ducked down another inch and looked across Reacher at Chrissie. “Did you see it too?”
Chrissie said, “No.”
“How come?”
“I wasn’t looking.”
Hemingway said, “I don’t know what to do. OK, let’s say we have a confirmed sighting, but so what? We already know the Son of Sam is in New York. That’s the point of the guy. It adds no new information. You’d need something more. You’d need to know who he is. Do you?”
“No,” Reacher said. “But I know what he used to be.”
* * *
They parked on Bleecker, intending to walk back and join Hemingway in her doorway hideout, but suddenly Bleecker had people on it, some of them in groups, some of them in pairs, some of those groups and pairs carrying stuff too heavy for comfort, and therefore consequently looking for alternative modes of transportation, such as small hatchback cars, each one apparently ideal for hauling a large television. Reacher and Chrissie were a yard out of the Chevette, with the doors closed but not locked, when the staring match started. Two guys, staggering under an enormous box, with Sony written on it upside down. They came in a straight line, eyeballing the Chevette all the way, and Reacher said, “Kee
p walking, guys.”
The guy on the left was a shadowy grunting figure, and he said, “Suppose we don’t?”
“Then I’ll kick your butt and steal your television.”
“Suppose you drive us?”
“Just keep walking,” Reacher said.
They didn’t. They eased the box carefully to the ground and stood up again, breathing deep, two dark figures in the dark. Even from six feet away it was hard to make out detail, but their hands hadn’t gone to their pockets yet, which was a good sign. It meant any upcoming combat was likely to be unarmed, which was reassuring. Reacher had grown up in a culture of extreme violence, it being hard to describe the U.S. Marine Corps any other way, and he had taken its lessons on board, with the result that he hadn’t lost a fight in more than ten years, against Corps kids from the same culture, and against rivalrous local youth all around the world, who liked to think the U.S. military was nothing special, and who liked to try to prove it by proxy, usually unsuccessfully. Two punks on a blacked-out New York City street were unlikely to prove an unprecedented problem, unless they had knives or guns, which was unknowable at that point.
The guy on the right said, “Maybe we’ll take the girl with us. Maybe we’ll have ourselves some fun.”
The guy on the left said, “Just give us the keys and no one gets hurt.”
Which was the moment of decision. Surprise was always good. Delay was always fatal. Guys who let a situation unfold in its own good time were just stockpiling problems for themselves. Reacher ran at the left-hand guy, two choppy steps, like an infielder charging a grounder, and he didn’t slow down. He ran right through the guy, leading with his forearm held horizontal, jerking his elbow into the guy’s face, and as soon as he felt the guy’s nose burst open he stamped down and reversed direction around the box and went after the second guy, who flinched away and took Reacher’s charging weight flat in the back. The guy pitched forward like he had been hit by a truck, and Reacher kicked him in the head, and the guy lay still.
Reacher checked their pockets. No knives, no guns, which was usually the case. But it had been their choice. They could have kept on walking. He hauled the right-hand guy next to the left-hand guy, close together, shoulder to shoulder, and he picked up the heavy box like a strongman in the circus, struggling and tottering, and he took two short steps and dropped it on their heads from waist height.
