Tripwire

by Child, Lee

  He didn’t. He just looked around, and changed and adapted. Listened and learned. Killing was easy. He was a guy who had never seen anything dead before apart from roadkill, the chipmunks and the rabbits and the occasional stinking skunk on the leafy lanes near his home. First day in-country in ‘Nam he saw eight American corpses. It was a foot patrol neatly triangulated by mortar fire. Eight men, twenty-nine pieces, some of them large. A defining moment. His buddies were going quiet and throwing up and groaning in sheer abject miserable disbelief. He was unmoved.

  He started out as a trader. Everybody wanted something. Everybody was moaning about what they didn’t have. It was absurdly easy. All it took was a little listening. Here was a guy who smoked but didn’t drink. There was a guy who loved beer but didn’t smoke. Take the cigarettes from the one guy and exchange them for the other guy’s beer. Broker the deal. Keep a small percentage back for yourself. It was so easy and so obvious he couldn’t believe they weren’t doing it for themselves. He didn’t take it seriously, because he was sure it couldn’t last. It wasn’t going to take long for them all to catch on, and cut him out as middle-man.

  But they never caught on. It was his first lesson. He could do things other people couldn’t. He could spot things they couldn’t. So he listened harder. What else did they want? Lots of things. Girls, food, penicillin, records, duty at base camp, but not latrine duty. Boots, bug repellent, side arms plated with chromium, dried ears from VC corpses for souvenirs. Marijuana, aspirin, heroin, clean needles, safe duty for the last hundred days of a tour. He listened and learned and searched and skimmed.

  Then he made his big breakthrough. It was a conceptual leap he always looked back on with tremendous pride. It served as a pattern for the other giant strides he made later. It came as a response to a couple of problems he was facing. First problem was the sheer hard work everything was causing him. Finding specific physical things was sometimes tricky. Finding undiseased girls became very difficult, and finding virgins became impossible. Getting hold of a steady supply of drugs was risky. Other things were tedious. Fancy weapons, VC souvenirs, even decent boots all took time to obtain. Fresh new officers on rotation were screwing up his sweet-heart deals in the safe noncombat zones.

  The second problem was competition. It was coming to his attention that he wasn’t unique. Rare, but not unique. Other guys were getting in the game. A free market was developing. His deals were occasionally rejected. People walked away, claiming a better trade was available elsewhere. It shocked him.

  Change and adapt. He thought it through. He spent an evening on his own, lying in his narrow cot in his hooch, thinking hard. He made the breakthrough. Why chase down specific physical things that were already hard to find, and could only get harder? Why trek on out to some medic and ask what he wanted in exchange for a boiled and stripped Charlie skull? Why then go out and barter for whatever damn thing it was and bring it back in and pick up the skull? Why deal in all that stuff? Why not just deal in the commonest and most freely available commodity in the whole of Vietnam?

  American dollars. He became a moneylender. He smiled about it later, ruefully, when he was convalescing and had time to read. It was an absolutely classic progression. Primitive societies start out with barter, and then they progress to a cash economy. The American presence in Vietnam had started out as a primitive society. That was for damn sure. Primitive, improvised, disorganized, just crouching there on the muddy surface of that awful country. Then as time passed it became bigger, more settled, more mature. It grew up, and he was the first of his kind to grow up with it. The first, and for a very long time, the only. It was a source of huge pride to him. It proved he was better than the rest. Smarter, more imaginative, better able to change and adapt and prosper.

  Cash money was the key to everything. Somebody wanted boots or heroin or a girl some lying gook swore was twelve and a virgin, he could go buy it with money borrowed from Hobie. He could gratify his desire today, and pay for it next week, plus a few percent in interest. Hobie could just sit there, like a fat lazy spider in the center of a web. No legwork. No hassle. He put a lot of thought into it. Realized early the psychological power of numbers. Little numbers like nine sounded small and friendly. Nine percent was his favorite rate. It sounded like nothing at all. Nine, just a little squiggle on a piece of paper. A single figure. Less than ten. Really nothing at all. That’s how the other grunts looked at it. But 9 percent a week was 468 percent a year. Somebody let the debt slip for a week, and compound interest kicked in. That 468 ramped up to 1,000 percent pretty damn quickly. But nobody looked at that. Nobody except Hobie. They all saw the number nine, single figure, small and friendly.

  The first defaulter was a big guy, savage, ferocious, pretty much subnormal in the head. Hobie smiled. Forgave him his debt and wrote it off. Suggested that he might repay this generosity by getting alongside him and taking on the role of enforcer. There were no more defaulters after that. The exact method of deterrence was tricky to establish. A broken arm or leg just sent the guy way back behind the lines to the field hospital, where he was safe and surrounded by white nurses who would probably put out if he came up with some kind of heroic description about how he got the injury. A bad break might even get him invalided out of the service altogether and returned Stateside. No kind of deterrence in that. No kind of deterrence at all. So Hobie had his enforcer use punji spikes. They were a VC invention, a small sharp wooden spike like a meat skewer, coated with buffalo dung, which was poisonous. The VC concealed them in shallow holes, so GIs would step on them and get septic crippling wounds in the feet. Hobie’s enforcer aimed to use them through the defaulter’s testicles. The feeling amongst Hobie’s clientele was the long-term medical consequences were not worth risking, even in exchange for escaping the debt and getting out of uniform.

  By the time he got burned and lost his arm, Hobie was a seriously rich man. His next coup was to get the whole of his fortune home, undetected and complete. Not everybody could have done it. Not in the particular set of circumstances he found himself in. It was further proof of his greatness. As was his subsequent history. He arrived in New York after a circuitous journey, crippled and disfigured, and immediately felt at home. Manhattan was a jungle, no different from the jungles of Indochina. So there was no reason for him to start acting any different. No reason to change his line of business. And this time, he was starting out with a massive capital reserve. He wasn’t starting out with nothing.

  He loan-sharked for years. He built it up. He had the capital, and he had the image. The burn scars and the hook meant a lot, visually. He attracted a raft of helpers. He fed off whole identifiable waves and generations of immigrants and poor people. He fought off the Italians to stay in business. He paid off whole squads of cops and prosecutors to stay invisible.

  Then he made his second great breakthrough. Similar to the first. It was a process of deep radical thought. A response to a problem. The problem was the sheer insane scale. He had millions on the street, but it was all nickel-and-dime. Thousands of separate deals, a hundred bucks here, a hundred fifty there, 9 or 10 percent a week, 500 or a 1,000 percent a year. Big paperwork, big hassles, running fast all the time just to keep up. Then he suddenly realized less could be more. It came to him in a flash. Five percent of some corporation’s million bucks was worth more in a week than 500 percent of street-level shit. He got in a fever about it. He froze all new lending and turned the screws to get back everything he was owed. He bought suits and rented office space. Overnight, he became a corporate lender.

  It was an act of pure genius. He had sniffed out that gray margin that lies just to the left of conventional commercial practice. He had found a huge constituency of borrowers who were just slipping off the edge of what the banks called acceptable. A huge constituency. A desperate constituency. Above all, a soft constituency. Soft targets. Civilized men in suits coming to him for a million bucks, posing much less of a risk than somebody in a dirty undershirt wanting a hundred in a f
ilthy tenement block with a rabid dog behind the door. Soft targets, easy to intimidate. Unaccustomed to the harsh realities of life. He let his enforcers go, and sat back and watched as his clientele shrank down to a handful, his average loan increased a millionfold, his interest rates dropped back into the stratosphere, and his profits grew bigger than he could ever imagine. Less is more.

  It was a wonderful new business to be in. There were occasional problems, of course. But they were manageable. He changed his deterrence tactic. These civilized new borrowers were vulnerable through their families. Wives, daughters, sons. Usually, the threat was enough. Occasionally, action had to be taken. Often, it was fun. Soft suburban wives and daughters could be amusing. An added bonus. A wonderful business. Achieved through a constant willingness to change and adapt. Deep down, he knew his talent for flexibility was his greatest strength. He had promised himself never ever to forget that fact. Which was why he was alone in his inner office, up there on the eighty-eighth floor, listening to the quiet background sounds of the giant building, thinking hard, and changing his mind.

  FIFTY MILES AWAY to the north, in Pound Ridge, Marilyn Stone was changing her mind, too. She was a smart woman. She knew Chester was in financial trouble. It couldn’t be anything else. He wasn’t having an affair. She knew that. There are signs husbands give out when they’re having affairs, and Chester wasn’t giving them out. There was nothing else he could be worried about. So it was financial trouble.

  Her original intention had been to wait. Just to sit tight and wait until the day he finally needed to get it off his chest and told her all about it. She had planned to wait for that day and then step in. She could manage the situation from there on in, however far it went exactly, debt, insolvency, even bankruptcy. Women were good at managing situations. Better than men. She could take the practical steps, she could offer whatever consolation was needed, she could pick her way through the ruins without the ego-driven hopelessness Chester was going to be feeling.

  But now she was changing her mind. She couldn’t wait any longer. Chester was killing himself with worry. So she was going to have to go ahead and do something about it. No use talking to him. His instinct was to conceal problems. He didn’t want to upset her. He would deny everything and the situation would keep on getting worse. So she had to go ahead and act alone. For his sake, as well as hers.

  The obvious first step was to place the house with a realtor. Whatever the exact degree of trouble they were in, selling the house might be necessary. Whether it would be enough, she had no way of telling. It might solve the problem on its own, or it might not. But it was the obvious place to start.

  A rich woman living in Pound Ridge like Marilyn has many contacts in the real estate business. One step down the status ladder, where the women are comfortable without being rich, a lot of them work for realtors. They keep it part-time and try to make it look like a hobby, like it was more connected with an enthusiasm for interior decoration than mere commerce. Marilyn could immediately list four good friends she could call. Her hand was resting on the phone as she tried to choose between them. In the end, she chose a woman called Sheryl, who she knew the least well of the four, but who she suspected was the most capable. She was taking this seriously, and her realtor needed to, as well. She dialed the number.

  “Marilyn,” Sheryl answered. “How nice to talk to you. Can I help?”

  Marilyn took a deep breath.

  “We might be selling the house,” she said.

  “And you’ve come to me? Marilyn, thank you. But why on earth are you guys thinking of selling? It’s so lovely where you are. Are you moving out of state?”

  Marilyn took another deep breath. “I think Chester’s going broke. I don’t really want to talk about it, but I figure we need to start making contingency plans.”

  There was no pause. No hesitation, no embarrassment.

  “I think you’re very wise,” Sheryl said. “Most people hang on way too long, then they have to sell in a hurry, and they lose out.”

  “Most people? This happens a lot?”

  “Are you kidding? We see this all the time. Better to face it early and pick up the true value. You’re doing the right thing, believe me. But then women usually do, Marilyn, because we can handle this stuff better than men, can’t we?”

  Marilyn breathed out and smiled into the phone. Felt like she was doing exactly the right thing, and like this was exactly the right person to be doing it with.

  “I’ll list it right away,” Sheryl said. “I suggest an asking price a dollar short of two million, and a target of one-point-nine. That’s achievable, and it should spark something pretty quickly.”

  “How quickly?”

  “Today’s market?” Sheryl said. “With your location? Six weeks? Yes, I think we can pretty much guarantee an offer inside six weeks.”

  DR. MCBANNERMAN WAS still pretty uptight about confidentiality issues, so although she gave up old Mr. and Mrs. Hobie’s address, she wouldn’t accompany it with a phone number. Jodie saw no legal logic in that, but it seemed to keep the doctor happy, so she didn’t bother arguing about it. She just shook hands and hustled back through the waiting area and outside to the car, with Reacher following behind her.

  “Bizarre,” she said to him. “Did you see those people? In reception?”

  “Exactly,” Reacher replied. “Old people, half-dead.”

  “That’s what Dad looked like, toward the end. Just like that, I’m afraid. And I guess this old Mr. Hobie won’t look any different. So what were they up to together that people are getting killed over it?”

  They got into the Bravada together and she leaned over from the passenger seat and unhooked her car phone. Reacher started the motor to run the air. She dialed information. The Hobies lived north of Garrison, up past Brighton, the next town on the railroad. She wrote their number in pencil on a scrap of paper from her pocketbook and then dialed it immediately. It rang for a long time, and then a woman’s voice answered.

  “Yes?” the voice said, hesitantly.

  “Mrs. Hobie?” Jodie asked.

  “Yes?” the voice said again, wavering. Jodie pictured her, an old, infirm woman, gray, thin, probably wearing a flowery housecoat, gripping an ancient receiver in an old dark house smelling of stale food and furniture wax.

  “Mrs. Hobie, I’m Jodie Garber, Leon Garber’s daughter.”

  “Yes?” the woman said again.

  “He died, I’m afraid, five days ago.”

  “Yes, I know,” the old woman said. She sounded sad about it. “Dr. McBannerman’s receptionist told us at yesterday’s appointment. I was very sorry to hear about it. He was a good man. He was very nice to us. He was helping us. And he told us about you. You’re a lawyer. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” Jodie said. “But can you tell me about whatever it was he was helping you with?”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?”

  “Doesn’t it? Why not?”

  “Well, because your father died,” the woman said. “You see, I’m afraid he was really our last hope.”

  The way she said it, it sounded like she meant it. Her voice was low. There was a resigned fall at the end of the sentence, a sort of tragic cadence, like she’d given up on something long cherished and anticipated. Jodie pictured her, a bony hand holding the phone up to her face. a wet tear on a thin pale cheek.

  “Maybe he wasn’t,” she said. “Maybe I could help you.”

  There was a silence on the line. Just a faint hiss.

  “Well, I don’t think so,” the woman said. “I’m not sure it’s the kind of thing a lawyer would normally deal with, you see.”

  “What kind of thing is it?”

  “I don’t think it matters now,” the woman said again.

  “Can’t you give me some idea?”

  “No, I think it’s all over now,” the woman said, like her old heart was breaking.

  Then there was silence again. Jodie glanced out th
rough the windshield at McBannerman’s office. “But how was my father able to help you? Was it something he especially knew about? Was it because he was in the Army? Is that what it was? Something connected with the Army?”

  “Well, yes, it was. That’s why I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to help us, as a lawyer. We’ve tried lawyers, you see. We need somebody connected with the Army, I think. But thank you very much for offering. It was very generous of you.”

  “There’s somebody else here,” Jodie said. “He’s with me, right now. He used to work with my father, in the Army. He’d be willing to help you out, if he can.”

  There was silence on the line again. Just the same faint hiss, and breathing. Like the old woman was thinking. Like she needed time to adjust to some new considerations.

  “His name is Major Reacher,” Jodie said into the silence. “Maybe my father mentioned him? They served together for a long time. My father sent for him, when he realized he wouldn’t be able to carry on any longer.”

  “He sent for him?” the woman repeated.

  “Yes, I think he thought he would be able to come and take over for him, you know, keep on with helping you out.”

  “Was this new person in the military police, too?”

  “Yes, he was. Is that important?”

  “I’m really not sure,” the woman said.

  She went quiet again. She was breathing close to the phone.

  “Can he come here to our house?” she asked suddenly.

  “We’ll both come,” Jodie said. “Would you like us to come right away?”

  There was silence again. Breathing, thinking.

  “My husband’s just had his medication,” the woman said. “He’s sleeping now. He’s very sick, you know.”