Two steps out, the lead guy said, “Can we talk?”
I stopped walking. Said, “About what?”
“You’re the witness, right?”
“But who are you?”
The guy answered by peeling back the flap of his suit coat, slow and unthreatening, showing me nothing except a red satin lining and a shirt. No gun, no holster, no belt. He put his right fingers into his left inside pocket and came out with a business card. Leaned forward and handed it to me. It was a cheap product. The first line said: Sure and Certain, Inc. The second line said: Protection, Investigation, Intervention. The third line had a telephone number, with a 212 area code. Manhattan.
“Kinko’s is a wonderful place,” I said. “Isn’t it? Maybe I’ll get some cards that say John Smith, King of the World.”
“The card is legit,” the guy said. “And we’re legit.”
“Who are you working for?”
“We can’t say.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
“Better that you talk to us than our principal. We can keep things civilized.”
“Now I’m really scared.”
“Just a couple of questions. That’s all. Help us out. We’re just working stiffs, trying to get paid. Like you.”
“I’m not a working stiff. I’m a gentleman of leisure.”
“Then look down on us from your lofty perch and take pity.”
“What questions?”
“Did she give anything to you?”
“Who?”
“You know who. Did you take anything from her?”
“And? What’s the next question?”
“Did she say anything?”
“She said plenty. She was talking all the way from Bleecker to Grand Central.”
“Saying what?”
“I didn’t hear very much of it.”
“Information?”
“I didn’t hear.”
“Did she mention names?”
“She might have.”
“Did she say the name Lila Hoth?”
“Not that I heard.”
“Did she say John Sansom?”
I didn’t answer. The guy asked, “What?”
I said, “I heard that name somewhere.”
“From her?”
“No.”
“Did she give you anything?”
“What kind of a thing?”
“Anything at all.”
“Tell me what difference it would make.”
“Our principal wants to know.”
“Tell him to come ask me himself.”
“Better to talk to us.”
I smiled and walked on, through the alley they had created. But one of the guys on the right side-stepped and tried to push me back. I caught him shoulder-to-chest and spun him out of my way. He came after me again and I stopped and started and feinted left and right and slid in behind him and shoved him hard in the back so that he stumbled on ahead of me. His jacket had a single center vent. French tailoring. British suits favor twin side vents and Italian suits favor none at all. I leaned down and caught a coat tail in each hand and heaved and tore the seam all the way up the back. Then I shoved him again. He stumbled ahead and veered right. His coat was hanging off him by the collar. Unbuttoned at the front, open at the back, like a hospital gown.
Then I ran three steps and stopped and turned around. It would have been much more stylish to just keep on walking slowly, but also much dumber. Insouciance is good, but being ready is better. The four of them were caught in a moment of real indecision. They wanted to come get me. That was for sure. But they were on West 35th Street at dawn. At that hour virtually all the traffic would be cops. So in the end they just gave me hard looks and moved away. They crossed 35th in single file and headed south at the corner.
You’re done.
But I wasn’t. I turned to move away and a guy came out of the precinct house and ran after me. Creased gray T-shirt, red sweatpants, gray hair sticking up all over the place. The family member. The brother. The small-town cop from Jersey. He caught up with me and grabbed my elbow in a wiry grip and told me he had seen me inside and had guessed I was the witness. Then he told me his sister hadn’t committed suicide.
Chapter 11
I took the guy to a coffee shop on Eighth Avenue. A long time ago I was sent on a one-day MP seminar at Fort Rucker, to learn sensitivity around the recently bereaved. Sometimes MPs had to deliver bad news to relatives. We called them death messages. My skills were widely held to be deficient. I used to walk in and just tell them. I thought that was the nature of a message. But apparently I was wrong. So I was sent to Rucker. I learned good stuff there. I learned to take emotions seriously. Above all I learned that cafés and diners and coffee shops were good environments for bad news. The public atmosphere limits the likelihood of falling apart, and the process of ordering and waiting and sipping punctuates the flow of information in a way that makes it easier to absorb.
We took a booth next to a mirror. That helps, too. You can look at each other in the glass. Face-to-face, but not really. The place was about half-full. Cops from the precinct, taxi drivers on their way to the West Side garages. We ordered coffee. I wanted food too, but I wasn’t going to eat if he didn’t. Not respectful. He said he wasn’t hungry. I sat quiet and waited. Let them talk first, the Rucker psychologists had said.
He told me that his name was Jacob Mark. Originally Markakis in his grandfather’s day, back when a Greek name was no good to anyone, except if you were in the diner business, which his grandfather wasn’t. His grandfather was in the construction business. Hence the change. He said I could call him Jake. I said he could call me Reacher. He told me he was a cop. I told him I had been one once, in the military. He told me he wasn’t married and lived alone. I said the same went for me. Establish common ground, the teachers at Rucker had said. Up close and looking past his physical disarray he was a squared-away guy. He had any cop’s weary gloss, but under it lay a normal suburban man. With a different guidance counselor he might have become a science teacher or a dentist or an auto parts manager. He was in his forties, already very gray, but his face was youthful and unlined. His eyes were dark and wide and staring, but that was temporary. Some hours ago, when he went to bed, he must have been a handsome man. I liked him on sight, and I felt sorry for his situation.
He took a breath and told me his sister’s name was Susan Mark. At one time Susan Molina, but many years divorced and reverted. Now living alone. He talked about her in the present tense. He was a long way from acceptance.
He said, “She can’t have killed herself. It’s just not possible.”
I said, “Jake, I was there.”
The waitress brought our coffee and we sipped in silence for a moment. Passing time, letting reality sink in just a little more. The Rucker psychologists had been explicit: The suddenly bereaved have the IQ of labradors. Indelicate, because they were army, but accurate, because they were psychologists.
Jake said, “So tell me what happened.”
I asked him, “Where are you from?”
He named a small town in northern New Jersey, well inside the New York Metro area, full of commuters and soccer moms, prosperous, safe, contented. He said the police department was well funded, well equipped, and generally understretched. I asked him if his department had a copy of the Israeli list. He said that after the Twin Towers every police department in the country had been buried under paper, and every officer had been required to learn every point on every list.
I said, “Your sister was behaving strangely, Jake. She rang every bell. She looked like a suicide bomber.”
“Bullshit,” he said, like a good brother should.
“Obviously she wasn’t,” I said. “But you would have thought the same thing. You would have had to, with your training.”
“So the list is more about suicide than bombing.”
“Apparently.”
“She wasn’t an unhappy person.”
&nbs
p; “She must have been.”
He didn’t reply. We sipped a little more. People came and went. Checks were paid, tips were left. Traffic built up on Eighth.
I said, “Tell me about her.”
He asked, “What gun did she use?”
“An old Ruger Speed-Six.”
“Our dad’s gun. She inherited it.”
“Where did she live? Here, in the city?”
He shook his head. “Annandale, Virginia.”
“Did you know she was up here?”
He shook his head again.
“Why would she come?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would she be wearing a winter coat?”
“I don’t know.”
I said, “Some federal agents came and asked me questions. Then some private guys found me, just before you did. They were all talking about a woman called Lila Hoth. You ever hear that name from your sister?”
“No.”
“What about John Sansom?”
“He’s a congressman from North Carolina. Wants to be a senator. Some kind of hard-ass.”
I nodded. I remembered, vaguely. Election season was gearing up. I had seen newspaper stories and television coverage. Sansom had been a late entrant to politics and was a rising star. He was seen as tough and uncompromising. And ambitious. He had done well in business for a spell and before that he had done well in the army. He hinted at a glamorous Special Forces career, without supplying details. Special Forces careers are good for that kind of thing. Most of what they do is secret, or can be claimed to be.
I asked, “Did your sister ever mention Sansom?”
He said, “I don’t think so.”
“Did she know him?”
“I can’t see how.”
I asked, “What did she do for a living?”
He wouldn’t tell me.
Chapter 12
He didn’t need to tell me. I already knew enough for a ballpark guess. Her fingerprints were on file and three shiny pink ex–staff officers had hustled up the highway but had left again within minutes. Which put Susan Mark somewhere in the defense business, but not in an elevated position. And she lived in Annandale, Virginia. Southwest of Arlington, as I recalled. Probably changed since I was last there. But probably still a decent place to live, and still an easy commute to the world’s largest office building. Route 244, one end to the other.
“She worked at the Pentagon,” I said.
Jake said, “She wasn’t supposed to talk about her job.”
I shook my head. “If it was really a secret, she would have told you she worked at Wal-Mart.”
He didn’t answer. I said, “I had an office in the Pentagon once. I’m familiar with the place. Try me.”
He paused a beat and then he shrugged and said, “She was a civilian clerk. But she made it sound exciting. She worked for an outfit called CGUSAHRC. She never told me much about it. She made it sound like a hush-hush thing. People can’t talk so much now, after the Twin Towers.”
“It’s not an outfit,” I said. “It’s a guy. CGUSAHRC means Commanding General, United States Army, Human Resources Command. And it’s not very exciting. It’s a personnel department. Paperwork and records.”
Jake didn’t reply. I thought I had offended him, by belittling his sister’s career. Maybe the Rucker seminar hadn’t taught me enough. Maybe I should have paid more attention. The silence went on a beat too long and grew awkward. I asked, “Did she tell you anything about it at all?”
“Not really. Maybe there wasn’t much to tell.” He said it with a hint of bitterness, as if his sister had been caught in a lie. I said, “People dress things up, Jake. It’s human nature. And usually there’s no harm in it. Maybe she just wanted to compete, with you being a cop.”
“We weren’t close.”
“You were still family.”
“I guess.”
“Did she enjoy her job?”
“She seemed to. And it must have suited her. She had the right skills, for a records department. Great memory, meticulous, very organized. She was good with computers.”
The silence came back. I started to think about Annandale again. A pleasant but unremarkable community. A dormitory, basically. Under the present circumstances it had just one significant characteristic.
It was a very long way from New York City.
She wasn’t an unhappy person.
Jake said, “What?”
I said, “Nothing. None of my business.”
“But what?”
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
There’s more than meets the eye.
I asked, “How long have you been a cop?”
“Eighteen years.”
“All in the same place?”
“I trained with the State Troopers. Then I moved over. Like a farm system.”
“Have you seen many suicides in Jersey?”
“One or two a year, maybe.”
“Anyone see any of them coming?”
“Not really. They’re usually a big surprise.”
“Like this one.”
“You got that right.”
“But behind each one of them there must have been a reason.”
“Always. Financial, sexual, some kind of shit about to hit the fan.”
“So your sister must have had a reason.”
“I don’t know what.”
I went quiet again. Jake said, “Just say it. Tell me.”
“Not my place.”
“You were a cop,” he said. “You’re seeing something.”
I nodded. Said, “My guess is that out of the suicides you’ve seen, maybe seven out of ten happened at home, and three out of ten, they drove to some local lane and hitched up the hosepipe.”
“More or less.”
“But always somewhere familiar. Somewhere quiet and alone. Always at some kind of a destination. You get there, you compose yourself, you do it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I never heard of a suicide where the person travels hundreds of miles from home and does it while the journey is still in progress.”
“I told you.”
“You told me she didn’t kill herself. But she did. I saw her do it. But I’m saying she did it in a very unconventional manner. In fact I don’t think I ever heard of a suicide inside a subway car before. Under one, maybe, but not inside. Did you ever hear of a suicide on public transportation, during the ride?”
“So?”
“So nothing. I’m just asking, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“Because. Think like a cop, Jake. Not like a brother. What do you do when something is way out of line?”
“You dig deeper.”
“So do it.”
“It won’t bring her back.”
“But understanding a thing helps a lot.” Which was also a concept they taught at Fort Rucker. But not in the psychology class.
I got a refill of coffee and Jacob Mark picked up a packet of sugar and turned it over and over in his fingers so that the powder fell from one end of the paper rectangle to the other, repeatedly, like an hourglass. I could see his head working like a cop and his heart working like a brother. It was all right there in his face. Dig deeper. It won’t bring her back.
He asked, “What else?”
“There was a passenger who took off before the NYPD got to him.”
“Who?”
“Just a guy. The cops figured he didn’t want his name in the system. They figured he was maybe cheating on his wife.”
“Possible.”
“Yes,” I said. “Possible.”
“And?”
“Both the feds and the private guys asked me if your sister had handed me anything.”
“What kind of anything?”
“They didn’t specify. I’m guessing something small.”
“Who were the feds?”
“They wouldn’t say.”
&
nbsp; “Who were the private guys?”
I hitched up off the bench and took the business card out of my back pocket. Cheap stock, already creased, and already rubbed a little blue from my jeans. New pants, fresh dye. I put it on the table and reversed it and slid it across. Jake read it slowly, maybe twice. Sure and Certain, Inc. Protection, Investigation, Intervention. The telephone number. He took out a cell and dialed. I heard a delay and a chirpy little three-note ding-dong tone and a recorded message. Jake closed his phone and said, “Not in service. Phony number.”
Chapter 13
I took a second refill of coffee. Jake just stared at the waitress like he had never heard of the concept. Eventually she lost interest and moved away. Jake slid the business card back to me. I picked it up and put it in my pocket and he said, “I don’t like this.”
I said, “I wouldn’t like it, either.”
“We should go back and talk to the NYPD.”
“She killed herself, Jake. That’s the bottom line. That’s all they need to know. They don’t care how or where or why.”
“They should.”
“Maybe so. But they don’t. Would you?”
“Probably not,” he said. I saw his eyes go blank. Maybe he was rerunning old cases in his head. Big houses, leafy roads, lawyers living the high life on their clients’ escrow money, unable to make good, ducking out ahead of shame and scandal and disbarment. Or teachers, with pregnant students. Or family men, with boyfriends in Chelsea or the West Village. The local cops, full of tact and rough sympathy, large and intrusive in the neat quiet dwellings, checking the scenes, establishing the facts, typing reports, closing files, forgetting, moving on to the next thing, not caring how or where or why.
He said, “You got a theory?”
I said, “It’s too early for a theory. All we got so far is facts.”
“What facts?”
“The Pentagon didn’t entirely trust your sister.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say.”
“She was on a watch list, Jake. She must have been. As soon as her name hit the wires, those feds saddled up. Three of them. That was a procedure.”
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