by Lee Child
“You first,” Reacher said. “Tell me your name.”
“Are you Shevick?”
“No,” Reacher said. “You’re confused about that. You’re confused about a lot of things.”
“Then who are you?”
“You first,” Reacher said again.
“What do you want?”
“I have a message for Gregory.”
“Who are you?”
“You first,” Reacher said, for the third time.
“My name is Danilo,” the guy said.
Abby stiffened in her seat.
“I am Gregory’s chief of staff,” the guy said. “What is your message?”
“It’s for Gregory,” Reacher said. “Transfer the call.”
“Not until I know who you are. Where are you from?”
“I was born in Berlin,” Reacher said.
“You’re East German? Not Russian?”
“My dad was a U.S. Marine. He was deployed to our embassy. I was born there. A month later I was somewhere else. Now I’m here. With a message for Gregory.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jack Reacher.”
“That’s the old man.”
“I told you, you’re confused about that. I’m not as young as I was, but I’m not old yet. Overall I’m doing OK. Now transfer the call.”
The guy named Danilo went quiet for a long moment. The chief of staff. A big decision. Like an executive officer. You didn’t bug the CO with the small stuff, but you made damn sure you knew which small stuff was really big stuff in disguise. And then, the biggest bureaucratic rule of all: if in doubt, play it safe.
Danilo played it safe. There was a click, and a long moment of dead air, and another click, and then a new voice came on, with a foreign word that could have been hello, or yes, or what, or shoot, or whatever.
Reacher said, “Speak English.”
Gregory said, “What do you want?”
“You got caller ID?”
“Why?”
“So you can tell who’s calling you.”
“You told Danilo your name is Reacher.”
“But whose phone am I on?”
No answer.
“They’re dead,” Reacher said. “They were useless. Like all your guys have been useless. They’re going down like flies. Pretty soon you’ll have no one left.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m coming for you, Gregory. You were going to hurt Maria Shevick. I don’t like people like you. I’m going to find you, and I’m going to make you cry like a little girl. Then I’m going to rip your leg off at the hip and beat you to death with it.”
Gregory paused a beat, and said, “You think you can do that?”
“I’m pretty sure.”
“Not if I see you first.”
“You won’t,” Reacher said. “You haven’t yet. You never will. You can’t find me. You’re not good enough. You’re an amateur, Gregory. I’m a professional. You won’t see me coming. You could go all the way to Situation Z and it wouldn’t help you. My advice right now is say your goodbyes and make your will.”
He clicked off and threw the phone out the window.
Abby said, “Danilo.”
A small voice. Hesitant.
Reacher said, “What about him?”
“He was the guy,” she said.
“What guy?”
“Who did the thing to me.”
Chapter 39
Abby started her story at a red light and continued it through three more. She spoke in a small, quiet voice. Diffident, uncertain, full of pain and embarrassment. Reacher listened, mostly saying nothing in response. It seemed like the best thing to do.
She said thirteen months previously, she had been waiting tables in a bar west of Center. It was new and hip and it made a lot of money. A flagship enterprise. As such it always had a man on the door. Mostly he was there to collect Gregory’s percentage, but sometimes he took on a security role. Like a bouncer. Which was Gregory’s way. He liked to offer the illusion of something in exchange. Abby said she was OK with all of that, fundamentally. She had worked in bars all her adult life, and she knew protection money was an inescapable reality, and she knew a bouncer had occasional value, when drunk guys were grabbing her ass and making lewd suggestions. Most of the time she was content to make a deal with the devil. She went along to get along, and sometimes she looked away, and other times she benefitted from a little intervention.
But one night a young guy was in, twenty-something, for a birthday celebration. He was a geeky guy, thin, hyped up, always in motion, laughing out loud at random things. But totally harmless. She said truth to tell, she wondered if he had a mental dysfunction. Some kind of screw loose, that made him overexcited. Which he was, undeniably. Even so, no one really objected. Except a guy in a thousand-dollar suit, who had maybe been expecting a different kind of ambience. Maybe more sophisticated. He was with a woman in a thousand-dollar dress, and between them they acted out all kinds of dissatisfied body language, telegraphing it, semaphoring it, huffing and puffing, getting more and more exaggerated, until even the doorman noticed.
Whereupon the doorman did what he was supposed to, which was to eyeball the interested parties, and assess them carefully, in terms of which of them was likely to be of greater future value, in terms of cold hard future revenue. Which was obviously the couple in the thousand-dollar clothes. They were drinking fancy cocktails. Their tab was going to be a couple hundred bucks. The geeky twenty-something was drinking domestic beer, very slowly. His tab was going to be about twelve dollars. So the doorman asked the geeky guy to leave.
Abby said, “Which I was still OK with, at that point. I mean, yeah, it was sad, and it sucked, but this is the real world. Everyone is trying to stay in business. But when they got face to face, I could see the doorman really hated the kid. I think it was the mental thing. Definitely the kid was a little off. The doorman reacted to it. It was primitive. Like the kid was the other, and had to be rooted out. Or maybe the doorman was deep down scared. Some people are, by mental illness. But whichever, he dragged the kid out the back, not the front, and beat him nearly to death. I mean, really, really badly. Broken skull, arm, ribs, pelvis, leg. Which was not OK with me.”
Reacher said, “What did you do about it?”
“I went to the cops. Obviously I knew Gregory was paying off the whole department, but I imagined there must be a line somewhere, that they wouldn’t let him cross.”
“Don’t frighten the voters.”
“But clearly this didn’t. Because nothing ever happened. The cops ignored me completely. No doubt Gregory straightened it all out behind the scenes. Probably with one phone call. Meanwhile I was left hanging out in the breeze. All alone and exposed.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing, the first day. Then I was called to a disciplinary tribunal. They love all that stuff. Organized crime is more bureaucratic than the post office. There were four men at a table. Danilo chaired the meeting. He never spoke. Just watched. At first I wouldn’t speak either. I mean, it was bullshit. I don’t work for them. They don’t make rules for me. As far as I was concerned, they could take their tribunal and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Then they explained the realities to me. If I didn’t cooperate, I would never work again, west of Center. Which is half the jobs I get, obviously. I really couldn’t afford to lose them. I would have starved. I would have had to leave town and start over somewhere else. So in the end I said OK, whatever.”
“How was it?”
She shrugged and shook her head and didn’t answer the question directly. Not with a one-word description. Instead she said, “I had to confess to my crime, in detail. I had to explain my motivation, and show where I later realized I had been misguided. I had to apologize most sincerely, over and over again, fo
r going to the police, for criticizing the doorman, for thinking I knew better. I had to promise them I was a reformed character. I had to assure them it was safe to let me keep on working. I had to make a formal application. I had to say, please sir, let me work in your half of town. In a nice voice. Like a good little girl.”
Reacher said nothing.
Abby said, “Then we moved to the punishment phase. They explained there had to be a forfeit. Something that would demonstrate my sincerity. They brought in a video camera with a tripod. I had to stand up straight, chin out, shoulders back. They said they were going to slap my face. That was the forfeit. Forty times. Twenty on the left, twenty on the right. They were going to film it. I was told to look brave and try not to cry. I was told not to cringe away, but to offer myself proudly and willingly, because I deserved it.”
Reacher said nothing.
Abby said, “They started the camera. It was Danilo who hit me. It was awful. Open hand, but really hard. He knocked me down half a dozen times. I had to get up and smile and say, sorry, sir. I had to get back in position, willing and eager. I had to count. One, sir, two, sir. I don’t know what was worse, the pain or the humiliation. He stopped halfway through. He said I could quit if I wanted. But I would lose the deal. I would have to leave town. So I said no. He made me ask out loud. I had to say, please sir, I want you to keep on slapping my face. When he was done I was all red and swollen and my head was ringing and I was bleeding in my mouth. But it’s the camera I think about now. It was for the internet, I’m sure. Had to be. Some porn site. The abuse and humiliation subgenre. Now my face will be out there forever, getting slapped.”
Up ahead, Barton’s van started to slow.
“OK,” Reacher said. “Danilo. Good to know.”
Chapter 40
The lounge was in the basement of a wide brick building on a decent street three blocks from the first of the downtown high-rises. There were coffee shops and boutiques on the ground floor, and other enterprises above. Maybe twelve in total. They all shared a freight entrance in back, where Barton parked. Reacher slotted the Lincoln next to him. Between them they hauled the stuff to the elevator. Then Vantresca showed up, in his Jaguar. He parked on the other side of the van and got out and said, “I’m with the band.”
Barton and Hogan rode down with their gear. Reacher and Abby stayed on the street. Abby asked Vantresca about the Shevicks.
“They’re hanging in there,” Vantresca said. “They’re on a high floor. It feels safe and remote. They’re taking showers and taking naps. I showed them how room service works. They’ll be OK. They seem pretty resilient. They’re too old to be snowflakes. At least they can watch TV now. They were happy about that. Tried not to show it.”
Abby gave him the second Ukrainian phone. The one Reacher didn’t throw out the car window. Vantresca read through the string of new texts. He said, “They know the Albanians are wiped out. They think they’re both being attacked by Russian organized crime. They’ve gone to Situation C. They’re tightening the guard. They’re taking up defensive positions. They’re saying, let no one pass. With an exclamation point. Very dramatic. Sounds like a slogan on an old Eastern Bloc billboard.”
“Any mention of Trulenko?” Reacher asked.
“Nothing. Presumably he’s part of tightening the guard.”
“But they’re not shutting him down.”
“Doesn’t say so.”
“Therefore what he does can’t be interrupted. Even for a war with Russian organized crime. That should tell us something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” Reacher said. “Did you stop by your office?”
Vantresca nodded. He pulled a slip of paper out of his back pants pocket. He handed it over. A name, and a number. Barbara Buckley. The Washington Post. A D.C. area code.
“Waste of time,” Vantresca said. “She won’t talk to you.”
Reacher took the captured phone from him. He dialed the number. The phone rang. The call was answered.
He said, “Ms. Buckley?”
“Not here,” a voice said. “Try later.”
The phone went down again. Almost noon. The day half over. They rode the empty freight elevator down to the basement, where they found Barton and Hogan setting up. They had two friends on stage with them. A guy who played guitar, and a woman who sang. A regular lunchtime date for all of them, once a week.
Reacher hung back in the shadows. The room was large, but low. No windows, because it was a basement. There was a bar all the way across the right-hand wall, and a rectangle of parquet dance floor, and some chairs and tables, and some standing room only. There were maybe sixty people already inside. With more filing in. Past a guy in a suit on a stool. He was in the far left corner of the room. Not exactly a doorman. More like a bottom-of-the-stairs man. But his role was identical. Counting heads, and looking tough. He was a big individual. Broad shoulders, wide neck. Black suit, white shirt, black silk necktie. In the near left corner of the room was a double-wide corridor, that led to the restrooms, and a fire exit, and the freight elevator. It was the way they had come in. There were wide hoops of colored spotlights fixed to the ceiling, all trained inward on the stage. Not much else in the way of illumination. A dim fire exit sign at the head of the corridor, and another behind the man on the stool.
All good.
Reacher drifted back to the stage. The gear was all set up. It was humming and buzzing gently. Barton’s Precision Bass was leaning against his monster cabinet. Ready for action. His back-up instrument was on a stand next to it. Ready for emergencies. Barton himself was at a table close by. Eating lunch. A hamburger. He said the band got free food. Whatever they wanted off the menu, to a max of twenty bucks.
Reacher asked him, “What kind of stuff are you going to play?”
“Covers, mostly,” he said. “Maybe a couple of our own songs.”
“Are you loud?”
“If we want to be.”
“Do people dance?”
“If we want them to.”
“Make them dance the third number,” Reacher said. “Make it loud. Every eye on you.”
“That part usually comes at the end.”
“We don’t have time.”
“We have a rock and roll medley. Everyone dances to that. I guess we could bring it in early.”
“Works for me,” Reacher said. “Thank you.”
All good.
Plan made.
* * *
—
The house lights went down and the stage lights came up and the band kicked into its opening number, which was a mid-tempo rocker with a sad verse and an exuberant chorus. Reacher and Abby drifted away to the near right corner of the room, diagonally opposite the man on the stool. They drifted through the crowd at the bar, following the right-hand wall, aiming for the far right corner. They got there just as the band started its second number, which was faster and hotter than the first. They were warming up the crowd. Getting them ready for the rock and roll medley coming next. They were pretty good at it. They were hitting the spot. Absurdly Reacher wanted to stop and dance. Something about the pulse of the beat. He could see Abby felt the same way. She was walking ahead of him. He could see it in her hips. She wanted to dance.
So, absurdly, they did. In the dark, beyond the rim of the crowd, close to the wall, bopping away, maintaining some element of linear progress, in a two steps forward, one step back kind of a way, but basically just having fun. Some kind of release, Reacher figured, or relief, or diversion, or consolation. Or normality. What two people who just met should be doing.
All around them other people were doing it, too. More and more. So that when the third number started the place went wild, with people crushing in on the parquet floor, hopping around, plus a wide halo of more on the carpet, bumping tables, spilling drinks, going crazy. Make them danc
e. Make it loud. Every eye on you. Barton had delivered big time.
Reacher and Abby stopped dancing.
They ghosted the rest of the way along the back wall, behind the mass of dancers, toward the far left corner, where they arrived directly behind the man on the stool. They waited in the gloom six feet away, until a gaggle of latecomers started down the stairs. The man on the stool looked up at them. Reacher stepped behind him and clapped a hand down on his shoulder. Like a friendly greeting. Or a pretend surprise, just horsing around, like some guys do. Reacher figured that was all the latecomers saw. What they didn’t see was his fingers curling under the guy’s shirt collar, twisting it, tightening it. What they also didn’t see was his other hand, low down behind, jamming the muzzle of a gun hard against the base of the guy’s spine. Really hard. Hard enough to cause a puncture wound all by itself, even without pulling the trigger.
Reacher leaned forward and spoke in the guy’s ear.
He said, “Let’s go take a walk.”
He pulled with his left and pushed with his right and maneuvered the guy backward off the stool. He stood him upright and got him balanced. He twisted his collar harder. Abby stepped up and patted his pockets and took his phone and his gun. Another steel P7. The band fell straight into the second song in the medley. Faster and louder. Reacher leaned forward again.
He yelled, “Hear that backbeat? I could shoot you four to the bar and no one in here would notice a damn thing. So do exactly what I tell you.”
He pushed the guy along the left-hand wall, stiff, awkward, four-legged, like the shadow he had seen in the Shevicks’ hallway. Abby kept pace a yard away, like a wingman. She roved back and forth. She ducked in and out. The band went straight into the third part of the medley. Faster and louder still. Reacher hustled the guy harder. Ran him all the way to the mouth of the corridor. To the freight elevator. Up to the street. Out to the dock. Out to the daylight. He hauled him around to the rear of the Lincoln. He stood him up straight and made him watch.
Abby pressed the button on the key fob.
