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“We have a pretty good description, but to be absolutely sure it’s the right guy we would need to see him leave the office. It’s a difficult street for surveillance. No natural cover. I spent an hour behind a tree and got busted by an acupuncturist. Potentially we would need to be there all day.”
“We could park a car.”
“Or we could take out an ad in the newspaper saying, hey, we’re watching your building. A car at the curb all day with three people in it is kind of obvious.”
“So what do we do?”
“Let’s go drive by a couple of random times. We might get lucky. If we don’t, we’ll wait for Turner and let her figure it out. She gets the big bucks, after all.”
—
Elwood’s rental was a white Kia, anonymous in every way. It was clean on the outside and smelled fresh on the inside. Reacher offered to drive, so Elwood could look around more and get a better feel for the lay of the land, but Elwood wouldn’t let him, because he had no license or insurance. Once a colonel, always a colonel. A stickler. So Reacher rode in the front passenger seat and navigated. They went the same way he and Turner had walked the first time. They turned in to the long street with the bungalows either side. The downtown speed limit in Palo Alto was twenty-five miles an hour, which felt slow and painstaking, but was ideal for eyeballing a neighborhood.
“Up ahead on the left,” Reacher said. “The dark blue one with the shingle at the curb.”
Elwood slowed down a little. They passed the real estate office where Turner had called Reacher her husband. Nothing was happening up ahead at Lazarus Lorenzo. No one going in or coming out, no lights on inside. No activity at all.
“It looks deserted,” Elwood said.
“It looked the same yesterday,” Reacher said. “But there were people inside. It’s kind of deceptive.”
Elwood crawled on, ostentatiously legal, like a guy worried about his license. They passed by the blue building. Still nothing doing. Then at the last minute Reacher said, “Pull over by that oak tree up ahead on the right.”
“Where?”
Reacher pointed. He said, “Pretend we have an acupuncture appointment.”
Elwood pulled in at the curb, right outside the clinic. He said, “Is that the tree you got busted hiding behind?”
Reacher nodded. “The acupuncturist saw me loitering. She seems to spend all day watching the street. Either nosy or bored. Maybe she doesn’t get many customers. Maybe people don’t like getting stuck with needles. Can’t imagine why.”
“So what now?”
“Let’s go talk to her. I bet we get a full report.”
They climbed out of the car and walked up the path. The door was closed but not locked. They went in. There was a new archway into a reception space in what must have been the living room, back in the bungalow’s residential past. The decor was muted and Chinese. There were waiting chairs and a desk, with a woman behind it. The pale face Reacher had seen at the window the day before. She smiled a polite and mannered smile, like a formal ceremony, and said, “May I help you?”
Reacher said, “I was hoping to speak with the lady I spoke with yesterday.”
“You are the man who hid behind the tree.”
“I am, yes.”
“Do you wish to hide behind the tree again?”
“I would prefer not to. I’m hoping your colleague might provide a shortcut today.”
The receptionist speed-dialed her desk phone and said something terse in Mandarin, which Reacher didn’t understand. Probably the idiot from yesterday is back again. Seconds later the woman he had talked to stepped into the room. Small, quizzical, dressed in Chinese print hospital scrubs, made of fine satin fabric.
She said, “You again.”
Reacher said, “It’s a pleasure to renew your acquaintance.”
“Have you developed pain or allergies?”
“Not as yet. I’m still doing well in those departments.”
She turned to Elwood. She said, “Then your friend, perhaps?”
