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inside the restaurant kitchen.
“Pussy,” Reacher called. “A thing like this, you should have been able to handle it on your own.”
The cop’s lips went tight and he shuffled toward the front of the car, tracking with his gun, adjusting his aim. He reached the front bumper and felt for the push bars with his knees. Came on around, getting nearer.
He stepped up out of the gutter onto the sidewalk.
Reacher waited. The cop was now on his right, so Reacher shuffled one step left, to keep the line of fire straight and dangerous and inhibiting. The Glock tracked his move, locked in a steady two-handed grip.
The cop said, “Get in the car.”
The cop took one step forward.
Now he was five feet away, one cast square of concrete sidewalk.
Reacher kept his back against the glass and moved his right heel against the base of the wall.
The cop stepped closer.
Now the Glock’s muzzle was within a foot of Reacher’s throat. The cop was a big guy, with long arms fully extended, and both feet planted apart in a useful combat stance.
Useful if he was prepared to fire.
Which he wasn’t.
Taking a gun from a man ready to use it was not always difficult. Taking one from a man who had already decided not to use it verged on the easy. The cop took his left hand off the gun and braced to grab Reacher by the collar. Reacher slid right, his back hard on the window, washed cotton on clean glass, no friction at all, and moved inside the cop’s aim. He brought his left forearm up and over, fast, one two, and clamped his hand right over the Glock and the cop’s hand together. The cop was a big guy with big hands, but Reacher’s were bigger. He clamped down and squeezed hard and forced the gun down and away in one easy movement. He got it pointing at the ground and increased the squeeze to paralyze the cop’s trigger finger and then he looked him in the eye and smiled briefly and jerked forward off his planted heel and delivered a colossal head butt direct to the bridge of the cop’s nose.
The cop sagged back on rubber legs.
Reacher kept tight hold of the guy’s gun hand and kneed him in the groin. The cop went down more or less vertically but Reacher kept his hand twisted up and back so that the cop’s own weight dislocated his elbow as he fell. The guy screamed and the Glock came free pretty easily after that.
Then it was all about getting ready in a hurry.
Reacher scrambled around the Crown Vic’s hood and hauled the door open. He tossed the Glock inside and slid in the seat and buckled the seat belt and pulled it snug and tight. The seat was still warm from the cop’s body and the car smelled of sweat. Reacher put the transmission in reverse and backed away from the Chevy and spun the wheel and came back level with it, in the wrong lane, facing east, just waiting.
24
The second cop showed up within thirty seconds, right on cue. Reacher saw the flare of flashing red lights a second before the Crown Vic burst around a distant corner. It fishtailed a little, then accelerated down the narrow street toward the restaurant, hard and fast and smooth.
Reacher let it get through one four-way, and another, and when it was thirty yards away he stamped on the gas and took off straight at it and smashed into it head-on. The two Crown Vics met nose to nose and their rear ends lifted off the ground and sheet metal crumpled and hoods flew open and glass burst and airbags exploded and steam jetted everywhere. Reacher was smashed forward against his seat belt. He had his hands off the wheel and his elbows up to fend off the punch of his airbag. Then the airbag collapsed again and Reacher was tossed back against the headrest. The rear of his car thumped back to earth and bounced once and came to rest at an angle. He pulled the Mossberg pump out of its between-the-seats holster and forced the door open against the crumpled fender and climbed out of the car.
The other guy hadn’t been wearing his seat belt.
He had taken the impact of his airbag full in the face and was lying sideways across the front bench with blood coming out of his nose and his ears. Both cars were wrecked as far back as the windshield pillars. The passenger compartments were basically OK. Full-sized sedans, five-star crash ratings. Reacher was pretty sure both cars were undrivable but he was no kind of an automotive expert and so he made sure by racking the Mossberg twice and firing two booming shots into the rear wheel wells, shredding the tires and ripping up all kinds of other small essential components. Then he tossed the pump back through the first Crown Vic’s window and walked over and climbed into Vaughan’s Chevy and backed away from all the wreckage. The waitress and the nine customers inside the restaurant were all staring out through the windows, mouths wide open in shock. Two of the customers were fumbling for their cell phones.
Reacher smiled. Who are you going to call?
He K-turned the Chevy and made a right and headed north for Main Street and made another right and cruised east at a steady fifty. When he hit the lonely road after the gas station he kicked it up to sixty and kept one eye on the mirror. Nobody came after him. He felt the roughness under his tires but the roar was quieter than before. He was a little deaf from the airbags and the twin Mossberg blasts.
Twelve minutes later he bumped over the expansion joint and cruised into Hope, at exactly three o’clock in the afternoon.
He didn’t know how long Vaughan would sleep. He guessed she had gotten her head on the pillow a little after nine that morning, which was six hours ago. Eight hours’ rest would take her to five o’clock, which was reasonable for an on-deck time of seven in the evening. Or maybe she was already up and about. Some people slept worse in the daytime than the night. Habit, degree of acclimatization, circadian rhythms. He decided to head for the diner. Either she would be there already or he could leave her keys with the cashier.
She was there already.
He pulled to the curb and saw her alone in the booth they had used before. She was dressed in her cop uniform, four hours before her watch. She had an empty plate and a full coffee cup in front of her.
He locked the truck and went in and sat down opposite her. Up close, she looked tired.
“Didn’t sleep?” he asked.
“Is it that obvious?”
“I have a confession to make.”
“You went to Despair. In my truck. I knew you would.”
“I had to.”
“Sure.”
“When was the last time you drove out to the west?”
“I try to stay out of Despair.”
“There’s a military base just inside the line. Fairly new. Why would that be?”
Vaughan said, “There are military bases all over.”
“This was a combat MP unit.”
“They have to put them somewhere.”
“Overseas is where they need to put them. The army is hurting for numbers right now. They can’t afford to waste good units in the back of beyond.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a good unit.”
“It was.”
“So maybe it’s about to ship out.”
“It just shipped back in. It just spent a year under the sun. The guy I spoke to had squint lines like you wouldn’t believe. His gear was worn from the sand.”
“We have sand here.”
“Not like that.”
“So what are you saying?”
The waitress came by and Reacher ordered coffee. Vaughan’s cup was still full. Reacher said, “I’m asking why they pulled a good unit out of the Middle East and sent it here.”
Vaughan said, “I don’t know why. The Pentagon doesn’t explain itself to neighboring police departments.”
The waitress brought a cup for Reacher and filled it from a Bunn flask. Vaughan asked, “What does a combat MP unit do exactly?”
Reacher took a sip of coffee and said, “It guards things. Convoys or installations. It maintains security and repels attacks.”
“Actual fighting?”
“When necessary.”
“Did you do that?”
“Som
e of the time.”
Vaughan opened her mouth and then closed it again as her mind supplied the answer to the question she was about to ask.
“Exactly,” Reacher said. “What’s to defend in Despair?”
“And you’re saying these MPs made you drive on through?”
“It was safer. They would have checked your plate if I hadn’t.”
“Did you get through OK?”
“Your truck is fine. Although it’s not exactly yours, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who is David Robert Vaughan?”
She looked blank for a second. Then she said, “You looked in the glove box. The registration.”
“A man with a gun wanted to see it.”
“Good reason.”
“So who is David Robert?”
Vaughan said, “My husband.”
25
Reacher said, “I didn’t know you were married.” Vaughan turned her attention to her lukewarm coffee and took a long time to answer.
“That’s because I didn’t tell you,” she said. “Would you expect me to?”
“Not really, I suppose.”
“Don’t I look married?”
“Not one little bit.”
“You can tell just by looking?”
“Usually.”
“How?”
“Fourth finger, left hand, for a start.”
“Lucy Anderson doesn’t wear a ring either.”
Reacher nodded. “I think I saw her husband today.”
“In Despair?”
“Coming out of the rooming house.”
“That’s way off Main Street.”
“I was dodging roadblocks.”
“Terrific.”
“Not one of my main talents.”
“So how did they not catch you? They’ve got one road in and one road out.”
“Long story,” Reacher said.
“But?”
“The Despair PD is temporarily understaffed.”
“You took one of them out?”
“Both of them. And their cars.”
“You’re completely unbelievable.”
“No, I’m a man with a rule. People leave me alone, I leave them alone. If they don’t, I don’t.”
“They’ll come looking for you here.”
“No question. But not soon.”
“How long?”
“They’ll be hurting for a couple of days. Then they’ll saddle up.”
Reacher left her alone with her truck keys on the table in front of her and walked down to Third Street and bought socks and underwear and a dollar T-shirt in an old-fashioned outfitters next to a supermarket. He stopped in at a pharmacy and bought shaving gear and then headed up to the hardware store at the western end of First Street. He picked his way past ladders and wheelbarrows and wound through aisles filled with racks of tools and found a rail of canvas work pants and flannel shirts. Traditional American garments, made in China and Cambodia, respectively. He chose dark olive pants and a mud-colored check shirt. Not as cheap as he would have liked, but not outrageous. The clerk folded them up into a brown paper bag and he carried it back to the motel and shaved and took a long shower and dried off and dressed in the new stuff. He crammed his old gray janitor uniform in the trash receptacle.
Better than doing laundry.
The new clothes were as stiff as boards, to the point where walking around was difficult. Clearly the Far Eastern garment industry took durability very seriously. He did squats and bicep curls until the starch cracked and then he stepped out and walked down the row to Lucy Anderson’s door. He knocked and waited. A minute later she opened up. She looked just the same. Long legs, short shorts, plain blue sweatshirt. Young, and vulnerable. And wary, and hostile. She said, “I asked you to leave me alone.”
He said, “I’m pretty sure I saw your husband today.”
Her face softened, just for a second.
“Where?” she asked.
“In Despair. Looks like he’s got a room there.”
“Was he OK?”
“He looked fine to me.”
“What are you going to do about him?”
“What would you like me to do about him?”
Her face closed up again. “You should leave him alone.”
“I am leaving him alone. I told you, I’m not a cop anymore. I’m a vagrant, just like you.”
“So why would you go back to Despair?”
“Long story. I had to.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re a cop.”
“You saw what was in my pockets.”
“You left your badge in your room.”
“I didn’t. You want to check? My room is right here.”
She stared at him in panic and put both hands on the door jambs like he was about to seize her around her waist and drag her away to his quarters. The motel clerk stepped out of the office, forty feet to Reacher’s left. She was a stout woman of about fifty. She saw Reacher and saw the girl and stopped walking and watched. Then she moved again but changed direction and started heading toward them. In Reacher’s experience motel clerks were either nosy about or else completely uninterested in their guests. He figured this one was the nosy kind. He stepped back a pace and gave Lucy Anderson some air and held up his hands, palms out, friendly and reassuring.
“Relax,” he said. “If I was here to hurt you, you’d already be hurt by now, don’t you think? You and your husband.”
She didn’t answer. Just turned her head and saw the clerk’s approach and then ducked back to the inside shadows and slammed her door, all in one neat move. Reacher turned away but knew he wasn’t going to make it in time. The clerk was already within calling distance.
“Excuse me,” she said.
Reacher stopped. Turned back. Said nothing.
The woman said, “You should leave that girl alone.”
“Should I?”
“If you want to stay here.”
“Is that a threat?”
“I try to maintain standards.”
“I’m trying to help her.”
“She thinks the exact opposite.”
“You’ve talked?”
“I hear things.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“You look like a cop.”
“I can’t help that.”
“You should investigate some real crimes.”
