Past Tense (Jack Reacher #23)(59)

The static breathed in and out. Reacher had seen Persian carpets. Mostly in old houses, or rich houses, or old rich houses. He knew they were expensive. He knew they were often treasured heirlooms. Therefore cleaning them was a delicate matter. Experts were no doubt few and far between. So it was immediately plausible that a discerning customer in Laconia would need to send to Boston for a satisfactory service. Pick-up and drop-off included, no doubt, in the same all-in-one delicate and expert price.

All good.

Except.

He topped up his coffee and headed back to Amos’s office. She was at her desk, with her hand on the phone, as if she had just put it down, or couldn’t remember who she wanted to call.

He said, “I heard the radio in the squad room.”

She nodded.

“I got an update,” she said. “The decoy is getting drive-through coffee.”

“And a blue van came off the highway.”

“That too.”

“Got an opinion?”

“It’s a van,” she said. “I can think of a hundred reasons why it’s OK.”

“Ninety-nine,” Reacher said.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“How many Persian carpets have you seen?”

“A few.”

“Where?”

“An old lady we used to visit. In a big old house. We were told to call her an aunt. We weren’t allowed to touch anything.”

“Exactly. An old biddy. A rich old fussbudget. No doubt very organized. Probably she gets her mahogany polished at the same time her rug is out for cleaning. Which happens every time the latest labrador dies. When she also has her great-grandmother’s china washed. What’s the earliest time of day such a grand New Hampshire lady would be prepared to receive tradespeople at her door?”

Amos said nothing.

“The van is too early,” Reacher said. “That’s what’s wrong with it. It’s just after dawn. It’s not making a customer call in Laconia.”

“Want me to have it stopped?”

“I don’t care,” Reacher said. “I’ll survive either way. But if it’s the guy, you could get a nice bust out of it. He’s got to be carrying. Probably a big shotgun, if he seriously expects me to get in the van with him.”

“You’re about the size of a rolled-up rug,” she said. “From a big room. Maybe this is how they move people now. Since the new cars came out, with the smaller trunks.”

Reacher didn’t know if she was kidding or not.

“Up to you,” he said. “Taking a look might put your mind at rest.”

“I would need a SWAT team, if you’re right about the shotgun.”

Reacher didn’t answer. She thought for a moment, and then she picked up the phone. She said to whoever answered, “Keep eyes on the blue van from the carpet cleaner. Let me know where it goes.”

—

An hour later the work day was fully underway. The new watch was in. The station was bustling and crowded. Reacher kept out of the way. He heard a patchwork of news, some of it from the radio feed, which was still playing softly, and some of it from people calling out updates to each other, desk to desk across busy rooms, and some of it by eavesdropping on hurried corridor conversations. The decoy in the Chrysler was still driving around, ostentatiously legal, taking scrupulous care at every four-way, yielding and deferring to pedestrians and local drivers every chance he got. He had not yet stopped for gas. Or the bathroom. Opinion was divided as to which was the more impressive feat.

But they had lost the blue van. By then they had three squad cars out, one behind the Chrysler, and two patrolling the southern approaches, and the van had been seen once, but not again. Opinion was divided between two competing theories. Either the van had parked in a carefully hidden location, perhaps an alley or a courtyard, which automatically made it suspicious, or else it had driven straight through town and exited to the northwest, perhaps to service an address in a close-by community, which automatically didn’t.

Reacher wondered if the apple farmer had a Persian carpet in his house.

Amos said, “It’s nearly time for you to go.”

He said, “Maybe I’ll walk through a couple of alleys and courtyards.”

“You won’t walk through anywhere. I’m going to drive you. In a marked car. No one would be dumb enough to attack a police vehicle.”

“Are you worried about me?”

“Purely in an operational sense. I want you out of here. Definitively. Once and for all. No delays. Because then my problem is solved. For avoidance of doubt I want to see it happen with my own eyes.”

“Maybe after that you should go stop the decoy and let him know it’s all over. He might be grateful. He must be desperate for a leak by now.”

“Maybe I will.”

“You could tell him which way I went. Tell him I’d like to meet him. And his pal in the van.”

“Let it go,” she said. “This ain’t the MPs anymore.”

“Is that how you feel?”

“Mostly,” she said.

She made a couple of arrangements on the phone, and then she grabbed her bag and led Reacher out to the lot, where she chose a black and white still wet from the car wash. The keys were in it. Reacher rode in the front, cramped by the laptop and the custom compartments. He gave her directions, to the corner before the side street where the inn was. Where he had gotten out, the day before. All the way there he watched the traffic. Didn’t see a blue van. Didn’t see a black Chrysler, either. There was a late rush hour jam at one of the lights. Amos checked her watch. Getting close. She lit up her roof bar and slipped through in the wrong lane.