Blue Moon (Jack Reacher #24)(16)
The guy said, “You Shevick?”
Reacher said, “Who’s asking?”
“The people you just borrowed money from.”
“Sounds like you already know who I am.”
“We’re going to drive you home.”
“Suppose I don’t want you to?” Reacher said.
“Part of the deal,” the guy said.
“What deal?”
“We need to know where you live.”
“Why?”
“Reassurance.”
“Look me up.”
“We did.”
“And?”
“You’re not in the book. You don’t own real estate.”
Reacher nodded. The Shevicks had given up their landline telephone. The title to their house had already passed to the bank.
The guy said, “So we need to pay a personal visit.”
Reacher said nothing.
The guy asked, “Is there a Mrs. Shevick?”
“Why?”
“Maybe we should visit a little with her too, while we’re looking at where you live. We like to keep our customers close. We like to make a family’s acquaintance. We find it helpful. Now get in the car.”
Reacher shook his head.
“You misunderstand,” the guy said. “This is not a choice. It’s part of the deal. You borrowed our money.”
“Your milky-white friend inside explained the contract. He went through all the terms, in considerable detail. The administration fee, the dynamic pricing, the penalties. At one point he even introduced visual aids. After which he asked if I accepted the terms of the contract, and I said yes I did, so at that point the deal was done. You can’t start adding extra stuff afterward, about a ride home and meeting the family. I would have to agree to that, ahead of time. A contract is a two-way street. Subject to negotiation and agreement. It can’t be done unilaterally. That’s a basic principle.”
“You got a smart mouth.”
“I can only hope,” Reacher said. “Sometimes I worry I’m just pedantic.”
“What?”
“You can offer me a ride, but you can’t insist that I take it.”
“What?”
“You heard.”
“OK, I’m offering you a ride. Last chance. Get in the car.”
“Say please.”
The guy paused a long, long moment.
He said, “Please get in the car.”
“OK,” Reacher said. “Since you asked so nicely.”
Chapter 8
About the safest way to transport an unwilling hostage in a passenger car was to make him drive with his seat belt off. The guys with the Lincoln didn’t do that. They opted for a conventional second best instead. They put Reacher in the back, behind the empty front passenger seat, with nothing dead ahead for him to attack. The guy who had done all the talking got in next to him, on the other side, behind the driver, and he sat half sideways, watchful.
He said, “Where to?”
“Turn around,” Reacher said.
The driver U-turned across the width of the street, bouncing his front right-side wheel up the far curb, and slapping it down again.
“Go straight for five blocks,” Reacher said.
The driver rolled on. He was a smaller version of the first guy. Not as pale. Caucasian for sure, but not blinding. He had the same buzzed hair, golden and glittery. He had a knife scar on the back of his left hand. Probably a defensive wound. He had a spidery and fading tattoo snaking out of his right cuff. He had big pink ears, sticking straight out from the sides of his head.
Their tires pattered over broken blacktop and patches of cobblestone. After the five straight blocks they came to the four-way light. Where Shevick had waited to cross. They rolled out of the old world and into the new. Flat and open terrain. Concrete and gravel. Wide sidewalks. It all looked different in the dark. The bus depot was up ahead.
“Straight on,” Reacher said.
The driver rolled through the green. They passed the depot. They tracked around, a polite distance behind the high-rent districts. Half a mile later they came to where the bus had turned off the main drag.
“Take the right,” Reacher said. “Out toward the highway.”
He saw the in-town two-lane was called Center Street. Then it widened to four lanes and was called a state route number. Then came the giant supermarket. The office parks were up ahead.
“Where the hell are we going?” the guy in the back said. “No one lives out here.”
“Why I like it,” Reacher said.
The road was smooth. Their tires hissed over it. There was no traffic up ahead. Maybe something behind them. Reacher didn’t know. He couldn’t risk a look.
He said, “Tell me again why you want to meet my wife.”
The guy in the back said, “We find it helpful.”
“How?”
“You pay back a bank loan because you’re worried about your credit score and your good name and your standing in the community. But that’s all gone for you. You’re down in the sewer. What are you worried about now? What’s going to make you pay us back?”
They passed the office parks. Still no traffic. The auto dealer was up ahead in the distance. A wire fence, ranks of dark shapes, bunting that gleamed gray in the moonlight.