Blue Moon (Jack Reacher #24)(35)

“It feels weird, just to leave it.”

“No,” his guy said again. “It feels smart. We’re playing chess here. And right now we’re winning.”

“What will they do to our guys?”

“Nothing pleasant, I’m sure.”

No one spoke for a minute.

Then Gregory said, “We need to find the hookers. Can’t let them run away. Bad for discipline.”

“We’re on it,” someone said.

Silence again.

Then Gregory’s phone rang. He answered and listened and hung up.

He looked straight at his right-hand man.

He smiled.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe having the loan business puts us ahead.”

“How so?” his guy asked.

“Now we have a name,” Gregory said. “And a photograph. The guy who asked about Max Trulenko last night is called Aaron Shevick. He’s a customer. Currently he owes us twenty-five thousand dollars. We’re working on getting his address. Apparently he’s a big ugly son of a bitch.”



* * *



—

Abby parked on the curb next to the picket fence, and they all got out and walked up the narrow concrete path. Maria Shevick took her keys from the purse on her elbow and unlocked the door. They went inside. Maria saw the can of coffee on the kitchen counter.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Pure self-interest,” Reacher said back.

“You want some?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Maria opened the can and set the machine going. She joined Abby in the living room. Abby was looking at the photographs on the wall.

She asked, quietly, gently, “What’s the latest news on Meg?”

“It’s a brutal treatment,” Maria said. “She’s in a special isolation unit, either out of her mind on painkillers, or fast asleep, because they sedate her. We can’t visit. We can’t even talk on the phone.”

“That’s awful.”

“But the doctors are optimistic,” Maria said. “So far, anyway. We’ll know more soon. They’ll do another scan before long.”

“If we pay for it first,” her husband said.

Six chances before the week is over, Reacher thought.

He said, “We think Meg’s old boss is still in town. We think he still has money. Your lawyers reckon the best strategy is to sue him direct. Absolutely can’t fail, they said.”

“Where is he?” Shevick asked.

“We don’t know yet.”

“Can you find him?”

“Probably,” Reacher said. “That kind of thing used to be part of my job.”

“The law moves slow,” Maria said, like she had once before.

They ate the lunch from the gas station deli. In the living room, because the kitchen had only three chairs. Abby sat cross-legged on the floor where the TV used to be, and ate off her lap. Maria Shevick asked her what she did for a living. Abby told her. Aaron talked about the good old days before computer controlled machine tools. When everything was cut by eye and feel, to a thousandth of an inch. They could make anything. American workers. Once the greatest natural resource in the world. Now look what happened. A crying shame.

Reacher heard a car in the street. The soft hiss and squelch of a big sedan. He got up and stepped into the hallway and looked out the window. A black Lincoln Town Car. Two guys in it. Pale faces, fair hair, white necks. They were trying to turn the car around. Back and forth, back and forth, across the narrow width. They wanted to be facing in the right direction. For a fast getaway, perhaps. Abby’s Toyota didn’t help. It was in the way.

Reacher went back to the living room.

He said, “They figured out Aaron Shevick’s address.”

Abby stood up.

Maria said, “They’re here?”

“Because someone sent them,” Reacher said. “That’s the thing we have to remember. We’ve got about thirty seconds to figure this out. Whoever sent them knows where they are. If anything happens to them, this house becomes ground zero for retribution. We should try to avoid that if possible. If we were somewhere else, no problem. But not here.”

Shevick said, “So what do we do?”

“Get rid of them.”

“Me?”

“Any of you. Just not me. I’m the one they think is Aaron Shevick.”

There was a knock at the door.





Chapter 18


There was a second knock at the door. No one moved. Then Abby took a step, but Maria put a hand on her arm, and Aaron went instead. Reacher ducked into the kitchen, and sat there, listening. He heard the door open, and then a missed beat from the step, just silence, as if the two guys were momentarily set back by the fact that the man who had opened the door was not the man they were looking for.

One of them said, “We need to speak with Mr. Aaron Shevick.”

Mr. Aaron Shevick said, “Who?”

“Aaron Shevick.”

“I think he was the last tenant.”

“You rent here?”

“I’m retired. Too expensive to buy.”

“Who’s your landlord?”

“A bank.”