Blue Moon (Jack Reacher #24)(61)

“OK,” Hogan said. “We’ll call.”

“Thanks. Any time, night or day. Don’t delay.”

“OK,” Hogan said again.

“One last thing.”

“What?”

“Another way you could help me out.”

“How?”

“Obviously I’m going to report this address as what we call in our business a place of zero concern. Targets clearly not there, just regular folks going about their regular business, and so on and so forth.”

“Good,” Hogan said.

“But in our business we take process very seriously. We like numbers. At some point I’m sure to be asked, with what exact degree of confidence do I make that assessment?”

“Hundred percent,” Hogan said again.

“I hear you, but at the end of the day, that’s just a verbal report by an interested party.”

“All you got.”

“My point exactly,” the guy said. “It would really help me out if I could take a walk through your property and see for myself. Then we got a foundation of solid evidence to go on. Case closed. We wouldn’t need to bother you again. Maybe you would get an invitation to the July Fourth picnic. One of the family now. A solid guy who helps out.”

“It’s not my property,” Hogan said. “I rent a room. I don’t think I have the authority.”

“Maybe the other gentleman, in the living room.”

“You need to take our word for it, and you need to leave now.”

“Don’t worry about the weed,” the guy said. “Is that it? I could smell it down the street. I don’t care about weed. I’m not a cop. I’m not here to bust you. I’m a representative from the local mutual aid society. We work hard in the community. We achieve impressive results.”

“Take our word for it,” Hogan said again.

“Who else is in the house?”

“No one.”

“Been alone all night?”

“We had people over for the evening.”

“What people?”

“Friends,” Hogan said. “We had Chinese food and a little wine.”

“Did they stay over?”

“No.”

“How many friends?”

“Two.”

“A man and a woman, by any chance?”

“Not the man and woman you’re looking for.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they can’t be. They’re just regular folks. Like you said.”

“You sure they didn’t stay over?”

“I saw them leave.”

“OK,” the guy said. “Then you have nothing to worry about. I’ll just take a quick glance around. I’ll know right away anyway. I have some experience in these matters. I was a police detective back in Tirana. Usually I found it impossible for a person to be in a house without leaving visible clues somewhere, including about who they were, and why they were there.”

Hogan had no answer.

Reacher and Abby heard footsteps in the hallway directly below them. The guy had stepped inside.

Abby whispered, “I can’t believe Hogan let him in. Obviously this guy will look everywhere. It won’t be a quick glance around. Hogan fell for it.”

“Hogan is doing fine,” Reacher said. “He’s a U.S. Marine. He has a sound grasp of strategy. He gave us plenty of time to get dressed and make the bed and get the window open, so that right about now, as the guy steps inside, we climb outside, and we hide on the roof or in the yard, and the guy doesn’t find us, and he goes away happy, all without a single moment of confrontation. The best fights are the ones you don’t have. Even Marines understand that.”

“But we’re not climbing out the window. We’re just standing here. We’re not following the plan.”

“There might be an alternative approach.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe something more army than Marine Corps.”

“Like what?” she said again.

“Let’s wait and see what happens,” he said.

Below them they heard the guy tramp his way into the parlor.

They heard him say, “You’re musicians?”

“Yes.”

“You play our clubs?”

“Yes.”

“Not anymore, unless your attitude improves.”

No reply. Silence for a second. Then from above they heard the guy move out to the hallway again, and onward into the kitchen.

“Chinese food,” they heard him say. “Lots of containers. You were telling the truth.”

“Plus wine,” Hogan said. “Like I told you.”

They heard a clink. Two empty bottles, picked up or knocked together or otherwise examined or inspected or disturbed.

Then silence.

Then they heard the guy say, “What’s this?”

They heard the air suck out of the room.

No sound at all.

Until they heard the guy answer his own question.

They heard him say, “It’s a scrap of paper with the Albanian word for ugly written on it.”





Chapter 30