Blue Moon (Jack Reacher #24)(84)

Reacher took the captured phone from him. He dialed the number. The phone rang. The call was answered.

He said, “Ms. Buckley?”

“Not here,” a voice said. “Try later.”

The phone went down again. Almost noon. The day half over. They rode the empty freight elevator down to the basement, where they found Barton and Hogan setting up. They had two friends on stage with them. A guy who played guitar, and a woman who sang. A regular lunchtime date for all of them, once a week.

Reacher hung back in the shadows. The room was large, but low. No windows, because it was a basement. There was a bar all the way across the right-hand wall, and a rectangle of parquet dance floor, and some chairs and tables, and some standing room only. There were maybe sixty people already inside. With more filing in. Past a guy in a suit on a stool. He was in the far left corner of the room. Not exactly a doorman. More like a bottom-of-the-stairs man. But his role was identical. Counting heads, and looking tough. He was a big individual. Broad shoulders, wide neck. Black suit, white shirt, black silk necktie. In the near left corner of the room was a double-wide corridor, that led to the restrooms, and a fire exit, and the freight elevator. It was the way they had come in. There were wide hoops of colored spotlights fixed to the ceiling, all trained inward on the stage. Not much else in the way of illumination. A dim fire exit sign at the head of the corridor, and another behind the man on the stool.

All good.

Reacher drifted back to the stage. The gear was all set up. It was humming and buzzing gently. Barton’s Precision Bass was leaning against his monster cabinet. Ready for action. His back-up instrument was on a stand next to it. Ready for emergencies. Barton himself was at a table close by. Eating lunch. A hamburger. He said the band got free food. Whatever they wanted off the menu, to a max of twenty bucks.

Reacher asked him, “What kind of stuff are you going to play?”

“Covers, mostly,” he said. “Maybe a couple of our own songs.”

“Are you loud?”

“If we want to be.”

“Do people dance?”

“If we want them to.”

“Make them dance the third number,” Reacher said. “Make it loud. Every eye on you.”

“That part usually comes at the end.”

“We don’t have time.”

“We have a rock and roll medley. Everyone dances to that. I guess we could bring it in early.”

“Works for me,” Reacher said. “Thank you.”

All good.

Plan made.



* * *



—

The house lights went down and the stage lights came up and the band kicked into its opening number, which was a mid-tempo rocker with a sad verse and an exuberant chorus. Reacher and Abby drifted away to the near right corner of the room, diagonally opposite the man on the stool. They drifted through the crowd at the bar, following the right-hand wall, aiming for the far right corner. They got there just as the band started its second number, which was faster and hotter than the first. They were warming up the crowd. Getting them ready for the rock and roll medley coming next. They were pretty good at it. They were hitting the spot. Absurdly Reacher wanted to stop and dance. Something about the pulse of the beat. He could see Abby felt the same way. She was walking ahead of him. He could see it in her hips. She wanted to dance.

So, absurdly, they did. In the dark, beyond the rim of the crowd, close to the wall, bopping away, maintaining some element of linear progress, in a two steps forward, one step back kind of a way, but basically just having fun. Some kind of release, Reacher figured, or relief, or diversion, or consolation. Or normality. What two people who just met should be doing.

All around them other people were doing it, too. More and more. So that when the third number started the place went wild, with people crushing in on the parquet floor, hopping around, plus a wide halo of more on the carpet, bumping tables, spilling drinks, going crazy. Make them dance. Make it loud. Every eye on you. Barton had delivered big time.

Reacher and Abby stopped dancing.

They ghosted the rest of the way along the back wall, behind the mass of dancers, toward the far left corner, where they arrived directly behind the man on the stool. They waited in the gloom six feet away, until a gaggle of latecomers started down the stairs. The man on the stool looked up at them. Reacher stepped behind him and clapped a hand down on his shoulder. Like a friendly greeting. Or a pretend surprise, just horsing around, like some guys do. Reacher figured that was all the latecomers saw. What they didn’t see was his fingers curling under the guy’s shirt collar, twisting it, tightening it. What they also didn’t see was his other hand, low down behind, jamming the muzzle of a gun hard against the base of the guy’s spine. Really hard. Hard enough to cause a puncture wound all by itself, even without pulling the trigger.

Reacher leaned forward and spoke in the guy’s ear.

He said, “Let’s go take a walk.”

He pulled with his left and pushed with his right and maneuvered the guy backward off the stool. He stood him upright and got him balanced. He twisted his collar harder. Abby stepped up and patted his pockets and took his phone and his gun. Another steel P7. The band fell straight into the second song in the medley. Faster and louder. Reacher leaned forward again.

He yelled, “Hear that backbeat? I could shoot you four to the bar and no one in here would notice a damn thing. So do exactly what I tell you.”