Personal (Jack Reacher, #19)(63)

I shoved my Glock deep in my pocket. It fit pretty well, without the competition. Nice watched me and did the same. Smaller pocket, but a smaller gun. I heard its stubby barrel click against her pill bottle.

I said, ‘Keep your pills in your other pocket. You don’t want to get all snagged up.’

She paused a beat. She didn’t want to take the bottle out. She didn’t want to show me.

I said, ‘How many left?’

She said, ‘Two.’

‘You took one this morning?’

She nodded and said nothing.

‘And now you want to take another?’

She nodded and said nothing.

‘Don’t,’ I said.

‘Why not?’

‘They’re the wrong pills. You have no reason to be anxious. You’re performing very well. You’re a natural. You were superb this morning. From the pawn shop onward. All the way to the splinter of glass.’

Which was possibly one sentence too far. I saw her hand move, as if involuntarily, as if cupping itself around the dirty sweater padding the jagged edge. She was reliving the experience. And not liking it. Her eyes closed and her chest started to heave and she burst into tears. Tension, shock, horror, it all came out. She shook and howled. She opened her streaming eyes and looked up, and down, and left, and right. I turned to her and she collapsed against me, and I held her tight, in a strange chaste embrace, still in our separate seats, bent towards each other from our waists. She buried her head in the fold of my shoulder, and her tears soaked my jacket, right where Yevgeniy Khenkin’s brains had been.

Eventually she started breathing slower, and she said, ‘I’m sorry,’ all muffled against my coat.

I said, ‘Don’t be.’

‘I killed a man.’

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘You saved yourself. And me. Think about it like that.’

‘He was still a human being.’

‘Not really,’ I said again. ‘My grandfather once told me a story. He lived in Paris, where he made wooden legs for a living, but he was on vacation in the south of France, sitting on a hillside near a vineyard, eating a picnic, and he had his pocket knife out, to lever open a walnut, and he saw a snake coming towards him, real fast, and he stabbed it with the pocket knife, dead on through the centre of its head, and pinned it to the ground, about six inches from his ankle. That’s the same as you did. The guy was a snake. Or worse than a snake. A snake doesn’t know it’s a snake. It can’t help itself. But that guy knew what he was choosing. Just like the other guy, yesterday, who wasn’t helping old ladies across the street, or volunteering in the library, or raising funds for Africa.’

She rubbed her head against my arm. Nodding agreement, maybe. Or not, perhaps. Maybe just wiping her eyes. She said, ‘Doesn’t make me feel better.’

‘Shoemaker told me you knew what you signed up for.’

‘I did, in theory. Actually doing it feels different.’

‘There’s a first time for everything.’

‘Are you going to tell me it gets easier?’

I didn’t answer. I said, ‘Save the pills. You don’t need them. And even if you do, save them anyway. This is only the beginning. It’s going to get harder later.’

‘That’s hardly reassuring.’

‘You have nothing to worry about. You’re doing well. We’re both doing well. We’re going to win.’

She didn’t answer that. She hung on for a moment longer, and then she eased away from me, and we both retreated to our own spaces, and we sat up straight. She huffed and sniffed and wiped her face with her leather sleeve. She said, ‘Can we go back to the hotel? I want to take a shower.’

I said, ‘We’ll find a new hotel.’

‘Why?’

‘Rule one, change locations every day.’

‘My new toothbrush is still there.’

‘Rule two, keep your toothbrush in your pocket at all times.’

‘I’ll have to buy another.’

‘Maybe I’ll get a new one too.’

‘And I want to buy clothes.’

‘We can do that.’

‘I don’t have a bag any more.’

‘No big deal. I’ve never had a bag. All part of the experience. You change in the store.’

‘No, I mean, how do we carry the boxes of ammunition?’

‘In our other pockets.’

‘Won’t fit.’

She was right. I tried. The box stuck half in, half out. And my pocket was bigger than hers to begin with. I said, ‘But this is London. Who’s going to recognize it for what it is?’

She said, ‘One person in a thousand, maybe. But what happens if that one person is a cop, like at Wallace Court, with a bulletproof vest and a sub-machine gun? We can’t be seen walking around town with boxes full of live ammunition.’

I nodded. I said, ‘OK, we’ll get a temporary bag.’ I looked all around, in front, behind, both sides of the street. ‘Although I don’t see any bag stores here.’

She pointed half-left. ‘There’s a convenience store on the corner. Like a miniature supermarket. One of their chains, I think. Go buy something. Gum, or candy.’

‘Their bags are thin plastic. I’ve seen them. You put the Coke in one last night. It was practically transparent. As bad as our pockets.’