Make Me (11 page)

Chang said, “Let the fun begin.”

She parked in the slot under her room and shut down the engine. They paused a moment in the sudden silence, and then they climbed out. They put their hands on their captured guns in their pockets, and stood near the car, in the yellow nighttime half-light, from the glow of the electric bulbs in their bulkhead fixtures, one above every door, and all of them working.

No movement. No sound.

No Moynahans, no posse.

Nothing.

Then a hundred feet away the one-eyed guy came out of the office.

He hustled over, the same way he had before, waving and gesturing, and when he arrived he fixed his imperfect gaze on the ground, and he took a breath.

“I apologize,” he said. “A mistake was made. It led to a misunderstanding. Room 215 is yours to use, until the other gentleman gets back.”

Chang said nothing.

Reacher said, “Understood.”

The one-eyed guy nodded, as if to seal the deal, and then he turned tail and hustled back. Chang watched him go, and said, “Could be a trap or an ambush.”

“Could be,” Reacher said. “But I don’t think it is. He wouldn’t want fighting inside the actual room itself. The furniture would get busted up, and he would be patching bullet holes in the drywall all winter long.”

“You saying they’ve surrendered?”

“It’s a move in the game.”

“What’s the next move?”

“I don’t know.”

“And when will it come?”

“Tomorrow, probably,” Reacher said. He looked all around, all three sides of the horseshoe, downstairs and upstairs. There was a rim of light around the drapes in room 203. Where the man in the suit had stayed. It had a new occupant.

“Not before dawn,” he said. “That would be my guess.”

“Will you sleep OK?”

“I expect so. Will you?”

“If I don’t, I’ll bang on the wall.”

They went up the metal stairs together, and pulled their keys, and turned their locks, side by side but twenty feet apart, like neighbors getting home from work.

—

A hundred feet
away the one-eyed guy took the lawn chair from outside 102, which was empty, and hauled it over to the spot he had used before, on the sidewalk under his office window. He lined it up and dumped himself down, in the nighttime air, ready to obey the second of the evening’s commands, which had been
Watch their rooms all night
.

The first command had been
Even if they come back, do not under any circumstances rock the boat tonight
. Which matter he thought he had handled in a satisfactory manner.

Chapter
19

As before, Reacher sat in
his room in the dark, back from the window, invisible from the outside, just watching, this time from a second-floor perspective. Fifteen minutes, then twenty, then thirty. As long as it took, to be sure. The one-eyed guy in his plastic chair was the same pale smudge in the distance, a hundred feet away. The rim of light around 203’s drapes burned steadily. Nothing moved. No cars, no people. No glowing cigarettes in the shadows.

Nothing doing.

Forty minutes. Room 203’s lights went out. The one-eyed guy stayed where he was. Reacher gave it ten minutes more, and went to bed.

—

Morning came, and
it looked as good as the previous morning. The light was pale gold, and the shadows were long. As good as the first morning ever, maybe. Reacher sat on the bed, in a towel, without coffee, and watched. The plastic chair was a hundred feet away, outside the office, but it was abandoned again. Room 203’s drapes were still closed. No one was moving. There was traffic out on the wide street, heard but not seen, first one truck, then a couple more.

Then silence.

He waited.

And the same things happened.

The shadows retreated, yard by yard, as the sun climbed higher. The seven o’clock train rolled in, and waited, and rolled out again. And the drapes opened in room 203.

A woman. The sun was still on the glass, which made her dustier than she should have been, but Reacher could see her, pale, in white, standing like the guy the day before, with her arms wide and her hands on the drapes. She was staring at the morning, the same way he had.

Then the white Cadillac sedan drove in, and aimed right and backed left, into the same slot as before. Still no front license plate. This time the driver got out right away. Above his head the door opened, and the woman in white stepped out of her room. The white was a dress, knee length, like a sheath. White shoes. She wasn’t young, but she was in good shape. Like she worked at it. Her hair was the color of ash, and cut in a bob.

She had more luggage than the previous guy. She had a neat roll-on suitcase, with wheels and a handle. Bigger than the leather bag. But not huge. Dainty, even. She set out toward the stairs, and the Cadillac driver anticipated her coming predicament, and he threw out a
Wait
gesture, and went up to meet her. He collapsed her bag’s handle and carried it down, ahead of her, as if showing her the way. He put the bag in the trunk, and she got in the rear seat, and he got back behind the wheel, and the car pulled out and drove away.

Still no rear license plate.

Reacher went and took a shower. He heard Chang in the next-door bathroom. The tubs shared a wall. Which meant she hadn’t met the morning train. Which was a rational decision. It had saved her a walk both ways. Maybe she had done what he had, and watched. Maybe they had been sitting side by side, in towels, separated only by the wall. Although she probably had pajamas. Or a nightgown. Probably not voluminous. Given the weather, and the need to pack small.

He was out before her, and he headed to the diner, hoping to get the same pair of side-by-side tables in the far back corner, which he did. He put his jacket on her chair, pulled down on one side by the Smith in the pocket, and he ordered coffee. Chang came in five minutes later, in the same jeans but a fresh T-shirt, her hair still inky with water from the shower. Her own jacket was pulled down on one side, by her own Smith. Like any ex-cop she looked around, the full 360, seven or eight separate snapshots, and then she moved through the room with plenty of energy, powered by what looked like enthusiasm, or maybe some kind of shared euphoria at their mutual survival through the night. She slid in alongside him.

He said, “Did you sleep?”

She said, “I must have. I didn’t think I was going to.”

“You didn’t go meet the train.”

“He’s a prisoner, according to you. And that’s the best-case scenario.”

“I’m only guessing.”

“It’s a reasonable assumption.”

“Did you see the woman in 203?”

“I thought she was hard to explain. Dressed in black, she could have been an investor or a fund manager or something else deserving of the junior executive routine. Her face and hair were right. And she has a key to the company gym. That’s for sure. But dressed in white? She looked like she was going to a garden party in Monte Carlo. At seven o’clock in the morning. Who does that?”

“Is it a fashion thing? Someone’s idea of summer clothes?”

“I sincerely hope not.”

“So who was she?”

“She looked like she was headed to City Hall for her fifth wedding.”

The waitress came by, and Chang asked her, “Do you know a guy in town named Maloney?”

“No,” she said. “But I know two guys named Moynahan.”

And then she winked and walked away.

Chang said, “Now she’s really your best friend forever. I don’t think she likes the Moynahans.”

Reacher said, “I don’t see why anyone would.”

“Someone must. We should assume they have their own best friends forever. We should expect a reaction.”

“But not yet. They both took a hit. It’s going to be like having the flu for a couple of days. Not like on a television show, where they get over it during the commercial messages.”

“But they’ll get over it eventually. Could be a mob scene, between their friends and their co-conspirators.”

“You were a cop. I’m sure you shot people before.”

“I never even drew my weapon. It was Connecticut. A small town.”

“What about in the FBI?”

“I was a financial analyst. White collar.”

“But you qualified, right? At the range?”

“We had to.”

“Were you any good?”

“I won’t shoot unless they fire first.”

“I can live with that.”

“This is crazy talk. This is a railroad stop. This is not the OK Corral.”

“All those places had the railroad. That was the point. The bad guy would get off the train. Or the new sheriff.”

“How serious do you think this is?”

“It’s on a scale, like anything else. At one end Keever’s in Vegas with a nineteen-year-old. At the other end he’s dead. I’m shading toward the dead end of the middle. Or maybe a little beyond. I’m sorry. It was probably an accident. Or a semi-accident. Or panic. So now they don’t know what to do.”

“Do we?”

“Right now we have a simple three-part agenda. Eat breakfast, drink coffee, and find Maloney.”

“Might not be easy.”

“Which part?”

“Maloney.”

“We should start at the receiving office. Over by the elevators. I bet they know every name for two hundred miles. And it might be two birds with one stone. If there’s something hinky about the wheat, we might pick up a vibe.”

Chang nodded and said, “How did you sleep?”

“It was weird at first, with Keever’s things in the room. His suitcase by the wall. I felt like someone else. I felt like a normal person. But I got over it.”

—

The receiving office
was a plain wooden structure next in line after the weighbridge. It was purely utilitarian. It was what it was. It made no concession to style or appeal. It didn’t need to. It was the only game in town, and farmers either used it or starved.

Inside, it had counters for form-filling, and a worn floor where drivers waited in line, and a stand-up desk where deliveries were recorded. Behind the desk was a white-haired guy in bib overalls, with a blunt pencil behind his ear. He was fussing around with stacks of paper. He was gearing up ahead of the harvest, presumably. He had the look of a guy entirely happy in his little fiefdom.

He said, “Help you?”

Reacher said, “We’re looking for a guy named Maloney.”

“Not me.”

“You know a Maloney around here?”

“Who’s asking?”

“We’re private detectives from New York City. A guy died and left all his money to another guy. But it turns out the other guy already died too, so now the money is back in the pot for all the relatives we can find. One of them claims he has a cousin in this county named Maloney. That’s all we know.”

“Not me,” the guy said again. “How much money?”

“We’re not allowed to say.”

“A lot?”

“Better than a poke in the eye.”

“So how can I help you?”

“We figured you might know a bunch of names around here. I imagine most folks must come through this office at one time or another.”

The guy nodded, like a vital and unanticipated connection had been made. He hit the space bar on a keyboard and a screen lit up. He maneuvered a mouse and clicked on something and a list appeared, long and dense. A bunch of names. He said, “These are the folks pre-cleared for using the weighbridge. Goes faster that way. Which we need, at busy times. I guess this would be all the grain people in the neighborhood. From the owners to the workers and back again. Men, women, and children. This business is all-hands-on-deck, at certain times of the year.”

Chang said, “You see a Maloney in there? We’d certainly appreciate a first name and an address.”

The guy used the mouse again and the list scrolled upward. Alphabetical. He stopped halfway down and said, “There’s a Mahoney. But he passed on, I think. Two or three years ago, if I remember right. The cancer got him. No one knew what kind.”

Chang said, “No one named Maloney?”

“Not on the list.”

“Suppose he’s not a grain worker? Would you know him anyway?”

“Maybe socially. But I don’t. I don’t know anyone named Maloney.”

“Is there anyone else we could ask?”

“You could try the Western Union store. With the FedEx franchise. It’s more or less our post office.”

“OK,” Reacher said. “Thanks.”

The guy nodded and looked away and said nothing, as if both enchanted and annoyed by the break in his routine.

—

Reacher remembered where
the Western Union store was. He had seen it before, twice, on his block-by-block explorations. A small place, with a window crowded by neon signs, for MoneyGram, and faxing, and photocopying, and FedEx, and UPS, and DHL. They went in, and the guy behind the counter looked up. He was about forty, tall and well built, not fat but certainly fleshed out, with a full head of hair, and a guileless face.

He was the Cadillac driver.

Chapter
20

The store was as plain
as the receiving office, all dust and unpainted wood, with worn beige machines for faxing and photocopying, and untidy piles of address forms for the parcel services, and teetering stacks of packages, some presumably incoming, and some presumably outgoing. Some packages were small, barely larger than the address labels stuck to them, and some were large, including two that were evidently drop-shipped direct from foreign manufacturers in their original cartons, one being German medical equipment made from sterile stainless steel, if Reacher could trust his translation skills, and the other being a high-definition video camera from Japan. There were sealed reams of copy paper on open shelves, and ballpoint pens on strings, and a cork noticeboard on a wall, covered with thumbtacked fliers for all kinds of neighborhood services, including guitar lessons and yard sales and rooms to rent.
It’s more or less our post office,
the guy in the receiving hut had said, and Reacher saw why.

The Cadillac driver said, “Can I help you?”

He was behind a plywood counter, counting dollar bills.

Reacher said, “I recognize you from somewhere.”