Ли Чайлд - Persuader

I breathed in, and then I breathed out. An NSV is more than five feet long and weighs more than fifty-five pounds. It uses cartridges four and a half inches long and a half-inch wide. It can fire twelve of them in a second. It has no safety mechanism. The combination of Paulie and an NSV would be nobody’s idea of fun.

“But I think you swam,” she said. “I can smell the sea on your shirt. Very faintly. You didn’t dry yourself properly when you got back.”

We passed a sign for a town called Saco. I coasted to the shoulder and stopped again. Cars and trucks whined past us.

“You were incredibly lucky,” she said. “There are some bad riptides off the point. Strong undertow. But I expect you went in behind the garages. In which case you missed them by about ten feet.”

“I don’t work for the government,” I said.

“Don’t you?”

“Don’t you think you’re taking a hell of a chance?” I said. “Let’s say I wasn’t exactly what I appeared to be. Just for the sake of argument. Let’s say I was from a rival organization, for instance. Don’t you see the risk? You think you would make it back to the house alive? Saying what you’re saying?”

She looked away.

“Then I guess that will be the test,” she said. “If you’re a government man, you won’t kill me. If you’re not, you will.”

“I’m just a guy,” I said. “You could get me in trouble.”

“Let’s find coffee,” she said. “Saco is a nice town. All the big mill owners lived there, way back.”

We ended up on an island in the middle of the Saco River. There was an enormous brick building on it that had been a gigantic mill, way back in history. Now it was being gentrified into hundreds of offices and stores. We found a glass-and-chrome coffee shop called Café Café. A pun in French, I guessed. But the smell alone was worth the trip. I ignored the lattes and the flavored foamy stuff and ordered regular coffee, hot, black, large. Then I turned to Elizabeth Beck. She shook her head.

“You stay,” she said. “I’ve decided to go shopping. Alone. I’ll meet you back here in four hours.”

I said nothing.

“I don’t need your permission,” she said. “You’re just my driver.”

“I don’t have any money,” I said.

She gave me twenty bucks from her purse. I paid for the coffee and carried it to a table. She came with me and watched me sit down.

“Four hours,” she said. “Maybe a little more, but no less. In case there’s something you need to do.”

“I’ve got nothing to do,” I said. “I’m just your driver.”

She looked at me. Zipped her purse. The space around my table was tight. She twisted a little to get the strap of her purse square on her shoulder. Jackknifed slightly to avoid touching the table and spilling my coffee. There was a clunk, like plastic hitting the floor. I looked down. Something had fallen out from under her skirt. She stared at it and her face slowly turned a deep shade of red. She bent and picked the thing up and clutched it in her hand. Fumbled her way onto the chair opposite me like all the strength had gone out of her. Like she was utterly humiliated. She was holding a pager. It was a black plastic rectangle a little smaller than my own e-mail device. She stared at it. Her neck was bright red all the way down under her sweater. She spoke in a low rueful whisper.

“He makes me carry it there,” she said. “Inside my underpants. He likes it to have what he calls the appropriate effect when it buzzes. He checks that it’s there every time I go through the gate. Normally I take it out and put it in my bag afterward. But I didn’t want to do that, you know, this time, with you watching.”

I said nothing. She stood up. Blinked twice and took a breath and swallowed.

“Four hours,” she said. “In case there’s something you need to do.”

Then she walked away. I watched her go. She turned left outside the door and disappeared. An elaborate con game? It was possible that they could try to set me up with her story. Possible that she could carry a pager in her pants to back it up. Possible that she could contrive to shake it loose at exactly the right moment. All possible. But what wasn’t even remotely possible was that she could manufacture a deep red blush, right on cue. Nobody can do that. Not even the world’s finest actress at the peak of her powers could do that. So Elizabeth Beck was for real.

I didn’t abandon sensible precautions entirely. They were too deeply ingrained for that. I finished my coffee like an innocent person with all the time in the world. Then I strolled out to the mall’s internal sidewalks and turned random lefts and rights until I was sure I was alone. Then I went back to the coffee shop and bought another cup. Borrowed their restroom key and locked myself in. Sat on the lid of the john and took off my shoe. There was a message waiting from Duffy: Why interest in Teresa Daniel’s real name? I ignored it and sent: Where is your motel? Ninety seconds later she answered: What did you have for breakfast first day in Boston? I smiled. Duffy was a practical woman. She was worried my e-mail device had been compromised. She was asking a security question. I sent: Short stack with egg, coffee, three-dollar tip, I ate it. Any other answer than that and she would be running for her car. Ninety seconds later she came back with: West side of Route One 100 yards south of Kennebunk River. I figured that was about ten miles away. I sent: See you in 10 minutes.

It took me more like fifteen minutes by the time I had gotten back to the car and fought the traffic where Route One bottlenecked through Saco. I kept one eye on the mirror the whole way and saw nothing to worry about. I crossed the river and found a motel on my right. It was a cheerful bright gray place pretending to be a string of classic New England saltboxes. It was April and not very busy. I saw the Taurus I had been a passenger in out of Boston parked next to the end room. It was the only plain sedan I could see. I put the Cadillac thirty yards away behind a wooden shed hiding a big propane tank. No sense in leaving it visible to everybody passing by on Route One.

I walked back and knocked once and Susan Duffy opened the door fast and we hugged. We just went straight into it. It took me completely by surprise. I think it took her by surprise, too. We probably wouldn’t have done it if we had thought about it first. But I guess she was anxious and I was stressed and it just happened. And it felt real good. She was tall, but she was slight. My hand spanned almost the whole width of her back and I felt her ribs give a little. She smelled fresh and clean. No perfume. Just skin, not long out of the shower.

“What do you know about Teresa?” she asked.

“You alone?” I asked.

She nodded. “The others are in Portland. Customs says Beck’s got a boat coming in today.”

We let go of each other. Moved on into the room.

“What are they going to do?” I asked.

“Observation only,” she said. “Don’t worry. They’re good at it. Nobody will see them.”

It was a very generic motel room. One queen bed, a chair, a desk, a TV, a window, a through-the-wall air conditioner. The only things that distinguished it from a hundred thousand other motel rooms were a blue-and-gray color scheme and nautical prints on the wall. They gave it a definite New England coastal flavor.

“What do you know about Teresa?” she asked again.

I told her about the name carved into the basement room floor. And the date. Duffy stared at me. Then she closed her eyes.

“She’s alive,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Well, she was alive yesterday,” I said.