Ли Чайлд - No Middle Name

‘So we’re both out-of-towners.’

‘Not tonight,’ Chrissie said.

‘What are your friends going to do?’

‘About what?’

‘About getting home tonight.’

‘I’m going to drive them,’ Chrissie said. ‘Like always.’

Reacher said nothing.

‘But they’ll wait,’ Chrissie said. ‘That’s part of the deal.’

The Chevette’s air conditioner was about as lousy as the coffee shop’s, but something was better than nothing. There were a few people on Broadway, like ghosts in a ghost town, moving slow, and a few on Lafayette, slower still, and homeless people on the Bowery, waiting for the shelters to open. Chrissie parked two blocks north of the venue, on Great Jones Street, between a car with its front window broken and a car with its back window broken. But it was under a working street light, which looked to be about as good as it got, short of employing a team of armed guards, or a pack of vicious dogs, or both. And the car would have been no safer left on Washington Square, anyway. So they got out into the heat and walked to the corner through air thick enough to eat. The sky was as hot and hard as an iron roof at noontime, and it was still flickering in the north, with the kind of restless energy that promised plenty and delivered nothing.

There was no line at the door of the club, which Chrissie felt was a good thing, because it meant there would be spots to be had at the front near the stage, just in case it really was the Ramones or Blondie that night. A guy inside took their money, and they moved past him into the heat and the noise and the dark, towards the bar, which was a long low space with dim light and sweating walls and red diner stools. There were about thirty people in there, twenty-eight of them kids no older than Chrissie, plus one person Reacher already knew, and another person he was pretty sure he was going to get to know, pretty well and pretty soon. The one he knew was Jill Hemingway, still thin and blonde and nervous, still in her short summer dress. The one he felt he would get to know looked a lot like Croselli. A cousin, maybe. He was the same kind of size and shape and age, and he was wearing the same kind of clothes, which were a sweated-through suit and a shirt plastered tight against a wet and hairy belly.

Jill Hemingway saw Reacher first. But only by a second. She moved off her stool and took a step and immediately the guy in the suit started snapping his fingers and gesturing for the phone. The barkeep dumped the instrument in front of him and the guy started dialling. Hemingway pushed her way through the thin crowd and came up to Reacher face to face and said, ‘You idiot.’

Reacher said, ‘Jill, this is my friend Chrissie. Chrissie, this is Jill, who I met earlier this evening. She’s an FBI agent.’

Beside him Chrissie said, ‘Hi, Jill.’

Hemingway looked temporarily nonplussed and said, ‘Hi, Chrissie.’

Reacher said, ‘Are you here for the music?’

Hemingway said, ‘I’m here because this is one of the few places Croselli doesn’t get total cooperation. Therefore this is one of the few places I knew he would have to put a guy. So I’m here to make sure nothing happens to you.’

‘How did you know I would come here?’

‘You live in South Korea. What else have you heard of?’

Chrissie said, ‘What exactly are we talking about?’

Croselli’s guy was still on the phone.

Reacher said, ‘Let’s sit down.’

Hemingway said, ‘Let’s not. Let’s get you the hell out of here.’

Chrissie said, ‘What the hell is going on?’

There were tiny café tables near the deserted stage. Reacher pushed through the crowd, left shoulder, right shoulder, and sat down, his back to a corner, most of the room in front of him. Chrissie sat down next to him, hesitant, and Hemingway paced for a second, and then she gave it up and joined them. Chrissie said, ‘This is really freaking me out, guys. Will someone please tell me what’s going on?’

Reacher said, ‘I was walking down the street and I saw a guy slap Agent Hemingway in the face.’

‘And?’

‘I hoped my presence would discourage him from doing it again. He took offence. Turns out he’s a mobster. Jill thinks they’re measuring me for concrete shoes.’

‘And you don’t?’

‘Seems oversensitive to me.’

Chrissie said, ‘Reacher, there are whole movies about this stuff.’

Hemingway said, ‘She’s right. You should listen to her. You don’t know these people. You don’t understand their culture. They won’t let an outsider disrespect them. It’s a matter of pride. It’s how they do business. They won’t rest until they fix it.’

Reacher said, ‘In other words they’re exactly the same as the Marine Corps. I know how to deal with people like that. I’ve been doing it all my life.’

‘How do you plan to deal with them?’

‘By making the likely cost too high. Which it already is, frankly. They can’t do anything in here, because they’d be arrested, either by you or the NYPD. Which is too high of a cost. It would mean lawyers and bribes and favours, which they won’t spend on me. I’m not worth it. I’m nobody. Croselli will get over it.’

‘You can’t stay in here all night.’

‘He already tried it on the street, and he didn’t get very far.’

‘Ten minutes from now he’ll have six guys out front.’

‘Then I’ll go out the back.’

‘He’ll have six guys there too.’

Chrissie said, ‘You know when I asked you to stick close to me?’

Reacher said, ‘Sure.’

‘You can forget that part now, OK?’

Reacher said, ‘This is nuts.’

Hemingway said, ‘You hit a made man in the head. What part of that don’t you understand? That just doesn’t happen. Get used to it, kid. And right now you’re in the same room as one of his goons. Who just got off the phone.’

‘I’m sitting next to an FBI agent.’

Hemingway said nothing in reply to that. Reacher thought: NYU. Sarah Lawrence. Hemingway had never confirmed it either way. He had asked her: How long have you been with the FBI? She had answered: Who says I am?

He said, ‘Are you or are you not?’

She said nothing.

‘It’s not real hard. It’s a yes or no answer.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It really isn’t.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It’s yes and no. Not yes or no.’ Reacher paused a beat.

‘What, you’re freelancing here?’ he said. ‘Is that it? This isn’t really your case? Which is why there was no backup van? Which is why you were using your little sister’s tape player?’

‘It was my tape player. I’m suspended.’

‘You’re what?’

‘Medical grounds. But that’s what they always say. What it means is they took my badge, pending review.’

‘Of what?’

‘Like you said. The lawyers and the bribes and the favours. They’re weighing me in the balance. Me against all the good stuff.’

‘This was Croselli?’

Hemingway nodded. ‘Right now he’s fireproof. He had the investigation shut down. I figured I might get him to boast about it, on the tape. I might have gotten something I could use. To make them take me back.’

‘Why wasn’t Croselli armed in the city?’

‘Part of the deal. They all can do what they want in every other way, but the homicide figure has to come down. Give and take. Everyone’s a winner.’

‘Does Croselli know you’re suspended?’

‘Of course he does. He made them do it.’

‘So in fact the goon in the same room as me knows it too, right? Is that what we’re saying here? He knows you’re not about to pull a badge. Or a gun. He knows you’re just a member of the public. Legally, I mean. In terms of your powers of arrest, and so on. And less than that, in terms of your credibility. As a witness against Croselli’s people, I mean.’