Ли Чайлд - Blue Moon

But not the worst things Reacher had ever seen.

Maybe the worst things all on one phone, though.

He handed it back. The guy dabbed through his menus again, until he got where he wanted to be. Serious business now.

He said, ‘Do you understand the terms of the contract?’

‘Yes,’ Reacher said.

‘Do you agree to them?’

‘Yes,’ Reacher said.

‘Bank account?’

Reacher gave him Shevick’s numbers. The guy typed them in, right there on his phone, and then he dabbed a big green rectangle at the bottom of the screen. The go button.

He said, ‘The money will be in your bank in twenty minutes.’

Then he dabbed through more menus, and suddenly raised the phone in camera mode, and snapped Reacher’s picture.

He said, ‘Thank you, Mr Shevick. A pleasure doing business. I’ll see you again in one week exactly.’

Then he tapped his bristly head with his bone-white finger, the same gesture as before. Something about remembering. Some kind of a threatening implication.

Whatever, Reacher thought.

He got up and walked away, out the door, into the dark. There was a car at the kerb. A black Lincoln, with an idling engine, and an idling driver behind the wheel, leaning back in his seat, head on the cushion, elbows wide, knees wide, like limo guys everywhere, taking a break.

There was a second guy, outside the car, leaning on the rear fender. He was dressed the same as the driver. And the guy inside the bar. Black suit, white shirt, black silk tie. Like a uniform. He had his ankles crossed, and his arms crossed. He was just waiting. He looked like the guy at the corner table would look, after about a month in the sun. White, not luminescent. He had pale hair buzzed close to his scalp, and a busted nose, and scar tissue on his eyebrows. Not much of a fighter, Reacher thought. Obviously he got hit a lot.

The guy said, ‘You Shevick?’

Reacher said, ‘Who’s asking?’

‘The people you just borrowed money from.’

‘Sounds like you already know who I am.’

‘We’re going to drive you home.’

‘Suppose I don’t want you to?’ Reacher said.

‘Part of the deal,’ the guy said.

‘What deal?’

‘We need to know where you live.’

‘Why?’

‘Reassurance.’

‘Look me up.’

‘We did.’

‘And?’

‘You’re not in the book. You don’t own real estate.’

Reacher nodded. The Shevicks had given up their land line telephone. The title to their house had already passed to the bank.

The guy said, ‘So we need to pay a personal visit.’

Reacher said nothing.

The guy asked, ‘Is there a Mrs Shevick?’

‘Why?’

‘Maybe we should visit a little with her too, while we’re looking at where you live. We like to keep our customers close. We like to make a family’s acquaintance. We find it helpful. Now get in the car.’

Reacher shook his head.

‘You misunderstand,’ the guy said. ‘This is not a choice. It’s part of the deal. You borrowed our money.’

‘Your milky-white friend inside explained the contract. He went through all the terms, in considerable detail. The administration fee, the dynamic pricing, the penalties. At one point he even introduced visual aids. After which he asked if I accepted the terms of the contract, and I said yes I did, so at that point the deal was done. You can’t start adding extra stuff afterwards, about a ride home and meeting the family. I would have to agree to that, ahead of time. A contract is a two-way street. Subject to negotiation and agreement. It can’t be done unilaterally. That’s a basic principle.’

‘You got a smart mouth.’

‘I can only hope,’ Reacher said. ‘Sometimes I worry I’m just pedantic.’

‘What?’

‘You can offer me a ride, but you can’t insist that I take it.’

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

‘OK, I’m offering you a ride. Last chance. Get in the car.’

‘Say please.’

The guy paused a long, long moment.

He said, ‘Please get in the car.’

‘OK,’ Reacher said. ‘Since you asked so nicely.’

About the safest way to transport an unwilling hostage in a passenger car was to make him drive with his seat belt off. The guys with the Lincoln didn’t do that. They opted for a conventional second best instead. They put Reacher in the back, behind the empty front passenger seat, with nothing dead ahead for him to attack. The guy who had done all the talking got in next to him, on the other side, behind the driver, and he sat half sideways, watchful.

He said, ‘Where to?’

‘Turn around,’ Reacher said.

The driver U-turned across the width of the street, bouncing his front right-side wheel up the far kerb, and slapping it down again.

‘Go straight for five blocks,’ Reacher said.

The driver rolled on. He was a smaller version of the first guy. Not as pale. Caucasian for sure, but not blinding. He had the same buzzed hair, golden and glittery. He had a knife scar on the back of his left hand. Probably a defensive wound. He had a spidery and fading tattoo snaking out of his right cuff. He had big pink ears, sticking straight out from the sides of his head.

Their tyres pattered over broken blacktop and patches of cobblestone. After the five straight blocks they came to the four-way light. Where Shevick had waited to cross. They rolled out of the old world and into the new. Flat and open terrain. Concrete and gravel. Wide sidewalks. It all looked different in the dark. The bus depot was up ahead.

‘Straight on,’ Reacher said.

The driver rolled through the green. They passed the depot. They tracked around, a polite distance behind the high-rent districts. Half a mile later they came to where the bus had turned off the main drag.

‘Take the right,’ Reacher said. ‘Out towards the highway.’

He saw the in-town two-lane was called Center Street. Then it widened to four lanes and was called a state route number. Then came the giant supermarket. The office parks were up ahead.

‘Where the hell are we going?’ the guy in the back said. ‘No one lives out here.’

‘Why I like it,’ Reacher said.

The road was smooth. Their tyres hissed over it. There was no traffic up ahead. Maybe something behind them. Reacher didn’t know. He couldn’t risk a look.

He said, ‘Tell me again why you want to meet my wife.’

The guy in the back said, ‘We find it helpful.’

‘How?’

‘You pay back a bank loan because you’re worried about your credit score and your good name and your standing in the community. But that’s all gone for you. You’re down in the sewer. What are you worried about now? What’s going to make you pay us back?’

They passed the office parks. Still no traffic. The auto dealer was up ahead in the distance. A wire fence, ranks of dark shapes, bunting that gleamed grey in the moonlight.

‘Sounds like a threat,’ Reacher said.

‘Daughters are good too.’

Still no traffic.

Reacher hit the guy in the face. Out of nowhere. A sudden violent explosion of muscle. No warning at all. A pile driver, with all the speed and twist he could muster in the confined space available. The guy’s head smashed back into the window frame behind him. A mist of blood from his nose spattered the glass.

Reacher reloaded and hit the driver. Same kind of force. Same kind of result. Leaning over the seat, a clubbing roundhouse right direct to the guy’s ear, the guy’s head snapping sideways, bouncing off the glass, straight into a second jabbing right to the same ear, and a third, which turned the lights out. The guy fell forward on his steering wheel.

Reacher balled himself up in the rear foot well.