Ли Чайлд - Blue Moon

‘I’m sorry about your situation,’ the waitress said. ‘I hope you find something soon.’

‘Thank you,’ Reacher said.

It would take the guy inside maybe forty seconds to make the call, or to text back and forth, and then get set, and take a breath, and step out the door behind them. In which case he was due right about then.

If it was something.

Maybe it was nothing.

The waitress asked, ‘What kind of work do you like to do?’

The guy stepped out the door behind them.

Reacher moved to the kerb and turned around, to make a shallow triangle, with the waitress now on his left, and the guy on his right, and empty space at his back.

The guy looked at Reacher, but spoke to the waitress.

He said, ‘Run along now, kid.’

Reacher glanced at her.

She mouthed something at him. Could have been, Watch where I go . Then she ran along. Not literally. She turned and crossed the street at a brisk walk, and Reacher glanced over his shoulder twice, just briefly, not long between, like frames from a video, the first of which showed her already half a block away, striding north on the far sidewalk, and the second of which showed her gone completely. Through a doorway, therefore. Towards the end of the block.

The guy on his right said, ‘I would need your name, before I could put you in touch with Max Trulenko. And maybe first we should talk it through, you and me, about how you came to know him, just to put his mind at rest.’

‘When could we do that?’ Reacher asked.

‘We could do that right now,’ the guy said. ‘Come inside. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.’

Detain and delay, Reacher thought. Until the snatch squad showed up. He looked left and right along the street. No headlights. Nothing coming. Not yet.

He said, ‘Thanks, but I just had dinner. I’m all set. I’ll come back tomorrow. About the same time.’

The guy took out his phone.

‘I could text him your photo,’ he said. ‘As a first step. That would be quicker.’

‘No thanks,’ Reacher said.

‘I need you to tell me how you know Max.’

‘Everyone knows Max. He was famous here for a spell.’

‘Tell me the message you have for him.’

‘His ears only,’ Reacher said.

The guy didn’t answer. Reacher checked the street. Both ends. Nothing coming. Not yet.

The guy said, ‘We shouldn’t get off on the wrong foot. Any friend of Max’s is a friend of mine. But if you know Max, obviously you know we have to check you out. You wouldn’t want anything less for him.’

Reacher checked the street. Now there was something coming. There was a pair of bucking, bouncing headlight beams coming around the southwest corner of the block, faster than the front suspension could comfortably handle. They swept and dipped and settled straight and then rose up high, as the rear end of the car squatted down under heavy acceleration.

Straight at them.

‘I’ll see you again,’ Reacher said. ‘I hope.’

He turned and crossed the street and went north, away from the car. And saw a second car coming around the northwest corner of the block. Same bouncing headlight beams. From the other direction. Heavy acceleration. Straight at him. Probably two guys in each car. Decent numbers, and their response time was quick. They were on Defcon One. Therefore Trulenko was important. Therefore their rules of engagement would be pretty much whatever they wanted them to be.

Right then Reacher was the meat in a bright light sandwich.

Watch where I go .

A doorway, towards the end of the block.

He turned around, hunching away from the light, and he saw one doorway after another, looming up out of the jagged moving shadows. Most of the doors belonged to retail operations, with nothing but dusty grey dimness inside, like closed stores everywhere, and some of the doors were plainer and stoutly made of wood, presumably for private quarters above, but none of them were open, not even a tempting inch, and none of them had a rim of light around the frame. He moved north, because the waitress had been going north, and the shadows gave up more doors, one by one, but they were all the same as before, mute and grey and stubbornly closed.

The cars came closer. Their lights got brighter. Reacher gave up on doorways. He figured he had misheard. Or misread her lips. At that point his brain started cycling through scenarios involving two guys from the south and two from the north, no doubt all four of them armed, although probably not with shotguns, so close to downtown, therefore handguns only, possibly suppressed, depending on their de facto arrangement with the local police department. As in, don’t frighten the voters. But against any instinct towards caution would be extreme reluctance to disappoint their bosses.

The cars slowed to a stop.

Reacher was pinned right in the middle.

Rule one, set in stone since he was a tiny kid, back when he first realized he could be either frightened or frightening, was to run towards danger, not away from it. Which right then gave him his pick of forward or backward. He chose forward. North, the way he was already going. No break in his stride. No reversal of momentum. Faster and harder. Glare ahead of him and glare behind him. He kept on going. Instinctive, but also sound tactics. As sound as they could be, under the dismal circumstances. In the sense of making the best of a very bad hand. He was distorting the picture, at least. What the pointy-heads would call altering the battle space. The guys ahead would feel mounting pressure the closer he got. The guys behind would have longer shots. Both conditions would impair efficiency. Ultimately below fifty per cent, with a bit of luck. Because the guys behind would worry about friendly fire. Their buddies up ahead were right next to the target.

The guys behind might take themselves out of the fight voluntarily.

Making the best of a very bad hand.

Reacher hustled onward.

He heard car doors open.

On his left, as he hustled, he saw retail store doorways jumping in and out of the headlight shadows, one by one, all of them mean and closed tight. Until one of them wasn’t. Because it wasn’t a doorway. It was an alley. On his right the traffic kerb was unbroken, but on his left there was a gloomy eight-foot gap between buildings, paved the same way as the municipal sidewalk. A pedestrian thoroughfare of some kind. Public. Leading where? He didn’t care. It was dark. It was guaranteed to let out somewhere a whole lot better than an empty street lit up bright by four headlight beams from two face to face automobiles.

He ducked into the alley.

He heard footsteps start behind him.

He hustled on. The depth of a building later the alley widened out to a narrow street. Still dark. The footsteps behind him kept on coming. He stayed close to the buildings, where the shadows were deepest.

A door opened in the darkness ahead.

A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him inside.

The door closed again softly and three seconds later the footsteps clattered by outside, at a slow and wary jog. Then silence came back. The hand on Reacher’s arm pulled him deeper into darkness. Small fingers, but strong. They passed into a different space. A different acoustic. A different smell. A different room. He heard the scrabble of fingertips, searching for a light switch on a wall.

The light came on.

He blinked.

The waitress.

Watch where I go .

An alley, not a doorway. Or an alley leading to a doorway. An alley leading to a doorway with a door left open a tempting inch.

‘You live here?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said.

She was still dressed for work. Black denim pants, black button-up shirt. Petite, gamine, short dark hair, eyes full of concern.