Lee Child - Make Me

He sat and watched, patiently, expecting to be rewarded eventually, and eventually he was, after almost an hour. First the one-eyed guy came out his office door, and stood and sniffed the air, the way people do in the morning. Then the guy glanced all around, at the inside perimeter of his little domain, and his parking spaces, and the sidewalk passing the first-floor rooms, and the walkway passing the second-floor rooms, a leisurely visual inspection, born mostly of duty, Reacher thought, but with a small slice of pride in there somewhere. Then the guy remembered the unexamined territory directly behind him, and he turned around to check, and he saw his misplaced lawn chair. He dragged it back to 102, and left it lined up in perfect uniformity with all its ground-floor equivalents, which were all directly underneath their second-floor counterparts.

Which made it more duty than pride. Because he hadn’t bothered the day before. He had left the chair any old place it had wanted to be. Wherever it hung its hat was its home. But this new day was different. Somehow. The guy was acting like a nervous CO ahead of a one-star’s visit.

Reacher waited. The shadows retreated, yard by yard, as the sun climbed higher. He heard the seven o’clock train. It rolled in, and vibrated, and rolled out again.

He waited.

The drapes opened in room 203. The window was sideways to the sun, and like everything else the glass was covered in crop dust, but even so Reacher saw the guy clearly, in his suit, standing with his arms held wide, his hands still on the drapes, staring out at the morning, as if in wonder, as if it was a big surprise the sun had come up again. As if it had been maybe fifty-fifty at best. The guy stood like that for a whole minute, and then he turned away and was lost to sight.

A white sedan drove into the lot. A Cadillac, Reacher thought. But not new. It was from a previous generation. It was long and low, all road-hugging weight and boulevard ride. Like a limousine. Therefore an unusual color, outside of Florida or Arizona. An unusual sight in any case, in farm country. It was the first sedan Reacher had seen in about three hundred miles. It was pretty clean. Recently rinsed, at least, if not actually washed. Reacher couldn’t see the driver. The glass was too dark.

The car swooped right and backed left and reversed into the slot below room 203. It had no front license plate. The driver didn’t get out. Above the car, room 203’s door opened, and the man in the suit stepped out. He had the brown leather bag in his hand. He stood still for a long moment, and did the air-sniffing thing. As if in wonder. Then he snapped out of his trance and headed for the stairs, definitely gaunt but light on his feet, and a fluent, fluid mover, not muscle-bound like an athlete, but graceful like a dancer, or a stage actor. He came down the stairs, and the driver got out of the Cadillac, to greet him.

The driver was a man Reacher hadn’t seen before. He was about forty, tall and well built, not fat but certainly fleshed out, with a full head of hair, and a guileless face. Another junior executive, possibly. The man in the suit shook his hand, and ducked into the back of the car. The driver carried the brown leather bag to the trunk, and placed it inside, like a little ceremony. Then he got back behind the wheel, and the car pulled forward, and drove away.

No rear license plate, either.

Reacher went and took a shower.

Chang was already in the diner, at the corner two-top they had used before. She had her back to the wall. She had reserved the table next to her, by hanging her coat on the chair. Reacher passed it back to her and sat down, side by side, with his own back to the wall. Which was tactically sound, but a shame in every other way. Chang looked just fine in a T-shirt. Her hair was still damp, which made it look like ink. Her arms were long and faintly muscled, and her skin was smooth.

She said, “The guy in the suit left already. He took his bag, so he isn’t coming back. Lucky him.”

“I saw,” Reacher said. “From my room.”

“I was on my way back from the railroad. Keever wasn’t on the morning train.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“So now’s the time. No more waiting for him. I have to start looking for him. His room is 215. I peeked through the window. There’s a big shirt hanging on a closet door. Room 213 is completely empty.”

“OK. We’ll get in somehow.”

“We?”

“Figure of speech,” Reacher said. “I have nothing else to do today.”

“Should we go do it now?”

“Let’s eat first. Eat when you can. That’s the golden rule.”

“Now could be a good time to do it.”

“Could be, but later will be better. When the maid has started work. She might open the door for us.”

The waitress came over, with coffee.

After breakfast they found the motel maid had indeed started work, but she was nowhere near Keever’s room. She was fully occupied on the other side of the horseshoe, making 203 ready-to-rent again after the man in the suit’s departure. She had a big stacked cart on the walkway, and the room door was standing open. She was visible inside, stripping the bed.

She would have a pass key on her belt, or in her pocket, or chained to her cart handle.

Reacher said, “I guess I’ll walk over there and say hello.”

He turned left at 211, and left again at 206, and he stopped level with the cart and looked in 203’s door.

The maid was crying.

And working, both at the same time. She was a white woman, thin as a rail, no longer young, hauling a sack of towels from the bathroom. She was bawling and sniveling and tears were streaming down her face.

From outside the room Reacher said, “Ma’am, are you OK?”

The woman stopped, and let go of the sack, and straightened up. She huffed and puffed and took a breath and stared blankly at Reacher, and then she turned and stared blankly in the mirror, and then she turned back again without a reaction, as if her appearance was already too far gone to worry about.

She smiled.

She said, “I’m very happy.”

“OK.”

“No, really. I’m sorry. But the gentleman who just checked out left me a tip.”

“What, your first ever?”

She said, “My best ever.”

She had a smock with a wide catch-all pocket on the bottom hem. She used both hands carefully and came out with an envelope. Smaller than a regular letter. Like a reply to a fancy invitation. On it the words Thank You were handwritten with a fountain pen.

She flipped up the flap with her thumb, and took out a fifty-dollar bill. Ulysses S. Grant, right there on the front.

“Fifty bucks,” she said. “The most I ever got before was two dollars.”

“Outstanding,” Reacher said.

“This is going to make such a big difference to me. You can’t imagine.”

“I’m happy for you,” Reacher said.

“Thank you. I guess sometimes miracles happen.”

“Do you know why this town is called Mother’s Rest?”

The woman paused a beat.

She said, “Are you asking me or are you going to tell me?”

“I’m asking you.”

“I don’t know.”

“You never heard any stories?”

“About what?”

“About mothers,” Reacher said. “Resting, either literally or figuratively.”

“No,” she said. “I never heard anything about that.”

“Can you let me into 215?”

The woman paused a beat. She said, “Are you the gentleman from 113? And 106, the night before?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t open a room except for the registered occupant. I’m sorry.”

“It was a corporate booking. We all work together. We need to be in and out. It’s a teamwork thing.”