Lee Child - Make Me

He said, “What?”

The guy got set on his feet again, and he said, “Check-out time just moved up.”

“To when?”

“Now.”

Reacher hadn’t seen the guy before. Big hands, broad shoulders, a seamed face, clothes all covered with dirt. Chosen in some way, presumably, to be the point man. To be the spokesperson. The pick of the local litter, no doubt, according to popular acclaim.

Reacher said, “What’s your name?”

The guy didn’t answer.

Reacher said, “It’s a simple question.”

No response.

“Is it Maloney?”

“No,” the guy said, with something in his voice. Like it was a stupid question.

Reacher said, “Why is this place called Mother’s Rest?”

“I don’t know.”

“Go wait downstairs. We’ll leave when we’re ready.”

The guy said, “We’re waiting here.”

“Downstairs,” Reacher said again. “With two ways of getting there. The other is headfirst over the rail. Your choice. Either method works for me.”

Below them the one-eyed guy was staring upward. Their suitcases had been moved nearer their car. They were side by side on the blacktop, next to the tailgate door. The guy with the big hands and the dirty clothes made a face, part shrug, part sneer, part nod, and he said, “OK, you got five more minutes.”

“Ten more,” Reacher said. “I think that’s what we’ll take. OK with you? And don’t come up the stairs again.”

The guy got a look in his eye, like some kind of mute challenge.

Reacher said, “What do you do for a living?”

The guy said, “Hog farmer.”

“Always?”

“Man and boy.”

“Same place?”

“Near enough.”

“No military service?”

“No.”

“I thought not,” Reacher said. “You let us take the high ground. Which was dumb. Because thirty guys don’t mean squat if they have to come up a staircase two by two. You know we’re armed. We could pick you off like squirrels. From inside a cinder block building. Which you can’t hurt unless you’re packing grenade launchers, which I don’t think you are. So don’t come up the stairs again. Especially not in the lead.”

The guy said nothing in reply to that, and Reacher stepped back and closed the door on him. Chang said, “If our aim is to get out of here alive, I don’t think you should be antagonizing them.”

“I don’t agree,” Reacher said. “Because as soon as we’re gone, they’re going to be asking themselves a question. Are we coming back? It’s going to be the subject of a big debate. If we’d gone all meek and mild, they’d have known we were faking. Better to let them believe their stonewalling worked.”

“It did. Like you said, we don’t know anything.”

“We know something. I said we don’t know enough.”

“What do we know?”

“We know the clerk just called in a situation report. He told his boss we’d be gone by eleven o’clock, but that wasn’t good enough for the guy. The compromise wasn’t acceptable. He wanted us gone right now. Hence the ten guys with the new message. Which was a message we didn’t get last night. Last night we were welcomed with open arms. So what changed?”

Chang said, “The woman in white.”

“Exactly. The same guy who wants us gone right now didn’t want the boat rocked while she was on the premises. But now she’s gone, so it’s back to business as usual.”

“Who was she? And where did she go?”

“We don’t know. We don’t know about the man in the suit, either. Except they were important somehow. As in, everyone had to be on best behavior when they were around. I saw the clerk tidying up before the car came for the man in the suit. He lined up all the chairs. Before the guy got a look at the place in daylight.”

“They weren’t investors. Not the kind that actually go inspect an investment, anyway. They didn’t have the vibe. I spent a lot of time with investors.”

“So what were they?”

“I have no idea. Someone’s important guests, or someone’s best customers. Or something. How are we supposed to know? Maybe they’re fugitives from justice. Maybe this is an underground railroad. But a niche market. Club class only. Peace and quiet and a good night’s sleep guaranteed, and all road transfers by Cadillac. For white-collar criminals.”

“Would the woman dress up for that?”

“Probably not.”

Reacher said, “I agree it has a railroad feel. They get off the train, they spend the night in the motel, they move on the next morning by car. It feels very transient. It feels kind of one-way, too. Like this is a stop on a longer journey.”

“From where to where?”

Reacher didn’t answer.

Chang said, “So what now?”

“We’ll head west and figure that out when your phone starts working.”

After ten minutes exactly they opened the door and stepped out to the walkway. The thirty guys were still there below them, still corralled together in small independent groups, twos and threes and fours, collectively surrounding the little green Ford in a rough and distant semicircle. The nearest was the hog farmer, about ten feet from the car. Next to him was the queasy Moynahan. Both of them looked tense and impatient. Reacher put his hand in his pocket, his palm and three fingers lightly on the Smith, and he started down the stairs, with Chang right behind him. They got to the bottom and she blipped the remote and the car unlocked with a ragged thump that sounded very loud in the silence.

Reacher stepped around the hood and looked at the hog farmer and said, “We’ll go as soon as you put our bags in the trunk.”

The hog farmer said, “Put them yourself.”

Reacher leaned back against the Ford, with his hands in his pockets, and his ankles crossed. Just a guy, waiting. All the time in the world. He said, “Apparently you felt comfortable packing them up and hauling them here. So I’m guessing you don’t have a constitutional objection to touching our stuff. Or an allergy. Or any other kind of disqualifying impediment. So now’s the time to finish the job. Put them in the car, and we’ll get going. That’s what you want, right?”

The guy said nothing.

Reacher waited. The silence got worse. He could hear wheat stirring in the wind, a hundred yards away. No one moved. Then a guy looked at the next guy, who looked back, and pretty soon everyone was looking at everyone else, short jagged stares, a furious silent argument about trading dignity for results. Put them in the car, and we’ll get going. That’s what you want, right?

Put them yourself.

Eventually a guy behind the hog farmer broke ranks, and stepped forward. A pragmatist, clearly. He walked to the car and lifted the hatchback and put the bags inside, one by one, first Keever’s, then Chang’s.

He closed the hatch and stepped back.

“Thank you,” Reacher said. “I hope you all have a great day.”

He opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. Beside him Chang slid behind the wheel. They closed their doors as one and Chang fired up the engine. She backed out of her slot, and turned the wheel, and took off forward, out into the plaza, and then north past the diner and the store, to the old wagon train trail, where she turned left and headed west, with the road running straight on ahead of her, forever, until it disappeared in the golden haze on the horizon, at that point as narrow as a needle.

She said, “Are we coming back?”

Reacher took his hand off his gun, for the first time since leaving the motel room.

He said, “I expect we’ll have to come back.”

They drove three hours, and then stopped for gas and food. Still no cell signal. They figured they might not find one until they were all the way over near the I-25 corridor, deep into Colorado. Another four hours, maybe. In which case they might as well head straight for Colorado Springs, which was where the Ford had been rented, and where planes to LA took off on a regular basis. They agreed LA was next. The telephone was a wonderful invention, but sometimes inadequate. Which meant airport security was in their future, so they stripped the Smiths and dumped their constituent parts in separate trash cans all around the rest stop. Easy come, easy go.