Lee Child - Make Me

And right then the waitress set off toward them with the Bunn flask, for Reacher’s first refill of the session, and Chang asked her, “Why is this town called Mother’s Rest?”

The waitress stood back, favoring one hip over the other, like tired women do, with the coffee mid-air and level with her waist. She had hair the color of the wheat outside, and a red face, and she could have been thirty-five or fifty, and a thin person bulking up with age, or a heavy person burning down with work. It was impossible to tell. She looked very happy to take a minute, because Reacher was already her best friend forever, because of the tip, and because she’d just been asked a question that was neither offensive nor boring.

She said, “I like to think a grateful son in a faraway city built his mama a little country home to retire to, in exchange for all the good things she had done for him, and then some stores came to sell her what she needed, and some more houses, and pretty soon it was a town.”

Reacher said, “Is that the official version?”

The waitress said, “Honey, I don’t know. I’m from Mississippi. I can’t imagine how I washed up here. You should ask the counterman. I think he was born in the state at least.”

And then she bustled away, like waitresses do.

Chang asked, “Was that the showbusiness answer?”

Reacher nodded and said, “But from the creative side, not the marketing side. She needs to get with the program. Or go write for the movies. I saw one just like that. On the television set in a motel room. In the daytime.”

“Should we ask the counterman?”

Reacher glanced over. The guy was busy. He said, “First I’m going to find some real people. I saw some candidates while I was out walking. Then I’m going to find a place to take a nap. Or maybe I’ll get my hair cut. Maybe I’ll see you at the railroad stop at seven o’clock. Your guy Keever will be getting out, and I’ll be climbing aboard.”

“Even if you don’t know the story of the name yet?”

“It’s not that important. Not really worth sticking around for. I’ll believe my own version. Or yours. Depending on my mood.”

Chang said nothing in reply to that, so Reacher drained his mug, and slid out from behind his table, and threaded his way back through the room. He stepped outside. The sun was still warm. Next on the list. Real people . Starting with the spare-parts guy, for the irrigation systems.

The guy was still hemmed in behind his register. He had about two feet of room, which wasn’t enough. He was close to Reacher’s own height and weight, but slack and swollen, in a shirt as big as a circus tent, above a belt buckled improbably low, under a belly the size of a kettle drum. His face was pale, and his hair was colorless.

There was a phone on the wall, behind his right shoulder. Not an ancient item with a rotary dial and a curly wire, but a regular modern cordless telephone, with a base station screwed to the stud, and a handset upright in a cradle. Easy enough for the guy to flail blindly behind him, and then the numbers were right there, in the palm of his hand, for speedy dialing. Or speed dialing. The base station had a plastic window with ten spaces. Five were labeled, and five were not. The labels seemed to be the brands the guy sold parts for. Helplines for technical advice, possibly, or sales and service numbers.

The guy said, “Can I get you anything?”

Reacher said, “Have we met?”

“I’m pretty sure not. I’m pretty certain I’d remember.”

“Yet when I walked by the first time you jumped so high you practically bumped your head on the ceiling. Why was that?”

“I recognized you, from your old pictures.”

“What old pictures?”

“From Penn State, in ’86.”

“I wasn’t smart enough for Penn State.”

“You were in the football program. You were the linebacker everyone was talking about. You were in all the sports papers. I used to follow that stuff pretty closely back then. Still do, as a matter of fact. You look older now, of course. If you don’t mind me saying that.”

“Did you make a phone call?”

“When?”

“When you saw me walk by.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I saw your hand move toward the phone.”

“Maybe it was ringing. It rings all the damn time. Folks wanting this, folks wanting that.”

Reacher nodded. Would he have heard the phone ring? Possibly not. The door had been closed, and the phone was all electronic, with adjustable volume, and maybe it was set to ring very quietly, in such a small space. Especially if calls came in all the time. Right next to the guy’s ear. A loud ring could get annoying.

Reacher said, “What’s your theory about this town’s name?”

The guy said, “My what?”

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

“Sir, I honestly have no idea. There are weird names all over the country. It’s not just us.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m interested in the history.”

“I never heard any.”

Reacher nodded again.

He said, “Have a very pleasant day.”

“You too, sir. And congratulations on the rehab. If you don’t mind me saying that.”

Reacher squeezed out of the store and stood for a moment in the sun.

Reacher visited with twelve more merchants, for a total of thirteen, which gave him fourteen opinions, including the waitress’s. There was no consensus. Eight of the opinions were really no opinions at all, but merely shrugs and blank looks, along with a measure of shared defensiveness. There are weird names all over the country . Why single out Mother’s Rest, in a nation with towns called Why and Whynot, and Accident and Peculiar, and Santa Claus and No Name, and Boring and Cheesequake, and Truth or Consequences, and Monkeys Eyebrow, and Okay and Ordinary, and Pie Town and Toad Suck and Sweet Lips?

The other six opinions were variations on the waitress’s fantasy. And his own, Reacher supposed. And Chang’s. Folks were working backward from the name, and inventing picturesque scenarios to fit. There was no hard evidence. No one knew of a memorial stone or a museum, or a historical plaque, or even an old folk tale.

Reacher strolled back down the wide street, thinking: nap or haircut?

The spare-parts guy was the first to call it in. He said he was sure he had handled it safely, with the old football trick. It was a technique he had been taught many years before. Pick a good college team in a good year, and most guys were too flattered to be suspicious. Within an hour three more merchants had made the same kind of report. Except about the football. But in terms of substance the picture was clear. The one-eyed motel clerk took all the incoming calls, and he got the information straight in his mind, and then he dialed an outgoing number, and when it was answered he said, “They’re coming at it through the name. The big guy is all over town, asking questions.”

He got a long plastic crackle in exchange, calm, mellifluous, and reassuring. He said, “OK, sure,” but he didn’t sound sure, and then he hung up the phone.

The barbershop was a two-chair establishment, with one guy working in it. He was old, but not visibly shaking, so Reacher got a hot-towel shave, and then a clipper cut, short on the back and sides, fading longer up top. His hair was still the same color it always had been. A little thinner, but it was still there. The old guy’s labors produced a good result. Reacher looked in the mirror and saw himself looking back, all clean and crisp and squared away. The bill was eleven dollars, which he thought was reasonable.

Then he strolled back across the wide plaza, and outside the motel he saw the lawn chair he had seen before, all alone in the traffic lane. White plastic. He picked it up and put it down again the right side of the curb, on a patch of grass near a fence. Unobtrusive. In no one’s way. He rotated it with his foot, until it was lined up with the rays of the sun. Then he sat down and leaned back and closed his eyes. He soaked up the warmth. And at some point he fell asleep, outdoors in the summertime, which was the second-best way he knew.