Lee Child - Personal

‘Stupidity isn’t a capital crime. And there’s no death penalty here, anyway.’

‘There is now.’

She didn’t reply to that, and we lapsed back into silence. The afternoon light faded, and a yellow vapour lamp came on in the parking lot below us. It was up on a tall pole, and it caught most of the black panel van. Other cars came and parked and went away again. Every one of their drivers glanced at the van, and then looked away. At first I thought it was because they must know whose van it was, and were therefore unsettled. Then I realized there must be another reason.

I said, ‘The other guy must be banging and hollering.’

Which was a mistake on my part. I should have told him not to. Or made sure he couldn’t. It was going to screw up my time line. I wasn’t going to drop a day of worry on them. Couple hours, at most. Although initially there seemed to be a marked lack of enthusiasm among the population of Romford for playing the Good Samaritan. No one did a damn thing for the guy. They all just glanced away and got out the lot as fast as they could. Proof once again, I supposed, that tyrants inspire no love or loyalty.

Casey Nice said, ‘I’m hungry.’

I said, ‘I’m sure there’s food on the block. Kebabs, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, whatever you want. This place seems to be the fast-food capital of the world.’

‘Should we get something?’

‘Eat when you can. That’s the golden rule.’

‘Are you hungry?’

‘A little.’

‘What would you prefer?’

‘Pizza,’ I said. ‘Plain cheese. Smaller chance of rats and pigeons among the ingredients. Or cats and dogs.’

‘Something to drink?’

‘Whatever was made in a factory and comes in a sealed container.’

‘Will I be safe?’

‘Depends what you order.’

‘I mean, walking around here.’

‘You worried about getting mugged?’

‘I’m worried about getting spotted by a Romford Boy.’

‘They aren’t looking for us. They think they’ve got us.’

‘There’s a difference between actively looking for us and accidentally spotting us.’

‘If you had seven words to describe yourself, what would you say?’

‘You mean physically or psychologically?’

‘I mean, suppose you were the minicab driver, diming us out.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Female, average height, ponytail, brown leather jacket. That’s what he said. Nothing you can do about your height or your gender, but you can take out your ponytail and lose your jacket. Then you’re just a twenty-something woman in jeans and a T-shirt. Of which there are a hundred thousand around here. Safe as houses.’

So she reached up behind her and pulled out whatever elastic band she had in there, and she shook her head, and her hair fell loose. She slipped the jacket off one shoulder, and then the other, and she pulled it down over her arms, and she laid it on the bed, and she turned back to face me.

Did she look like Dominique Kohl? Yes and no. Not really, in that she shaded towards the Scandinavian end of the gene pool, and Kohl was closer to the Mediterranean. Kohl had darker skin, and darker hair, and darker eyes. The weeks I had known her had been exceptionally hot, even for D.C. in the summer, and she had gotten browner and dustier as the days went by. She had worn shorts most of the time, and a T-shirt. And it was the T-shirt that connected her to Nice. Kohl’s had been olive green, and Nice’s was white, but under those flimsy garments were young, fit women in the peak of condition, lean, smooth, somehow flexible and fluent and elastic, somehow identical. Outwardly, at least. Inwardly was different. Where Nice was diffident, Kohl had been bolder, completely sure of her capabilities, notably self-confident, absolutely ready to beat the world.

It hadn’t saved her.

I said, ‘Take care.’

Nice said, ‘I’ll be back in ten.’

She left, and I heard her footsteps fade in the hallway. I ducked away from the window for a second and put my hand in her jacket pocket. I pulled out the orange plastic bottle.

She had three pills left.

I SAT ALONE and watched the little supermarket’s parking lot, and I saw the same things repeated over and over again. Drivers would park their cars, and get out, and glance at the black van, suddenly startled and unsure, and then they would avert their eyes and hustle inside the store. They would come out again minutes later and drive away as fast as they could.

Ten minutes passed, and Casey Nice didn’t come back.

The sky behind the light on the pole went full dark, and a little night mist came down, and a scrim of dew formed on the black van, which rocked and bounced from time to time. The live guy inside must have been getting desperate. Maybe he needed the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes gone, and Casey Nice didn’t come back.

Then finally a driver parked his car, and got out, and glanced at the black van, and didn’t walk away. He was a young guy, maybe twenty, with a pudding-bowl haircut all slicked down with grease. He took a cautious step towards the van and cocked his head and listened. He took another step and peered in through the driver’s window, from the side, and then he craned his neck and peered in through the windshield, from the front.

He took his cell phone out of his pocket. Contract labour, maybe, anxious to prove his worth. He listened again, presumably to the live guy inside, dictating a number, and he dialled.

Behind me a key turned in the lock and Casey Nice walked in the room. She had two stacked pizza boxes balanced on spread fingers, and a thin plastic bag in her other hand, with wet soda cans in it.

‘OK?’ I said.

She said, ‘So far so good.’

I nodded towards the window. ‘Some kid just made a call.’

She put our dinner on the dressing table and took a look. The young guy was talking on his phone. He bent down and read out the van’s licence plate. Then he held the phone away from his mouth, and shouted a question through the seal between the driver’s door and the pillar, and then he put his ear close to the same crack and listened to the answer. The live guy’s name, presumably, which the young guy repeated into his phone.

Casey Nice asked, ‘Why doesn’t he break the window or force the door?’

I said, ‘You think he knows how?’

‘I’m sure he does. Looking at him, I mean. Not that I should rely on stereotypes.’

‘I’m guessing the guy on the phone is telling him not to. This is a hard world. These are not conquering heroes. They screwed up. They’re not worth damaging a vehicle for. Someone will bring a spare key.’

‘How soon?’

‘Five minutes,’ I said. ‘Maybe ten. Quick enough, anyway. They don’t care about their guys, but they’ll want to hear the story.’

I got up off my chair and opened a pizza box. Plain cheese, white dough, a little bubbled and blackened here and there by the oven, and smaller than the giant hubcaps sold in America. I said, ‘Thank you for my dinner,’ like my mother had taught me to.

She said, ‘You’re very welcome,’ and she took hers, and we both ate a slice. The soda was Coke, and it was ice cold. In the lot below us the young guy was off the phone, stumping around, waiting. For congratulations, without a doubt. Definitely contract labour, racking up the bonus points.

Casey Nice’s phone dinged, like a tiny bell.

‘Incoming text,’ she said. She checked. ‘From General O’Day. He wants to know why we’re static.’

I said, ‘Tell him we’re resting.’

‘He knows we’re not at our hotel. Because of the GPS.’

‘Tell him we’re at the movies. Or the theatre. Or in a museum. Tell him we’re furthering our cultural education. Or getting our nails done. Tell him we’re at the spa.’