Lee Child - The Affair

“You talked to him. Didn’t he say?”

The kid shook his head. “He said his name was Reed. That’s all.”

“Was he an asshole?”

“A bit.”

“Did he look like he worked hard for a living?”

“Not really. He didn’t take things very seriously.”

“Probably an officer, then,” I said. “What did he tell you about joining the army?”

“He said serving your country was a noble thing to do.”

“Definitely an officer.”

“He said I could learn a skill. He said I might make specialist.”

“You could do better than that.”

“He said they would explain it all at the recruiting office. He said there’s a good one in Memphis.”

“Don’t go there,” I said. “Way too dangerous. Recruiting offices are shared between all four branches of the service. The Marines might grab you first. Fate worse than death.”

“So where should I go?”

“Go straight to Kelham. There are recruiters on every post.”

“Will that work?”

“Sure it will. As soon as you’ve got something in your hand that proves you’re eighteen years old, they’ll let you in and never let you out again.”

“But they say the army is getting smaller.”

“Thanks for pointing that out, kid.”

“So why would they want me?”

“They’re still going to have hundreds of thousands of people. Tens of thousands will still leave every year. They’ll always need to be replaced.”

“What’s wrong with the Marines?”

“Nothing really. It’s a traditional rivalry. They say stuff, we say stuff.”

“They do amphibious landings.”

“History shows the army has done many more all on its own.”

“Sheriff Deveraux was a Marine.”

“Is a Marine,” I said. “They never stop being Marines, even after they leave. It’s one of their things.”

“You like her,” the kid said. “I could tell. I saw you riding in her car.”

“She’s OK,” I said. “Did Reed have a car? Shawna’s boyfriend?”

The kid nodded. “They all have cars. I’m going to have a car too, after I join.”

“What kind of car did Reed have?”

“He had a 1957 Chevy Bel Air two-door hardtop. Not really a classic. It was kind of beat up.”

“What color was it?”

The kid said, “It was blue.”

The kid showed me his sister’s room. It was clean and tidy. Not preserved as a shrine, but not yet cleared out, either. It spoke of loss, and bewilderment, and lack of energy. The bed was made and small piles of clothes were neatly folded. No decision had been taken about its future fate.

There was none of Shawna Lindsay’s personality on display. She had been a grown woman, not a teenager. There were no posters on the walls, no souvenirs of anything, no breathless diary. No keepsakes. She had owned some clothes, some shoes, and two books. That was all. One book was a thin thing explaining how to become a notary public. The other was an out-of-date tourist guide to Los Angeles.

“Did she want to be in the movies?” I asked.

“No,” the kid said. “She wanted to travel, that’s all.”

“To LA specifically?”

“Anywhere.”

“Did she have a job?”

“She worked part time at the loan office. Next to Brannan’s bar. She could do her numbers pretty good.”

“What did she tell you that she couldn’t tell your mom?”

“That she hated it here. That she wanted to get out.”

“Your mom didn’t want to hear that stuff?”

“She wanted to keep Shawna safe. My mom is afraid of the world.”

“Where does your mom work?”

“She’s a cleaner. At the bars in town. She gets them ready for happy hour.”

“What else do you know about Shawna?”

The kid started to say something, and then he stopped. In the end he just shrugged and said nothing. He moved toward the center of the plain square space and stood there, as if he was soaking something up. Something in the still air. I got the feeling he had rarely been in that room. Not often before Shawna’s death, and not often since.

He said, “I know I really miss her.”

We went back tothe kitchen and I asked, “If I left money, do you think your mom would mind if I used her phone?”

“You need to make a call?” the kid asked back, as if that was an extraordinary thing.

“Two calls,” I said. “One I need to make, and one I want to make.”

“I don’t know how much it costs.”

“Pay phones cost a quarter,” I said. “Suppose I left a dollar a call?”

“That would be too much.”

“Long distance,” I said.

“Whatever you think is right. I’m going outside again.”

I waited until I saw him emerge in the front yard. He took up a position near the fence, just standing there, watching the street, infinitely patient. Some kind of a perpetual vigil. I tucked a dollar bill between the phone’s plastic casing and the wall and took the receiver off the hook. I dialed the call I needed to make. Stan Lowrey, back on our shared home base. I went through his sergeant and a minute later he came on the line.

I said, “Well, there’s a surprise. You’re still there. You’ve still got a job.”

He said, “I think I’m safer than you are right now. Frances Neagley just reported back.”

“She worries too much.”

“You don’t worry enough.”

“Is Karla Dixon still working financial stuff?”

“I could find out.”

“Ask her a question for me. I want to know if I should be concerned about money coming in from a place called Kosovo. Like gangsters laundering bales of cash. That kind of a thing.”

“Doesn’t sound very likely. That’s the Balkans, right? They’re middle class if they own a goat. Rich, if they own two. Not like America.”

I looked out the window and said, “Not so very different from parts of it.”

Lowrey said, “I wish I was working financial stuff. I might have picked up some necessary skills. Like how to have savings.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll get unemployment. For a spell, at least.”

“You sound cheerful.”

“I’ve got a lot to be cheerful about.”

“Why? What’s going on down there?”

“All kinds of wonderful things,” I said, and hung up. Then I trapped a second dollar bill between the phone and the wall and dialed the call I wanted to make. I used the Treasury Department’s main switchboard and got a woman who sounded middle-aged and elegant. She asked, “How may I direct your inquiry?”

I said, “Joe Reacher, please.”

There was some scratching and clicking and a minute of dead air. No hold music at Treasury, either, back in 1997. Then a woman picked up and said, “Mr. Reacher’s office.” She sounded young and bright. Probably a magna cum laude graduate from a prestigious college, full of shining eyes and idealism. Probably good looking, too. Probably wearing a short plaid skirt and a white turtleneck sweater. My brother knew how to pick them.

I asked, “Is Mr. Reacher there?”

“I’m afraid he’s out of the office for a few days. He had to go to Georgia.” She said it like she would have said Saturn or Neptune . An incomprehensible distance, and barren when you got there. She asked, “May I take a message?”

“Tell him his brother called.”

“How exciting. He never mentioned he had brothers. But actually, you sound just like him, did you know that?”

“So people say. There’s no message. Tell him I just wanted to say hello. To touch base, you know. To see how he is.”

“Will he know which brother?”

“I hope so,” I said. “He’s only got one.”