Lee Child: Nothing to Lose

“This is a quiet, old-fashioned town. People don’t lock their doors. We don’t feel the need. Most of the keys were lost years ago, in our grandparents’ time.”

“I’m not a thief.”

“But we err on the side of caution. Experience elsewhere shows that the itinerant jobless have always been a problem.”

“Suppose I don’t go? What’s the penalty?”

“Thirty days’ imprisonment.”

Reacher said nothing. The judge said, “The officer will drive you to the town line. Get a job and a home, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms. But don’t come back until you do.”

The cop took him downstairs again and gave him back his cash and his passport and his ATM card and his toothbrush. Nothing was missing. Everything was there. Then the cop handed over his shoelaces and waited at the booking desk while he threaded them through the eyelets in his shoes and pulled them tight and tied them off. Then the cop put his hand on the butt of his gun and said, “Car.” Reacher walked ahead of him through the lobby and stepped out the street door. It was late in the day, late in the year, and it was getting dark. The cop had moved his cruiser. Now it was parked nose-out.

“In the back,” the cop said.

Reacher heard a plane in the sky, far to the west. A single engine, climbing hard. A Cessna or a Beech or a Piper, small and lonely in the vastness. He pulled the car door and slid inside. Without handcuffs he was a lot more comfortable. He sprawled sideways, like he would in a taxi or a Town Car. The cop leaned in after him, one hand on the roof and one on the door, and said, “We’re serious. You come back, we’ll arrest you, and you’ll spend thirty days in that same cell. Always assuming you don’t look at us cross-eyed and we shoot you for resisting.”

“You married?” Reacher asked.

“Why?”

“I thought not. You seem to prefer jerking off.”

The cop stood still for a long moment and then slammed the door and got in the front. He took off down the street and headed north. Six blocks to Main Street, Reacher figured. If he turns left, takes me onward, to the west, maybe I’ll let it go. But if he turns right, takes me back east to Hope, maybe I won’t.

Reacher hated turning back.

Forward motion was his organizing principle.

Six blocks, six stop signs. At each one the cop braked gently and slowed and looked left and looked right and then rolled forward. At Main Street he came to a complete halt. He paused. Then he hit the gas and nosed forward and swung the wheel.

And turned right.

East.

Back toward Hope.

Reacher saw the dry goods emporium and the gas station and the abandoned motor court and the vacant unbuilt lot slide by and then the cop accelerated to a steady sixty miles an hour. The tires rumbled over the rough road and stray pebbles spattered the underside and bounced and skittered away to the shoulders. Twelve minutes later the car slowed and coasted and braked and came to a stop. The cop climbed out and put his hand on the butt of his gun and opened Reacher’s door.

“Out,” he said.

Reacher slid out and felt Despair’s grit under his shoes.

The cop jerked his thumb, to the east, where it was darker.

“That way,” he said.

Reacher stood still.

The cop took the gun off his belt. It was a Glock nine millimeter, boxy and dull in the gloom. No safety catch. Just a latch on the trigger, already compressed by the cop’s meaty forefinger.

“Please,” the cop said. “Just give me a reason.”

Reacher stepped forward, three paces. Saw the moon rising on the far horizon. Saw the end of Despair’s rough gravel and the start of Hope’s smooth blacktop. Saw the inch-wide trench between, filled with black compound. The car was stopped with its push bars directly above it. The expansion joint. The boundary. The line. Reacher shrugged and stepped over it. One long pace, back to Hope.

The cop called, “Don’t bother us again.”

Reacher didn’t reply. Didn’t turn around. Just stood and faced east and listened as the car backed up and turned and crunched away across the stones. When the sound was all gone in the distance he shrugged again and started walking.

He walked less than twenty yards and saw headlights a mile away, coming straight at him out of Hope. The beams were widely spaced, bouncing high, dipping low. A big car, moving fast. It came at him out of the gathering darkness and when it was a hundred yards away he saw it was another cop car. Another Crown Vic, painted black and white, police spec, with push bars, lights, and antennas. It stopped short of him and a spotlight mounted on the windshield pillar lit up and swiveled jerkily and played its beam all the way up and down him twice, coming to rest on his face, blinding him. Then it clicked off again and the car crept forward, tires hissing on the smooth asphalt surface, and stopped again with the driver’s door exactly alongside him. The door had a gold shield painted on it, with HPD scrolled across the middle. Hope Police Department. The window buzzed down and a hand went up and a dome light came on inside. Reacher saw a woman cop at the wheel, short blonde hair backlit by the weak yellow bulb above and behind her.

“Want a ride?” she asked.

“I’ll walk,” Reacher said.

“It’s five miles to town.”

“I walked out here, I can walk back.”

“Riding is easier.”

“I’m OK.”

The woman was quiet for a moment. Reacher listened to the Crown Vic’s engine. It was idling patiently. Belts were turning, a muffler was ticking as it cooled. Then Reacher moved on. He took three steps and heard the car’s transmission go into reverse and then the car came alongside him again, driving backward, keeping pace as he walked. The window was still down. The woman said, “Give yourself a break, Zeno.”

Reacher stopped. Said, “You know who Zeno was?”

The car stopped.

“Zeno of Cittium,” the woman said. “The founder of Stoicism. I’m telling you to stop being so long-suffering.”

“Stoics have to be long-suffering. Stoicism is about the unquestioning acceptance of destinies. Zeno said so.”

“Your destiny is to return to Hope. Doesn’t matter to Zeno whether you walk or ride.”

“What are you anyway-a philosopher or a cop or a cab driver?”

“The Despair PD calls us when they’re dumping someone at the line. As a courtesy.”

“This happens a lot?”

“More than you’d think.”

“And you come on out and pick us up?”

“We’re here to serve. Says so on the badge.”

Reacher looked down at the shield on her door. HPD was written across the scroll in the center, but To Protect was written at the top of the escutcheon, with And Serve added at the bottom.

“I see,” he said.

“So get in.”

“Why do they do it?”

“Get in and I’ll tell you.”

“You going to refuse to let me walk?”

“It’s five miles. You’re grumpy now, you’ll be real cranky when you arrive in town. Believe me. We’ve seen it before. Better for all of us if you ride.”

“I’m different. Walking calms me down.”

The woman said, “I’m not going to beg, Reacher.”

“You know my name?”

“Despair PD passed it on. As a courtesy.”

“And a warning?”

“Maybe. Right now I’m trying to decide whether to take them seriously.”

Reacher shrugged again and put his hand on the rear door handle.

“Up front, you idiot,” the woman said. “I’m helping you, not arresting you.”

So Reacher looped around the trunk and opened the front passenger door. The seat was all hemmed in with radio consoles and a laptop terminal on a bracket, but the space was clear. No hat. He crammed himself in. Not much legroom, because of the security screen behind him. Up front the car smelled of oil and coffee and perfume and warm electronics. The laptop screen showed a GPS map. A small arrow was pointing west and blinking away at the far edge of a pink shape labeled Hope Township. The shape was precisely rectangular, almost square. A fast and arbitrary land allocation, like the state of Colorado itself. Next to it Despair township was represented by a light purple shape. Despair was not rectangular. It was shaped like a blunt wedge. Its eastern border matched Hope’s western limit exactly, then it spread wider, like a triangle with the point cut off. Its western line was twice as long as its eastern and bordered gray emptiness. Unincorporated land, Reacher figured. Spurs came off I-70 and I-25 and ran through the unincorporated land and clipped Despair’s northwestern corner.