Lee Child - Running Blind

So what’s it to be? A shorter interval? Or more drama at the scene? Or both? How about both? Think, think, think.

LISA HARPER TOOK Reacher up to ground level and outside into the chill air just after six in the evening. She led him down an immaculate concrete walkway toward the next building in line. There were knee-high lights set on both sides of the path, a yard apart, already turned on against the gloom of evening. Harper walked with an exaggerated long stride. Reacher wasn’t sure if she was trying to match his, or if it was something she’d learned in deportment class. Whatever, it made her look pretty good. He found himself wondering what she’d look like if she was running. Or lying down, with nothing on.

“Cafeteria’s in here,” she said.

She was ahead of him at another double set of glass doors. She pulled one open and waited until he went inside in front of her.

“To the left,” she said.

There was a long corridor with the clattering sound and the vegetable smell of a communal dining room at the end of it. He walked ahead of her. It was warm inside the building. He could sense her at his shoulder.

“OK, help yourself,” she said. “Bureau’s paying.”

The cafeteria was a big double-height room, brightly lit, with molded-plywood chairs at plain tables. There was a service counter along one side. A line of personnel, waiting with trays in their hands. Big groups of trainees in dark blue sweats, separated by senior agents in suits standing in ones and twos. Reacher joined the end of the line, with Harper at his side.

The line shuffled up and he was served a filet mignon the size of a paperback book by a cheerful Spanish guy with ID around his neck. He moved on and got vegetables and fries from the next server in line. He filled a cup with coffee from an urn. He took silverware and a napkin and looked around for a table.

“By the window,” Harper said.

She led him to a table for four, standing empty by the glass. The bright light in the room made it full dark outside. She put her tray on the table and took her jacket off. Draped it on the back of her chair. She wasn’t thin, but her height made her very slender. Her shirt was fine cotton, and she wore nothing underneath it. That was pretty clear. She undid her cuffs and rolled her sleeves to the elbow, one by one. Her forearms were smooth and brown.

“Nice tan,” Reacher said.

She sighed.

"FAQs again?” she said. “Yes, it’s all over, and no, I don’t especially want to prove it.”

He smiled.

“Just making conversation,” he said.

She looked straight at him.

“I’ll talk about the case,” she said. “If you want conversation. ”

“I don’t know much about the case. Do you?”

She nodded. “I know I want this guy caught. Those women were pretty brave, making a stand like that.”

“Sounds like the voice of experience.”

He cut into his steak and tasted it. It was pretty good. He’d paid forty bucks for worse in city restaurants.

“It’s the voice of cowardice,” she said. “I haven’t made a stand. Not yet anyway.”

“You getting harassed?”

She smiled. “Are you kidding?” Then she blushed. “I mean, can I say that without sounding big-headed or anything?”

He smiled back. “Yes, in your case I think you can.”

“It’s nothing real serious,” she said. “Just talk, you know, just comments. Loaded questions, and innuendo. Nobody’s said I should sleep with them to get promotion or anything. But it still gets to me. That’s why I dress like this now. I’m trying to make the point, you know, I’m just the same as them, really.”

He smiled again. “But it’s gotten worse, right?”

She nodded, “Right. Much worse.”

He made no reply.

“I don’t know why,” she said.

He looked at her over the rim of his cup. Egyptian cotton button-down, pure white, maybe a thirteen-inch collar, a blue tie knotted neatly in place and rising gently over her small mobile breasts, men’s trousers with big darts taken out of them to curve in around her tiny waist. Tanned face, white teeth, great cheekbones, blue eyes, the long blond hair.

“Is there a camera in my room?” he asked.

“A what?”

“A camera,” he said again. “You know, video surveillance. ”

“Why?”

“I’m just wondering if this is a backup plan. In case Petrosian doesn’t pan out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why isn’t Poulton looking after me? He doesn’t seem to have much else to do.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Yes you do. That’s why Blake assigned you , right? So you could get real close to me? All this vulnerable little-girl-lost stuff? I don’t know why? So maybe if Blake wants to stop banging on about Petrosian, he’s got something else to twist my arm with, like a nice intimate little scene, you and me in my room, on a nice little videocassette he can say he’ll send to Jodie.”

She blushed. “I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“But he asked you to, right?”

She was quiet for a long time. Reacher looked away and drained his coffee, staring at his own reflection in the glass.

“He practically challenged me to try,” he said. “Told me you’re the bitch from hell, if anybody puts the moves on.”

She was still silent.

“But I wouldn’t fall for it, anyway,” he said. “Because I’m not stupid. I’m not about to give them any more ammunition.”

She was quiet another minute. Then she looked at him and smiled.

“So can we relax?” she said. “Get past it?”

He nodded. “Sure, let’s relax. Let’s get past it. You can put your jacket back on now. You can stop showing me your breasts.”

She blushed again. “I took it off because I was warm. No other reason.”

“OK, I’m not complaining.”

He turned away again and watched the dark through the window.

“You want dessert?” she asked.

He turned back and nodded. “And more coffee.”

“You stay here. I’ll get it.”

She walked back to the serving counter. The room seemed to fall silent. Every eye was on her. She came back with a tray bearing two ice cream sundaes and two cups of coffee. A hundred people watched her all the way.

“I apologize,” Reacher said.

She bent and slid the tray onto the table. “For what?”

He shrugged. “For looking at you the way I’ve been looking at you, I guess. You must be sick of it. Everybody looking at you all the time.”

She smiled. “Look at me as much as you like, and I’ll look at you right back, because you aren’t the ugliest thing I ever saw either. But that’s as far as it’s going to go, OK?”

He smiled back. “Deal.”

The ice cream was excellent. It had hot fudge sauce all over it. The coffee was strong. If he narrowed his eyes and cut out the rest of the room, he could rate this place about as highly as he had rated Mostro’s.

“What do people do here in the evenings?” he asked.

“Mostly they go home,” Harper said. “But not you. You go back to your room. Blake’s orders.”

“We’re following Blake’s orders now?”

She smiled. “Some of them.”

He nodded. “OK, so let’s go.”

SHE LEFT HIM on the side of the door without the handle. He stood there and heard her footsteps recede across the carpet outside. Then the thump of the elevator door. Then the whine of the car going down. Then the floor fell silent. He walked to the nightstand and dialed Jodie’s apartment. The machine cut in. He dialed her office. No answer. He tried her mobile. It was not in service.

He walked to the bathroom. Somebody had supplemented his toothbrush with a tube of toothpaste and a disposable razor and a can of shaving cream. There was a bottle of shampoo on the rim of the tub. There was soap in the dish. Fluffy white towels on the rack. He stripped and hung his clothes on the back of the door. Set the shower to hot and stepped under the water.