Lee Child - Bad Luck and Trouble

They stopped at a legitimate firearms dealer in Tustin and bought ammunition. Plenty of it. There seemed to be no restrictions on that kind of purchase. Then they headed back north. Traffic was slow. About level with Anaheim, they took a call from O’Donnell in East LA.

“Nothing’s happening here,” he said.

“Nothing?”

“No activity at all. You shouldn’t have made that call from Vegas. It was a bad mistake. You threw them into a panic. They’ve gone into full-on lockdown mode.”

Reacher and Dixon stayed on the 101 all the way to Hollywood and dumped the Chrysler in the motel lot and took a Honda each for the trek out to East LA. Reacher’s was a silver Prelude coupe with a chipped and nervous four-cylinder motor. It had wide tires that tramlined on bad asphalt and a throaty muffler note that entertained him for the first three blocks and then started to annoy him. The upholstery stank of detailing fluid and there was a crack in the windshield that lengthened perceptibly every time he hit a bump. But the seat racked back far enough for him to get comfortable and the air conditioning worked. Altogether not a bad surveillance vehicle. He had driven far worse, many times.

They got a four-way conference call going on the cell phones and parked far from one another. Reacher was two blocks from the New Age building and had a partial view of the front entrance, from about sixty yards on a diagonal between a document storage facility and a plain gray warehouse. New Age’s gate was shut and the lot looked pretty much empty. The reception area doors were closed. The whole place looked quiet.

“Who’s in there?” Reacher asked.

“Maybe nobody,” O’Donnell said. “We’ve been here since five and nobody’s gone in.”

“Not even the dragon lady?”

“Negative.”

“No receptionist?”

“Negative.”

“Do we have their phone number?”

Neagley said, “I have their switchboard number.” She recited it and Reacher clicked off and thumbed it into his phone and hit the green button.

Ring tone.

But no reply.

He dialed back into the conference call.

“I was hoping to follow someone over to the manufacturing plant.”

“Not going to happen,” O’Donnell said.

Silence on the phones. No action at the glass cube.

Five minutes. Ten. Twenty.

“Enough,” Reacher said. “Back to base. Last one there buys lunch.”

Reacher was the last one back. He wasn’t a fast driver. The other three Hondas were already in the lot when he got there. He put his Prelude in an inconspicuous corner and took the suitcase of stolen guns out of the Chrysler’s trunk and locked it in his room. Then he walked down to Denny’s. First thing he saw there was Curtis Mauney’s unmarked car in the parking lot. The Crown Vic. The LA County sheriff. Second thing he saw was Mauney himself, through the window, inside the restaurant, sitting at a round table with Neagley and O’Donnell and Dixon. It was the same table they had shared with Diana Bond. Five chairs, one of them empty and waiting. Nothing on the table. Not even ice water or napkins or silverware. They hadn’t ordered. They hadn’t been there long. Reacher went in and sat down and there was a moment of tense silence and then Mauney said, “Hello again.”

A gentle tone of voice.

Quiet.

Sympathetic.

Reacher asked, “Sanchez or Swan?”

Mauney didn’t answer.

Reacher said, “What, both of them?”

“We’ll get to that. First tell me why you’re hiding.”

“Who says we’re hiding?”

“You left Vegas. You’re not registered at any LA hotel.”

“Doesn’t mean we’re hiding.”

“You’re in a West Hollywood dive under false names. The clerk gave you up. As a group you’re fairly distinctive, physically. It wasn’t hard to find you. And it was an easy guess that you’d come in here for lunch. If not, I was prepared to come back at dinner time. Or breakfast time tomorrow.”

Reacher said, “Jorge Sanchez or Tony Swan?”

Mauney said, “Tony Swan.”

Mauney said, “We’ve learned a thing or two, over the last few weeks. We let the buzzards do the work for us now. We’re out there like ornithologists, anytime we get a spare half hour. You get up on the roof of your car with your binoculars, you can usually see what you need. Two birds circling, it’s probably a snake-bit coyote. More than two, it’s probably a bigger deal.”

Reacher asked, “Where?”

“Same general area.”

“When?”

“Some time ago.”

“Helicopter?”

“No other way.”

“No doubt about the ID?”

“He was on his back. His hands were tied behind him. His fingerprints were preserved. His wallet was in his pocket. I’m very sorry.”

The waitress came over. The same one they had seen before. She paused near the table and sensed the mood and went away again.

Mauney asked, “Why are you hiding?”

“We’re not hiding,” Reacher said. “We’re just waiting for the funerals.”

“So why the false names?”

“You brought us here as bait. Whoever they are, we don’t want to make it easy for them.”

“Don’t you know who they are yet?”

“Do you?”

“No independent action, OK?”

“We’re on Sunset Boulevard here,” Reacher said. “Which is LAPD turf. Are you speaking for them?”

“Friendly advice,” Mauney said.

“Noted.”

“Andrew MacBride disappeared in Vegas. Arrived, didn’t check in anywhere, didn’t rent a car, didn’t fly out. Dead end.”

Reacher nodded. “Don’t you just hate that?”

“But a guy called Anthony Matthews rented a U-Haul.”

“The last name on Orozco’s list.”

Mauney nodded. “Endgame.”

“Where did he take it?”

“I have no idea.” Mauney slid four business cards out of his top pocket. He fanned them out and placed them carefully on the table. His name and two phone numbers were printed on them. “Call me. I mean it. You might need help. You’re not up against amateurs here. Tony Swan looked like a real tough guy. What was left of him.”

Mauney went back to work and the waitress came over again five minutes later and hovered. Reacher guessed no one was very hungry anymore, but they all ordered anyway. Old habits. Eat when you can, don’t risk running out of energy later. Swan would have approved. Swan ate anywhere, anytime, all the time. Autopsies, exhumations, crime scenes. In fact Reacher was pretty sure that Swan had been eating a roast beef sandwich when they discovered Doug, the decomposed dead guy with the shovel in his head.

Nobody confirmed it.

Nobody talked at all. The sun was bright outside the window. A beautiful day. Blue sky, small white clouds. Cars passed by on the boulevard, customers came and went. Phones rang, landlines in the kitchen and cells in other people’s pockets. Reacher ate methodically and mechanically without the slightest idea what was on his plate.

“Should we move?” Dixon asked. “Now that Mauney knows where we are?”

“I don’t like it that the clerk gave us up,” O’Donnell said. “We should steal his damn TV remotes.”

“We don’t need to move,” Reacher said. “Mauney is no danger to us. And I want to know about it when they find Sanchez.”

“So what next?” Dixon asked.

“We rest up,” Reacher said. “We go out again after dark. We pay New Age a visit. We’re not getting anywhere with surveillance, so it’s time to go proactive.”

He left ten bucks on the table for the waitress and paid the check at the register. Then they all stepped outside to the sunshine and stood blinking in the lot for a moment before heading back to the Dunes.