Lee Child - Persuader

I walked out of the garage courtyard and wandered around toward the back of the house. Stopped at the corner of the courtyard wall. Stood still for a second and then turned ninety degrees and followed the wall out toward the rocks like I wanted to take a look at the ocean. It was still calm. There was a long oily swell coming in from the southeast. The water looked black and infinitely deep. I gazed at it for a moment and then ducked down and put the wrapped guns in a little dip tight against the wall. There were scrawny weeds growing there. Somebody would have to trip over them to find them.

I strolled back, hunched into my coat, trying to look like a reflective guy getting a couple of minutes’ peace. It was quiet. The shore birds were gone. It was too dark for them. They would be safe in their roosts. I turned around and headed for the back door. Went in through the porch and into the kitchen. The metal detector beeped. Duke and the mechanic guy and the cook all turned to look at me. I paused a beat and pulled out the keys. Held them up. They looked away. I walked in and dropped the keys on the table in front of Duke. He left them there.

The third benefit of Duke’s exhaustion unfolded steadily all the way through dinner. He could barely stay awake. He didn’t say a word. The kitchen was warm and steamy and we ate the kind of food that would put anybody to sleep. We had thick soup and steak and potatoes. There was a lot of it. The plates were piled high. The cook was working like a production line. There was a spare plate with a whole portion of everything just sitting untouched on a counter. Maybe somebody was in the habit of eating twice.

I ate fast and kept my ears open for the phone. I figured I could grab the car keys and be outside before the first ring finished. Inside the Cadillac before the second. Halfway down the drive before the third. I could smash through the gate. I could run Paulie over. But the phone didn’t ring. There was no sound in the house at all, except people chewing. There was no coffee. I was on the point of taking that personally. I like coffee. I drank water instead. It came from the faucet over the sink and tasted like chlorine. The maid came in from the family dining room before I finished my second glass. She walked over to where I was sitting, awkward in her unfashionable shoes. She was shy. She looked Irish, like she had just come all the way from Connemara to Boston and couldn’t find a job down there.

“Mr. Beck wants to see you,” she said.

It was only the second time I had heard her speak. She sounded a little Irish, too. Her cardigan was wrapped tight around her.

“Now?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said.

He was waiting for me in the square room with the oak dining table where I had played Russian roulette for him.

“The Toyota was from Hartford, Connecticut,” he said. “Angel Doll traced the plate this morning.”

“No front plates in Connecticut,” I said, because I had to say something.

“We know the owners,” he said.

There was silence. I stared straight at him. It took me a fraction of a second just to understand him.

“How do you know them?” I asked.

“We have a business relationship.”

“In the rug trade?”

“The nature of the relationship needn’t concern you.”

“Who are they?”

“That needn’t concern you either,” he said.

I said nothing.

“But there’s a problem,” he said. “The people you described aren’t the people who own the truck.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “You described them as tall and fair. The guys who own the truck are Spanish. Small and dark.”

“So who were the guys I saw?” I asked, because I had to ask something.

“Two possibilities,” he said. “One, maybe somebody stole their truck.”

“Or?”

“Two, maybe they expanded their personnel.”

“Either one is possible,” I said.

He shook his head. “Not the first. I called them. There was no answer. So I asked around. They’ve disappeared. No reason why they should disappear just because someone stole their truck.”

“So they expanded their roster.”

He nodded. “And decided to bite the hand that feeds them.”

I said nothing.

“Are you certain they used Uzis?” he asked.

“That’s what I saw,” I said.

“Not MP5Ks?”

“No,” I said. I looked away. No comparison. Not even close. The MP5K is a short Heckler amp; Koch submachine gun designed early in the 1970s. It has two big fat handles molded from expensive plastic. It looks very futuristic. Like a movie prop. Next to it an Uzi looks like something hammered together by a blind man in his basement.

“No question,” I said.

“No possibility the kidnap was random?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Million to one.”

He nodded again.

“So they’ve declared war,” he said. “And they’ve gone to ground. They’re hiding out somewhere.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I have no idea.”

There was silence. No sound from the sea. The swells came and went inaudibly.

“Are you going to try to find them?” I asked.

“You bet your ass,” Beck said.

Duke was waiting for me in the kitchen. He was angry and impatient. He wanted to take me upstairs and get me locked down for the night. I didn’t protest. A locked door with no inside keyhole is a very good alibi.

“Tomorrow, six-thirty,” he said. “Back on duty.”

I listened hard and heard the lock click and waited for his footsteps to recede. Then I got busy with my shoe. There was a message waiting. It was from Duffy: back OK? I hit reply and typed: Bring a car one mile short of the house. Leave it there with key on seat. Quiet approach, no lights.

I hit send. There was a short delay. I guessed she was using a laptop. She would be waiting in her motel room with it plugged in and switched on. It would go: Bing! You’ve Got Mail!

She came back with: Why? When?

I sent: Don’t ask. Midnight.

There was a long delay. Then she sent: OK.

I sent: Retrieve it six am, stealthy.

She replied: OK.

I sent: Beck knows the Toyota owners .

Ninety painful seconds later she came back with: How?

I sent: quote business relationship unquote.

She asked: Specifics?

I sent: Not given.

She replied with one simple word: Shit.

I waited. She sent nothing more. She was probably conferring with Eliot. I could picture them, talking fast, not looking at each other, trying to decide. I sent a question: How many did you arrest in Hartford? She came back with: All of them, i.e. three. I asked: Are they talking? She replied: Not talking at all. I asked: Lawyers? She came back with: No lawyers.

It was a very ponderous way to have a conversation. But it gave me plenty of time to think. Lawyers would have been fatal. Beck could have gotten to their lawyers, easily. Sooner or later it would have occurred to him to check if his buddies had been arrested.

I sent: Can you keep them incommunicado?

She sent: Yes, two or three days.

I sent: Do it.

There was a long pause. Then she came back with: What is Beck thinking?

I sent: That they’ve declared war and gone to ground.

She asked: What are you going to do?

I sent: Not sure.

She sent: Will leave car, advise use it to pull out.

I replied: Maybe.

There was another long pause. Then she sent: Turn unit off, save battery. I smiled to myself. Duffy was a very practical woman.