Lee Child: Killing Floor

“Tampa in Florida?” he asked.

I nodded. He rattled open another drawer. Pulled out a Greyhound schedule. Riffed it open and ran a long brown finger down a page. This was a very thorough guy. He looked across at me.

“That’s an express bus,” he said. “Runs straight through north to Atlanta. Arrives there nine o’clock in the morning. Doesn’t stop here at eight.”

I shook my head.

“I asked the driver to stop,” I said. “He said he shouldn’t, but he did. Stopped specially, let me off.”

“You been around here before?” he asked.

I shook my head again.

“Got family down here?” he asked.

“Not down here,” I said.

“You got family anywhere?” he asked.

“A brother up in D.C.,” I said. “Works for the Treasury Department.”

“You got friends down here in Georgia?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

Finlay wrote it all down. Then there was a long silence. I knew for sure what the next question was going to be.

“So why?” he asked. “Why get off the bus at an unscheduled stop and walk fourteen miles in the rain to a place you had absolutely no reason to go to?”

That was the killer question. Finlay had picked it out right away. So would a prosecutor. And I had no real answer.

“What can I tell you?” I said. “It was an arbitrary decision. I was restless. I have to be somewhere, right?”

“But why here?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Guy next to me had a map, and I picked this place out. I wanted to get off the main drags. Thought I could loop back down toward the Gulf, farther west, maybe.”

“You picked this place out?” Finlay said. “Don’t give me that shit. How could you pick this place out? It’s just a name. It’s just a dot on the map. You must have had a reason.”

I nodded.

“I thought I’d come and look for Blind Blake,” I said.

“Who the hell is Blind Blake?” he said.

I watched him evaluating scenarios like a chess computer evaluates moves. Was Blind Blake my friend, my enemy, my accomplice, conspirator, mentor, creditor, debtor, my next victim?

“Blind Blake was a guitar player,” I said. “Died sixty years ago, maybe murdered. My brother bought a record, sleeve note said it happened in Margrave. He wrote me about it. Said he was through here a couple of times in the spring, some kind of business. I thought I’d come down and check the story out.”

Finlay looked blank. It must have sounded pretty thin to him. It would have sounded pretty thin to me too, in his position.

“You came here looking for a guitar player?” he said.

“A guitar player who died sixty years ago? Why? Are you a guitar player?”

“No,” I said.

“How did your brother write you?” he asked. “When you got no address?”

“He wrote my old unit,” I said. “They forward my mail to my bank, where I put my severance pay. They send it on when I wire them for cash.”

He shook his head. Made a note.

“The midnight Greyhound out of Tampa, right?” he said.

I nodded.

“Got your bus ticket?” he asked.

“In the property bag, I guess,” I said. I remembered Baker bagging up all my pocket junk. Stevenson tagging it.

“Would the bus driver remember?” Finlay said.

“Maybe,” I said. “It was a special stop. I had to ask him.”

I became like a spectator. The situation became abstract. My job had been not that different from Finlay’s. I had an odd feeling of conferring with him about somebody else’s case. Like we were colleagues discussing a knotty problem.

“Why aren’t you working?” Finlay asked.

I shrugged. Tried to explain.

“Because I don’t want to work,” I said. “I worked thirteen years, got me nowhere. I feel like I tried it their way, and to hell with them. Now I’m going to try it my way.”

Finlay sat and gazed at me.

“Did you have any trouble in the army?” he said.

“No more than you did in Boston,” I said.

He was surprised.

“What do you mean by that?” he said.

“You did twenty years in Boston,” I said. “That’s what you told me, Finlay. So why are you down here in this no-account little place? You should be taking your pension, going out fishing. Cape Cod or wherever. What’s your story?”

“That’s my business, Mr. Reacher,” he said. “Answer my question.”

I shrugged.

“Ask the army,” I said.

“I will,” he said. “You can be damn sure of that. Did you get an honorable discharge?”

“Would they give me severance if I didn’t?” I said.

“Why should I believe they gave you a dime?” he said. “You live like a damn vagrant. Honorable discharge? Yes or no?”

“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

He made another note. Thought for a while.

“How did it make you feel, being let go?” he asked.

I thought about it. Shrugged at him.

“Didn’t make me feel like anything,” I said. “Made me feel like I was in the army, and now I’m not in the army.”

“Do you feel bitter?” he said. “Let down?”

“No,” I said. “Should I?”

“No problems at all?” he asked. Like there had to be something.

I felt like I had to give him some kind of an answer. But I couldn’t think of anything. I had been in the service since the day I was born. Now I was out. Being out felt great. Felt like freedom. Like all my life I’d had a slight headache. Not noticing until it was gone. My only problem was making a living. How to make a living without giving up the freedom was not an easy trick. I hadn’t earned a cent in six months. That was my only problem. But I wasn’t about to tell Finlay that. He’d see it as a motive. He’d think I had decided to bankroll my vagrant lifestyle by robbing people. At warehouses. And then killing them.

“I guess the transition is hard to manage,” I said. “Especially since I had the life as a kid, too.”

Finlay nodded. Considered my answer.

“Why you in particular?” he said. “Did you volunteer to muster out?”

“I never volunteer for anything,” I said. “Soldier’s basic rule.”

Another silence.

“Did you specialize?” he asked. “In the service?”

“General duties, initially,” I said. “That’s the system. Then I handled secrets security for five years. Then the last six years, I handled something else.”

Let him ask.

“What was that?” he asked.

“Homicide investigation,” I said.

Finlay leaned right back. Grunted. Did the steepled fingers thing again. He gazed at me and exhaled. Sat forward. Pointed a finger at me.

“Right,” he said. “I’m going to check you out. We’ve got your prints. Those should be on file with the army. We’ll get your service record. All of it. All the details. We’ll check with the bus company. Check your ticket. Find the driver, find the passengers. If what you say is right, we’ll know soon enough. And if it’s true, it may let you off the hook. Obviously, certain details of timing and methodology will determine the matter. Those details are as yet unclear.”

He paused and exhaled again. Looked right at me.

“In the meantime, I’m a cautious man,” he said. “On the face of it, you look bad. A drifter. A vagrant. No address, no history. Your story may be bullshit. You may be a fugitive. You may have been murdering people left and right in a dozen states. I just don’t know. I can’t be expected to give you the benefit of the doubt. Right now, why should I even have any doubt? You stay locked up until we know for sure, OK?”

It was what I had expected. It was exactly what I would have said. But I just looked at him and shook my head.

“You’re a cautious guy?” I said. “That’s for damn sure.”