Lee Child - Night School

“About what?”

“I have no idea, man.”

Reacher stepped back, and gazed all around. It was getting darker by the minute. He saw streams of people, and behind them the railroad station, all lit up, as big and fancy as a museum or a cathedral. He saw city lights and the grind of traffic.

Griezman said, “Now get back in the car.”

–

They drove two more blocks in the traffic and then they turned off and parked in a quiet street. They sat side by side in the front of the car, staring ahead through the windshield. Griezman seemed to prefer it that way. Alone, but not exactly face to face. He said, “I told you there was a space in an otherwise neat shelf of file folders.”

“You found the missing item?”

“No, we found something else. The file folders were made of stiff board covered in vinyl. All different colors. With four rings inside. They line up like books. Are you familiar with this product?”

“Ours have three rings inside.”

“Suppose there were ten such items neatly lined up on a high shelf. Numbered from one to ten. Suppose I asked you to take down number six. How would you do it?”

“I’m tempted to say it ain’t rocket science. Except it probably is. I’ve seen your facilities.”

“They ran an experiment. They simulated the scene and randomly selected thirty-four subjects. Basically anyone who passed their office door. Every single one pulled the file exactly the same way. A hundred percent.”

“How?”

“You reach up and touch the pad of your index finger to the spine of your chosen file, in our case number six, as if you’ve traced it and now you’re claiming it, very discreetly. It’s yours. The ownership issue is psychologically settled. But it’s lined up perfectly. There’s nothing to grip. But you can’t move your index finger. Subconsciously you can’t give up your claim. So you put the edge of your thumb on number five, and the pad of your middle finger on number seven, and you ease them back, very respectfully, because it’s a neat shelf, and then you jump your thumb and your middle finger inward, to pincer the sliver of spine you’ve just exposed, and you pull the file out, with your index finger exactly where it always was, on the spine, ready to balance the load as it comes down toward you.”

“Good work,” Reacher said again.

“Reverse the numbers for left-handed people, of course.”

“But I’m guessing he wasn’t left-handed.”

“We have a perfect print. From the spine of the adjacent file. The pad of his right-hand middle finger. Pressed gently against the vinyl.”

“Is it in your system?”

“An exact match.”

“That’s good.”

“With the print we took from the dead girl’s sports car. From the chrome lever. The unknown suspect. It’s the same guy, Reacher. The prints are identical. Same finger, same angle, same cautious pressure. It’s uncanny.”

Reacher said nothing.

“First a woman and then a man were savagely murdered,” Griezman said. “You know who did it.”

“Help me find Wiley and I’ll tell you.”

“Would I also be helping myself?”

“Let’s ask him when we find him.”

“But you could tell me now.”

“Tell who now? The simple detective, or the obedient bureaucrat who will pass it all on to his intelligence service in Berlin about ten minutes from now? Whereupon I would go to jail about ten minutes after that.”

“Do you not tell your superiors what they should know?”

“I tell them as little as possible. Short words, no math, and no diagrams.”

“You’ll go to jail anyway. In Germany it is illegal to withhold this kind of information.”

“You going to arrest me?”

“I could make you a material witness. You would be obliged to answer. Refusal would be deemed contempt of the judicial system.”

“I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere.”

“This is a serious business.”

“There’s a case to be made ours is more serious. I’m sure my president would be happy to explain it to your chancellor. But we don’t need to go that route. Help me find Wiley, and then we’ll figure out this other thing together.”

“Did he do it?”

“Forget the print. A lawyer wouldn’t like it anyway. It could have been left months ago. You need to come at it another way. The Beretta was a good catch. They’re for sale in your victim’s favorite bar. Did you know that? Who could have bought one there?”

“Wiley,” Griezman said. “He bought his ID there.”

“Good theory. Promising. Doesn’t prove anything yet, but clearly the next step would be find him and talk to him.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

–

At that moment Wiley was a hundred yards away, crossing the street at a walk light two blocks east of the train station. He was dressed in black pants and a black hooded sweatshirt. He was carrying a small black duffel. It was heavy. Its load shifted and clanked as he walked. At first he followed a familiar route, from the bus stop toward the bar with the varnished wood front. But halfway there he turned off and stepped into a vehicle entrance and walked past two head-high trash receptacles. He opened a stairwell door marked Exit Only, and he walked up a flight, to the hotel parking garage. Where he had met the hooker. He remembered the way she turned around and beckoned him to her car, like she couldn’t wait.

He remembered every detail.

No cameras.

He walked to the far corner of the floor, smelling cold gasoline, cold diesel, cold rubber, and cold cement dust. He picked out a silver BMW. Six cylinder, gasoline. An older model. It had the look of a car parked a long time. The windshield was dull. The paint was filmed with neglect. He squatted in front of its radiator grill. He took a cross-head screwdriver from his duffel. He unfastened the front license plate and stored it in his bag. He moved around and squatted behind the trunk. He unscrewed the rear plate and put it in his bag.

He took out a single-burner camp stove. Bought new for the occasion. It was about eight inches square, made of pressed steel, with a rubber tube and a knurled brass valve. He took out a head-sized canister of propane. Bright blue, cheap, easy, and convenient. He attached the valve. He turned the knob and heard a hiss of gas. He shut it off.

He lay down on the cold concrete and slid the burner two feet under the rear of the car. He took six wooden blocks from his bag. Children’s toys. From Sweden, he thought. Each one was about six inches long and an inch square. Each one was lacquered a different bright color. He built them into a tower on top of the burner. Where a coffee pot or a tea kettle would go. He put two one way, then two the other, and finally the third layer the same way as the first. Like a little camp fire. He took out a silver foil dish, the size and shape of a roast chicken. He balanced it on the tower of wooden blocks.

He took out a box of nine-millimeter Parabellum ammunition. A hundred rounds. One of two bought with the M9 from the chuckleheads in the bar. He threaded his hand through the space under the BMW’s suspension and laid the box gently in the silver foil dish.

Finished. Good to go. The propane, the tube, the burner, the short stack of wood, the roasting dish, the handgun rounds.

The BMW’s gas tank, directly above.

He checked his position and rehearsed the backward scoot. Then he took out a Zippo lighter. He checked the knurled brass knob. He turned on the burner. He heard the hiss of gas. He flicked the lighter and brought the flame to the burner’s rose. The gas caught with a thump. He dialed it back to a lower setting. A click below medium. Like a fast simmer.

Then he slid out backward and stood up and grabbed his bag and hustled.