Lee Child - Night School

Eventually he was led to a small hot room. The air was full of flies, moving slowly. Two men sat on pillows, both bearded, one short and fat, the other tall and lean. Both were in plain white robes and plain white turbans.

The messenger said, “The American wants a hundred million dollars.”

The men in robes nodded. The tall one said, “We will discuss it tonight over dinner. Come back first thing in the morning, for our answer.”

–

Neagley had taken a Hamburg street plan from the concierge station. She opened it and tilted it to catch the light from the window. She said, “A fifty-minute absence suggests about a one-mile radius, don’t you think? Twenty minutes there, ten minutes talking, twenty minutes back. What kind of place would they use?”

Reacher said, “A bar or a coffee shop or a park bench.”

They found the rented apartment on the street plan. Neagley spanned her finger and thumb and traced a one-mile radius. The resulting circle covered a nest of streets that Reacher figured would be mostly residential but a little bit commercial, too. He had been in a lot of cities, and he knew how they worked. In that part of the world, in that part of town, there would be low-rise apartments from the second floor up, with discreet stores and offices at street level. Delis, obviously, in a small way, and maybe jewelers and dry cleaners and insurance bureaus. And bakeries and pastry shops and coffee shops, and restaurants, and bars. A neighborhood. Plus there were four pocket-handkerchief parks, which meant maybe eight benches available, and probably pigeons to feed, which was what spies did in the movies he saw.

Neagley said, “It’s a nice day for a walk.”

–

A one-mile radius meant a three-mile area, which was more than two thousand acres. They found the apartment building at its center, and walked past without looking, and then stood on random corners with their map, like tourists. Of which there were others. They didn’t stand out.

From the get-go they racked up one possibility after another, including in the first five streets alone a boutique bakery with two gold tables, and three regular coffee shops, and two bars. Reacher said, “But the meeting was in the late afternoon. Which means the bakeries aren’t right. Bakeries are morning places. I think they met in a bar.”

“Or a park.”

“Where would the American feel dominant? This is a negotiation, we assume. He’d want a psychological advantage. He would want to be comfortable, and he would want the other guy to be uncomfortable.”

“Are we assuming he’s white?”

“The odds say he is.”

“Then a skinhead bar.”

“Is there one in a neighborhood like this?”

“They don’t put a sign out front. It’s an attitude.”

Reacher looked at the map, for the right kind of shapes, for wide streets meeting, where traffic would be worse, and rents would be lower, and there would be side streets for parking. He found a possible location. They could take in two parks along the way.

He said, “It’s a nice day for a walk.”

–

The parks were a disappointment in a horticultural sense. They were mostly paved over, with planters, and flowers as bright as lipstick. But they had benches, two each, and a certain kind of seclusion. One guy could have sat on one bench, and the other guy on the other, and the first guy could have spoken, and then gotten up to leave, and no one would have been wiser. Just a guy on a bench. Then another. One arrives, and one leaves.

The parks were possibilities.

The high-traffic area was not night and day different, but there was a little more hustle and noise. The commercial spaces spilled off the main drag into the side streets, a couple of units back. One of them was a bar with four guys outside, drinking beer. Ten o’clock in the morning. All four guys had shaved heads. All hacked and scabby, like they did it themselves with knives, and were proud of it. They were young, maybe eighteen or twenty, but large. Like four sides of beef. Not from the neighborhood, Reacher thought. Which raised issues of turf. Were they claiming something?

Neagley said, “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”

“Here?”

“Those boys have something to say to us.”

“How do you know?”

“Just a feeling. They’re looking at us.”

Reacher turned, and they looked at him. Tribal, with a hint of challenge, and a hint of fear. And animal, as if they were suddenly quivering with fight-or-flight secretions. As if the rubber was about to meet the road.

He said, “What’s their problem?”

Neagley said, “Let’s find out.”

So he stepped ahead, on a direct line to the door.

The four boys closed ranks.

The boy at the front said, “Are you American?”

Reacher said, “How could you tell?”

The boy said, “We don’t allow Americans in this bar.”

Afterward Reacher conceded that if a guy his own age had said it, he would have hit him right away, bang, before the last word had even died away to silence, because why let a guy who wants to start a fight do so on his own schedule? But this was a kid, and compassion demanded at least one do-over. So instead Reacher asked, very slowly, “Do you speak English?”

The boy said, “I am speaking English.”

“Because you got your words wrong back there. It came out all mixed up. It sounded like you think there are bars in Germany where Americans can’t walk right in and feel at home. That can’t be what you meant to say. I could teach you the right words, if you like.”

“Germany is for Germans.”

“Works for me,” Reacher said. “But here I am, nonetheless. Just passing through. Looking for a cup of coffee. Trying to give you an opportunity to back off and save face and not get your ass kicked.”

“There are four of us.”

“How long did it take you to count that high? No, seriously, I’m curious.”

There was a face at the window of the bar. Staring out, then ducking away.

Neagley said, “We can go now. This ain’t the one. Our guy couldn’t get in.”

Reacher said, “What about our cup of coffee?”

“Probably lousy.”

The boy said, “It’s not lousy. It’s good coffee here.”

Reacher said, “You just made my mind up for me. Now step aside.”

The boy didn’t.

Instead he said, “Here we say what happens. Not you. The American occupation is over. Germany is for Germans.”

“You sound like you’re fixing to fight me over it.”

The kid took a step forward.

He said, “We’re not afraid.”

He sounded like the bad guy in an old black-and-white movie.

Reacher asked, “You think tomorrow belongs to you?”

“I think it does.”

“Doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different outcome is insane, you know. You ever hear about that? That’s what doctors are saying now. I think it comes from Einstein. And he was German, right? Go figure.”

“You should leave.”

“On a count of three, kid. Step aside.”

No answer.

“One.”

No response.

Reacher hit him on the two. Cheating, technically, but why the hell not? The do-over was long gone. Welcome to the real world, kid. A straight right, to the solar plexus. A humanitarian gesture. Like stunning a cow. The second guy wasn’t so lucky. Momentum was against him. He stumbled into Reacher’s elbow, smack between the eyes, and on his way down he impeded the fourth guy, just long enough that Reacher had time to get to the third guy, with the same elbow coming back, arcing, stabbing down like a knife, which left the fourth guy pretty much wide open to a variety of options. Reacher chose a kick in the nuts, for the minimum effort, and the maximum reward.