Lee Child - The Midnight Line

Chapter 10

The guy had a gun. A revolver. It looked like a worn-out Chief’s Special. A .38 five-shooter by Smith & Wesson. Short barrel. It looked small in the guy’s hand. His right hand. He was half-twisted behind the wheel, aiming half-sideways through the open passenger window, with a bent arm and a cramped right shoulder.

“In the car,” he said again.

Reacher stood still. He had choices. Life was full of them. Easiest thing would be just walk away. Straight ahead along the sidewalk, in the same direction the car had been driving. A right-handed shooter in a left-hand-drive car would have a practical problem with that kind of geometry. His windshield was in the way. Couldn’t shoot through it. The bullet would deflect and miss. And afterward there would be a hole in the windshield. Not a smart thing to have. Rapid City was no doubt a tough old town, but it wasn’t South-Central LA. Morning gunfire would get called in. Especially downtown, near the hotels and the restaurants. Police cruisers would show up fast. Questions about a bullet hole in a windshield would be hard to answer.

So the guy would have to move. He would have to shift the transmission, and take his foot off the brake, and shrug off his seatbelt, and flip up the armrests, and shuffle his ass across the front bench, and hang his right arm out the passenger window. All of which would take a small but finite amount of time. During which Reacher would be walking farther and farther away. And all the guy had was a worn-out .38 with a two-and-a-half-inch barrel. Not an accurate weapon. More or less a guaranteed miss, with the speed Reacher could walk.

So the better bet would be hang out the driver’s window. Much quicker. It was right there. But how? The guy would have to kneel up sideways on the driver’s seat, and stick his whole upper body out, and wriggle his right arm free, like putting on a tight sweater, bringing him all the way out of the car up to his waist, and then he would have to twist, and aim, and fire. Except at that point he would also be overbalancing and about to fall out the window. An inaccurate weapon, and a preoccupied shooter clinging to the door mirror. Not a whole lot to worry about.

Which meant the guy’s best bet would be step out and brace behind the open door. Like a cop. Except as soon as Reacher heard the creak of the hinge he would duck out of sight into the nearest store or alley. Same thing if he heard the car move off the curb and roll toward him. Stalemate. The whole get-in-the-car thing looked pretty good in the movies, but on the street it was basically optional. Plenty of choices. Keep calm and walk away. Live to fight another day.

But Reacher stayed where he was.

He said, “You want me to get in the car?”

The guy said, “Right now.”

“Then put the gun away.”

“Or?”

“Or I won’t get in the car.”

“I could shoot you first and get you in bleeding.”

“No,” Reacher said. “You really couldn’t.”

All he had to do was take one fast pace left. Then the guy would be shooting through glass again, or the B-pillar, or the C-pillar, plus anyway his shoulder was tight against the upholstery and wouldn’t rotate. Plus again, the cops would come. Lights and sirens. Questions. The guy was stuck.

He was an amateur.

Which was encouraging.

“Put the gun away,” Reacher said again.

“How do I know you’ll get in?”

“I’m happy to visit with Mr. Scorpio. He has information for me. I was planning to call on him later today, but since you’re here, I guess this is as good a time as any.”

“How do you know I’m working for Scorpio?”

“Magic,” Reacher said.

The guy held still for a second, and then he put the gun back in his coat pocket. Reacher opened the passenger door. The sedan was an ancient Lincoln Town Car. The old square style. The kind that got crashed and burned on the TV shows, because they were cheaper than dirt. The upholstery was red velvet, no better or worse than the restaurant lobby’s walls. A little crushed and greasy. Reacher crammed himself in the seat. He put his elbow on the armrest. His left hand hung loose, the size of a dinner plate. The guy stared at it for a second. Long thick fingers, with knuckles like walnuts. Old nicks and scars healed white. The guy looked away. No longer top dog. Uncharted territory, for a man who made his living leaning on walls and scaring people.

“Drive,” Reacher said. “I haven’t got all day.”

They took off, left and right through the downtown blocks, back to the low-rent district. They parked outside the laundromat. The guy took out his gun again. Saving face, in front of Scorpio. Reacher let him. Why not? It cost him nothing. He waited until the guy came around and opened his door, and then he got out, and the guy nodded toward the laundromat entrance. Reacher went in first, to the smell of drains and cold soap, and the back-door sentry leaning on a washing machine, and Arthur Scorpio himself sitting in a plastic lawn chair, as if he was a customer hypnotized by the churning drums.

Up close he had pitted skin on his face, unnaturally white, as if it had been treated with chemicals. The pallor made his eyes look dark. He was tall and thin. Maybe six feet two. Maybe a hundred sixty pounds. But only if he had a dollar’s worth of pennies in his pocket. All skin and bone, and awkward as a stepladder.

The back-door sentry pushed himself off the washing machine and came over to stand close. The guy who had driven the car stepped up from behind.

Scorpio said, “What do you want?”

“You fenced a ring to Jimmy Rat,” Reacher said. “I want to know who fenced it to you.”

“You got the wrong person altogether. I run a laundromat. I don’t know any Jimmy Rat.”

“Is the laundromat doing well?”

“I’m comfortable.”

“And modest. You’re doing better than comfortable. Your cash flow is so big you had to hire two guys to watch over it. Except I don’t see how. You got no customers.”

“You accusing me of something?”

Out the window a pale blue car stopped on the opposite curb. A domestic product. A Chevrolet, possibly. Nothing fancy. A plain specification. In it was a small Asian woman. Black hair, dark eyes. A severe expression. Nakamura. She just sat there, engine off, head turned, watching. A level gaze, over the hood of Scorpio’s parked Lincoln. Her eyes were locked on Reacher’s, through two layers of glass and thirty feet of air.

Reacher turned back to Scorpio and said, “Jimmy Rat left you a voicemail, which is why you hired these guys. He told you I was coming. And here I am. It’s up to you how long I stay.”

Scorpio said, “Firstly I don’t know what you’re talking about, and secondly do you know who that is, in the blue car across the street?”

“She’s a cop. Detective Nakamura.”

“Who harasses me on a regular basis. As you can see. For completely invented reasons. But this time she can make herself useful for once. You’re trespassing, and she can come remove you herself. My tax dollars at work.”

“You pay taxes?”

“You accusing me of something?”

“I’m not trespassing. You invited me here. Kind of insisted.”

“My point is you can stick your little threats where the sun don’t shine. Up to me how long you stay? What are you going to do, with a cop watching?”

“I know her name because we talked. She told me you’re not well liked within the police department.”

“Mutual.”

“It’s a code. In plain English it means I could rip your arm off and beat you to death with it, and they wouldn’t stop me. They’d sell tickets instead.”

“What code? You a cop, too? From somewhere?”

“You expecting one? Not me. I’m just a guy with a question. Tell me the answer, and I’m gone.”