One Shot (38 page)

The waiter had placed one chair behind it. 'One knife,'

Hutton said. 'One fork. One spoon. We didn't think of
that.' 'We'll take turns,' Reacher said. 'Kind of romantic'

'I'll cut your steak up and you can use your fingers.'

'You could feed it to me. We should have ordered
grapes.'

She smiled.

'Do you remember James Barr?' he asked.

'Too much water over the dam,' she said. 'But I reread
his file yesterday.'

'How good a shooter was he?'

'Not the best we ever had, not the worst'

'That's what I remember. I was just in the garage,
taking a look. It was impressive shooting. Very
impressive. I don't remember him being that good.'

'There's a lot of evidence there.'

He nodded. Said nothing.

'Maybe he's been practising hard,' she said. 'He was in
five years but he's been out nearly three times as long.

Maybe he was a late developer.' 'Maybe,' he said.

She looked at him. 'You're not staying, are you? You're
planning on leaving right after dinner. Because of this
thing with the cops.

You think they'll come back to the room.' 'They will,'

Reacher said. 'Count on it.'

'I don't have to let them in.'

'A place like this, the cops will do pretty much what
they want. And if they find me here, you're in trouble.'

'Not if you're innocent.'

You've got no legitimate way of telling what I am.

That's what they'll say.'

'I'm the lawyer here,' Hutton said.

'And I was a cop,' Reacher said. 'I know what they're
like. They hate fugitives. Fugitives drive them nuts.

They'll arrest you along with me and sort it all out next
month. By which time your second star will be in the
toilet.' 'So where are you going?'

'No idea. But I'll think of something.'

The street door at the bottom of the black glass tower
was locked for the night. Raskin knocked on it, twice.

The security guard at the lobby desk looked up. Raskin
waved the sketch at him. 'Delivery,' he mouthed.

The guard got up and walked over and used a key
from a bunch on a chain to unlock the door. Raskin
stepped inside. 'Rodin,' he said. 'Fourth floor.'

The guard nodded. The law offices of Helen Rodin had
received plenty of deliveries that day. Boxes, cartons,
guys with hand trucks. One more was to be expected.

No big surprise. He walked back to his desk without
comment and Raskin walked over to the elevator. Got in
and pressed four. First thing he saw on the fourth floor
was a city cop standing outside the lawyer's door.

Raskin knew what that meant, immediately. It meant
the lawyer's office was still a live possibility. Which
meant Reacher wasn't in there at the present time and
hadn't tried to get in there any time recently. So Raskin
wheeled round like he was confused by the corridor
layout and headed round a corner.

Waited a moment and then headed back to the
elevator. He folded the sketch and put it in his pocket. In
the lobby he gave the guard a job-done type of wave
and headed back out into the night. Turned left and
headed north and east towards the Marriott Suites.

The six-cup pot of coffee was more than even Reacher
could manage. He quit after five. Hutton didn't seem to
mind. He guessed she thought five out of six justified
his insistence.

'Come see me in Washington,' she said.

'I will,' he said. 'For sure. Next time I'm there.'

'Don't get caught'

'I won't,' he said. 'Not by these guys.'

Then he just looked at her for a minute. Storing away
the memory. Adding another fragment to his mosaic. He
kissed her once on the lips and walked to the door. Let
himself out into the corridor and headed for the stairs.

On the ground floor he turned away from the lobby and
used the fire door again. It swung shut and locked
behind him and he took a deep breath and stepped out
of the shadows and headed for the sidewalk.

Raskin saw him immediately. He was thirty yards away,
walking fast, coming up on the Marriott from the rear. He
saw a flash of glass in the street light. A fire door,
opening. He saw a tall man stepping out. Standing still.

Then the door jerked shut on a hydraulic closer and the
tall man turned to watch it latch behind him and a stray
beam of light was reflected off the moving glass and
played briefly across his face. Just for a split second,
like a hand-held flashlight swinging through a fast arc.

Like a camera strobe. Not much. But enough for Raskin
to be certain. The man who had come through the fire
door was the man in the sketch. Jack Reacher, for sure,
no question. Right height, right weight, right face.

Raskin had studied the details long and hard.

So he stopped dead and stepped backwards into the
shadows. Watched, and waited. Saw Reacher glance
right, glance left, and set out walking straight ahead,
due west, fast and easy. Raskin stayed where he was
and counted one, two, three in his head. Then he came
out of the shadows and crossed the parking lot and
stopped again and peered round the corner to the west.

Reacher was twenty yards ahead. Still walking, still
relaxed. Still unaware. Centre of the sidewalk, long
strides, his arms swinging loose at his sides. He was a
big guy. That was for sure. As big as Vladimir, easily.

Raskin counted to three again and let Reacher get forty
yards ahead. Then he set out following. He kept his
eyes fixed on the target and fumbled his cell phone out
of his pocket. Speed dialled Grigor Linsky's number.

Reacher walked on, forty yards in the distance. Raskin
put the phone to his ear. 'Yes?' Linsky said.

'I found him,' Raskin whispered. mere?'

'He's walking. West from the Marriott. He's about level
with the courthouse now, three blocks to the north.'

'Where's he going?'

'Wait,' Raskin whispered. 'Hold on.'

Reacher stopped on a corner. Glanced left and turned
right, towards the shadows under the raised highway.

Still relaxed. Raskin watched him across waist-high
trash in an empty lot. 'He's turned north,' he whispered.

'Towards?'

'I don't know. The sports bar, maybe.'

'OK,' Linsky said. We'll come north. We'll wait fifty
yards up the street from the sports bar. Call me back in
three minutes exactly. Meanwhile don't let him out of
your sight.' 'OK,' Raskin said. He clicked his phone off
but kept it up at his ear and took a short cut across the
empty lot. Paused against a blank brick wall and peered
round its corner. Reacher was still forty yards ahead,
still in the centre of the sidewalk, arms swinging, still
moving fast.

A

confident

man,

Raskin

thought.

Perhaps

overconfident.

Linsky clicked off with Raskin and immediately dialled
Chenko and Vladimir.

Told them to rendezvous fifty yards north of the sports
bar as fast as possible. Then he dialled the Zee. 'We
found him,' he said.

'Where?'

'North part of downtown.'

'Who's on him?'

'Raskin. They're on the street, walking.'

The Zee was quiet for a moment.

Wait until he settles somewhere,' he said. 'And then get
Chenko to call the cops. He's got the accent. He can say
he's a barman or a desk clerk or whatever.'

Raskin stayed forty yards back. He called Linsky again
and kept the connection open. Reacher kept on
walking, same stride, same pace. His clothes were dull
and hard to see in the darkness. His neck and his hands
were tan, but a little more visible. And he had a narrow
stripe of pale skin round a fresh haircut, ghostly in the
gloom. Raskin fixed his eyes on it. It was a white U-shaped glow, six feet off the ground, alternately rising
and falling an inch with every step Reacher took. Idiot,
Raskin thought. He should have used boot polish.

That's what we'd have done in Afghanistan. Then he
thought: Not that we ever had boot polish. Or haircuts.

Then he stopped because Reacher stopped forty
yards ahead. Raskin stepped back into a shadow and
Reacher glanced right and turned left, into the mouth of
a cross street, out of sight behind a building.

'He's gone west again,' Raskin whispered into the
phone.

'Still good for the sports bar?' Linsky asked.

'Or the motor court.'

'Either one works for us. Move up a little. Don't lose
him now.'

Raskin sprinted ten paces and slowed at the turn.

Pressed himself up against the corner of the building
and peered round. And stared. Problem. Not with the
view. The cross street was long and wide and straight
and lit at the far end by bright lights on the four-lane that
ran north to the state highway. So, he had an excellent
view. The problem was that Reacher was no longer part
of it.

He had disappeared. Completely.

ELEVEN

REACHER HAD ONCE READ THAT BOAT SHOES HAD

BEEN INVENTED by a yachtsman looking for better grip
on slippery decks. The guy had taken a regular smooth-soled athletic shoe and cut tiny sipes into the rubber
with a straight razor. He had experimented and ended
up with the cuts lateral and wavy and close together.

They had done the trick, like a miniature tyre tread. A
whole new industry had grown up. The style had
migrated by association from yachts to slips to marinas
to boardwalks to summer sidewalks. Now boat shoes
were everywhere.

Reacher didn't like them much. They were thin and
light and insubstantial.

But they were quiet.

He had seen the guy in the leather coat as soon as he
stepped out of the Marriott's fire door. It would have
been hard not to. Thirty yards distant, shallow angle,
decent illumination from vapour lights on poles all over
the place. His glance had flicked left and he had seen
him quite clearly. Seen him react. Seen him stop. Seen
him thereby identify himself as an opponent.

Reacher had set out walking straight ahead and had
scrutinized the after-image his night vision had retained.

What kind of opponent was this guy? Reacher had
closed his eyes and concentrated, two or three paces.

Generic Caucasian, medium height, medium weight,
red face and fair hair tinted orange and yellow by the
street lights.

Cop or not?

Not. Because of the jacket. It was a boxy square-shouldered double-breasted style made of chestnut-coloured leather. By day it would be a definite shade of
red-brown. And it had a glossy patina. It was definitely
shiny. Not American. Not even from the kind of fire-sale
store that sells leather garments for forty-nine bucks. It
was a foreign style. East European, just like the suit the
twisted old guy had worn in the plaza. Not cheap. Just
different. Russian, Bulgarian, Estonian, somewhere in
there.

So, not a cop.

Reacher walked on. He kept his own footsteps quiet
and focused on the sounds behind him, forty yards
back. Shorter strides, thicker soles, the slap of leather,
the faint crunch of grit, the thump of a rubber three-quarter heel.