Thriller (3 page)

untangled his clothes from the pile he’d dropped them in. He’d

need more clothes. He only had the things he stood up in. Everything else he’d burned along with his house. He shrugged and

reran his calculations to allow for some new pants and work

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shirts. Maybe some heavy boots, if he was going to be laboring

outside. The six weeks’ pay was going to have to stretch a little

thinner. He decided to drive slow, to save gas and maybe eat less.

Or maybe not less, just cheaper. He’d use truck stops, not tourist

diners. More calories, less money.

He figured today he’d put in some serious miles before stopping for breakfast. He jingled the car keys in his pocket and

opened his cabin door. Then he stopped. His heart thumped. The

blacktop rectangle outside his cabin was empty. Just old oil stains

staring up at him. He glanced desperately left and right along the

row. No red Firebird. He staggered back into the room and sat

down heavily on the bed. Just sat there in a daze, thinking about

what to do.

He decided he wouldn’t bother with the desk guy. He was

pretty certain the desk guy was responsible. He could just about

see it. The guy had waited an hour and then called some buddies who had come over and hot-wired his car. Eased it out of

the motel lot and away down the road. A conspiracy, feeding off

unsuspecting motel traffic. Feeding off suckers dumb enough to

pay twenty-seven-fifty for the privilege of getting their prize possession stolen. He was numb. Suspended somewhere between

sick and raging. His red Firebird. Gone. Stolen. No repo men involved. Just thieves.

The nearest police station was two miles south. He had seen

it the previous night, heading north past it. It was small but

crowded. He stood in line behind five other people. There was

an officer behind the counter, taking details, taking complaints,

writing slow. Penney felt like every minute was vital. He felt like

his Firebird was racing down to the border. Maybe this guy could

radio ahead and get it stopped. He hopped from foot to foot in

frustration. Gazed wildly around him. There were notices stuck

on a board behind the officer’s head. Blurred Xeroxes of telexes

and faxes. U.S. Marshal notices. A mass of stuff. His eyes flicked

absently across it all.

Then they snapped back. His photograph was staring out at

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him. The photograph from his own driver’s license, Xeroxed in

black and white, enlarged, grainy. His name underneath, in big

printed letters. JAMES PENNEY. From Laney, California. A description of his car. Red Firebird. The plate number. James Penney. Wanted for arson and criminal damage. He stared at the

bulletin. It grew larger and larger. It grew life-size. His face stared

back at him like he was looking in a mirror. James Penney. Arson.

Criminal damage. All-points-bulletin. The woman in front of him

finished her business and he stepped forward to the head of the

line. The desk sergeant looked up at him.

“Can I help you, sir?” he said.

Penney shook his head. Peeled off left and walked away.

Stepped calmly outside into the bright morning sun and ran

back north like a madman. He made about a hundred yards before the heat slowed him to a gasping walk. Then he did the instinctive thing, which was to duck off the blacktop and take cover

in a wild-birch grove. He pushed through the brush until he was

out of sight and collapsed into a sitting position, back against a

thin rough trunk, legs splayed out straight, chest heaving, hands

clamped against his head like he was trying to stop it from exploding.

Arson and criminal damage. He knew what the words meant.

But he couldn’t square them with what he had actually done. It

was his own damn house to burn. Like he was burning his trash.

He was entitled. How could that be arson? And he could explain,

anyway. He’d been upset. He sat slumped against the birch trunk

and breathed easier. But only for a moment. Because then he

started thinking about lawyers. He’d had personal experience.

His divorce had cost him plenty in lawyer bills. He knew what

lawyers were like. Lawyers were the problem. Even if it wasn’t

arson, it was going to cost plenty in lawyer bills to start proving

it. It was going to cost a steady torrent of dollars, pouring out

for years. Dollars he didn’t have, and never would have again.

He sat there on the hard, dry ground and realized that absolutely

everything he had in the whole world was right then in direct

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contact with his body. One pair of shoes, one pair of socks, one

pair of boxers, Levi’s, cotton shirt, leather jacket. And his billfold. He put his hand down and touched its bulk in his pocket.

Six weeks’ pay, less yesterday’s spending.

He got to his feet in the clearing. His legs were weak from the

unaccustomed running. His heart was thumping. He leaned up

against a birch trunk and took a deep breath. Swallowed. He

pushed back through the brush to the road. Turned north and

started walking. He walked for a half hour, hands in his pockets, maybe a mile and three-quarters, and then his muscles eased

off and his breathing calmed down. He began to see things clearly.

He began to appreciate the power of labels. He was a realistic guy,

and he always told himself the truth. He was an arsonist because

they said he was. The angry phase was over. Now it was about

making sensible decisions, one after the other. Clearing up the

confusion was beyond his resources. So he had to stay out of their

reach. That was his first decision. That was the starting point.

That was the strategy. The other decisions would flow out of that.

They were tactical.

He could be traced three ways. By his name, by his face, by

his car. He ducked sideways off the road again into the trees.

Pushed twenty yards into the woods. Kicked a shallow hole in

the leaf mold and stripped out of his billfold everything with his

name on. He buried it all in the hole and stamped the earth flat.

Then he took his beloved Firebird keys from his pocket and

hurled them far into the trees. He didn’t see where they fell.

The car itself was gone. Under the circumstances, that was

good. But it had left a trail. It might have been seen in Mojave,

outside the bank. It might have been seen at the gas stations

where he filled it. And its plate number was on the motel form

from last night. With his name. A trail, arrowing north through

California in neat little increments.

He remembered his training from Vietnam. He remembered

the tricks. If you wanted to move east from your foxhole, first

you moved west. You moved west for a couple hundred yards,

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stepping on the occasional twig, brushing the occasional bush,

until you had convinced Charlie you were moving west, as quietly as you could, but not quietly enough. Then you turned

around and came back east, really quietly, doing it right, past your

original starting point and away. He’d done it a dozen times. His

original plan had been to head north for a spell, maybe into Oregon. He’d gotten a few hours into that plan. Therefore, the red

Firebird had laid a modest trail north. So now he was going to

turn south for a while and disappear. He walked back out of the

woods, into the dust on the near side of the road, and started

walking back the way he had come.

His face he couldn’t change. It was right there on all the posters.

He remembered it staring out at him from the bulletin board in

the police building. The neat side-parting, the sunken gray

cheeks. He ran his hands through his hair, vigorously, backward

and forward, until it stuck out every which way. No more neat

side-parting. He ran his palms over twenty-four hours of stubble. Decided to grow a big beard. No option, really. He didn’t have

a razor, and he wasn’t about to spend any money on one. He

walked on through the dust, heading south, with Excelsior Mountain towering on his right. Then he came to the turn dodging west

toward San Francisco, through Tioga Pass, before Mount Dana

reared up even higher. He stopped in the dust on the side of the

road and pondered. Keeping on south would take him nearly all

the way back to Mojave. Too close to home. Way too close. He

wasn’t comfortable about that. Not comfortable at all. So he figured a new move. He’d hitch a ride west, and then decide.

Late in the afternoon he got out of some old hippie’s open Jeep

on the southern edge of Sacramento. He stood by the side of the

road and waved and watched the guy go. Then he looked around

in the sudden silence and got his bearings. All the way up and

down the drag he could see a forest of signs, bright colors, neon,

advertising motels, air and pool and cable, burger places, eateries of every description, supermarkets, auto parts. Looked like

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the kind of place a guy could get lost in, no trouble at all. Big

choice of motels, all side by side, all competing, all offering the

lowest prices in town. He figured he’d hole up in one of them

and plan ahead. After eating. He was hungry. He chose a burger

chain he’d never used before and sat in the window, idly watching the traffic. The waitress came over and he ordered a cheeseburger and two Cokes. He was dry from the dust on the road.

The Laney sheriff opened a map. Thought hard. Penney

wouldn’t be aiming to stay in California. He’d be moving on. Probably up to the wilds of Oregon or Washington State. Or Idaho or

Montana. But not due north. Penney was a veteran. He knew how

to feint. He would head west first. He would aim to get out through

Sacramento. But Sacramento was a city with an ocean not too far

away to the left, and high mountains to the right. Fundamentally

six roads out, was all. So six roadblocks would do it, maybe on a

ten-mile radius so the local commuters wouldn’t get snarled up.

The sheriff nodded to himself and picked up the phone.

Penney walked north for an hour. It started raining at dusk.

Steady, wetting rain. Northern California, near the mountains,

very different from what Penney was used to. He was hunched

in his jacket, head down, tired and demoralized and alone. And

wet. And conspicuous. Nobody walked anywhere in California.

He glanced over his shoulder at the traffic stream and saw a dull

olive Chevrolet sedan slowing behind him. It came to a stop and

a long arm stretched across and opened the passenger door. The

dome light clicked on and shone out on the soaked roadway.

“Want a ride?” the driver called.

Penney ducked down and glanced inside. The driver was a

very tall man, about thirty, muscular, built like a regular weight

lifter. Short fair hair, rugged open face. Dressed in uniform. Army

uniform. Penney read the insignia and registered: military police captain. He glanced at the dull olive paint on the car and saw

a white serial number stenciled on the flank.

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“I don’t know,” he said.

“Get in out of the rain,” the driver said. “A vet like you knows

better than to be walking in the rain.”

Penney slid inside. Closed the door.

“How do you know I’m a vet?” he asked.

“The way you walk,” the driver said. “And your age, and the

way you look. Guy your age looking like you look and walking

in the rain didn’t beat the draft for college, that’s for damn sure.”

Penney nodded.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I did a jungle tour.”

“So let me give you a ride,” the driver said. “A favor, one soldier to another. Consider it a veteran’s benefit.”

“Okay,” Penney said.

“Where you headed?” the driver asked.

“I don’t know,” Penney said. “North, I guess.”

“Okay, north it is,” the driver said. “I’m Jack Reacher. Pleased

to make your acquaintance.”

Penney said nothing.

“You got a name?” the guy called Reacher asked.

Penney hesitated.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Reacher put the car in drive and glanced over his shoulder.

Eased back into the traffic stream. Clicked the switch and locked

the doors.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Do?” Penney repeated.

“You’re running,” Reacher said. “Heading out of town, walking in the rain, head down, no bag, don’t know what your name

is. I’ve seen a lot of people running, and you’re one of them.”

“You going to turn me in?”

“I’m a military cop,” Reacher said. “You done anything to hurt

the army?”

“The army?” Penney said. “No, I was a good soldier.”

“So why would I turn you in?”

Penney looked blank.

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“What did you do to the civilians?” Reacher asked.

“You’re going to turn me in,” Penney said helplessly.

Reacher shrugged at the wheel. “That depends. What did

you do?”

Penney said nothing. Reacher turned his head and looked

straight at him. A powerful, silent stare, hypnotic intensity in his

eyes, held for a hundred yards of road. Penney couldn’t look

away. He took a breath.

“I burned my house,” he said. “Near Mojave. I worked seventeen years and got canned yesterday and I got all upset because

they were going to take my car away so I burned my house.