Make Me (23 page)

Chang killed the call.

She said, “Why doesn’t he have it with him? A cell phone belongs in a pocket.”

Reacher said, “To him it’s not a cell phone, I guess. Not in the normal way. It was an alternate number for calling Westwood, that’s all. And it did its job. Not its fault there was no result. So like you figured, he gave it up and dumped the phone in a drawer. Except the drawer is a table.”

“Plugged in.”

“Habit, maybe.”

“So where is he?”

Reacher said, “I don’t know where he is.”

“Keever’s door was unlocked, too.”

“I remember.”

“I think we should take a quick look and get out.”

“How quick?”

“Two minutes.”

Which wasn’t much, but which was enough, because there wasn’t much to look at. The kitchen was tiny, with a half-size cabinet that held only a box of off-brand breakfast cereal, and a half-size refrigerator that held only a quart of off-brand milk, and two candy bars. The bathroom cabinet had legal analgesics and over-the-counter cold remedies. There was a chest of drawers full of threadbare clothing, most of it man-made material, and all of it black. There was nothing unusual about the bed. The computer equipment was what it was. All the screens lit up on command, but from that point onward every step of every way needed a password.

No photos, no personal items, no leisure reading, no stacks of mail.

Chang opened the door and checked the hallway.

She said, “Let’s go.”

She opened the door wider.

There was a guy standing there.

Eyewitness testimony was suspect because of preconditions, and cognitive bias, and suggestibility. It was suspect because people see what they expect to see. Reacher was no different. He was human. The front part of his brain wasted the first precious split second working on the image of the guy at the door, trying to rearrange it into a plausible version of a theoretical McCann. Which was not an easy mental task, because McCann was supposed to be sixty years old and thin and gaunt, whereas the guy at the door was clearly twenty years younger than that, and twice as solid. But still Reacher tried, instinctively, because who else could it be, but McCann? Who else could be at McCann’s door, in McCann’s building, in McCann’s city?

Then half a second later the back part of Reacher’s brain took over, and the image resolved itself, crisp and clear, not a potential McCann at all, not even remotely a contender, but the familiar twice-glimpsed face, now three times seen, first in the diner, next in the Town Car, and finally in the there and then, in a dim upstairs hallway in a three-floor walk-up.

Chapter
35

The guy was about forty
years old, give or take, right up there on a hard-won plateau in the center of his life, not a dumb kid anymore, but not yet an old man either, and full of accumulated competence and confidence and capability, all wrapped up in experience. He looked to be dead-on six feet tall, and about two hundred pounds. He was wearing blue jeans, coarse and high-waisted, not stylish at all, with a belt, and a white open-neck shirt, and a blue satin baseball jacket. He had fair hair cut short and neatly brushed, and a pink slabby face, and small blue eyes, and an inquiring expression. He could have been a neighborhood electrical contractor, showing up in person to prepare a detailed estimate for a difficult job.

Except for the gun in his hand. Which looked like an old Ruger P-85. Nine millimeter. With a suppressor tube attached. A silencer, about nine inches long. The guy was holding the gun down by his leg. Pointed at the floor. With the suppressor tube it ran from the middle of his thigh to the middle of his calf. Long, and slender.

A random circuit in the back part of Reacher’s brain sparked up with a play-by-play:
He flew short-notice from LA, and can’t have taken a gun on the plane, so he has operational support in Chicago, at a fairly high level, given that suppressors are illegal in the state of Illinois
.

The front part of his brain said:
Step forward
.

He stepped forward.

The gun came up, and the guy said, “Don’t move.”

Reacher stepped forward again, all the way to the door.

The guy said, “I’ll shoot.”

You won’t, because you want to shoot me in the room, not in the doorway, because I’m too big to move afterward, and also because in real life suppressors don’t work like they work in the movies, with a polite little spit, but with a hell of a bang, not much quieter than a regular gunshot anyway, which will be audible all over the house, if you fire in the hallway
.

So you won’t shoot
.

Not yet
.

The guy said, “Stay where you are.”

The back of Reacher’s brain said:
If he has operational support in Chicago, you should check for reinforcements
.
Muscle is cheaper than silencers here
.

Which was why he had pushed his luck all the way to the door. To get the angle. But there was nothing in the dim shadows beyond the guy’s shoulder. No bulk, no sound, no shifting stance, no breathing.

The guy was alone.

Reacher stood still.

The guy said, “Back inside now.”

From the room Chang said, “What do you want?”

You’re not going to say you want to shoot us, nothing personal, purely business, because that would induce a measure of last-ditch defense on our part
.

The guy said, “I want to talk.”

“About what?”

“About what’s happening in Mother’s Rest. I think I can help you.”

And you have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn
.
I wasn’t born yesterday
. Reacher stayed right where he was, filling the doorway, angled slightly, his front toe on the seam between the hallway floor and the room floor, with the guy about a yard in front of him, halfway to the staircase railing, and Chang about two yards behind him, still halfway into the room.

She said, “If you’re here to help us, why did you bring a gun?”

The guy didn’t answer.

Reacher had failed driving, but he had passed everything else. Including unarmed combat. Which sounded like a useful qualification, but wasn’t. The whole point of the military had been to engage with hot weapons at minimum risk to the home side. In other words, to shoot the other guy from a very long way away with a rifle, or failing that to shoot him closer by with a handgun. The unarmed combat courses had been afterthoughts. There had been a whiff of embarrassment. Hand-to-hand implied failure at the hot-weapons stage. Worst of all, the pointy-heads couldn’t find anything to write in the manual. There were no valid theories. Martial arts didn’t work in the real world. Judo and karate were useless without the mats and the referee and the special pajamas. So unarmed combat was brawling, basically. Like a bar fight. Whatever worked.

Chang said, “Put the gun down, and we’ll talk.”

He won’t, because that would give up his only advantage. He would be one-on-one with a giant, which was not appealing, especially because right then the giant was fixing him with the glassy stare of a psychopath
.

Whatever worked.

The guy kept the gun where it was.

Reacher leaned forward an inch.

He wants to shoot me in the room, not the doorway. I’m too big to move
.

The guy said, “Back up now.”

Reacher said nothing.

I’m too big to move
.

And then it shifted. The man with the gun was no longer in charge. No longer in control. He was being pushed back. Inch by inch. Because of relentless pressure. Not physically. The tip of the suppressor didn’t move. But in his mind the man with the gun felt battered by a sudden and unexplained reversal of fortune, and he felt roasted by some kind of death rays coming out of the psychopath’s eyes.

Reacher said, “Don’t worry.”

Brawling. All in the head. Win them before you get in them
.

He said, “Let’s see if we can help you out of this mess.”

His standard procedure, such as it was, based on what had worked, for a right-handed person facing a right-handed gunman, was to drive slightly forward but mostly counterclockwise, a savage rotation from the waist, explosive, exaggerated like a dance move, with the right shoulder whipping hard around, therefore the right elbow whipping hard around, and the right hand and the right palm, the palm smacking hard against the inside of the bad guy’s wrist, and then pushing it, pushing it hard, pushing the gun out of orbit, then clamping on like a claw, the other hand meanwhile coming palm-to-palm with the gun hand, the left against his right, like dancing, like fighting over the gun, but it’s not fighting over the gun, it’s pushing the gun hand, pushing the gun hand back, and back, all the time dragging the wrist forward with the claw, until the wrist breaks and the gun drops.

But you can save yourself a lot of effort, because he’s got a suppressor. That gun is twice as long as his muscle memory thinks it is. Which makes it easy. Go the short route
.

Which Reacher did, twisting hard from the waist, but short, keeping his palm hooked close to his body, smacking not the guy’s wrist but the suppressor itself, pushing it wide and safe, then grasping it and hauling on it hard.

A standard procedure, so called because it was often used, like a default setting, because ninety-nine times in a hundred it worked. But this was the hundredth guy. He knew what to do. He didn’t allow himself to get hauled around off balance by keeping hold of the gun. He let go of it right away. Instantly. He gave it up, no contest. He just dropped it and spun away. It was his only smart play. It was one in a hundred.

It was a smart play because even though it gave Reacher sole possession of a lethal weapon, it gave him possession of it the wrong way around. He had grabbed it by the suppressor, in his right hand, palm outward, and he was still rotating away from the action, and the dead stop and the right-left-right shuffle to get the gun where it needed to be was going to occupy some finite slice of time, and then turning the barrel toward the target was going to occupy another slice, maybe longer, because it was a long barrel, with the suppressor in place. Not point and shoot. More like lashing the guy with a whip. Which would all take what? A second and a half? Two seconds?

During which time a guy smart enough to start such a play will be hitting you in the side of the head. He’ll be raining down the blows. Maybe four in your two seconds, if he’s any good with the speed bag. Better to let the gun go for the time being. Better to come back to it later. Better to get ready for what you know is coming
.

Reacher opened his hand and the Ruger fell away, and he started to unwind his counterclockwise twist, bringing his elbow up backhand, ducking his head down, and the first of the incoming blows bounced off the top of his skull, and then a left hook caught him above the ear, a savage blow, like an iron bar, and then his own elbow arrived in the neighborhood, scything a kind of defensive no-fly-zone through the nearby air, butting aside the next incoming right, and he used its momentum to pull a left hook of his own out of the bag, but the bang above the ear had set back the unwinding process an inch or two, so his blind aim was off, and the punch landed weakly, in that it didn’t knock the guy through the staircase railing, but merely bounced him off it.

At which point the guy showed yet more talent. Naturally Reacher was leaning in, waiting to finish it, waiting for the guy to come flopping back, all loose and raggedy and defenseless, but the guy jerked away sideways, at ninety degrees. A supreme gymnastic effort. Remarkable, for a big man. And a lifesaver. With a bonus. Not only had the guy escaped a colossal impact but now Reacher had his weight on the wrong foot, so the guy took advantage, by stepping in a pace and crashing a short left into Reacher’s kidney. Which Reacher felt would leave a bruise.

Then the guy stepped back the same pace, like a boxer to a neutral corner. He stood there, alert but not moving, and looking pretty confident. The Ruger was on the hallway carpet, about halfway between Reacher’s feet and his. It was aimed at neither one of them. It was pointing to the side, as yet undecided, like an emperor’s thumb, neither up nor down.

Not exactly halfway between them.

Closer to Reacher, if anything.

How long to get it?

Long enough to get your head kicked in
.

Or shot through the heart. Reacher checked the guy’s clothes. The satin jacket was thin, and showed no bulges or heavy weights. It was falling open, with nothing to hide. The blue jean pockets were puffed out innocently. Just air and Kleenex. Therefore his back-up weapon would be on his belt, in a pancake holster in the small of his back. As supplied by his local operational support. Not the fastest draw in the world, but a lot faster than a tall guy bending down and trying to scrabble up a small pistol off the floor, all unbalanced with nine inches of extra metal.

Hence the confidence. Which he wouldn’t feel if he was heading for a fistfight. No one had before. But this guy looked pretty good. He had only one minor concern, Reacher supposed. Which was that Reacher didn’t really need to pick up the Ruger as such. All he really needed to do was get a foot on it and scrape it backward between his legs to Chang.

That would be a game-changer.

But difficult. And slow. A clumsy, unnatural movement. Plus then the finite slice of time it would take Chang to grab it up herself, and set, and aim, and fire.

Not the fastest draw in the world, but faster than that.

Almost certainly.

So, a concern, but minor.

Time to mess with his head
.

Reacher stepped backward. One long pace. The proportions changed. Now the Ruger was nearer the guy. Who then stepped forward. Closer to it. Inevitably. Human nature, right there. Hard to push them back, easy to suck them in. The guy would have made a big point of standing his ground against forward pressure of any kind, but he showed no such determination in the other direction. He stepped right up. His first mistake. A weakness. He didn’t understand. He thought any length of rooming-house hallway was as good as any other. In fact he thought his new position was better. Because it put the Ruger right at his feet. He could reclaim it, any old time he wanted to. Then he would have two guns, and Reacher would have none.