One Shot (21 page)

Are you a hooker?

No way. I work at the auto parts store.

Not an auto parts store. The auto parts store. Maybe
the only one, or at least the main one. The biggest one.

Which in any city is always right there on the same strip
as the tyre stores and the auto dealers and the lube
shops. Which in any city is always a wide new strip near
a highway cloverleaf. Cities are all different, but they're
also all the same.

He spent ten minutes hiking past a Ford dealership
with about a thousand new pickup trucks lined up
shoulder to shoulder with their front wheels up on
ramps. Behind them was a giant inflatable gorilla tied
down with guy wires.

The wires had tinsel bunting attached to them. Beyond
the new trucks were old trucks. Trade-ins, Reacher
guessed, looking for new homes. Beyond the used lot
was a fire road.

And then an auto parts store.

It was a franchise operation, long and low, neat and
clean. New blacktop in the lot, urgent messages in the
windows. Cheap oil filters, cheap antifreeze, guaranteed
brake parts, super duty truck batteries. The parking lot
was about a quarter full. There were slammed Hondas
with wide pipes and blue headlight bulbs and rubber-band tyres on chrome wheels. There were listing pickup
trucks with broken springs. There were tired sedans
halfway through their third hundred thousand miles.

There were two cars alone together in the end bays.

The store staffs cars,

Reacher figured. They weren't allowed to park in the
prime front-and-centre slots, but they wanted their rides
where they could see them through the windows. One
was a four-cylinder Chevy, and the other was a small
Toyota SUV.

The Chevy had chromed silhouettes of reclining
women on the mud flaps, which made the Toyota the
redhead's car. That was Reacher's conclusion.

He went inside. The air was set very cold and smelled
of sharp chemical flavours. There were maybe a half-dozen customers walking around, looking. At the front
of the store were racks full of glass and chrome things.

Dress-up accessories, Reacher guessed. At the back
were racks of things in red cardboard boxes. Clutch
plates, brake pads, radiator hoses, stuff like that, he
guessed. Parts. He had never put parts on a car. In the
army there had been guys to do it for him, and since the
army he had never had a vehicle of his own.

Between the glamour stuff and the boring stuff was a
service corral made of four counters boxed together.

There were registers and computers and thick paper
manuals. Behind one of the computers was a tall boy
somewhere in his early twenties. Not someone Reacher
had seen before. Not one of the five from the sports bar.

Just a guy. He looked to be in charge. He was wearing
red overalls. A uniform, Reacher guessed, partly
practical and partly suggestive of the kind of thing an
Indy 500 pit mechanic might wear. Like a symbol. Like
an implied promise of fast hands-on help with all kinds
of matters automotive.

The guy was a manager, Reacher guessed. Not the
franchise owner. Not if he drove a four-cylinder Chevy
to work. His name was embroidered on the left of his
chest: Gary. Up close he looked sullen and unhelpful.

'I need to speak with Sandy,' Reacher said to him. 'The
redhead.'

'She's in back right now,' the guy called Gary said.

'Shall I go through or do you want to go get her for
me?'

'What's this about?'

'Personal.'

'She's here to work.'

'It's a legal matter.'

'You're not a cop.'

'I'm working with a lawyer.'

'I need to see some ID.'

'No, Gary, you don't. You need to go get Sandy.'

'I can't. I'm short-staffed today.'

'You could call her on the phone. Or page her.'

The guy called Gary just stood still. Did nothing.

Reacher shrugged and bypassed the corral of counters
and headed for a door marked No Admittance. It would
be an office or a lunch room, he guessed. Not a stock
room. A place like that, stock was unloaded directly onto
the shelves. No hidden inventory.

Reacher knew how modern retail worked. He read the
papers people left behind on buses and in diner booths.

It was an office, small, maybe ten by ten, dominated by a
large white laminate desk with oily hand prints on it.

Sandy was sitting behind it, wearing red overalls. Hers
looked a whole lot better than Gary's. They were
cinched in tight round her waist with a belt. The zipper
was open about eight inches. Her name was
embroidered on the left, displayed a lot more
prominently than Gary's was. Reacher figured that if he
owned the franchise he would have Sandy working the
counter and Gary in the office, no question. We meet
again,' he said.

Sandy said nothing. Just looked up at him. She was
working with invoices.

There was a stack of them on her left, and a stack of
them on her right. One of them was in her hand, frozen
in mid-air on its journey from one stack to the other. She
looked smaller than Reacher remembered, quieter, less
energetic, duller. Deflated. "We need to talk,' he said.

'Don't we?'

'I'm very sorry for what happened,' she said.

'Don't apologize. I wasn't offended. I just want to know
how it went down.'

'I don't know how.'

'You do, Sandy. You were there.'

She said nothing. Just placed the invoice on top of the
stack to her right, and used her fingers to line it up
exactly. "Who set it up?' Reacher asked.

'I don't know.'

'You must know who told you about it.' 'Jeb,' she said.

'Jeb?'

'Jeb Oliver,' she said. 'He works here. We hang out
sometimes.' 'Is he here today?'

'No, he didn't show.'

Reacher nodded. The guy called Gary had said: I'm
short-staffed today. 'Did you see him again last night?

Afterwards?' 'No, I just ran for it.' "Where does he live?'

'I don't know. With his mother somewhere. I don't
know him that well.' ¦What did he tell you?'

'That I could help with something he had to do.' 'Did it
sound like fun?'

'Anything sounds like fun on a Monday night in this
town. Watching a barn plank warp sounds like fun.'

'How much did he pay you?'

Sandy didn't answer.

'A thing like that, nobody does it for free,' Reacher
said. 'Hundred dollars,' she said.

What about the other four guys?'

'Same for them.'

Who were they?'

'His buddies.'

Who came up with the plan? The brothers thing?' 'It
was Jeb's idea. You were supposed to start pawing me.

Only you didn't' 'You improvised very well.'

She smiled a little, like it had been a small unscripted
She smiled a little, like it had been a small unscripted
success in a life that held very few of them. 'How did
you know where to find me?' Reacher asked. We were
cruising in Jeb's truck. Around and around. Kind of
standing by. Then he got word on his cell.' Who called
him?'

'I don't know.'

Would his buddies know?'

'I don't think so. Jeb likes to know things that nobody
else knows.' 'You want to lend me your car?'

'My car?'

'I need to go find Jeb.'

'I don't know where he lives.'

'You can leave that part to me. But I need wheels.' 1

don't know.'

'I'm old enough to drive,' Reacher said. 'I'm old enough
to do lots of things.

And I'm pretty good at some of them.' She half smiled
again, because he was using her own line from the
night before. She looked away, and then she looked
back at him, shy, but curious. 'Was I any good?' she
asked. 'You know, last night, with the act?' 'You were
great,' he said. 'I was preoccupied, or I would have
given up on the football in a heartbeat.' 'How long would
you need my car for?'

'How big is this town?'

'Not very.'

'Not very long, then.'

'Is this a big deal?'

'You got a hundred bucks. So did four other guys.

That's five hundred right there. My guess is Jeb kept
another five for himself. So someone paid a thousand
bucks to put me in the hospital. That's a moderately big
deal. For me, anyway.' 'I wish I hadn't gotten involved
now.'

'It turned out OK.'

'Am I in trouble?'

'Maybe,' Reacher said. 'But maybe not. We could deal.

You could lend me your car and I could forget all about
you.' 'Promise?'

'No harm, no foul,' Reacher said.

She ducked down and lifted her purse off the floor.

Rooted through and came out with a set of keys. 'It's a
Toyota,' she said.

'I know,' Reacher said. 'End of the row, next to Gary's
Chevy.' 'How did you know that?'

'Intuition,' he said.

He took the keys and closed the door on her and
headed back to the corral of counters. Gary was ringing
some guy up for some unidentifiable purchase.

Reacher waited in line behind him. Got to the register
inside about two minutes.

'I need Jeb Oliver's address,' he said.

Why?' Gary said.

'A legal matter.'

'I want to see some ID.'

'You had a criminal conspiracy running out of your
store. If I were you, the less I knew about it, the better.'

'I want to see something.'

'What about the inside of an ambulance? That's the
next thing you're going to see, Gary, unless you give me
Jeb Oliver's address.'

The guy paused a moment. Glanced beyond Reacher's
shoulder at the line forming behind him. Apparently
decided that he didn't want to start a fight he knew he
couldn't win with a whole bunch of people watching. So
he opened a drawer and took out a file and copied an
address onto a slip of paper torn off the top of a memo
pad provided by an oil filter manufacturer.

'North of here,' he said. 'About five miles.'

'Thank you,' Reacher said, and took the slip of paper.

The redhead's Toyota started on the first turn of the
key. Reacher let the engine idle and racked the seat
back and adjusted the mirror. Clipped his belt and
propped the slip of paper against the instrument panel.

It meant he couldn't see the tachometer, but he wasn't
very interested in whatever information that dial might
supply. All he cared about was how much gas was in
the tank, and there looked to be more than enough for
five miles out and five miles back.

Jeb Oliver's address was nothing more than a house
number on a rural route.

Easier to find than a road with a name, like Elm Street,
or Maple Avenue. In Reacher's experience some towns
had more roads named after trees than trees
themselves.

He moved out of the parking lot and drove north to the
highway cloverleaf.

There was the usual forest of signs. He saw the route
number he wanted. It was going to be a dogleg, right
and then left. East, and then north. The little SUV

hummed along OK. It was tall for its width, which made it
feel tippy on the turns.

But it didn't fall over. It had a small engine that kept
itself working hard.