The Hard Way Part 28

"Just don't get all scrupulous on me. This thing isn't going to be settled in any court of law with any dying declarations."

"How is it going to be settled?"

"The first colonel I really fell out with, I shot him in the head. And so far I like Lane a lot less than that guy. That guy was practically a saint compared to Lane."

"I'll come with you to Patti Joseph's."

"No, I'll meet you there," Reacher said. "Two hours from now. We should travel separately."

"Why?"

"I'm going to try to get killed." Pauling said she would be in the Majesties lobby in two hours and headed for the subway. Reacher started walking north on Hudson, not fast, not slow, centre of the left-hand sidewalk. Twelve stories above him and ten yards behind his left shoulder was a north-facing window. It had heavy black cloth taped behind it. The cloth had been peeled back across a quarter of its width to make a tall narrow slit, as if a person in the room had wanted at least a partial view of the city. Reacher crossed Morton, and Barrow, and Christopher. On West 10th he started zigzagging through the narrow tree-lined Village streets, east for a block, then north, then west, then north again. He made it to the bottom of Eighth Avenue and walked north for a spell and then started zigzagging again where the Chelsea side streets were quiet. He stopped in the lee of a brownstone's front steps and bent down and retied his shoes. Walked on and stopped again behind a big square plastic trash bin and studied something on the ground. At West 23rd Street he turned east and then north again on Eighth. Stuck to the centre of the left-hand sidewalk and slow-marched onward. Patti Joseph and the Majestic lay a little more than two miles ahead in a dead-straight line, and he had a whole hour to get there. Thirty minutes later at Columbus Circle, Reacher entered Central Park. Daylight was fading. Shadows had been long, but now they were indistinct. The air was still warm. Reacher stuck to the paths for a spell and then he stepped off and walked a haphazard and unofficial route through the trees. He stopped and leaned against one trunk, facing north. Then another, facing east. He got back on the path and found an empty bench and sat down with his back to the stream of people walking past. He waited there until the clock in his head told him it was time to move. Reacher found Lauren Pauling waiting in one of a group of armchairs in the Majesties lobby. She had freshened up. She looked good. She had qualities. Reacher found himself thinking that Kate Lane might have ended up looking like that, twenty years down the road.

"I stopped by and asked that Russian super," she said. "He'll go over later tonight to fix the door."

"Good,"' Reacher said.

"You didn't get killed," she said.

He sat down beside her.

"Something else I got wrong," he said. "I've been a.s.suming there was inside help from one of Lane's crew. But now I don't think there can have been. Yesterday morning Lane offered me a million bucks. This morning when he lost hope he told me to find the bad guys. Seek and destroy. He was about as serious as a man can get. Anyone watching from the inside would have to a.s.sume I was pretty well motivated. And I've shown them that I'm at least partially competent. But n.o.body has tried to stop me. And they would try, wouldn't they? Any kind of an inside ally would be expected to. But they haven't. I just spent two hours strolling through Manhattan. Side streets, quiet places, Central Park. I kept stopping and turning my back. I gave whoever it might be a dozen chances to take me out. But n.o.body tried."

"Would they have been on your tail?"

"That's why I wanted to start between Clarkson and Leroy. That's got to be some kind of a base camp. They could have picked me up there."

"How could they have done this whole thing without inside help?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

"You'll figure it out."

"Say that again."

"Why? You need inspiration?"

"I just like the sound of your voice."

"You'll figure it out," Pauling said, low and husky, like she had been getting over laryngitis for the last thirty years. They checked in at the desk and then rode up to seven in the elevator. Patti Joseph was out in the corridor, waiting for them. There was a little awkwardness when she and Pauling met. Patti had spent five years thinking Pauling had failed her sister, and Pauling had spent the same five years thinking pretty much the same thing. So there was ice to break. But the implied promise of news helped Patti thaw. And Reacher figured Pauling had plenty of experience with grieving relatives. Any investigator does.

"Coffee?" Patti said, before they were even in through the door.

"I thought you'd never ask," Reacher said.

Patti went to the kitchen to set up the machine and Pauling walked straight to the window. Looked at the stuff on the sill, and then checked the view. Raised her eyebrows in Reacher's direction and gave a small shrug that said: Weird, but I've seen weirder.

"So what's up?" Patti called through.

Reacher said, "Let's wait until we're all sitting down." And ten minutes later they all were, with Patti Joseph in tears. Tears of grief, tears of relief, tears of closure.

Tears of anger.

"Where is Knight now?" she asked.

"Knight died," Reacher said. "And he died hard."

"Good. I'm glad."

"No argument from me."

"What are we going to do about Lane?"

"That remains to be seen."

"I should call Brewer."

"Brewer can't do anything. There's truth here, but there's no evidence. Not the kind that a cop or a prosecutor needs."

"You should tell the other guys about Hobart. Tell them what Lane did to their buddy. Send them down there to see for themselves."

"Might not work. They might not care. Guys that were likely to care wouldn't have obeyed the order in Africa in the first place. And now, even if they did care, the best way to deal with their own guilt would be to stay in denial. They've had five years' practice."

"But it might be worth it. To see with their own eyes."

"We can't risk it. Not unless we know for sure ahead of time what their reactions would be. Because Lane will a.s.sume Knight spilled the beans in prison. Therefore Lane will see Hobart as a loose end now. And a threat. Therefore Lane will want Hobart dead now. And Lane's guys will do whatever the h.e.l.l Lane tells them to. So we can't risk it. Hobart's a sitting duck, literally. A puff of wind would blow him away. And his sister would get caught in the crossfire."

"Why are you here?"

"To give you the news."

"Not here. In New York, in and out of the Dakota."

Reacher said nothing.

"I'm not a fool," Patti said. "I know what goes on. Who knows more than me? Who possibly could? And I know that the day after I stop seeing Kate Lane and Jade anymore, you show up and people put bags in cars and you hide in the back seat and you come here to interrogate Brewer about the last time one of Edward Lane's wives disappeared."

Reacher asked, "Why do you think I'm here?"

"I think he's done it again."

Reacher looked at Pauling and Pauling shrugged like maybe she agreed Patti deserved to hear the story. Like somehow she had earned the right through five long years of fidelity to her sister's memory. So Reacher told her everything he knew. Told her all the facts, all the guesses, all the a.s.sumptions, all the conclusions. When he finished she just stared at him.

She said: 'You think it's real this time because of how good an actor he is?"

"No, I think n.o.body's that good of an actor."

"h.e.l.lo? Adolf Hitler? He could work himself into all kinds of phoney rages."

Patti stood up and stepped over to an armoire drawer and pulled out a packet of photographs. Checked the contents and tossed the packet into Reacher's lap. A fresh new envelope. A one-hour service. Thirty-six exposures. He thumbed through the stack. Top picture was of himself, face-on, coming out of the Dakota's lobby, preparing to turn toward the subway on Central Park West. Early this morning, he thought. The B train to Pauling's office. So?

"Keep going."

He thumbed backward and close to the end of the stack he saw Dee Marie Graziano, face on, coming out of the Dakota's lobby. The sun in the west. Afternoon. The picture behind it showed her from the back, going in.

"That's Hobart's sister, am I right?" Patti said. "It has to be, according to your story. She's in my notebook, too. Close to forty, overweight, not rich. Previously unexplained. But now I know. That's when the Dakota doormen told her the family was in the Hamptons. Then she went out there."

"So?"

"Isn't it obvious? Kate Lane takes this weird woman walking on the beach, and she hears a weird and fantastical story, but there's something about it and something about her husband that stops her from just dismissing it out of hand. Enough of a grain of truth there to make her think for a moment. Maybe enough to make her ask her husband for an explanation."

Reacher said nothing.

Patti said, "In which case all h.e.l.l would break loose. Don't you see? Suddenly Kate is no longer a loyal and obedient wife. Suddenly she's as bad as Anne was. And suddenly she's a loose end, too. Maybe even a serious threat."

"Lane would have gone after Hobart and Dee Marie, too. Not just Kate."

"If he could find them. You only found them because of the Pentagon."

"And the Pentagon hates Lane," Pauling said. "They wouldn't give him the time of day."

"Two questions," Reacher said. "If this is history repeating itself, Anne all over again, why is Lane pus.h.i.+ng me to help?"

"He's gambling," Patti said. "He's gambling because he's arrogant. He's putting on a show for his men, and he's betting that he's smarter than you are."

"Second question," Reacher said. "Who could be playing Knight's part this time around?"

"Does that matter?"

"Yes, it matters. It's an important detail, don't you think?"

Patti paused. Looked away.

"It's an inconvenient detail," she said. "Because there's n.o.body missing." Then she said, "OK, I apologize. Maybe you're right. Just because it was fake for Anne doesn't mean it's fake for Kate." Then she said, Just remember one thing, while you're spending your time helping him. You're not looking for a woman he loves. You're looking for a prize possession. This is like somebody stole a gold watch from him, and he's angry about it."

Then out of what Reacher guessed was sheer habit Patti moved to the window and stood with her hands linked behind her back, staring out and down.

"It's not over for me," she said. "It won't be over for me until Lane gets what he deserves."

CHAPTER 44

REACHER AND PAULING rode down to the Majestic's lobby in silence. They stepped out to the sidewalk. Early evening. Four lanes of traffic, and lovers in the park. Dogs on leashes, tour groups, the ba.s.s bark of fire truck horns.

Pauling asked, "Where now?"

"Take the night off," Reacher said. "I'm going back to the lions' den."

Pauling headed for the subway and Reacher headed for the Dakota. The doorman sent him up without making a call. Either Lane had put him on some kind of an approved list or the doorman had grown accustomed to his face. Either way it didn't feel good. Poor security, and Reacher didn't want to be recognized as part of Lane's crew. Not that he expected to be around the Dakota ever again. It was way above his pay grade.

There was n.o.body waiting for him in the corridor on five. Lane's door was closed. Reacher knocked and then found a bell b.u.t.ton and pushed it. A minute later Kowalski opened up. The biggest of Lane's guys, but no giant. Maybe six feet, maybe two hundred pounds. He seemed to be alone. There was nothing but stillness and silence behind him. He stepped back and held the door and Reacher stepped inside.

"Where is everybody?" Reacher asked.

"Out shaking the trees," Kowalski said.

"What trees?"

"Burke has a theory. He thinks we're being visited by ghosts from the past."

"What ghosts?"

"You know what ghosts," Kowalski said. "Because Burke told you first."

"Knight and Hobart," Reacher said.

"The very same."

"Waste of time," Reacher said. "They died in Africa."

"Not true," Kowalski said. "A friend of a friend of a friend called a VA clerk. Only one of them died in Africa."

"Which one?"

"We don't know yet. But we'll find out. You know what a VA clerk makes?"

"Not very much, I guess."

"Everyone has a price. And a VA clerk's is pretty low."

They moved through the foyer to the deserted living room. Kate Lane's picture still had pride of place on the table. There was a recessed light fixture in the ceiling that put a subtle glow on it.

"Did you know them?" Reacher asked. "Knight and Hobart?'

"Sure," Kowalski said.

"Did you go to Africa?"

"Sure."

"So whose side are you on? Theirs or Lane's?"