Blue Moon - Lee Child Page 0,34
welcome.”
“I’m Jack Reacher,” he said. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”
“Abigail Gibson,” she said. “People call me Abby.”
“People call me Reacher.”
She said, “I’m very pleased to meet you, Reacher.”
They shook hands, quite formally. Small fingers, but strong.
He said, “I stirred it up on purpose. I wanted to see if and how fast and how hard they would react to something.”
“What something?”
“The name Maxim Trulenko. You ever heard of him?”
“Sure,” Abby said. “He just went bankrupt. Some kind of dot-com bust. He was famous here for a spell.”
“I want to find him.”
“Why?”
“He owes people money.”
“Are you a debt collector? You told me you were out of work.”
“Pro bono,” Reacher said. “Temporary. For an old couple I met. So far exploratory only. Just a toe in the water.”
“Doesn’t matter if he owes people money. He hasn’t got any. He’s bankrupt.”
“There’s a theory he hid some private cash under his mattress.”
“There’s always a theory like that.”
“I think in this case it might be right. Purely as a logical proposition. If he was broke, he would have been found by now. But he hasn’t been found by now, therefore he can’t be broke. Because the only way not to be found by now is to pay the Ukrainians to hide him. Which requires money. Therefore he still has some. If I find him soon, there might be some left.”
“For your old couple.”
“Hopefully enough to cover their needs.”
“The only way not to be found is not to be broke,” she said. “Sounds like something out of a fortune cookie. But I guess they proved it was true tonight.”
Reacher nodded.
“Two cars,” he said. “Four guys. He’s getting good value.”
“You shouldn’t mess with these people,” Abby said. “I’ve seen them up close.”
“You’re messing with them. You opened your door.”
“That’s different. They’ll never know. There are a hundred doors.”
He said, “Why did you open your door?”
“You know why,” she said.
“Maybe they just wanted a cozy chat.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maybe all I would have gotten was a stern talking to.”
She didn’t answer.
“You knew they wanted worse than that,” he said. “That’s why you opened your door.”
“I’ve seen them up close,” she said again.
“What would they have done?”
“They don’t like people getting in their business,” she said. “I think they would have messed you up bad.”
“Have you seen that kind of thing happen before?”
She didn’t answer.
“Anyway,” Reacher said. “Thanks again.”
“You need anything?”
“I should get going. You’ve done enough for me already. I have a hotel room.”
“Where?”
He told her. She shook her head.
“That’s west of Center,” she said. “They have eyes in there. The texts will have already gone out, with your description.”
“They seem to be taking it very seriously.”
“I told you,” she said. “They don’t like people in their business.”
“How many of them are there?”
“Enough,” she said. “I was going to make coffee. You want some?”
“Sure,” Reacher said.
She led the way to her kitchen, which was small and mismatched but clean and tidy. It felt like home. She knocked old grounds out of a filter basket, and rinsed a pot, and set the whole thing going. It burped and slurped and filled the room with a rich aroma.
“I guess it doesn’t keep you awake,” Reacher said.
“This is my evening time,” she said. “I go to bed when the sun comes up. Then I sleep all day.”
“Makes sense.”
She opened a wall cupboard and took down two white china mugs.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “Help yourself if it’s ready before I am.”
A minute later he heard running water, and after that the gentle whine of a hairdryer. The coffee machine tinkled and sputtered. Abby got back just as it finished. She looked pink and damp and she smelled of soap. She was wearing a knee-length dress that looked like a man’s button-down shirt, but longer and slimmer. Probably not a whole lot underneath it. Certainly her feet were bare. After-work attire. A cozy evening at home. They poured their coffee and took their mugs back to the living room.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said. “I guess you didn’t get a chance.”
“What question?” he said.
“What kind of work do you like to do?”
In response he gave her his capsule bio. Easy to understand at first, then harder later. Son of a Marine, childhood in fifty different places, then West Point, then the military police in a hundred different places, then the reductions in force when the Cold War ended, leading directly to his sudden head-first introduction to civilian life. A straightforward story. Followed by the wandering,