Blue Moon - Lee Child Page 0,7

table in the far right-hand corner, and stopped in surprise. He looked all around the room. At the barman, at the four lonely customers, at Reacher, and then back at the corner table again. It was still empty.

Shevick set out hobbling toward it, but he stopped halfway. He changed direction. He limped to the bar instead. He spoke to the barman. Reacher was too far away to hear what he said, but he guessed it was a question. Could have been, where’s so-and-so? Certainly it involved a glance at the empty four-top in the rear corner. It seemed to get a sarcastic response. Could have been, what am I, clairvoyant? Shevick flinched away and stepped a pace into no-man’s-land. Where he could think about what to do next.

The clock in Reacher’s head said quarter to twelve.

Shevick limped over to the empty table, and stood for a moment, undecided. Then he sat down, opposite the corner, as if in a visitor chair in front of a desk, not in the executive chair behind it. He perched on the edge of the seat, bolt upright, half turned, watching the door, as if ready to spring up politely, as soon as the guy he was meeting walked in.

No guy walked in. The bar stayed quiet. Some grateful swallowing, some wet breathing, the squeak of the barman’s towel on a glass. Shevick stared at the door. Time ticked on.

Reacher got up and walked to the bar. To the part nearest Shevick’s table. He rested his elbows and looked expectant, like a guy with a new order. The barman turned his back and suddenly got busy with an urgent task all the way in the opposite corner. As in, no tip, no service. Which Reacher had predicted. And wanted. For a degree of privacy.

He whispered, “What?”

“He isn’t here,” Shevick whispered back.

“Is he usually?”

“Always,” Shevick whispered. “He sits at this table all day long.”

“How many times have you done this?”

“Three.”

The barman was still busy, way far away.

Shevick whispered, “Five minutes from now I’ll owe them twenty-three five, not twenty-two five.”

“The late fee is a thousand dollars?”

“Every day.”

“Not your fault,” Reacher whispered. “Not if the guy doesn’t show up.”

“These are not reasonable people.”

Shevick stared at the door. The barman finished up his imaginary task, and waddled the diagonal distance from the back of the bar to the front, with his chin up, hostile, as if possibly willing to entertain a request, but very unlikely to fulfill it.

He stopped a yard from Reacher and waited.

Reacher said, “What?”

“You want something?” the guy said.

“Not anymore. I wanted to make you walk there and back. You looked like you could use the exercise. But now you’ve done it, so I’m all good. Thanks anyway.”

The guy stared. Sizing up his situation. Which wasn’t great. Maybe he had a bat or a gun under the counter, but he would never get to them. Reacher was only an arm’s length away. His response was going to have to be verbal. Which was going to be a struggle. That was clear. In the end he was saved by his wall phone. It rang behind him. An old-fashioned bell. A long muted mournful peal, and then another.

The barman turned away and answered the call. The phone was a classic design, with a big plastic handset on a curly cord stretched so much it dragged on the floor. The barman listened and hung up. He jutted his chin in the direction of Shevick, all the way over at the rear corner table.

He called out, “Come back at six o’clock tonight.”

“What?” Shevick said.

“You heard me.”

The barman walked away, to another imaginary task.

Reacher sat down at Shevick’s table.

Shevick said, “What did he mean, come back at six o’clock?”

“I guess the guy you’re waiting for got delayed. He called in, so you know where you stand.”

“But I don’t know,” Shevick said. “What about my twelve o’clock deadline?”

“Not your fault,” Reacher said again. “It was the guy who missed it, not you.”

“He’s going to say I owe them another grand.”

“Not if he didn’t show up. Which everyone knows he didn’t. The barman took his call. He’s a witness. You were here and the other guy wasn’t.”

“I can’t find another thousand dollars,” Shevick said. “I just don’t have it.”

“I would say the postponement gives you a pass. It’s a clear implication. Like an implied term in a contract. You were offering legal tender in the right place at the right time. They didn’t show up to accept it. It’s