Reacher walked the rest of the hill and turned on the three-lane. A bus passed him by. Heading out, not in. Onward, and away. He walked on, down a slight dip, up a slight rise. He saw the motel ahead of him, on the right, maybe a hundred yards distant.
He stopped.
The car with the dented doors was in the motel lot.
THIRTEEN
THE CAR WAS easily recognizable, even at a distance. Make, model, shape, colour, the slight deformation in the driver’s side sheet metal. It was alone in the lot, level with where Reacher guessed his room must be. He moved three paces forward, on a diagonal to the edge of the sidewalk, to improve his angle, and he saw four men coming out of his door.
Two of them were as easily identifiable as the car. They were the guys from the night before. One hundred per cent certain. Shape, size, colouring. The other two men were new. Nothing special about the first of them. Tall, young, dumb. As bad as his two pals.
The fourth man was different.
He looked a little older than the others, and he was a little bigger than the others, which made him close to Reacher’s own size. Six-four, maybe, and two-forty. But all muscle. Huge thighs, small waist, huge chest, like an hourglass, like a cartoon drawing. Plus big knotted shoulders, and arms propped away from his sides by the sheer bulk of his pectorals and his triceps. Like a world champion male gymnast, except more than twice the size.
But it was his head that was truly extraordinary. It was shaved, and it looked like it had been welded together from flat steel plates. Small eyes, and heavy brows, and sharp cheekbones, and tiny, gristly ears, like pasta shapes. He was straight-backed and powerful. Slavic, somehow. Like a poster boy out of an old Red Army recruiting advertisement. Like the ideal of Soviet manhood. He should have been holding a banner, one-handed, high and proud, his eyes fixed mistily on a golden future.
The four men shuffled out and closed the door behind them. Reacher walked on, ninety yards away, then eighty. An Olympic sprinter could have closed the gap in about eight seconds, but Reacher was no kind of a sprinter, Olympic or otherwise. The four men stepped over to their car. Reacher walked on. The four men opened their doors and folded themselves inside, two in the back, two in the front. Reacher walked on. Seventy yards. Sixty. The car moved through the lot, and stopped nose-on to the three-lane, waiting for a gap in the traffic, waiting to turn. Reacher wanted it to turn towards him.
But the car turned right, and joined the traffic stream, and drove away into the distance, and was lost to sight.
A minute later Reacher was at his door, unlocking it again, opening it up, and stepping inside. Nothing was disturbed. Nothing was torn up or tipped over or trashed. Therefore there had been no detailed search. Just a cursory poke around, looking for a first impression.
Which was what?
There was a wet tub, and a wet towel, and some old clothes stuffed in the trash cans, and some abandoned toiletries near the sink. Like he had just upped and quit. Which they had told him to, after all.
Maybe they thought he had heeded their warnings.
Or maybe not.
He left the room again and walked up to the motel office. The clerk was a squirrelly guy about forty, all bad skin and jutting bone, perched up on a high stool behind the counter. Reacher said, ‘You let four guys into my room.’
The clerk sucked his teeth and nodded.
Reacher said, ‘Army?’
The guy nodded again.
‘Did you see ID?’
‘Didn’t need to. They had the look.’
‘You do a lot of business with the army?’
‘Enough.’
‘To never ask questions?’
‘You got it, chief. I’m sweetness and light all the way, with the army. Because a man’s got to eat. They do anything wrong?’
‘Not a thing,’ Reacher said. ‘Did you hear any names?’
‘Only yours.’
Reacher said nothing.
‘Anything else I can do for you?’ the guy asked.
‘I could use a fresh towel,’ Reacher said. ‘And more soap, I guess. And more shampoo. And you could empty my trash.’
‘Whatever you want,’ the guy said. ‘I’m sweetness and light all the way, with the army.’
Reacher walked back to his room. There was no chair. Which was not a breach of the Geneva Conventions, but confinement to quarters was going to be irksome for a large and restless man. Plus it was only a motel, with no room service. And no dining room, and no greasy-spoon cafe across the street, either. And no telephone, and therefore no delivery. So Reacher locked up again and walked away, to the Greek place two blocks distant.
