One Shot

And then just for formality’s sake he fired up his computer and entered the plate numbers Reacher had given him. They came back as late-model Cadillac DeVilles, both black, both registered to Specialized Services of Indiana. He wrote dead end on the sheet of paper and dropped it in a file.

Reacher woke up every time he heard the elevator motors start. The sound whined down the shaft through the cables and the moving cars rumbled. The first three times were false alarms. Just anonymous office people heading home after a long day at work. Every forty minutes or so they came down alone and walked wearily to their cars and drove away. Three times the tang of cold exhaust fumes drifted and three times the garage went quiet again and three times Reacher went back to sleep.

The fourth time, he stayed awake. He heard the elevator start and checked his watch. Eleven forty-five. Showtime. He waited and heard the elevator doors open. This time, it wasn’t just another lone guy in a suit. It was a big crowd. Eight or ten people. Noisy. It was the whole cast and crew from the NBC affiliate’s eleven o’clock news.

Reacher pressed himself down in the Mustang’s passenger seat and hid the tire iron underneath the tails of his shirt. It was cold against the skin of his stomach. He stared up at the fabric roof and waited.

A heavy guy in baggy jeans passed through the darkness within five feet of the Mustang’s front fender. He had a ragged gray beard and was wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt under a torn cotton cardigan. Not on-screen talent. Maybe a cameraman. He walked on toward a silver pickup and climbed inside. Then came a man in a sharkskin suit and orange makeup. He had big hair and white teeth. Definitely on-screen talent, maybe weather, maybe sports. He passed by on the Mustang’s other side and got into a white Ford Taurus. Then came three women together, young, casual dress, maybe the studio director and the floor manager and the vision mixer. They squeezed between the Mustang’s trunk and a broadcast van. The car rocked three times as they nudged it. Then they split up and headed for their own separate rides.

Then came three more people.

Then came Ann Yanni.

Reacher didn’t notice her individually until she put her hand on her car’s door handle. She paused and called something out to one of the others. She got an answer, said something else, and then opened the door. She came in butt-first, swiveling and ducking her head. She was wearing old jeans and a new silk blouse. It looked expensive. Reacher guessed she had been on camera, but at an anchor’s desk, visible from the waist up only. Her hair was stiff with spray. She dumped herself in the seat and shut her door. Then she glanced to her right.

"Keep very quiet," Reacher said to her. "Or I’ll shoot you."

He jabbed the tire iron at her, under his shirt. Half-inch wide, long and straight, it looked plausible. She stared at it in shock. Face-to-face two feet away she looked thinner and older than she looked on the television screen. There were fine lines all around her eyes, full of makeup. But she was very beautiful. She had impossibly perfect features, bold and vivid and larger than life, like most TV people. Her blouse had a formal collar but was open three buttons. Prim and sexy, at the same time.

"Hands where I can see them," Reacher said. "In your lap." He didn’t want her to go for the horn. "Keys on the console." He didn’t want her to hit the panic button. The new Fords he had driven had a little red button on the remote fob. He assumed it set off an alarm.

"Just sit tight," he said. "Nice and quiet. We’ll be OK."

He clicked the button on his side and locked the car.

"I know who you are," she said.

"So do I," he said.

He kept the tire iron in place and waited. Yanni sat still, hands in her lap, breathing hard, looking more and more scared as all around them her colleagues’ cars started up. Blue haze drifted. People drove away, one by one. No backward glances. The end of a long day.

"Keep very quiet," Reacher said again, as a reminder. "Then we’ll be OK."

Yanni glanced left, glanced right. Tension in her body.

"Don’t do it," Reacher said. "Don’t do anything. Or I’ll pull the trigger. Gut shot. Or thigh. You’ll take twenty minutes to bleed out. Lots of pain."

"What do you want?" Yanni asked.

"I want you to be quiet and sit still. Just for a few more minutes."

She clamped her teeth and went quiet and sat still. The last car drove away. The white Taurus. The guy with the hair. The weatherman, or the sportscaster. There was tire squeal as he turned and engine noise as he gunned up the ramp. Then those sounds faded out and the garage went completely silent.

"What do you want?" Yanni asked again. Her voice wobbled. Her eyes were huge. She was trembling. She was thinking rape, murder, torture, dismemberment.

Reacher turned on the dome light.

"I want you to win the Pulitzer Prize," he said.

"What?"

"Or the Emmy or whatever it is you guys get."

"What?"

"I want you to listen to a story," he said.

"What story?"

"Watch," Reacher said.

He lifted his shirt. Showed her the tire iron resting against his stomach. She stared at it. Or at his shrapnel scar. Or both. He wasn’t sure. He balanced the tire iron in his palm. Held it up in the light.

"From your trunk," he said. "Not a gun."

He clicked the button on the door and unlocked the car.

"You’re free to go," he said. "Whenever you want."

She put her hand on the handle.

"But if you go, I go," Reacher said. "You won’t see me again. You’ll miss the story. Someone else will get it."

"We’ve been running your picture all night," she said. "And the cops have got Wanted posters all over town. You killed Alexandra Dupree."

Reacher shook his head. "Actually I didn’t, and that’s part of the story."

"What story?" she said again.

"Last Friday," Reacher said. "It wasn’t what it seemed."

"I’m going to get out of the car now," Yanni said.

"No," Reacher said. "I’ll get out. I apologize if I upset you. But I need your help and you need mine. So I’ll get out. You lock the doors, start the car, keep your foot on the brake, and open your window an inch. We’ll talk through the window. You can drive off anytime you want."

She said nothing. Just stared straight ahead as if she could make him vanish by not looking at him. He opened his door. Slid out and turned and laid the tire iron gently on the seat. Then he closed the door and just stood there. He tucked his shirt in. He heard the thunk of her door locks. She started her engine. Her brake lights flared red. He saw her reach up and switch off the dome light. Her face disappeared into shadow. He heard the transmission move out of Park. Her back-up lights flashed white as she moved the selector through Reverse into Drive. Then her brake lights went out and the engine roared and she drove off in a fast wide circle through the empty garage. Her tires squealed. Grippy rubber on smooth concrete. The squeals echoed. She lined up for the exit ramp and accelerated hard.

Then she jammed on the brakes.

The Mustang came to rest with its front wheels on the base of the ramp. Reacher walked toward it, crouching a little so he could see through the small rear window. No cell phone. She was just sitting there, staring straight ahead, hands on the wheel. The brake lights blazed red, so bright they hurt. The exhaust pipes burbled. White fumes kicked backward. Drops of water dripped out and made tiny twin pools on the floor.