The Midnight Line (Jack Reacher #22)

‘Looked like an old-fashioned black-bag job to me.’

‘I agree it was neat.’

‘You know who it was.’

‘I can’t talk about it.’

‘You know what was taken.’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you answer one question?’

‘Depends what it is.’

‘Just a yes or no answer. That’s all I need. No details, no background. Nothing more than you want to say.’

‘Promise?’

‘Just a yes or no. To put my mind at rest about something.’

‘About what?’

‘Do you know how Porterfield died?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was there.’

Special Agent Kirk Noble’s division was based in Denver, Colorado. His office was a bland beige space temporarily brightened up by the gold from the shoebox he had taken from Billy’s house in Wyoming. It was all laid out on his desk, all in an orderly fashion. All the gold trinkets. The crosses on the chains, the earrings, the bracelets, the charms, the chokers, the fashion rings, the wedding rings, the class rings. He had to fill out an inventory form. Description and value.

Some of it was junk. Some of it was pressed out of thin alloys no jeweller would have recognized. Twenty cents, literally, for some of the items. Others were merely mediocre. Seven bucks by weight for this, nine if you were lucky for that. Other items were better. There was an eighteen-carat wedding band, thick and heavy. A handsome piece. Fifty bucks in a pawn shop, easy. Same for a pair of earrings. Eighteen carat, solid and heavy. Two of them. Maybe sixty bucks together.

When he was finished he looked at his list. The right-hand column. The values. They made no sense. They were completely random. From practically zero all the way to a decent wad of cash. Stopping, crucially, at every price point along the way. Two bucks, three bucks, four bucks, all the way to more than sixty. Which was not how the business worked. It was not like a boutique delicatessen, where you bought a pinch of this and a twist of that. You bought a ten-dollar bag of brown powder for ten dollars. Or you didn’t. Or you bought two for twenty dollars. Or three for thirty. What an economist would have called stair-step pricing.

Whereas Billy’s pricing was notably granular. As if he was selling five-dollar bags, and six-dollar bags, and thirteen-dollar bags, and seventeen-dollar, and nine-dollar. Full service. Whatever the customer wanted. Filled there and then, and weighed on a scale.

Highly unlikely.

Therefore perhaps he wasn’t selling bags of powder at all. Perhaps his product came in bulk. Perhaps for retail purposes the large quantities could be broken down, all the way to individual items if necessary, for folks with limited resources. Or cut with scissors into halves and quarters, for the truly broke.

Just like the old days.

Impossible.

He picked up his desk phone and called down to the jail.

He said, ‘I’m expecting a transfer from Oklahoma. Name of Billy something.’

The voice on the phone said, ‘We just processed him in.’

‘Take him straight to an interview room. Tell him I have questions. I’ll come down in a couple hours. Let him sweat till then.’

Nothing more than you want to say, Reacher had promised, and it turned out Rose Sanderson wanted to say nothing more. Not on the subject of Porterfield, at least. She just nodded to herself, inside her hood, as if the matter was settled.

Then she said, ‘My sister told me you asked how it felt to be pretty.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You knew about me by then.’

‘It made sense.’

‘I’m sure she gave a conflicted answer. She’s still pretty. Deep down pretty people know other people feel they’re getting something for nothing. They have to be aw-shucks about it. They have to say it makes them feel shallow. But now I can tell you. It makes them feel great. It’s like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Sometimes I would dial it up and just mow them down, one by one, bam, bam, bam. It’s a superpower. Like clicking the phasers from stun to kill. There’s no point denying it. It’s a significant evolutionary advantage. Like being as big as you are.’

‘We should have children,’ he said.

He heard a click of foil inside the hood. A smile, he hoped.

She said, ‘Those days are over.’

‘Apparently Porterfield didn’t agree.’

‘We were friends, that’s all.’

‘There were two dents in the bed.’

‘How do you know?’

‘The guy who fixed his roof told a guy who told a guy who told us in a bar.’

‘The roofer was looking at my bed?’

‘Your bed? Sounds like you agree with him.’

She said, ‘Sy was different.’

He said, ‘What would it take to fix the infection?’

‘A long course of IV antibiotics. It’s a common thing. Most wounds get infected. The bacteria wall themselves off. It’s hard to get rid of.’

‘And you don’t want to go to the hospital.’

‘I didn’t like it. I was an embarrassment. I was every soldier’s worst fear. A disfiguring wound. The glamour was with the arms and legs. All that scientific technology. Titanium and carbon fibre. Some of those legs cost a million bucks. They looked better than new. Guys would wear shorts to show them off. Not me. I would have been a PR disaster.’

‘You can get IVs at home,’ Reacher said. ‘With a certain kind of doctor. Your sister will find one. The kind who will also advocate a very long slow glide path, when it comes to dependency issues. The kind who might want to maintain your current habit for at least another year, while you settle in.’

‘I don’t believe her.’

‘That she wants to?’

‘That she can.’

‘She has money. This is the civilian health care system we’re talking about here. She can get what she wants.’

‘People will see me. It’s a suburb.’

‘It’s Lake Forest, Illinois. You could wear a bag on your head. They’ll think it’s performance art. A year from now you’ll have your own show.’

‘I like it here better.’

‘Because of what Stackley brings. Before that what Billy brought. Which is a freak aberration. That trade was closed down. You’re on the end of the very last leak. They’re hunting for it right now. They have Billy in a cell. They’re two steps away from cutting you off. Think about it tactically. We need immediate action.’

She didn’t reply. She just breathed a bit harder, and stiffened. He felt it from a yard away. A low vibration, through the wood of the step.

She said, ‘I’m going inside now.’

He said, ‘I’m sorry I upset you.’

‘I’ll be fine ten minutes from now.’

She stood up, and stepped up on the porch, and then he heard her turn around again and wait. He looked up at her. She looked back at him from deep inside the hood. In the movies her eyes would have lit up red.

She said, ‘This is the problem. It will need to be seamless. Unfortunately I find I need this stuff. Like right now the most important thing in the world to me is a new fentanyl patch. Right now that’s worth a hundred rings or a dozen sisters. But fortunately I have a new fentanyl patch. I already decided to lick it. I already made that choice. Does all that upset you?’

‘Yes,’ Reacher said. ‘A little bit.’