Killing Floor (Jack Reacher 1)

Chapter Eight

HUBBLE SLEPT FOR A WHILE ON THE COT ACROSS FROM mine. Then he stirred and woke up. Writhed around. Looked disoriented for a moment, until he remembered where he was. Tried to check the time on his watch but saw only a band of pale skin where the heavy Rolex had been. Pushed against the bridge of his nose and remembered he'd lost his eyeglasses. Sighed and flopped his head back onto the striped prison pillow. One very miserable guy.

I could understand his fear. But he also looked defeated. Like he'd just rolled the dice and lost. Like he'd been counting on something to happen, and it hadn't happened, so now he was back in despair.

Then I began to understand that, too.

"The dead guy was trying to help you, wasn't he?" I said.

The question scared him.

"I can't tell you that, can I?" he answered.

"I need to know," I said. "Maybe you approached the guy for help. Maybe you talked to him. Maybe that's why he got killed. Maybe it looks like now you'll start talking to me. Which could get me killed, too. "

Hubble nodded and rocked back and forth on his bed. Took a deep breath. Looked straight at me.

"He was an investigator," he said. "I brought him down here because I want this whole thing stopped. I don't want to be involved anymore. I'm not a criminal. I'm scared to death and I want out. He was going to get me out and take down the scam. But he slipped up somehow and now he's dead and I'm never going to get out. And if they find out it was me brought him down here, they'll kill me. And if they don't kill me, I'll probably go to jail for a thousand years anyway, because right now the whole damn thing is very exposed and very dangerous. "

"Who was the guy?" I asked him.

"He didn't have a name," Hubble said. "Just a contact code. He said it was safer that way. I can't believe they got him. He seemed like a capable guy to me. Tell the truth, you remind me of him. You seem like a capable guy to me, too. "

"What was he doing up there at the warehouse?" I asked him.

He shrugged and shook his head.

"I don't understand that situation," he said. "I put him together with another guy, and he was meeting with him up there, but wouldn't they have shot the other guy as well? I don't understand why they only got one of them. "

"Who was the other guy he was meeting with?" I said.

He stopped and shook his head.

"I've told you way too much already," he said. "I must be crazy. They'll kill me. "

"Who's on the inside of this thing?" I asked him.

"Don't you listen?" he said. "I'm not saying another word. "

"I don't want names," I said. "Is it a big deal?"

"It's huge," he said. "Biggest thing you ever heard of. "

"How many people?" I said.

He shrugged and thought about it. Counted up in his head.

"Ten people," he said. "Not counting me. "

I looked at him and shrugged.

"Ten people doesn't sound like a big deal," I said.

"Well, there's hired help," he said. "They're around when they're needed. I mean a core of ten people around here. Ten people in the know, not counting me. It's a very tight situation, but believe me, it's a big deal. "

"What about the guy you sent to meet with the investigator?" I said. "Is he one of the ten people?"

Hubble shook his head.

"I'm not counting him either," he said.

"So there's you and him and ten others?" I said. "Some kind of a big deal?"

He nodded glumly.

"Biggest thing you ever heard of," he said again.

"And right now it's very exposed?" I asked him. "Why? Because of this investigator poking about?"

Hubble shook his head again. He was writhing around like my questions were tearing him up.

"No," he said. "For another reason altogether. It's like a window of vulnerability is wide open right now. An exposure. It's been very risky, getting worse all the time. But now it could go either way. If we get through it, nobody will ever know anything. But if we don't get through it, it'll be the biggest sensation you ever heard of, believe me. Either way, it's going to be a close call. "

I looked at him. He didn't look to me much like the sort of a guy who could cause the biggest sensation I ever heard of.

"So how long is this exposure going to last?" I asked him.

"It's nearly over," he said. "Maybe a week. A week tomorrow is my guess. Next Sunday. Maybe I'll live to see it. "

"So after next Sunday you're not vulnerable anymore?" I said. "Why not? What's going to happen next Sunday?"

He shook his head and turned his face away. It was like if he couldn't see me, I wasn't there, asking him questions.

"What does Pluribus mean?" I asked him.

He wouldn't answer. Just kept on shaking his head. His eyes were screwed shut with terror.

"Is it a code for something?" I said.

He wasn't hearing me. The conversation was over. I gave it up and we lapsed back into silence. That suited me well enough. I didn't want to know anything more. I didn't want to know anything at all. Being an outsider and knowing Hubble's business didn't seem to be a very smart combination. It hadn't done the tall guy with the shaved head a whole lot of good. I wasn't interested in sharing the same fate as him, dead at a warehouse gate, partially hidden under some old cardboard, two holes in my head, all my bones smashed. I just wanted to pass the time until Monday, and then get the hell out. By next Sunday, I planned to be a very long way away indeed.

"OK, Hubble," I said. "No more questions. "

He shrugged and nodded. Sat silent for a long time. Then he spoke, quietly, with a lot of resignation in his voice.

"Thanks," he said. "It's better that way. "

I WAS ROLLED OVER ON THE NARROW COT TRYING TO FLOAT away into some kind of limbo. But Hubble was restless. He was tossing and turning and blowing tight sighs. He was coming close to irritating me again. I turned to face him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm very uptight. It was doing me good just to talk to somebody. I'd go crazy in here on my own. Can't we talk about something else? What about you? Tell me about yourself. Who are you, Reacher?"

I shrugged at him.

"I'm nobody," I said. "Just a guy passing through. I'll be gone on Monday. "

"Nobody's nobody," he said. "We've all got a story. Tell me. "

So I talked for a while, lying on my bed, running through the last six months. He lay on his bed, looking at the concrete ceiling, listening, keeping his mind off his problems. I told him about leaving from the Pentagon. Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago. Museums, music, cheap hotels, bars, buses and trains. Solitude. Traveling through the land of my citizenship like a cheap tourist. Seeing most things for the first time. Looking at the history I'd learned in dusty schoolrooms half a world away. Looking at the big things that had shaped the nation. Battlefields, factories, declarations, revolutions. Looking for the small things. Birthplaces, clubs, roads, legends. The big things and the small things which were supposed to represent home. I'd found some of them.

I told Hubble about the long hop through the endless plains and deltas all the way down from Chicago to New Orleans. Sliding around the Gulf Coast as far as Tampa. Then the Greyhound blasting north toward Atlanta. The crazy decision to bail out near Margrave. The long walk in the rain yesterday morning. Following a whim. Following some half-remembered note from my brother saying he'd been through some little place where Blind Blake might have died over sixty years ago. As I told him about it, I felt pretty stupid. Hubble was scuffling with a nightmare and I was following a meaningless pilgrimage. But he understood the urge.

"I did that once," he said. "On our honeymoon. We went to Europe. We stopped off in New York and I spent half a day looking for the Dakota building, you know, where John Lennon was shot. Then we spent three days in England walking around Liverpool, looking for the Cav

ern Club. Where the Beatles started out. Couldn't find it. I guess they knocked it down. "

He talked on for a while. Mostly about traveling. He'd taken plenty of trips with his wife. They'd enjoyed it. Been all over, Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean. All over the States and Canada. Had a great time together.

"Don't you get lonely?" he asked me. "Traveling on your own all the time?"

I told him no, I enjoyed it. I told him I appreciated the solitude, the anonymity. Like I was invisible.

"How do you mean, invisible?" he said. He seemed interested.

"I travel by road," I said. "Always by road. Walk a bit, and ride the buses. Sometimes trains. Always pay cash. That way there's never a paper trail. No credit card transactions, no passenger manifests, nothing. Nobody could trace me. I never tell anybody my name. If I stay in a hotel, I pay cash and give them a made-up name. "

"Why?" he said. "Who the hell's after you?"

"Nobody," I said. "It's just a bit of fun. I like anonymity. I feel like I'm beating the system. And right now, I'm truly pissed at the system. "

I saw him fall back to thinking. He thought a long time. I could see him deflate as he struggled with the problems that wouldn't go away. I could see his panic come and go like a tide.

"So give me your advice about Finlay," he said. "When he asks me about the confession, I'll say I was stressed-out because of some business situation. I'll say there was some kind of rivalry, threats against my family. I'll say I don't know anything about the dead guy or anything about the phone number. I'll deny everything. Then I'll just try to settle everything down. What do you think?"

I thought it sounded like a pretty thin plan.

"Tell me one thing," I said. "Without giving me any more details, do you perform a useful function for them? Or are you just some kind of onlooker?"

He pulled on his fingers and thought for a moment.