She locked her arms around his waist and bent her head down and kissed the wound. He felt her mouth on it, firm and cool against the tender skin. Then they made love for the fifth time in fifteen years, in the four-poster bed at the top of the old mansion while the sun in the window fell away west toward Kansas.
THE NYPD'S DOMESTIC Violence Unit borrowed squad-room space wherever it could find it, which was currently in a large upstairs room above the administrative offices at One Police Plaza. O'Hallinan and Sark got back there an hour before the end of their shift. That was the paperwork hour, and they went straight to their desks and opened their notebooks to the start of the day and began typing.
They reached their visit to the St. Vincent's ER with fifteen minutes to go. They wrote it up as a probable incident with a non-cooperative victim. O'Hallinan spooled the form out of her typewriter and noticed the Tahoe's plate number scrawled at the bottom of her notebook page. She picked up the phone and called it in to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
"Black Chevrolet Tahoe," the clerk told her. "Registered to Cayman Corporate Trust with an address in the World Trade Center. "
O'Hallinan shrugged to herself and wrote it all down in her notebook. She was debating whether to put the form back in the typewriter and add the information to it when the DMV clerk came back on the line.
"I've got another tag here," he said. "Same registered owner abandoned a black Chevrolet Suburban on lower Broadway yesterday. Three-vehicle moving traffic incident. Fifteenth Precinct towed the wreck. "
"Who's dealing with it? You got a name at Fifteenth?"
"Sorry, no. "
O'Hallinan hung up and called traffic in the Fifteenth Precinct, but it was shift change at the end of the day and she got no further with it. She scrawled a reminder to herself and dropped it in her in-tray. Then the clock ticked around to the top of the hour and Sark stood up opposite her.
"And we're out of here," he said. "All work and no play makes us dull people, right?"
"Right," she said. "You want to get a beer?"
"At least a beer," Sark said. "Maybe two beers. "
"Steady," she said.
THEY TOOK A long shower together in the honeymoon suite's spacious bathroom. Then Reacher sprawled in his towel on a sofa and watched her get ready. She went into her bag and came out with a dress. It was the same line as the yellow linen shift she'd worn to the office, but it was midnight blue and silk. She slipped it over her head and wriggled it down into place. It had a simple scoop neck and came just above the knee. She wore it with the same blue loafers. She patted her hair dry with the towel and combed it back. Then she went into the bag again and came out with the necklace he'd bought her in Manila.
"Help me with this?"
She lifted her hair away from her neck and he bent to fasten the clasp. The necklace was a heavy gold rope. Probably not real gold, not at the price he'd paid, although anything was possible in the Philippines. His fingers were wide and his nails were scuffed and broken from the physical labor with the shovel. He held his breath and needed two attempts to close the catch. Then he kissed her neck and she let her hair fall back into place. It was heavy and damp and smelled like summer.
"Well, I'm ready at least," she said.
She grinned and tossed him his clothes from the floor and he put them on, with the cotton dragging against his damp skin. He borrowed her comb and ran it through his hair. In the mirror he caught a glimpse of her behind him. She looked like a princess about to go out to dinner with her gardener.
"They might not let me in," he said.
She stretched up and smoothed the back of his collar down over the new exaggerated bulk of his deltoid muscle.
"How would they keep you out? Call the National Guard?"
It was a four-block walk to the restaurant. A June evening in Missouri, near the river. The air was soft and damp. The stars were out above them, in an inky sky the color of her dress. The chestnut trees rustled in a slight, warm breeze. The streets got busier. There were the same trees, but cars were moving and parking under them. Some of the buildings were still hotels, but some of them were smaller and lower, with painted signs showing restaurant names in French. The signs were lit with aimed spotlights. No neon anywhere. The place she'd picked was called La Prefecture. He smiled and wondered if lovers in a minor city in France were eating in a place called "the Municipal Offices," which was the literal translation, as far as he recalled.
But it was a pleasant enough place. A boy from somewhere in the Midwest trying a French accent greeted them warmly and showed them to a table in a candlelit porch overlooking the rear garden. There was a fountain with underwater lighting playing softly and the trees were lit with spotlamps fastened to their trunks. The tablecloth was linen and the silverware was silver. Reacher ordered American beer and Jodie ordered Pernod and water.
"This is nice, isn't it?" she said.
He nodded. The night was warm and still, and calm.
"Tell me how you feel," he said.
She looked at him, surprised. "I feel good. "
"Good how?"
She smiled, shyly. "Reacher, you're fishing. "
He smiled back. "No, I'm just thinking about something. You feel relaxed?"
She nodded.
"Safe?"
She nodded again.
"Me too," he said. "Safe and relaxed. So what does that mean?"
The boy arrived with the drinks on a silver tray. The Pernod was in a tall glass and he served it with an authentic French water jug. The beer was in a frosted mug. No long-neck bottles in a place like this.
"So what does it mean?" Jodie asked.
She splashed water into the amber liquid and it turned milky. She swirled the glass to mix it. He caught the strong aniseed smell.
"It means whatever is happening is small," he said. "A small operation, based in New York. We felt nervous there, but we feel safe here. "
He took a long sip of the beer.
"That's just a feeling," she said. "Doesn't prove anything. "
He nodded. "No, but feelings are persuasive. And there's some hard evidence. We were chased and attacked there, but nobody out here is paying any attention to us. "
"You been checking?" she asked, alarmed.
"I'm always checking," he said. "We've been walking around, slow and obvious. Nobody's been after us. "
"No manpower?"
He nodded again. "They had the two guys who went to the Keys and up to Garrison, and the guy driving the Suburban. My guess is that's all the
y've got, or they'd be out here looking for us. So it's a small unit, based in New York. "
She nodded.
"I think it's Victor Hobie," she said.
The waiter was back, with a pad and a pencil. Jodie ordered pate and lamb, and Reacher ordered soup and porc aux pruneaux, which had always been his Sunday lunch as a kid, anytime his mother could find pork and prunes in the distant places they were stationed. It was a regional dish from the Loire, and although his mother was from Paris she liked to make it for her sons because she felt it was a kind of shorthand introduction to her native culture.
"I don't think it's Victor Hobie," he said.
"I think it is," she said. "I think he survived the war somehow, and I think he's been hiding out somewhere ever since, and I think he doesn't want to be found. "
He shook his head. "I thought about that, too, right from the start. But the psychology is all wrong. You read his record. His letters. I told you what his old buddy Ed Steven said. This was a straight-arrow kid, Jodie. Totally dull, totally normal. I can't believe he'd leave his folks hanging like that. For thirty years? Why would he? It just doesn't jibe with what we know about him. "
"Maybe he changed," Jodie said. "Dad always used to say Vietnam changed people. Usually for the worse. "
Reacher shook his head.
"He died," he said. "Four miles west of An Khe, thirty years ago. "
"He's in New York," Jodie said. "Right now, trying to stay hidden. "
HE WAS ON his terrace, thirty floors up, leaning on the railing with his back to the park. He had a cordless phone pressed to his ear, and he was selling Chester Stone's Mercedes to the guy out in Queens.
"There's a BMW, too," he was saying. "Eight-series coupe. It's up in Pound Ridge right now. I'll take fifty cents on the dollar for cash in a bag, tomorrow. "
He stopped and listened to the guy sucking in air through his teeth, like car guys always do when you talk to them about money.