The Hard Way

Six seconds, begi

And for what?

Just a white guy, average height, average weight, dressed like every other off-duty white guy in the city. Jeans, shirt, sneakers, ball cap. Maybe forty. Unremarkable in every way. Description? Nothing to say, except: Just a guy.

Reacher glanced south at the river of traffic. There were no free cabs coming. None at all. So he turned again and jogged back to the corner of Bleecker to see if Burke had waited for him. But Burke hadn’t. So Reacher set out walking. He was too frustrated to take the subway. He needed to walk it off. He charged north on Sixth, fast and furious, and people moved out of his way like he was radioactive.

Twenty minutes and twenty blocks later he saw a Staples store on the opposite sidewalk. Red and white signs. Windows full of office supply bargains. He dodged cars and crossed over to check it out. It was a big place. He didn’t know which branch Carter Groom had taken Kate Lane to, but he figured chains carried the same stuff everywhere. He went inside and passed a corral made from inch-thick chrome bars where shopping trolleys were racked together. Beyond that on the left were the checkout registers. Beyond the trolleys on the right was a print shop full of industrial-strength photocopiers. In front of him were about twenty narrow aisles with shelves that reached the ceiling. They were piled high with an intimidating array of stuff. He started at the left front corner and zigzagged all the way through the store to the rear of the last aisle on the right. The biggest thing he saw was a desk. The smallest, either a thumbtack or a paperclip, depending on whether he judged by size or weight. He saw paper, computers, printers, toner cartridges, pens, pencils, envelopes, file boxes, plastic crates, parcel tape. He saw things he had never seen before. Software for designing houses and filing taxes. Label printers. Cell phones that took video pictures and sent e-mail.

He walked back to the front of the store with absolutely no idea at all of what Kate Lane might have been looking for.

He stood in a daze and watched a photocopier at work. It was a machine as big as a launderette dryer and it was spitting copies out so hard and so fast that it was rocking back and forth on its feet. And costing some customer a fortune. That was clear. A sign overhead said that photocopying cost between four cents and two dollars a sheet, depending on the quality of the paper and the choice between black and white and color. A lot of money, potentially. Opposite the print shop corral was a display of inkjet cartridges. They were expensive, too. Reacher had no idea what they were for. Or what they did. Or why they cost so much. He pushed past a line of people at a checkout desk and headed for the street.

Another twenty minutes and twenty blocks later he was at Bryant Park, eating a hot dog from a street vendor. Twenty minutes and twenty blocks after that he was in Central Park, drinking a bottle of still water from another street vendor. Twelve more blocks north he was still in Central Park, directly opposite the Dakota, under a tree, stopped dead, face-to-face with A

CHAPTER 17

THE FIRST THING A

“You saw Lane’s photograph of her,” she said.

He nodded.

“We were very alike,” she said.

He nodded again.

“A

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for staring. And I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” the woman said.

“Were you twins?”

“I’m six years younger,” the woman said. “Which means right now I’m the same age as A

“You look exactly like her.”

“I try to,” the woman said.

“It’s unca

“I try very hard.”

“Why?”

“Because it feels like I’m keeping her alive. Because I couldn’t, back when it mattered.”

“How could you have kept her alive?”

“We should talk,” the woman said. “My name is Patti Joseph.”

“Jack Reacher.”

“Come with me,” the woman said. “We have to double back. We can’t go too near the Dakota.”

She led him south through the park, to the exit at 66th Street. Across to the far sidewalk. Then north again, and into the lobby of a building at 115 Central Park West.

“Welcome to the Majestic,” Patti Joseph said. “Best place I ever lived. And just wait until you see where my apartment is.”

Reacher saw where it was five minutes later, after a walk down a corridor, and an elevator ride, and another walk down another corridor. Patti Joseph’s apartment was on the Majestic’s seventh floor, north side. Its living room window looked out over 72nd Street, directly at the Dakota’s entrance. There was a dining chair placed in front of the sill, as if the sill was a desk. On the sill was a notebook. And a pen. And a Nikon camera with a long lens, and a pair of Leica 10x42 binoculars.

“What do you do here?” Reacher asked.

“First tell me what you do there,” Patti said.

“I’m not sure I can.”

“Do you work for Lane?”

“No, I don’t.”

Patti Joseph smiled.

“I didn’t think you did,” she said. “I told Brewer, you’re not one of them. You’re not like them. You weren’t Special Forces, were you?”

“How did you know?”

“You’re too big. You wouldn’t have made it through the endurance hazing. Big men never do.”

“I was an MP.”

“Did you know Lane in the service?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Patti Joseph smiled again.

“I thought not,” she said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be there.”

“Who is Brewer?”

“NYPD.” She pointed at the notebook and the pen and the camera and the binoculars. A big, sweeping gesture. “I do all this for him.”

“You’re watching Lane and his guys? For the cops?”

“For myself, mostly. But I check in.”

“Why?”

“Because hope springs eternal.”

“Hope of what?”

“That he’ll slip up, and I’ll get something on him.”

Reacher stepped closer to the window and glanced at the notebook. The handwriting was neat. The last entry read: 2014 hrs. Burke returns alone, no bag, in black BMW OSC-23, enters TDA.

“TDA?” Reacher asked.

“The Dakota Apartments,” Patti said. “It’s the building’s official name.”

“You ever see Yoko?”

“All the time.”

“You know Burke by name?”

“Burke was around when A

The last-but-one entry read: 1859 hrs. Burke and Venti leave TDA in black BMW OSC-23, with bag, Venti concealed in rear.

“Venti?” Reacher asked.

“That’s what I’ve been calling you. Like a code name.”

“Why?”

“Venti is the largest cup that Starbucks sells. Bigger than the others.”

“I like coffee,” Reacher said.

“I could make some.”

Reacher turned away from the window. The apartment was a small one-bedroom. Plain, neat, painted. Probably worth the best part of a million bucks.

“Why are you showing me all this?” he asked.

“A recent decision,” she said. “I decided to watch for new guys, and waylay them, and warn them.”

“About what?”

“About what Lane is really like. About what he did.”

“What did he do?”

“I’ll make coffee,” Patti said.

There was no stopping her. She ducked into a small pass-through kitchen and started fiddling with a machine. Pretty soon Reacher could smell coffee. He wasn’t thirsty. He had just drunk a whole bottle of water. But he liked coffee. He figured he could stay for a cup.

Patti called out, “No cream, no sugar, right?”

“How did you know that?”

“I trust my instincts,” she said.

And I trust mine, Reacher thought, although he wasn’t entirely sure what they were telling him right then.