Nothing to Lose

She was tiny. She was about eighteen or nineteen years old. She had long center-parted jet-black hair that framed a face that had a high forehead and enormous eyes. The eyes were brown and looked like twin pools of terror and tragedy. Under them were a small nose and a small mouth. Reacher guessed she had a pretty smile but didn’t use it often and certainly hadn’t used it for weeks. Her skin was mid-brown and her pose was absolutely still. Her hands were out of sight under the table but Reacher was sure they were clasped together in her lap. She was wearing a blue San Diego Padres warm-up jacket with a blue scoop-neck T-shirt under it. There was nothing on the table in front of her. No plate, no cup. But she hadn’t just arrived. The way she was settled meant she must have been sitting there for ten or fifteen minutes at least. Nobody could have gotten so still any faster.

Reacher stepped to the far side of the register and the college-girl waitress joined him there. Reacher bent his head, at an angle, universal body language for:I want to talk to you quietly. The waitress moved a little closer and bent her own head at a parallel angle, like a co-conspirator.

“That girl,” Reacher said. “Didn’t she order?”

The waitress whispered, “She has no money.”

“Ask her what she wants. I’ll pay for it.” He moved away to a different booth, where he could watch the girl without being obvious about it. He saw the waitress approach her, saw incomprehension on the girl’s face, then doubt, then refusal. The waitress stepped over to Reacher’s booth and whispered, “She says she can’t possibly accept.”

Reacher said, “Go back and tell her there are no strings attached. Tell her I’m not hitting on her. Tell her I don’t even want to talk to her. Tell her I’ve been broke and hungry, too.”

The waitress went back. This time the girl relented. She pointed to a couple of items on the menu. Reacher was sure they were the cheapest choices. The waitress went away to place the order and the girl turned a little in her seat and inclined her head in a courteous little nod, full of dignity, and the corners of her mouth softened like the begi

The waitress came straight back to Reacher and he asked for coffee. The waitress whispered, “Her check is going to be nine-fifty. Yours will be a dollar and a half.” Reacher peeled a ten and three ones off the roll in his pocket and slid them across the table. The waitress picked them up and thanked him for the tip and asked, “So when were you broke and hungry?”

“Never,” Reacher said. “My whole life I got three squares a day from the army and since then I’ve always had money in my pocket.”

“So you made that up just to make her feel better?”

“Sometimes people need convincing.”

“You’re a nice guy,” the waitress said.

“Not everyone agrees with that.”

“But some do.”

“Do they?”

“I hear things.”

“What things?”

But the girl just smiled at him and walked away.

From a safe distance Reacher watched the Hispanic girl eat a tuna melt sandwich and drink a chocolate milk shake. Good choices, nutritionally. Excellent value for his money. Protein, fats, carbs, some sugar. If she ate like that every day she would weigh two hundred pounds before she was thirty, but in dire need on the road it was wise to load up. After she was finished she dabbed her lips with her napkin and pushed her plate and her glass away and then sat there, just as quiet and still as before. The clock in Reacher’s head hit midnight and the clock on the diner’s wall followed it a minute later. The old guy in the seed cap crept out with a creaking arthritic gait and the tractor salesman gathered his paperwork together and called for another cup of coffee.

The Hispanic girl stayed put. Reacher had seen plenty of people doing what she was doing, in cafés and diners near bus depots and railroad stations. She was staying warm, saving energy, passing time. She was enduring. He watched her profile and figured she was a lot closer to Zeno’s ideal than he was.The unquestioning acceptance of destinies. She looked infinitely composed and patient.

The tractor salesman drained his final cup and gathered his stuff and left. The waitress backed away to a corner and picked up a paperback book. Reacher curled his fist around his mug to keep it warm.

The Hispanic girl stayed put.

Then she moved. She shifted sideways on her vinyl bench and stood up all in one smooth, delicate motion. She was extremely petite. Not more than five-nothing, not more than ninety-some pounds. Below the T-shirt she was wearing jeans and cheap shoes. She stood still and faced the door and then she turned toward Reacher’s booth. There was nothing in her face. Just fear and shyness and loneliness. She came to some kind of a decision and stepped forward and stood off about a yard and said, “You can talk to me if you really want to.”

Reacher shook his head. “I meant what I said.”

“Thank you for my di

Reacher asked, “You OK for breakfast tomorrow?”

She was still for a moment while she fought her pride and then she shook her head.

Reacher asked, “Lunch? Di

She shook her head.

“You OK at the motel?”

“That’s why. I paid for three nights. It took all my money.”

“You have to eat.”

The girl said nothing. Reacher thought,Ten bucks a meal is thirty bucks a day, three days makes ninety, plus ten for contingencies or phone calls makes a hundred. He peeled five ATM-fresh twenties off his roll and fa

“Pay it forward instead.”

The girl said nothing.

“You know what pay it forward means?”

“I’m not sure.”

“It means years from now you’ll be in a diner somewhere and you’ll see someone who needs a break. So you’ll help them out.”

The girl nodded.

“I could do that,” she said.

“So take the money.”

She stepped closer and picked up the bills.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Don’t thank me. Thank whoever helped me way back. And whoever helped him before that. And so on.”

“Have you ever been to Despair?”

“Four times in the last two days.”

“Did you see anyone there?”

“I saw lots of people.”

She moved closer still and put her slim hips against the end of his table. She hoisted a cheap vinyl purse and propped it on the laminate against her belly and unsnapped the clasp. She dipped her head and her hair fell forward. Her hands were small and brown and had no rings on the fingers or polish on the nails. She rooted around in her bag for a moment and came out with an envelope. It was stiff and nearly square. From a greeting card, probably. She opened the flap and pulled out a photograph. She held it neatly between her thumb and her forefinger and put her little fist on the table and adjusted its position until Reacher could see the picture at a comfortable angle.

“Did you see this man?” she asked.

It was another standard one-hour six-by-four color print. Glossy paper, no border. Shot on Fuji film, Reacher guessed. Back when it had mattered for forensic purposes he had gotten pretty good at recognizing film stock by its color biases. This print had strong greens, which was a Fuji characteristic. Kodak products favored the reds and the warmer tones. The camera had been a decent unit with a proper glass lens. There was plenty of detail. Focus was not quite perfect. The choice of aperture was not inspired. The depth of field was neither shallow nor deep. An old SLR, Reacher thought, therefore bought secondhand or borrowed from an older person. There was no retail market for decent film cameras anymore. Everyone had moved into digital technology. The print in the girl’s hand was clearly recent, but it looked like a much older product. It was a pleasant but unexceptional picture from an old SLR loaded with Fujicolor and wielded by an amateur.