Tripwire

It improved the weapon. Improved its balance. Ninety-nine times in a hundred, a handgun gets fired high because the recoil flips the muzzle upward. The weight of the silencer was going to counteract that likelihood. And a silencer works by dispersing the blast of gas relatively slowly, which weakens the recoil in the first place.

“Does it work real good?” Reacher asked.

“Sure it does,” Rutter said. “It’s the genuine factory piece.”

The guy who had brought it upstairs was back on his chair. Four guys, five chairs. The way to take out a gang is to hit the leader first. It’s a universal truth. Reacher had learned it at the age of four. Figure out who the leader is, and put him down first, and put him down hard. This situation was going to be different. Rutter was the leader, but he had to stay in one piece for the time being, because Reacher had other plans for him.

“Two thousand bucks,” Rutter said again.

“Field test,” Reacher said.

There is no safety catch on a Steyr GB. The first pull needs a pressure of fourteen pounds on the trigger, which is judged to be enough to avoid an accidental discharge if the gun is dropped, because fourteen pounds is a very deliberate pull. So there is no separate safety mechanism. Reacher flicked his hand left and pulled the fourteen pounds. The gun fired and the empty chair blew apart. The sound was loud. Not like in the movies. It’s not a little cough. Not a polite little spit. It’s like taking the Manhattan phone book and raising it way over your head and smashing it facedown on a desk with all your strength. Not a quiet sound. But quieter than it could be.

The four guys were frozen with shock. Shredded vinyl and dirty horsehair stuffing were floating in the air. Rutter was staring, motionless. Reacher hit him hard, left-handed in the stomach, and kicked his feet away and dumped him on the floor. Then he lined up the Steyr on the guy next to the shattered chair.

“Downstairs,” he said. “All of you. Right now, OK?”

Nobody moved. So Reacher counted out loud one, two, and on three he fired again. The same loud blast. The floorboards splintered at the first guy’s feet. One, two, and Reacher fired again. And again, one, two, and fire. Dust and wood splinters were bursting upward. The noise of the repeated shots was crushing. There was the strong stink of burned powder and hot steel wool inside the suppressor. The men moved all at once after the third bullet. They fought and crowded to the hatch. Crashed and tumbled through. Reacher dropped the door closed on them and dragged the counter over the top of it. Rutter was up on his hands and knees. Reacher kicked him over on his back and kept on kicking him until he had scrambled all the way backward and his head was jammed up hard against the displaced counter.

Jodie had the faked photograph in her hand. She crouched and held it out to him. He blinked and focused on it. His mouth was working, just a ragged hole in his beard. Reacher ducked down and caught his left wrist. Dragged his hand up and took hold of the little finger.

“Questions,” he said. “And I’ll break a finger every time you lie to me.”

Rutter started struggling, using all his strength to twist up and away. Reacher hit him again, a solid blow to the gut, and he went back down.

“You know who we are?”

“No,” Rutter gasped.

“Where was this picture taken?”

“Secret camps,” Rutter gasped. “Vietnam.”

Reacher broke his little finger. He just wrenched it sideways and snapped the knuckle. Sideways is easier than bending it all the way back. Rutter shrieked in pain. Reacher took hold of the next finger. There was a gold ring on it.

“Where?”

“Bronx Zoo,” Rutter gasped.

“Who’s the boy?”

“Just some kid.”

“Who’s the man?”

“Friend,” Rutter gasped.

“How many times have you done it?”

“Fifteen, maybe,” Rutter said.

Reacher bent the ring finger sideways.

“That’s the truth,” Rutter screamed. “No more than fifteen, I promise. And I never did anything to you. I don’t even know you.”

“You know the Hobies?” Reacher asked. “Up in Brighton?”

He saw Rutter searching through a mental list, dazed. Then he saw him remember. Then he saw him struggling to comprehend how those pathetic old suckers could possibly have brought all this down on his head.

“You’re a disgusting piece of shit, right?”

Rutter was rolling his head from side to side in panic.

“Say it, Rutter,” Reacher yelled.

“I’m a piece of shit,” Rutter whimpered.

“Where’s your bank?”

“My bank?” Rutter repeated blankly.

“Your bank,” Reacher said.

Rutter hesitated. Reacher put some weight back on the ring finger.

“Ten blocks,” Rutter shrieked.

“Title deed for your truck?”

“In the drawer.”

Reacher nodded to Jodie. She stood up and went around behind the counter. Rattled open the drawers and came out with a sheaf of paperwork. She flicked through and nodded. “Registered in his name. Cost forty thousand bucks.”

Reacher switched his grip and caught Rutter by the neck. Bunched his shoulder and pushed hard until the web of his hand was forcing up under Rutter’s jaw.

“I’ll buy your truck for a dollar,” he said. “Just shake your head if you’ve got a problem with that, OK?”

Rutter was totally still. His eyes were popping under the force of Reacher’s grip on his throat.

“And then I’ll drive you to your bank,” he said. “In my new truck. You’ll take out eighteen thousand dollars in cash and I’ll give it back to the Hobies.”

“No,” Jodie called. “Nineteen-six-fifty. It was in a safe mutual. Call it six percent, for a year and a half compounded.”

“OK,” Reacher said. He increased the pressure. “Nineteen-six-fifty for the Hobies, and nineteen-six-fifty for us.”

Rutter’s eyes were searching Reacher’s face. Pleading. Not understanding.

“You cheated them,” Reacher said. “You told them you’d find out what happened to their boy. You didn’t do that. So now we’ll have to do it for them. So we need expense money.”

Rutter was turning blue in the face. His hands were clamped hard on Reacher’s wrist, desperately trying to ease the pressure.

“OK,” Reacher asked. “So that’s what we’re going to do. Just shake your head if you’ve got any kind of a problem with any part of it.”

Rutter was dragging hard on Reacher’s wrist, but his head stayed still.

“Think of it like a tax,” Reacher said. “A tax on cheating little pieces of shit.”

He jerked his hand away and stood up. Fifteen minutes later, he was in Rutter’s bank. Rutter was nursing his left hand in his pocket and signing a check with his right. Five minutes after that, Reacher had $39,300 cash zipped into the sports bag. Fifteen minutes after that, he left Rutter in the alley behind his store, with two dollar bills stuffed in his mouth, one for the silencer, and one for the truck. Five minutes after that, he was following Jodie’s Taurus up to the Hertz return at LaGuardia. Fifteen minutes after that, they were in the new Lincoln together, heading back to Manhattan.