Bad Luck and Trouble

61

Reacher and Dixon stayed on the 101 all the way to Hollywood and dumped the Chrysler in the motel lot and took a Honda each for the trek out to East LA. Reacher’s was a silver Prelude coupe with a chipped and nervous four-cylinder motor. It had wide tires that tramlined on bad asphalt and a throaty muffler note that entertained him for the first three blocks and then started to annoy him. The upholstery stank of detailing fluid and there was a crack in the windshield that lengthened perceptibly every time he hit a bump. But the seat racked back far enough for him to get comfortable and the air conditioning worked. Altogether not a bad surveillance vehicle. He had driven far worse, many times.

They got a four-way conference call going on the cell phones and parked far from one another. Reacher was two blocks from the New Age building and had a partial view of the front entrance, from about sixty yards on a diagonal between a document storage facility and a plain gray warehouse. New Age’s gate was shut and the lot looked pretty much empty. The reception area doors were closed. The whole place looked quiet.

“Who’s in there?” Reacher asked.

“Maybe nobody,” O’Donnell said. “We’ve been here since five and nobody’s gone in.”

“Not even the dragon lady?”

“Negative.”

“No receptionist?”

“Negative.”

“Do we have their phone number?”

Neagley said, “I have their switchboard number.” She recited it and Reacher clicked off and thumbed it into his phone and hit the green button.

Ring tone.

But no reply.

He dialed back into the conference call.

“I was hoping to follow someone over to the manufacturing plant.”

“Not going to happen,” O’Donnell said.

Silence on the phones. No action at the glass cube.

Five minutes. Ten. Twenty.

“Enough,” Reacher said. “Back to base. Last one there buys lunch.”

Reacher was the last one back. He wasn’t a fast driver. The other three Hondas were already in the lot when he got there. He put his Prelude in an inconspicuous corner and took the suitcase of stolen guns out of the Chrysler’s trunk and locked it in his room. Then he walked down to Denny’s. First thing he saw there was Curtis Mauney’s unmarked car in the parking lot. The Crown Vic. The LA County sheriff. Second thing he saw was Mauney himself, through the window, inside the restaurant, sitting at a round table with Neagley and O’Donnell and Dixon. It was the same table they had shared with Diana Bond. Five chairs, one of them empty and waiting. Nothing on the table. Not even ice water or napkins or silverware. They hadn’t ordered. They hadn’t been there long. Reacher went in and sat down and there was a moment of tense silence and then Mauney said, “Hello again.”

A gentle tone of voice.

Quiet.

Sympathetic.

Reacher asked, “Sanchez or Swan?”

Mauney didn’t answer.

Reacher said, “What, both of them?”

“We’ll get to that. First tell me why you’re hiding.”

“Who says we’re hiding?”

“You left Vegas. You’re not registered at any LA hotel.”

“Doesn’t mean we’re hiding.”

“You’re in a West Hollywood dive under false names. The clerk gave you up. As a group you’re fairly distinctive, physically. It wasn’t hard to find you. And it was an easy guess that you’d come in here for lunch. If not, I was prepared to come back at dinner time. Or breakfast time tomorrow.”

Reacher said, “Jorge Sanchez or Tony Swan?”

Mauney said, “Tony Swan.”