Blue Moon

THIRTEEN

The gun was a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, and evidently it was set to fire threes, because that was what the guy in the back of the car received, aimed blind but smart, slightly back, stitching low to medium, hoping for legs and arms and maybe his chest. Meanwhile the driver was getting much the same thing from the other side, but mostly to his head, through the shattering glass, from another H&K, dancing in from the opposite sidewalk.

After which the car’s doors were wrenched open, almost symmetrically, the guy from the far sidewalk shoving the driver into the empty seat alongside him, and taking his place, while the guy from the liquor store crowded in the back. They slammed their doors and the car took off, all its seats filled, its occupants arranged diagonally, two guys feeling pretty good about things, plus one guy dead and one guy dying.

By that time Reacher was two blocks the other side of Center Street. He had figured out the demarcation line between Albanian and Ukrainian territory. He had found exactly what he was looking for. He was in a bar with small round cabaret tables and a stage in back. On the stage was a guitar-bass-drums trio, and on the tables were late-night small-bite menus. There was an espresso machine on the bar back. There was a guy on a stool inside the door. Black suit, white shirt, black tie, white skin, fair hair. Ukrainian for sure.

All good, Reacher thought. Everything he needed, and nothing he didn’t.

He chose a table on the far side of the room, about halfway in, and he sat with his back to the wall. In the left corner of his eye was the guy on the stool, and in the right corner was the band. They were pretty good. They were playing blues covers in a 1950s jazz style. Soft round tones from the guitar, not too loud, woody thumps from the bass, brushes skittering over the snare drum. No vocals. Most of the crowd was drinking wine. Some had pizzas about the size of a teacup saucer. Reacher checked the menu. They were called personal size. Plain or pepperoni. Nine dollars.

A waitress came by. She fit the 1950s music. She was petite and gamine, maybe in her late twenties, neat and slender and dressed all in black, with short dark hair and lively eyes and a shy but contagious smile. She could have been in an old-time black and white movie, with jazz on the soundtrack. Probably someone’s sassy little sister. Dangerously advanced. Probably wanted to wear pants to the office.

Reacher liked her.

She said, ‘May I bring you something?’

Reacher ordered two glasses of tap water, two double espressos, and two pepperoni pizzas.

She asked, ‘Is someone joining you?’

‘I’m worried about malnutrition,’ he said.

She smiled and left and the band kicked into a mournful rendition of Howlin’ Wolf’s old song ‘Killing Floor’. The guitar took the vocal line, with a tumble of pearl-like notes explaining how he should have quit her, since his second time, and went on to Mexico. At the door people kept on coming in, always two or more together, never alone. They all paused a second, like Reacher had before, obediently, for the doorman’s scrutiny. He looked at them one by one, up and down and in the eye, and he moved them inside with a millimetric jerk of his head, towards the fun beyond his shoulder. They walked past him, and he crossed his arms and slumped back on his stool.

Two songs later the waitress brought his food. She set it all out. He said thank you. She said he was welcome. He said, ‘Does the guy at the door ever stop anyone coming in?’

‘Depends who they are,’ she said.

‘Who does he stop?’

‘Cops. Although we haven’t seen cops in here for years.’

‘Why cops?’

‘Never a good idea. Whatever happens, if the wind changes, suddenly it’s bribery or corruption or entrapment or some other big thing. That’s why cops have their own bars.’

‘Therefore he hasn’t stopped anyone coming in for years. Now I’m wondering what he’s for, exactly.’

‘Why are you asking?’

‘I’m curious,’ Reacher said.

‘Are you a cop?’

‘Next you’re going to tell me I look like your dad.’

She smiled.

‘He’s much smaller,’ she said.

She turned away with a last look, which was not a wink, but it was close. Then she was gone. The band played on. The guy at the door was counting, Reacher figured. He was a cuckoo in the nest. Most likely the protection money was on a percentage basis. The guy counted the crowd so the owners couldn’t fudge the numbers. Plus maybe he offered a nominal security presence. To sweeten the deal. So everyone felt better.

The waitress came back before Reacher was finished. She had his check in a black vinyl wallet. She was about to go off duty. He rounded it up and added ten for a tip and paid in cash. She left. He finished his meal but stayed at his table a moment, watching the guy at the door. Then he got up and walked towards him. No other way to leave the restaurant. In the door, out the door.

He stopped level with the stool.

He said, ‘I have an urgent message for Maxim Trulenko. I need you to figure out a way to get it to him. I’ll be here tomorrow, same time.’

Then he moved onward, out the door, to the street. Twenty feet away on his right the waitress came out the staff-only door. At the exact same moment. Which he hadn’t expected.

She stopped on the sidewalk.

Petite, gamine, going off duty.

She said, ‘Hi.’

He said, ‘Thanks again for looking after me, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.’

He was counting time in his head.

She said, ‘You too, and thank you for the very nice tip.’

She stayed about seven feet away, a little tense, a little up on her toes. All kinds of body language going on.

He said, ‘I try to think what kind of tip I would like, if I was a waitress.’

‘That’s an image I’ll never unsee.’

He was counting time in his head because one of two things was about to happen. Either nothing or something. Maybe nothing, because maybe Maxim Trulenko’s name meant nothing to them. Or maybe something, because maybe Trulenko’s name was top of the list of their VIP clients.

Time would tell.

The waitress asked, ‘So what are you, if you’re not a cop?’

‘I’m between jobs right now.’

If Trulenko’s name was on a list, the likely protocol would be for the guy at the door to call it in or text it in, immediately, and then, either because of an instruction in an immediate response, or because it was part of the protocol anyway, he would come out to detain and delay, any way he could, at least long enough to snap a picture with his phone, hopefully long enough for a roving surveillance team to show up. Or a roving snatch squad. No doubt they had plenty of vehicles. And not a huge patch to patrol. Half of a pear-shaped city.

‘I’m sorry about your situation,’ the waitress said. ‘I hope you find something soon.’

‘Thank you,’ Reacher said.

It would take the guy inside maybe forty seconds to make the call, or to text back and forth, and then get set, and take a breath, and step out the door behind them. In which case he was due right about then.

If it was something.

Maybe it was nothing.

The waitress asked, ‘What kind of work do you like to do?’

The guy stepped out the door behind them.

Reacher moved to the kerb and turned around, to make a shallow triangle, with the waitress now on his left, and the guy on his right, and empty space at his back.

The guy looked at Reacher, but spoke to the waitress.

He said, ‘Run along now, kid.’

Reacher glanced at her.

She mouthed something at him. Could have been, Watch where I go. Then she ran along. Not literally. She turned and crossed the street at a brisk walk, and Reacher glanced over his shoulder twice, just briefly, not long between, like frames from a video, the first of which showed her already half a block away, striding north on the far sidewalk, and the second of which showed her gone completely. Through a doorway, therefore. Towards the end of the block.

The guy on his right said, ‘I would need your name, before I could put you in touch with Max Trulenko. And maybe first we should talk it through, you and me, about how you came to know him, just to put his mind at rest.’

‘When could we do that?’ Reacher asked.

‘We could do that right now,’ the guy said. ‘Come inside. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.’

Detain and delay, Reacher thought. Until the snatch squad showed up. He looked left and right along the street. No headlights. Nothing coming. Not yet.

He said, ‘Thanks, but I just had dinner. I’m all set. I’ll come back tomorrow. About the same time.’

The guy took out his phone.

‘I could text him your photo,’ he said. ‘As a first step. That would be quicker.’

‘No thanks,’ Reacher said.

‘I need you to tell me how you know Max.’

‘Everyone knows Max. He was famous here for a spell.’

‘Tell me the message you have for him.’

‘His ears only,’ Reacher said.

The guy didn’t answer. Reacher checked the street. Both ends. Nothing coming. Not yet.

The guy said, ‘We shouldn’t get off on the wrong foot. Any friend of Max’s is a friend of mine. But if you know Max, obviously you know we have to check you out. You wouldn’t want anything less for him.’

Reacher checked the street. Now there was something coming. There was a pair of bucking, bouncing headlight beams coming around the southwest corner of the block, faster than the front suspension could comfortably handle. They swept and dipped and settled straight and then rose up high, as the rear end of the car squatted down under heavy acceleration.

Straight at them.

‘I’ll see you again,’ Reacher said. ‘I hope.’

He turned and crossed the street and went north, away from the car. And saw a second car coming around the northwest corner of the block. Same bouncing headlight beams. From the other direction. Heavy acceleration. Straight at him. Probably two guys in each car. Decent numbers, and their response time was quick. They were on Defcon One. Therefore Trulenko was important. Therefore their rules of engagement would be pretty much whatever they wanted them to be.

Right then Reacher was the meat in a bright light sandwich.

Watch where I go.

A doorway, towards the end of the block.

He turned around, hunching away from the light, and he saw one doorway after another, looming up out of the jagged moving shadows. Most of the doors belonged to retail operations, with nothing but dusty grey dimness inside, like closed stores everywhere, and some of the doors were plainer and stoutly made of wood, presumably for private quarters above, but none of them were open, not even a tempting inch, and none of them had a rim of light around the frame. He moved north, because the waitress had been going north, and the shadows gave up more doors, one by one, but they were all the same as before, mute and grey and stubbornly closed.

The cars came closer. Their lights got brighter. Reacher gave up on doorways. He figured he had misheard. Or misread her lips. At that point his brain started cycling through scenarios involving two guys from the south and two from the north, no doubt all four of them armed, although probably not with shotguns, so close to downtown, therefore handguns only, possibly suppressed, depending on their de facto arrangement with the local police department. As in, don’t frighten the voters. But against any instinct towards caution would be extreme reluctance to disappoint their bosses.

The cars slowed to a stop.

Reacher was pinned right in the middle.

Rule one, set in stone since he was a tiny kid, back when he first realized he could be either frightened or frightening, was to run towards danger, not away from it. Which right then gave him his pick of forward or backward. He chose forward. North, the way he was already going. No break in his stride. No reversal of momentum. Faster and harder. Glare ahead of him and glare behind him. He kept on going. Instinctive, but also sound tactics. As sound as they could be, under the dismal circumstances. In the sense of making the best of a very bad hand. He was distorting the picture, at least. What the pointy-heads would call altering the battle space. The guys ahead would feel mounting pressure the closer he got. The guys behind would have longer shots. Both conditions would impair efficiency. Ultimately below fifty per cent, with a bit of luck. Because the guys behind would worry about friendly fire. Their buddies up ahead were right next to the target.

The guys behind might take themselves out of the fight voluntarily.

Making the best of a very bad hand.

Reacher hustled onward.

He heard car doors open.

On his left, as he hustled, he saw retail store doorways jumping in and out of the headlight shadows, one by one, all of them mean and closed tight. Until one of them wasn’t. Because it wasn’t a doorway. It was an alley. On his right the traffic kerb was unbroken, but on his left there was a gloomy eight-foot gap between buildings, paved the same way as the municipal sidewalk. A pedestrian thoroughfare of some kind. Public. Leading where? He didn’t care. It was dark. It was guaranteed to let out somewhere a whole lot better than an empty street lit up bright by four headlight beams from two face to face automobiles.

He ducked into the alley.

He heard footsteps start behind him.

He hustled on. The depth of a building later the alley widened out to a narrow street. Still dark. The footsteps behind him kept on coming. He stayed close to the buildings, where the shadows were deepest.

A door opened in the darkness ahead.

A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him inside.