Make Me

Chapter 4

The diner got less busy. The breakfast rush was clearly a crack-of-dawn thing. Farming, as bad as the military. The waitress came by and Chang ordered coffee and a danish, and Reacher finished his breakfast. He said, “So how does a private investigator like you spend her time, if you don’t get to take photographs in hotels?”

Chang said, “We aim to offer a range of specialized services. Corporate research, and a lot of on-line security now, of course, but personal security too. Close personal protection. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and that’s good news for the bodyguard business. And we do buildings security. Plus advice and background checks and threat assessments, and some general investigations too.”

“What brings you here?”

“We have an ongoing operation in the area.”

“Against what?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“How big of an operation?”

“We have one man in place. At least I thought we did. I was sent as back-up.”

“When?”

“I arrived yesterday. I’m based in Seattle now. I flew as far as I could and rented a car. It was a hell of a drive. These roads go on forever.”

“And your guy wasn’t here.”

“No,” Chang said. “He wasn’t.”

“You think he left temporarily and is coming back by train?”

“I hope that’s all it is.”

“What else could it be? This isn’t the Wild West anymore.”

“I know. He’s probably fine. He’s based out of Oklahoma City. It’s entirely possible he had to run back for some other business. He’d have used the train, because of the roads. Therefore he’ll come back by train. He’ll have to. He told me he doesn’t have a car here.”

“Have you tried calling him?”

She nodded. “I found a land line in the general store. But there’s no answer at his home and his cell is off.”

“Or out of range. In which case he isn’t in Oklahoma City.”

“Would he have gone further afield? Around here? Without a car?”

“You tell me,” Reacher said. “It’s your case, not mine.”

Chang didn’t answer. The waitress came back and Reacher got a jump on lunch by ordering a slice of peach pie. With more coffee. The waitress looked resigned. Her boss’s bottomless cup policy was taking a beating.

Chang said, “He was due to brief me.”

Reacher said, “Who was? The guy that isn’t here?”

“Obviously.”

“Brief you as in update you?”

“More than that.”

“So how much don’t you know?”

“His name is Keever. He works out of our Oklahoma City office. But we’re all on the same network. I can see what he’s doing. He’s got a couple of big things going on. But nothing out here. Nothing on his computer, anyway.”

“How did you get the back-up assignment?”

“I was available. He called me personally.”

“From here?”

“Definitely. He told me exactly how to get here. He referred to it as his current location.”

“Did it feel like a routine request?”

“Pretty much. It observed the protocols.”

“So procedure was followed, except the case isn’t on his computer?”

“Correct.”

“Which means what?”

“It must be a small thing. Maybe a favor for a friend, or something else too close to pro-bono to get past the boss. No money in it, either way. So it stays under the radar. But then I suppose it got to be a bigger thing. Big enough to justify the call for back-up.”

“So it’s a small thing that’s gotten bigger? Involving what?”

“I have no idea. Keever was going to brief me.”

“No idea at all?”

“What part don’t you understand? He was working on a hobby case, privately, in secret, and he was going to tell me all about it when I got here.”

“What was his tone on the phone?”

“He was relaxed. Mostly. I don’t think he likes this place much.”

“Did he say so?”

“More my impression. When he was explaining how to get here, he made it sound apologetic, like he was sucking me in to some sinister and creepy place.”

Reacher said nothing.

Chang said, “I guess you military people are too data-driven to follow that line of thinking.”

Reacher said, “No, I was about to agree. I didn’t like the store with the rubber aprons, for instance, and I had some weird kid following me everywhere I went this morning. Maybe ten or twelve. A boy. A slow kid, I assumed, fascinated by a stranger, but very shy. He ducked behind a wall every time I glanced his way.”

“I don’t know if that’s weird or sad.”

“You have absolutely no information at all?”

“I’m waiting for Keever to brief me.”

“Which means waiting for the trains.”

“Twice a day.”

“How long before you give up?”

“That’s very blunt.”

“I was kidding. This is like most bad things that ever happened to me, and to you too, probably, in your patrol car. This is a communications breakdown. A message hasn’t gotten through. That’s my guess. Because there’s no cell service, presumably. People can’t cope without it anymore.”

Chang said, “I’m going to give it twenty-four hours.”

“I’ll be gone,” Reacher said. “I guess I’ll take the evening train.”

Reacher left Chang in the diner, and walked back to the old trail, ready to look at the rest of the town. He didn’t see the weird kid again. He turned in at the veterinary supply office and re-checked the left-hand side of the street, all six blocks, and saw nothing of interest. He continued onward, out into open country, a hundred yards, two hundred, just in case the railroad had dragged the center of town eastward, leaving relics behind in their original locations. If Chang was right and an old lady had died, her stone wouldn’t necessarily be visible from a distance. It might be a low-built affair, a slab laid on the ground, an iron picket not more than a foot and a half high, all nested in a sea of wheat, with maybe a mown path leading to it from the shoulder.

But he saw no such path, and no stone, and no ceremonial iron fence. No larger structure either. No museum. No official billboard about a site of historic interest. He turned around and walked back and started quartering the southern quadrant, block by block, beginning on the east-west side street that ran behind the establishments directly on the trail. Which looked pretty much like its northern equivalent, but with more one-room places carved out of barns and garages, and fewer fruit stands. But no memorial stone, and no museum. Not where logic dictated. Mother’s Rest had not always been a crossroads. Not until the railroad. It had been a random speck alongside endless straight ruts through the prairie. The stone or the legend had brought the town to it. The town had grown up around it, like a pearl around a grain of sand.

But he couldn’t find it. Not the stone, or the museum. Not where they should be, which was a respectable distance from the original shoulder. Enough to create a feeling of excursion or pilgrimage. Which would be about a modern-day block behind the original shoulder, but there was nothing there.

He moved on, block by block, the same way he had before. He saw the same kind of things, and began to understand them. The town explained itself to him, gradually, street by street. It was a trading post for a vast and dispersed agricultural community. It shipped in all kinds of technical things and shipped out produce in immense quantities. Grain, mostly. But there was some pasture too. Evidently. Hence the supply companies and the large-animal veterinarian. And the rubber aprons, he supposed. Some folks were doing well and buying shiny new tractors, and some folks weren’t doing well, so they were getting their diesel engines repaired and sticking new soles on their boots.

Just a town, like any other.

It was the end of summer, and the day had stayed golden, and the sun was warm but not hot, so he kept on strolling, happy to be out of doors, until he found he had revisited every block he had been to, and seen everything again.

No memorial stone, and no museum.

No weird kid.

But there was a guy who looked at him oddly.