The Hard Way

CHAPTER 49

THEY WALKED, BECAUSE it was a beautiful city morning and Reacher was too restless to ride the subway or take a cab. Barrow, to Bleecker, then south on Sixth Avenue. It was already warm. They took it slow, to time it right. They turned east on Spring Street at seven-thirty exactly. Crossed Sullivan, crossed Thompson.

“We’re going to the abandoned building?” Pauling asked.

“Eventually,” Reacher said.

He stopped outside the chocolate shop. Cupped his hands against the glass and peered in. There was a light in the kitchen. He could see the owner moving about, small, dark, tired, her back to him. Sixteen-hour days, she had said. Regular as clockwork, seven days a week, small business, we never rest.

He knocked on the glass, loud, and the owner stopped and turned and looked exasperated until she recognized him. Then she shrugged and admitted defeat and walked through the front of the store to the door. Undid the locks and opened the door a crack and said, “Hello.”

Air bitter with chocolate flooded out at him.

He asked, “Can we come through to the alley again?”

“Who’s your friend this time?”

Pauling stepped forward and said her name.

The owner asked, “Are you really exterminators?”

“Investigators,” Pauling said. She had a business card ready.

“What are you investigating?”

“A woman disappeared,” Reacher said. “And her child.”

Silence for a moment.

The owner asked, “You think they’re next door?”

“No,” Reacher said. “Nobody’s next door.”

“That’s good.”

“This is just routine.”

“Would you like a chocolate?”

“Not for breakfast,” Reacher said.

“I would love one,” Pauling said.

The owner held the door wide and Pauling and Reacher stepped inside. Pauling took a moment choosing a chocolate. She settled on a raspberry fondant as big as a golf ball. Took a little bite and made a noise that sounded like appreciation. Then she followed Reacher through the kitchen and down the short tiled hallway. Out through the back door to the alley.

The rear of the abandoned building was exactly as Reacher had last seen it. The dull red door, the corroded black knob, the filthy ground floor window. He turned the knob and pushed, just in case, but the door was locked, as expected. He bent down and unlaced his shoe. Took it off and held the toe in his hand and used the heel like a two-pound hammer. Used it to break the window glass, low down and on the left, close to the door lock.

He tapped a little more and widened the hole and then put his shoe back on. Put his arm through the hole in the glass up to his shoulder and hugged the wall and groped around until he found the inside door handle. He unlocked it and withdrew his arm very carefully.

“OK,” he said.

He opened the door and stood aside to let Pauling get a good look.

“Just like you told me,” Pauling said. “Uninhabitable. No floors.”

“You up for a trip down the ladder?”

“Why me?”

“Because if I’m wrong I might just give up and stay down there forever.”

Pauling craned in and took a look at the ladder. It was right there where it had been before, propped to the right, steeply angled, leaning on the narrow piece of wall that separated the window and the door.

“I did worse at Quantico,” she said. “But that was a long time ago.”

Reacher said, “It’s only ten feet if you fall.”

“Thanks.” She turned around and backed up to the void. Reacher took her right hand in his and she sidled left and swung her left foot and left hand onto the ladder. Got steady and let Reacher’s hand go and paused a beat and climbed down into the dark. The ladder bounced and rattled a little and then he heard the crunch and rustle of trash as she hit bottom and stepped off.

“It’s filthy down here,” she called.

“Sorry,” he said.

“There could be rats.”

“Use the flashlight.”

“Will that scare them off?”

“No, but you’ll see them coming.”

“Thanks a lot.”

He leaned in over the pit and saw her flashlight beam stab the gloom. She called, “Where am I going?”

“Head for the front of the building. Directly underneath the door.”

The flashlight beam leveled out and established a direction and jerked forward. The basement walls had been whitewashed years before with some kind of lime compound and they reflected a little light. Reacher could see deep drifts of garbage everywhere. Paper, cartons, piles of unidentifiable rotted matter.

Pauling reached the front wall. The flashlight beam stabbed upward and she located the door above her. She moved left a little and lined herself up directly beneath it.

“Look down now,” Reacher called. “What do you see?”

The beam stabbed downward. Short range, very bright.

“I see trash,” Pauling called.

Reacher called, “Look closer. They might have bounced.”

“What might have bounced?”

“Dig around and you’ll see. I hope.”

The flashlight beam traced a small random circle. Then a wider one. Then it stopped dead and held steady.

“OK,” Pauling called. “Now I see. But how the hell did you know?”

Reacher said nothing. Pauling held still for a second longer and then bent down. Stood up again with her hands held high. In her right hand was the flashlight. In her left hand were two sets of car keys, one for a Mercedes Benz and one for a BMW.