"Call us if this guy shows up, OK?" the cop said.
"He's already here," the clerk said. "But his name's Heffner, not Reacher. I put him in room eight, last night."
The cop stood still. "Is he in there now?"
"I don't know. He's come and gone a few times."
"How long did he book for?"
"He paid one night. But he didn't give the key back yet."
"So he's planning to be here again tonight."
"I guess."
"Unless he's already here."
"Unless," the clerk said.
The cop stepped back to the office door. Signaled his partner. His partner shut the motor down and locked the car and walked over.
"Room eight, false name," the first cop said.
"In there now?" his partner asked.
"We don't know."
"So let's find out."
They took the clerk with them. They made him stand well back. They drew their weapons and knocked on room eight's door.
No response.
They knocked again.
No response.
"Got a master key?" the first cop asked.
The clerk handed him a key. The cop put it in the lock gently, one-handed. Turned it slowly. Opened the door a half inch and paused and then smashed it all the way open and stepped inside. His partner stepped in right behind him. Their guns traced left and right and up and down, fast and random and tense.
The room was empty.
Nothing in there at all, except a forlorn little sequence of bathroom items lined up on a shelf above the sink. A new pack of throwaway razors, open, one used. A new can of shaving foam, with dried bubbles around the nozzle. A new tube of toothpaste, twice squeezed.
"This guy travels light," the first cop said.
"But he hasn't checked out," his partner said. "That's for sure. Which means he's coming back."
Chapter 10
Reacher was falling asleep on the bed in room 310 at the Marriott Suites. He was on his back, like a dead man. He and Hutton had talked so long in the coffee shop that she had almost been late for her appointment. She had checked her watch at five to four and had thrust her key card at him and asked him to dump her bag in her room. Then she had run straight out to the street. He guessed he was supposed to leave her card at the desk afterward. But he didn't. He didn't have anywhere he needed to be. Not right then. So he just parked the bag and stayed inside.
He wasn't crazy about room 310, all things considered. It was on the third floor, which made the window a difficult escape route. Room eight at the motor court had been better. Much better. Ground floor, a tangled old neighborhood, it gave a guy a sporting chance. Open the window, step out, look for an alley, or a door, or another window. That was good. This was bad. He was three floors up. A long climb. And he wasn't even sure if the Marriott's windows opened at all. Maybe they didn't. Maybe the main office lawyers had been worried about liability. Maybe they had foreseen a steady deluge of infants raining down on the parking lot blacktop. Or maybe it was a question of economies of scale. Maybe the cost of hinges and handles outweighed a little extra on the air-conditioning bill. Whatever, it wasn't a great room to be in. Not by any measure. Not for the long term.
But it was OK for the short term. So he closed his eyes and drifted away. Sleep when you can, because you never know when you're going to sleep again. That was the old army rule.
Emerson's plan was pretty straightforward. He put Donna Bianca in room seven. Told the two patrolmen to stash their car three streets away and walk back and wait in room nine. He put a car two streets behind the motor court, and another four blocks north, where the auto dealers were, and another two blocks south. He told the clerk to stay awake and watch through the window and call Bianca in room seven as soon as he saw the guy he knew as Heffner walk in.
Eileen Hutton got back to the Marriott at four-thirty. There was no key card waiting for her at the desk. No message. So she went up in the elevator and followed the arrows to room 310 and knocked on the door. There was a short pause and then the door opened and Reacher let her in.
"How's my room?" she asked.
"The bed's comfortable," he said.
"I'm supposed to call Emerson if I see you," she said.
"Are you going to?"
"No."
"Perjury and harboring a fugitive," he said. "All in one day."
She dug in her purse and came out with Emerson's card. "You're their only suspect. He gave me three separate phone numbers. They sound pretty serious."
He took the card from her. Put it in his back pocket, with the cocktail napkin that had Helen Rodin's cell number on it. He was turning into a walking phone book.
"How was the thing with Rodin?" he asked.
"Straightforward," she said.
He said nothing. She moved around, checking the suite. Bathroom, bedroom, living room, kitchenette. She took her bag and stood it neatly against a wall.
"Want to stay?" she said.
He shook his head.
"I can't," he said.
"OK," she said.
"But I could come back later, if you like."
She paused a beat.
"OK," she said. "Come back later."
Alex Rodin stepped back into his office and closed the door and called Emerson.
"Have you got him yet?" he asked.
"Just a matter of time," Emerson said. "We're looking for him all over. And we're watching his room. He's at the old motor court. Under a false name."
"That's interesting," Rodin said. "It means he might have used a false name at the Metropole, too."
"I'll check," Emerson said. "I'll show the clerk the picture."
"We might really be able to nail him," Rodin said. He clicked off, thinking about two new framed headlines for his office wall. First Barr, and then Reacher.
Reacher let himself out of Hutton's suite and used the stairs instead of the elevator. On the ground floor he turned away from the lobby and found a back corridor with a fire door at the end of it. He pushed the fire door open and held it ajar with his foot. Took Emerson's card out of his pocket and tore it in half lengthwise and folded the half with the name on it four times. He pressed the tongue into the fire door's lock with the ball of his thumb and wedged it there with the folded cardboard. He closed the door gently and pushed it flush with the frame with the flat of his hand. Then he walked away, past a Dumpster, through the staff lot, out to the street, heading north. The sidewalks were busy and the traffic lanes were starting to clog. He walked at a normal pace and used his height to scan the middle distance for patrol cars or cops on corners. The day was still warm. There was a weather system somewhere out there. Somewhere near. There was high pressure in the sky, clamping down, trapping the smell of damp earth and nitrogen fertilizer in the air.
He reached the raised highway and turned west in its shadow. The roadbed strode along on pillars forty feet high. Underneath it were untidy lots, some vacant and full of trash, some with old brick buildings with dark skylights in their roofs, some with new metal sheds housing body shops and spray paint operations. He passed the back of the black glass tower and stayed in the highway's shadow and turned south, ready to pass behind the library. He stopped suddenly and crouched and fiddled with his shoe. Like he had a stone. Glanced back under his arm and saw nobody behind him. No tail.
He moved on. After the library he was exposed for forty yards. The plaza was east of him. He stopped momentarily on a spot he judged was directly below where Helen Rodin had parked the day before and where James Barr should have parked on Friday. Forty feet lower down the view was different but the geometry was the same. He could see the wilted tributes propped against the pool's southern wall. They were small splashes of faded color in the distance. Beyond them was the DMV's door. People were coming out in ones and twos. He checked his watch. Ten to five.