I glanced at Harley. He was looking out the window at the rain.
"Was it just Doll?" I asked.
Beck nodded. "I've been through all of that. I'm satisfied. It was just Doll. The rest are solid. They're still with me. They were very apologetic about Doll."
"OK," I said.
There was silence for a long moment. Then Beck rewrapped my stash in its rag and dumped it back in his bag. He threw the dead e-mail device in after it and piled the maid's shoes on top. They looked sad and empty and forlorn.
"I've learned one thing," he said. "I'm going to start searching people's shoes, that's for damn sure. You can bet your life on that."
I bet my life on it right there and then. I kept my own shoes on. I got back up to Duke's room and checked his closet. There were four pairs in there. Nothing I would have picked out for myself in a store, but they looked reasonable and they were close to the right size. But I left them there. To show up so soon in different shoes would raise a red flag. And if I was going to ditch mine, I was going to ditch them properly. No point leaving them in my room for casual inspection. I would have to get them out of the house. And there was no easy way of doing that right then. Not after the scene in the kitchen. I couldn't just walk downstairs with them in my hands. What was I supposed to say? What, these? Oh, they're the shoes I was wearing when I arrived. I'm just going out to throw them in the ocean. Like I was suddenly bored with them? So I kept them on.
And I still needed them, anyway. I was tempted, but I wasn't ready to cut Duffy out. Not just yet. I locked myself in Duke's bathroom and took the e-mail device out. It was an eerie feeling. I hit power and the screen came up with a message: We need to meet. I hit reply and sent: You bet your ass we do. Then I turned the unit off and nailed it back into my heel and went down to the kitchen again.
"Go with Harley," Beck told me. "You need to bring the Saab back."
The cook wasn't there. The counters were neat and clean. They had been scrubbed. The stove was cold. It felt like there should be a Closed sign hanging on the door.
"What about lunch?" I said.
"You hungry?"
I thought back to the way the sea had swelled the bag and claimed the body. Saw the hair under the water, fluid and infinitely fine. Saw the blood rinsing away, pink and diluted. I wasn't hungry.
"Starving," I said.
Beck smiled sheepishly. "You're one cold son of a bitch, Reacher."
"I've seen dead people before. I expect to see them again."
He nodded. "The cook is off duty. Eat out, OK?"
"I don't have any money."
He put his hand in his pants pocket and came out with a wad of bills. Started to count them out and then just shrugged and gave it up and handed the whole lot to me. It must have been close to a thousand dollars.
"Walking-around money," he said. "We'll do the salary thing later."
I put the cash in my pocket.
"Harley is waiting in the car," he said.
I went outside and pulled my coat collar up. The wind was easing. The rain was reverting to vertical. The Lincoln was still there at the corner of the house. The trunk lid was closed. Harley was drumming his thumbs on the wheel. I slid into the passenger seat and buzzed it backward to get some legroom. He fired up the engine and set the wipers going and took off. We had to wait while Paulie unchained the gate. Harley fiddled with the heater and set it on high. Our clothes were wet and the windows were steaming up. Paulie was slow. Harley started drumming again.
"You two work for the same guy?" I asked him.
"Me and Paulie?" he said. "Sure."
"Who is he?"
"Beck didn't tell you?"
"No," I said.
"Then I won't either, I guess."
"Hard for me to do my job without information," I said.
"That's your problem," he said. "Not mine."
He gave me his yellow gappy smile again. I figured if I hit him hard enough my fist would take out all the little stumps and end up somewhere in the back of his scrawny throat. But I didn't hit him. Paulie got the chain loose and swung the gate back. Harley took off immediately and squeezed through with about an inch of clearance on each side. I settled back in my seat. Harley clicked the headlights on and accelerated hard and rooster tails of spray kicked up behind us. We drove west, because there was no choice for the first twelve miles. Then we turned north on Route One, away from where Elizabeth Beck had taken me, away from Old Orchard Beach and Saco, toward Portland. I had no view of anything because the weather was so dismal. I could barely see the tail lights on the traffic ahead of us. Harley didn't speak. Just rocked back and forth in the driver's seat and drummed his thumbs on the wheel and drove. He wasn't a smooth driver. He was always either on the gas or the brake. We sped up, slowed down, sped up, slowed down. It was a long twenty miles.
Then the road swerved hard to the west and I saw I-295 close by on our left. There was a narrow tongue of gray seawater beyond it and beyond that was the Portland airport. There was a plane taking off in a huge cloud of spray. It roared low over our heads and swung south over the Atlantic. Then there was a strip mall on our left with a long narrow parking lot out front. The mall had the sort of stores you expect to find in a low-rent place trapped between two roads near an airport. The parking lot held maybe twenty cars in a line, all of them head-in and square-on to the curb. The old Saab was fifth from the left. Harley pulled the Lincoln in and stopped directly behind it. Drummed his thumbs on the wheel.
"All yours," he said. "Key is in the door pocket."
I got out in the rain and he drove off as soon as I shut my door. But he didn't get back on Route One. At the end of the lot he made a left. Then an immediate right. I saw him ease the big car through an improvised exit made of lumpy poured concrete that led into the adjoining lot. I pulled my collar up again and watched as he drove slowly through it and then disappeared behind a set of brand-new buildings. They were long low sheds made of bright corrugated metal. Some kind of a business park. There was a network of narrow blacktop roads. They were wet and shiny with rain. They had high concrete curbs, smooth and new. I saw the Lincoln again, through a gap between buildings. It was moving slow and lazy, like it was looking to park somewhere. Then it slid behind another building and I didn't see it again.
I turned around. The Saab was nose-in to a discount liquor store. Next to the liquor store on one side was a place that sold car stereos and on the other side was a place with a window full of fake crystal chandeliers. I doubted if the maid had been sent out to buy a new ceiling fixture. Or to get a CD player installed in the Saab. So she must have been sent to the liquor store. And then she must have found a whole bunch of people waiting there for her. Four of them, maybe five. At least. After the first moment of surprise she would have changed from a bewildered maid to a trained agent fighting for her life. They would have anticipated that. They would have come mob-handed. I looked up and down the sidewalk. Then I looked at the liquor store. It had a window full of boxes. There was no real view out. But I went in anyway.
The store was full of boxes but empty of people. It felt like it spent most of its time that way. It was cold and dusty. The clerk behind the counter was a gray guy of about fifty. Gray hair, gray shirt, gray skin. He looked like he hadn't been outside in a decade. He had nothing I wanted to buy as an ice-breaker. So I just went right ahead and asked him my question.