“Just a bad habit. Like I told you. It’s automatic now.”

They went up the front steps together and in through the heavy brass door. It wasn’t late, but the place was quiet. The lobby was deserted. There was a bar in a side room. It was empty, except for a lone barman leaning back against the register.

“Beer,” Helen Rodin said.

“Two,” Reacher said.

They took a table near a curtained window and the guy brought two beers in bottles, two napkins, two chilled glasses, and a bowl of mixed nuts. Reacher signed the check and added his room number.

Helen Rodin smiled. “So who does the Metropole think you are?”

“Jimmy Reese,” Reacher said.

“Who’s he?”

“Wait,” Reacher said.

A flash of surprise in her eyes. He didn’t know why.

I’m pleased to meet you, Jimmy Reese.

“The girl was looking for me personally,” he said. “She wasn’t looking for some random lone stranger. She was looking for Jack Reacher specifically.”

“She was?”

He nodded. “She asked my name. I said Jimmy Reese. It knocked her off balance for a second. She was definitely surprised. Like, You’re not Jimmy Reese, you’re Jack Reacher, someone just told me. She paused, and then she recovered.”

“The first letters are the same. Jimmy Reese, Jack Reacher. People sometimes do that.”

“She was fast,” he said. “She wasn’t as dumb as she looked. Someone pointed her at me, and she wasn’t going to be deflected. Jack Reacher was supposed to get worked over tonight, and she was going to make sure it happened.”

“So who were they?”

“Who knows my name?”

“The police department. You were just there.”

Reacher said nothing.

“What?” Helen said. “Were they cops? Protecting their case?”

“I’m not here to attack their case.”

“But they don’t know that. They think that’s exactly why you’re here.”

“Their case doesn’t need protecting. It’s solid gold. And they didn’t look like cops.”

“Who else has an interest?”

“Rosemary Barr. She has an interest. She knows my name. And she knows why I’m here.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Helen said.

Reacher said nothing.

“That’s ridiculous,” Helen said again. “Rosemary Barr is a mousy little legal secretary. She wouldn’t try a thing like that. She wouldn’t know how. Not in a million years.”

“It was a very amateur attempt.”

“Compared to what? It was five guys. Enough for most people.”

Reacher said nothing.

“Rosemary Barr was at the hospital,” Helen said. “She went over there after the client conference, and she stayed there most of the afternoon, and I bet she’s back there now. Because her brother is waking up. She wants to be with him.”

“A buck gets ten she’s got a cell phone.”

“Can’t use cell phones near the ICU. They cause interference.”

“A pay phone, then.”

“She’s too preoccupied.”

“With saving her brother.”

Helen Rodin said nothing.

“She’s your client,” Reacher said. “Are you sure you’re impartial?”

“You’re not thinking straight. James Barr asked for you. He wanted you here. Therefore his sister wants you here, too. She wants you to stick around long enough to figure out how you can help. And she knows you can help, or why would her brother have asked for you in the first place?”

Reacher said nothing.

“Accept it,” Helen said. “It wasn’t Rosemary Barr. It’s in her best interests to have you here, alive and well and thinking.”

Reacher took a long pull on his beer. Then he nodded. “I was followed to the bar tonight, obviously. From here. Therefore I was followed here, after lunch. If Rosemary went straight to the hospital this morning she didn’t have time to set that up.”

“So we’re back to someone who thinks you can damage the case. Why not the cops? Cops could follow you anywhere. There’s a lot of them and they all have radios.”

“Cops start trouble face-to-face. They don’t get a girl to do it for them.”

“The girl might be a cop, too.”

Reacher shook his head. “Too young. Too vacant. Too much hair.”

Helen took a pen from her purse and wrote something on her cocktail napkin. Slid it across the table.

“My cell phone number,” she said. “You might need it.”

“I don’t think anyone will sue me.”

“I’m not worried about you getting sued. I’m worried about you getting arrested. Even if it wasn’t cops actually doing it, they might have gone to the bar anyway. The owner might have called them. Or the hospital might have called them. Those three boys went to the hospital, that’s for sure. And the girl definitely knows your alias now. So you might be in trouble. If you are, listen to the Miranda and then call me.”

Reacher smiled. “Ambulance chasing?”

“Looking out for you.”

Reacher picked up the napkin. Put it in his back pocket.

“OK,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Are you still going to leave tomorrow?”

“Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll stick around and think about why someone would use violence to protect a case that’s already a hundred percent watertight.”

Grigor Linsky called the Zec on his cell phone from his car.

“They failed,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”

The Zec said nothing, which was worse than a tirade.

“They won’t be traced to us,” Linsky said.

“Will you make sure of that?”

“Certainly.”

The Zec said nothing.

“No harm, no foul,” Linsky said.

“Unless it served merely to provoke the soldier,” the Zec said. “Then there would be harm. Possibly considerable harm. He is James Barr’s friend, after all. That fact will have implications.”

Now Linsky said nothing.

“Let him see you one more time,” the Zec said. “A little additional pressure might help. But after that, don’t let him see you again.”

“And then?”

“Then monitor the situation,” the Zec said. “Make absolutely certain it doesn’t turn from bad to worse.”

Reacher saw Helen Rodin into a cab and then went upstairs to his room. He took off his shirt and put it in the bathroom sink and left it to soak in cold water. He didn’t want bloodstains on a one-day-old shirt. Three days old, maybe. But not a brand-new garment.

Questions. There were a lot of questions, but as always the key would be finding the basic question. The fundamental question. Why would someone use violence to protect a case that was already watertight? First question: Was the case already watertight? He trawled through the day in his head and heard Alex Rodin say: It’s as good as it gets. The best I’ve ever seen. Emerson had said: It’s the best done deal I ever saw. The morticianlike Bellantonio had said: It’s the best crime scene I ever worked. I love it all. Those guys all had professional self-interest in play, of course. And pride, and expediency. But Reacher himself had seen Bellantonio’s work. And had said: It’s a cast-iron solid-gold slam dunk. It’s Willie Mays under a fly ball.

Was it?

Yes, it was. It was Lou Gehrig with the bases loaded. It was as close to a certainty as human life offers.

But that wasn’t the fundamental question.

He rinsed his shirt and wrung it out hard and spread it on the room heater. Turned the heater on high and opened the window. There was no noise outside. Just silence. New York City it wasn’t. It sounded like they rolled up the sidewalks at nine o’clock. I went to Indiana, but it was closed. He lay down on the bed. Stretched out. Damp heat came off his shirt and filled the room with the smell of wet cotton.

What was the fundamental question?

Helen Rodin’s cassette tape was the fundamental question. James Barr’s voice, low, hoarse, frustrated. His demand: Get Jack Reacher for me.

Why would he say that?

Who was Jack Reacher, in James Barr’s eyes?