“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

He used the fire stairs instead of the elevator and got back to the garage unseen. He hustled up the ramp and across the street and under the highway again. The invisible man. Life in the shadows. He smiled. He stopped.

He decided to go look for a pay phone.

He found one on the side wall of a small grocery called Martha’s, two blocks north of the cheap clothing store he had used. The booth faced a wide alley that was used as a narrow parking lot. There were six slanted spaces full of six cars. Beyond them, a high brick wall topped with broken glass. The alley turned ninety degrees behind the grocery. He guessed it turned again somewhere and let out on the next block south.

Safe enough, he thought.

He took Emerson’s torn card out of his pocket. Chose the cell number. Dialed the phone. Leaned his shoulder against the wall and watched both ends of the alley at once and listened to the purr of the ring tone in his ear.

“Yes?” Emerson said.

“Guess who?” Reacher said.

“Reacher?”

“You named that tune in one.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m still in town.”

“Where?”

“Not far away.”

“You know we’re looking for you, right?”

“I heard.”

“So you need to turn yourself in.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then we’ll come find you,” Emerson said.

“Think you can?”

“It’ll be easy.”

“You know a guy called Franklin?”

“Sure I do.”

“Ask him how easy it’ll be.”

“That was different. You could have been anywhere.”

“You got the motor court staked out?”

There was a pause. Emerson said nothing.

“Keep your people there,” Reacher said. “Maybe I’ll be back. Or on the other hand, maybe I won’t.”

“We’ll find you.”

“Not a chance. You’re not good enough.”

“Maybe we’re tracing this call.”

“I’ll save you the trouble. I’m outside a grocery called Martha’s.”

“You should come in from the cold.”

“I’ll trade,” Reacher said. “Find out who placed the cone in the parking garage and then I’ll think about coming in.”

“Barr placed the cone.”

“You know he didn’t. His van isn’t on the tapes.”

“So he used another vehicle.”

“He doesn’t have another vehicle.”

“So he borrowed one.”

“From a friend?” Reacher said. “Maybe. Or maybe the friend placed the cone for him. Either way, you find that friend, and I’ll think about coming in to talk to you.”

“There are hundreds of cars on those tapes.”

“You’ve got the resources,” Reacher said.

“I don’t trade,” Emerson said.

“I think his name is Charlie,” Reacher said. “Small guy, wiry black hair.”

“I don’t trade,” Emerson said again.

“I didn’t kill the girl,” Reacher said.

“Says you.”

“I liked her.”

“You’re breaking my heart.”

“And you know I didn’t stay at the Metropole last night.”

“Which is why you dumped her there.”

“And I’m not left-handed.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Tell Bellantonio to talk to your ME.”

“We’ll find you,” Emerson said.

“You won’t,” Reacher said. “Nobody ever has before.”

Then he hung up and walked back to the street. Crossed the road and hiked half a block north and took cover behind a stack of unused concrete lane dividers in a vacant lot. He waited. Six minutes later two cruisers pulled up in front of Martha’s grocery. Lights, but no sirens. Four cops spilled out. Two went in the store and two went to find the phone. Reacher watched them regroup on the sidewalk. Watched them search the alley and check around its corner. Watched them come back. Watched them admit defeat. He saw one of the four get on his radio for a short conversation full of defensive body language. Raised palms, shrugged shoulders. Then the conversation ended and Reacher slipped away east, heading back toward the Marriott.

The Zec had only a thumb and a single finger remaining on each hand. On the right was a stump of an index finger, blackened and gnarled by frostbite. He had once spent a week outdoors in the winter, wearing an old Red Army tunic, and the way its previous owner’s water canteen had ridden on his belt had worn the fabric of the right pocket thinner than the left. On such trivial differences survival had hung. His left hand had been saved, and his right hand lost. He had felt his fingers die from the pinkie inward. He had taken his hand out of his pocket and let it freeze hard enough to go completely numb. Then he had chewed off the dead fingers before the gangrene could spread. He remembered dropping them to the ground, one by one, like small brown twigs.

His left hand retained the pinkie. The middle three fingers were missing. Two had been amputated by a sadist with garden shears. The Zec had removed the other himself, with a sharpened spoon, so as to be disqualified for labor in some machine shop or other. He couldn’t recall the specifics, but he remembered a persuasive rumor that it was better to lose another finger than work on that particular detail. Something to do with the overseer.

Ruined hands. Just two of many souvenirs of another time, another place. He wasn’t very aware of them anymore, but they made modern life difficult. Cell phones had gotten so damn small. Linsky’s number was ten digits long, and it was a pig to dial. The Zec never retained a phone long enough to make it worth storing a number. That would be madness.

Eventually he got the number entered and he concentrated hard and pressed the call button with his left-hand pinkie. Then he juggled the phone into his other palm and cupped it near his ear. He didn’t need to hold it close. His hearing was still excellent, which was a miracle all by itself.

“Yes?” Linsky said.

“They can’t find him,” the Zec said. “I shouldn’t have told you to break off our own surveillance. My mistake.”

“Where have they looked?”

“Here and there. He stayed last night at the motor court. They’ve got it staked out, but I’m sure he won’t go back. They’ve got a man at the lawyer’s office. Other than that, they’re stumbling around in the dark.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to find him. Use Chenko and Vladimir. And I’ll send Raskin to you. Work together. Find him tonight and then call me.”

Reacher stopped two blocks short of the Marriott. He knew what Emerson would be doing. He had been Emerson for thirteen years. Emerson would be running down a mental list. Likely haunts, known associates. Likely haunts at this time of day would include eating places. So Emerson would be sending cars to diners and restaurants and cafés, including the salad place that Helen Rodin liked and the sports bar. Then he would move on to known associates, which pretty much limited him to Helen Rodin herself. He would have the lobby cop ride up to the fourth floor and knock on the office door.

Then he would take a chance on Eileen Hutton.

So Reacher stopped two blocks short of the Marriott and looked around for a place to wait. He found one behind a shoe store. There was a three-sided corral made of head-high brick walls shielding a shoulder-high plastic garbage receptacle from public view. Reacher stepped in and found that if he leaned his shoulder on the trash can he could see a yard-wide sliver of the Marriott’s main door. He wasn’t uncomfortable. And it was the best-smelling garbage dump he had ever been in. The can smelled of fresh cardboard and new shoes. Better than the kind of place you find behind a fish store.

He figured if Emerson was efficient he would have to wait less than thirty minutes. Very efficient, less than twenty. Average, somewhere up around an hour. He leaned on the trash can and passed the time. It wasn’t late but the streets were already quiet. There were very few people out and about. He watched, and waited. Then the smell of new leather from the discarded shoe boxes distracted him. It started him thinking about footwear. Maybe he should drop by the store sometime and pick out a brand-new pair. He stuck his foot out and looked down. The boat shoes he had on were soft and light and the soles were thin. They had been fine for Miami. Not so good for his current situation. He could foresee a time when he would appreciate something heavier.