Chang checked the hallway and closed the door behind them.

Reacher said, “Try his phone.”

She hit redial, and he heard a purr of ring tone against her ear, and then the cell network clicked in, and a phone started to ring in the room. It was loud and insistent. It was ringing and buzzing, with a stupid tune and the thick vibration of plastic on wood. McCann’s phone was right there, on a table, hopping around under a nest of wire, its little front window all lit up blue. It was plugged in to a charging wire, which was plugged in to a computer.

Chang killed the call.

She said, “Why doesn’t he have it with him? A cell phone belongs in a pocket.”

Reacher said, “To him it’s not a cell phone, I guess. Not in the normal way. It was an alternate number for calling Westwood, that’s all. And it did its job. Not its fault there was no result. So like you figured, he gave it up and dumped the phone in a drawer. Except the drawer is a table.”

“Plugged in.”

“Habit, maybe.”

“So where is he?”

Reacher said, “I don’t know where he is.”

“Keever’s door was unlocked too.”

“I remember.”

“I think we should take a quick look and get out.”

“How quick?”

“Two minutes.”

Which wasn’t much, but which was enough, because there wasn’t much to look at. The kitchen was tiny, with a half-size cabinet that held only a box of off-brand breakfast cereal, and a half-size refrigerator that held only a quart of off-brand milk, and two candy bars. The bathroom cabinet had legal analgesics and over-the-counter cold remedies. There was a chest of drawers full of threadbare clothing, most of it man-made material, and all of it black. There was nothing unusual about the bed. The computer equipment was what it was. All the screens lit up on command, but from that point onward every step of every way needed a password.

No photos, no personal items, no leisure reading, no stacks of mail.

Chang opened the door and checked the hallway.

She said, “Let’s go.”

She opened the door wider.

There was a guy standing there.

Eyewitness testimony was suspect because of preconditions, and cognitive bias, and suggestibility. It was suspect because people see what they expect to see. Reacher was no different. He was human. The front part of his brain wasted the first precious split second working on the image of the guy at the door, trying to rearrange it into a plausible version of a theoretical McCann. Which was not an easy mental task, because McCann was supposed to be sixty years old and thin and gaunt, whereas the guy at the door was clearly twenty years younger than that, and twice as solid. But still Reacher tried, instinctively, because who else could it be, but McCann? Who else could be at McCann’s door, in McCann’s building, in McCann’s city?

Then half a second later the back part of Reacher’s brain took over, and the image resolved itself, crisp and clear, not a potential McCann at all, not even remotely a contender, but the familiar twice-glimpsed face, now three times seen, first in the diner, next in the Town Car, and finally in the there and then, in a dim upstairs hallway in a three-floor walk-up.

Chapter 35

The guy was about forty years old, give or take, right up there on a hard-won plateau in the center of his life, not a dumb kid anymore, but not yet an old man either, and full of accumulated competence and confidence and capability, all wrapped up in experience. He looked to be dead-on six feet tall, and about two hundred pounds. He was wearing blue jeans, coarse and high-waisted, not stylish at all, with a belt, and a white open-neck shirt, and a blue satin baseball jacket. He had fair hair cut short and neatly brushed, and a pink slabby face, and small blue eyes, and an inquiring expression. He could have been a neighborhood electrical contractor, showing up in person to prepare a detailed estimate for a difficult job.

Except for the gun in his hand. Which looked like an old Ruger P-85. Nine millimeter. With a suppressor tube attached. A silencer, about nine inches long. The guy was holding the gun down by his leg. Pointed at the floor. With the suppressor tube it ran from the middle of his thigh to the middle of his calf. Long, and slender.

A random circuit in the back part of Reacher’s brain sparked up with a play-by-play: He flew short-notice from LA, and can’t have taken a gun on the plane, so he has operational support in Chicago, at a fairly high level, given that suppressors are illegal in the state of Illinois.

The front part of his brain said: Step forward.

He stepped forward.

The gun came up, and the guy said, “Don’t move.”

Reacher stepped forward again, all the way to the door.

The guy said, “I’ll shoot.”

You won’t, because you want to shoot me in the room, not in the doorway, because I’m too big to move afterward, and also because in real life suppressors don’t work like they work in the movies, with a polite little spit, but with a hell of a bang, not much quieter than a regular gunshot anyway, which will be audible all over the house, if you fire in the hallway.

So you won’t shoot.

Not yet.

The guy said, “Stay where you are.”

The back of Reacher’s brain said: If he has operational support in Chicago, you should check for reinforcements. Muscle is cheaper than silencers here.

Which was why he had pushed his luck all the way to the door. To get the angle. But there was nothing in the dim shadows beyond the guy’s shoulder. No bulk, no sound, no shifting stance, no breathing.

The guy was alone.

Reacher stood still.

The guy said, “Back inside now.”

From the room Chang said, “What do you want?”

You’re not going to say you want to shoot us, nothing personal, purely business, because that would induce a measure of last-ditch defense on our part.

The guy said, “I want to talk.”

“About what?”

“About what’s happening in Mother’s Rest. I think I can help you.”

And you have a bridge for sale in Brooklyn. I wasn’t born yesterday. Reacher stayed right where he was, filling the doorway, angled slightly, his front toe on the seam between the hallway floor and the room floor, with the guy about a yard in front of him, halfway to the staircase railing, and Chang about two yards behind him, still halfway into the room.

She said, “If you’re here to help us, why did you bring a gun?”

The guy didn’t answer.

Reacher had failed driving, but he had passed everything else. Including unarmed combat. Which sounded like a useful qualification, but wasn’t. The whole point of the military had been to engage with hot weapons at minimum risk to the home side. In other words, to shoot the other guy from a very long way away with a rifle, or failing that to shoot him closer by with a handgun. The unarmed combat courses had been afterthoughts. There had been a whiff of embarrassment. Hand-to-hand implied failure at the hot-weapons stage. Worst of all, the pointy-heads couldn’t find anything to write in the manual. There were no valid theories. Martial arts didn’t work in the real world. Judo and karate were useless without the mats and the referee and the special pajamas. So unarmed combat was brawling, basically. Like a bar fight. Whatever worked.

Chang said, “Put the gun down, and we’ll talk.”

He won’t, because that would give up his only advantage. He would be one-on-one with a giant, which was not appealing, especially because right then the giant was fixing him with the glassy stare of a psychopath.

Whatever worked.

The guy kept the gun where it was.

Reacher leaned forward an inch.

He wants to shoot me in the room, not the doorway. I’m too big to move.

The guy said, “Back up now.”