The waitress came back before Reacher was finished. She had his check in a black vinyl wallet. She was about to go off duty. He rounded it up and added ten for a tip and paid in cash. She left. He finished his meal but stayed at his table a moment, watching the guy at the door. Then he got up and walked toward him. No other way to leave the restaurant. In the door, out the door.
He stopped level with the stool.
He said, “I have an urgent message for Maxim Trulenko. I need you to figure out a way to get it to him. I’ll be here tomorrow, same time.”
Then he moved onward, out the door, to the street. Twenty feet away on his right the waitress came out the staff-only door. At the exact same moment. Which he hadn’t expected.
She stopped on the sidewalk.
Petite, gamine, going off duty.
She said, “Hi.”
He said, “Thanks again for looking after me, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”
He was counting time in his head.
She said, “You too, and thank you for the very nice tip.”
She stayed about seven feet away, a little tense, a little up on her toes. All kinds of body language going on.
He said, “I try to think what kind of tip I would like, if I was a waitress.”
“That’s an image I’ll never unsee.”
He was counting time in his head because one of two things was about to happen. Either nothing or something. Maybe nothing, because maybe Maxim Trulenko’s name meant nothing to them. Or maybe something, because maybe Trulenko’s name was top of the list of their VIP clients.
Time would tell.
The waitress asked, “So what are you, if you’re not a cop?”
“I’m between jobs right now.”
If Trulenko’s name was on a list, the likely protocol would be for the guy at the door to call it in or text it in, immediately, and then, either because of an instruction in an immediate response, or because it was part of the protocol anyway, he would come out to detain and delay, any way he could, at least long enough to snap a picture with his phone, hopefully long enough for a roving surveillance team to show up. Or a roving snatch squad. No doubt they had plenty of vehicles. And not a huge patch to patrol. Half of a pear-shaped city.
“I’m sorry about your situation,” the waitress said. “I hope you find something soon.”
“Thank you,” Reacher said.
It would take the guy inside maybe forty seconds to make the call, or to text back and forth, and then get set, and take a breath, and step out the door behind them. In which case he was due right about then.
If it was something.
Maybe it was nothing.
The waitress asked, “What kind of work do you like to do?”
The guy stepped out the door behind them.
Reacher moved to the curb and turned around, to make a shallow triangle, with the waitress now on his left, and the guy on his right, and empty space at his back.
The guy looked at Reacher, but spoke to the waitress.
He said, “Run along now, kid.”
Reacher glanced at her.
She mouthed something at him. Could have been, Watch where I go. Then she ran along. Not literally. She turned and crossed the street at a brisk walk, and Reacher glanced over his shoulder twice, just briefly, not long between, like frames from a video, the first of which showed her already half a block away, striding north on the far sidewalk, and the second of which showed her gone completely. Through a doorway, therefore. Toward the end of the block.
The guy on his right said, “I would need your name, before I could put you in touch with Max Trulenko. And maybe first we should talk it through, you and me, about how you came to know him, just to put his mind at rest.”
“When could we do that?” Reacher asked.
“We could do that right now,” the guy said. “Come inside. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
Detain and delay, Reacher thought. Until the snatch squad showed up. He looked left and right along the street. No headlights. Nothing coming. Not yet.
He said, “Thanks, but I just had dinner. I’m all set. I’ll come back tomorrow. About the same time.”
The guy took out his phone.
“I could text him your photo,” he said. “As a first step. That would be quicker.”
“No thanks,” Reacher said.
“I need you to tell me how you know Max.”
“Everyone knows Max. He was famous here for a spell.”
“Tell me the message you have for him.”
“His ears only,” Reacher said.
The guy didn’t answer. Reacher checked the street. Both ends. Nothing coming. Not yet.
The guy said, “We shouldn’t get off on the wrong foot. Any friend of Max’s is a friend of mine. But if you know Max, obviously you know we have to check you out. You wouldn’t want anything less for him.”
Reacher checked the street. Now there was something coming. There was a pair of bucking, bouncing headlight beams coming around the southwest corner of the block, faster than the front suspension could comfortably handle. They swept and dipped and settled straight and then rose up high, as the rear end of the car squatted down under heavy acceleration.
Straight at them.
“I’ll see you again,” Reacher said. “I hope.”
He turned and crossed the street and went north, away from the car. And saw a second car coming around the northwest corner of the block. Same bouncing headlight beams. From the other direction. Heavy acceleration. Straight at him. Probably two guys in each car. Decent numbers, and their response time was quick. They were on Defcon One. Therefore Trulenko was important. Therefore their rules of engagement would be pretty much whatever they wanted them to be.
Right then Reacher was the meat in a bright light sandwich.
Watch where I go.
A doorway, toward the end of the block.
He turned around, hunching away from the light, and he saw one doorway after another, looming up out of the jagged moving shadows. Most of the doors belonged to retail operations, with nothing but dusty gray dimness inside, like closed stores everywhere, and some of the doors were plainer and stoutly made of wood, presumably for private quarters above, but none of them were open, not even a tempting inch, and none of them had a rim of light around the frame. He moved north, because the waitress had been going north, and the shadows gave up more doors, one by one, but they were all the same as before, mute and gray and stubbornly closed.