“They call me Hook Hobie,” he said.
He sat there with his face rigid and the hook held up like an object for examination. Stone swallowed and tried to recover his composure. Wondered if he should offer his left hand instead. He knew some people did that. His great-uncle had had a stroke. The last ten years of his life, he always shook left-handed.
“Take a seat,” Hook Hobie said.
Stone nodded gratefully and backed away. Sat on the end of the sofa. It put him sideways on, but he was happy just to be doing something. Hobie looked at him and laid his arm on the desktop. The hook hit the wood with a quiet metallic sound.
“You want to borrow money,” he said.
The burned side of his face did not move at all. It was thick and hard like a crocodile’s back. Stone felt his stomach going acid and he looked straight down at the coffee table. Then he nodded and ran his palms over the knees of his trousers. Nodded again, and tried to remember his script.
“I need to bridge a gap,” he said. “Six weeks, one-point-one million.”
“Bank?” Hobie asked.
Stone stared at the floor. The tabletop was glass, and there was a patterned rug under it. He shrugged wisely, as if he were including a hundred fine points of arcane business strategy in a single gesture, communicating with a man he wouldn’t dream of insulting by suggesting he was in any way ignorant of any of them.
“I prefer not to,” he said. “We have an existing loan package, of course, but I beat them down to a hell of a favorable rate based on the premise that it was all fixed-amount, fixed-term stuff, with no rolling component. You’ll appreciate that I don’t want to upset those arrangements for such a trivial amount.”
Hobie moved his right arm. The hook dragged over the wood.
“Bullshit, Mr. Stone,” he said quietly.
Stone made no reply. He was listening to the hook.
“Were you in the service?” Hobie asked him.
“Excuse me?”
“Were you drafted? Vietnam?”
Stone swallowed. The burns, and the hook.
“I missed out,” he said. “Deferred, for college. I was very keen to go, of course, but the war was over by the time I graduated.”
Hobie nodded, slowly.
“I went,” he said. “And one of the things I learned over there was the value of intelligence gathering. It’s a lesson I apply in my business.”
There was silence in the dark office. Stone nodded. Moved his head and stared at the edge of the desk. Changed the script.
“OK,” he said. “Can’t blame me for trying to put a brave face on it, right?”
“You’re in relatively deep shit,” Hobie said. “You’re actually paying your bank top points, and they’ll say no to any further funds. But you’re doing a reasonably good job of digging yourself out from under. You’re nearly out of the woods.”
“Nearly,” Stone agreed. “Six weeks and one-point-one million away, is all.”
“I specialize,” Hobie said. “Everybody specializes. My arena is cases exactly like yours. Fundamentally sound enterprises, with temporary and limited exposure problems. Problems that can’t be solved by the banks, because they specialize, too, in other arenas, such as being dumb and unimaginative as shit.”
He moved the hook again, scraping it across the oak.
“My charges are reasonable,” he said. “I’m not a loan shark. We’re not talking about hundreds-of-percent interest here. I could see my way to advancing you one-point-one, say six percent to cover the six weeks.”
Stone ran his palms over his thighs again. Six percent for six weeks? Equivalent to an annual rate of what? Nearly 52 percent. Borrow one-point-one million now, pay it all back plus sixty-six thousand dollars in interest six weeks from now. Eleven thousand dollars a week. Not quite a loan shark’s terms. Not too far away, either. But at least the guy was saying yes.
“What about security?” Stone asked.
“I’ll take an equity position,” Hobie said.
Stone forced himself to raise his head and look at him. He figured this was some kind of a test. He swallowed hard. Figured he was so close, honesty was the best policy.
“The stock’s worth nothing,” he said quietly.
Hobie nodded his terrible head, like he was pleased with the reply.
“Right now it isn’t,” he said. “But it will be worth something soon, right?”
“Only after your exposure is terminated,” Stone said. “Catch-22, right? The stock only goes back up after I repay you. When I’m out of the woods.”
“So I’ll benefit then,” Hobie said. “I’m not talking about a temporary transfer. I’ m going to take an equity position, and I’m going to keep it.”
“Keep it?” Stone said. He couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. Fifty-two percent interest and a gift of stock?
“I always do,” Hobie said. “It’s a sentimental thing. I like to have a little part of all the businesses I help. Most people are glad to make the arrangement.”
Stone swallowed. Looked away. Examined his options. Shrugged.
“Sure,” he said. “I guess that’s OK.”
Hobie reached to his left and rolled open a drawer. Pulled out a printed form. Slid it across to the front of the desk.
“I prepared this,” he said.
Stone crouched forward off the sofa and picked it up. It was a loan agreement, one-point-one million, six weeks, 6 percent, and a standard stock-transfer protocol. For a chunk that was worth a million dollars not long ago, and might be again, very soon. He blinked.
“Can’t do it any other way,” Hobie said. “Like I told you, I specialize. I know this comer of the market. You won’t get better anyplace else. Fact is, you won’t get a damn thing anyplace else.”
Hobie was six feet away behind the desk, but Stone felt he was right next to him on the sofa with his awful face jammed in his and the glittering hook ripping through his guts. He nodded, just a faint silent movement of his head, and went into his coat for his fat Mont Blanc fountain pen. Stretched forward and signed in both places against the cold hard glass of the coffee table. Hobie watched him, and nodded in turn.
“I assume you want the money in your operating account?” he asked. “Where the other banks won’t see it?”
Stone nodded again, in a daze.
“That would be good,” he said.
Hobie made a note. “It’ll be there in an hour.”
“Thank you,” Stone said. It seemed appropriate.
“So now I’m the one who’s exposed,” Hobie said. “Six weeks, no real security. Not a nice feeling at all.”
“There won’t be a problem,” Stone said, looking down.
Hobie nodded.
“I’m sure there won’t,” he said. He leaned forward and pressed the intercom in front of him. Stone heard a buzzer sounding faintly outside in the anteroom.
“The Stone dossier, please,” Hobie said into the microphone.
There was silence for a moment, and then the door opened. The male receptionist walked over to the desk. He was carrying a thin green file. He bent and placed it in front of Hobie. Walked back out and closed the door quietly. Hobie used his hook to push the file over to the front edge of the desk.
“Take a look,” he said.
Stone crouched forward and took the file. Opened it up. There were photographs in it. Several big eight-by-tens, in glossy black and white. The first photograph was of his house. Clearly taken from inside a car stopped at the end of his driveway. The second was of his wife. Marilyn. Shot with a long lens as she walked in the flower garden. The third was of Marilyn coming out of her beauty parlor in town. A grainy, long-lens image. Covert, like a surveillance photograph. The fourth picture was a close-up of the license plate of her BMW.
The fifth photograph was also of Marilyn. Taken at night through their bedroom window. She was dressed in a bathrobe. Her hair was down, and it looked damp. Stone stared at it. To get that picture, the photographer had been standing on their back lawn. His vision blurred and his ears hummed with silence. Then he shuffled the pictures together and closed the file. Put it back on the desk, slowly. Hobie leaned forward and pressed the tip of his hook into the thick paper. He used it to pull the file back toward him. The hook rasped across the wood, loudly in the silence.
“That’s my security, Mr. Stone,” he said. “But like you just told me, I’m sure there won’t be a problem.”
Chester Stone said nothing. Just stood up and threaded his way by all the furniture and over to the door. Through the reception area and into the corridor and into the elevator. Down eighty-eight floors and back outside, where the bright morning sun hit him in the face like a blow.
3
THAT SAME SUN was on the back of Reacher’s neck as he made his way into Manhattan in the rear seat of a gypsy cab. He preferred to use unlicensed operators, given the choice. It suited his habit. No reason at all why anyone should ever want to trace his movements by checking with cabdrivers, but a cabdriver who couldn’t admit to being one was the safest kind there was. And it gave the opportunity for a little negotiation about the fare. Not much negotiating to be done with the meter in a yellow taxi.
They came in over the Triborough Bridge and entered Manhattan on 125th Street. Drove west through traffic as far as Roosevelt Square. Reacher had the guy pull over there while he scanned around and thought for a moment. He was thinking about a cheap hotel, but he wanted one with working phones. And intact phone books. His judgment was he couldn’t meet all three requirements in that neighborhood. But he got out anyway, and paid the guy off. Wherever he was going, he’d walk the last part. A cut-out period, on his own. It suited his habit.
THE TWO YOUNG men in the crumpled thousand-dollar suits waited until Chester Stone was well clear. Then they went into the inner office and threaded by the furniture and stood quietly in front of the desk. Hobie looked up at them and rolled open a drawer. Put the signed agreements away with the photographs and took out a new pad of yellow paper. Then he laid his hook on the desktop and turned in his chair so the dim light from the window caught the good side of his face.
“Well?”
“We just got back,” the first guy said.
“You get the information I asked for?”
The second guy nodded. Sat down on the sofa.
“He was looking for a guy called Jack Reacher.”
Hobie made a note of the name on the yellow pad. “Who’s he?”
There was a short silence.
“We don’t know,” the first guy said.
Hobie nodded, slowly. “Who was Costello’s client?”
Another short silence.
“We don’t know that either,” the guy said.
“Those are fairly basic questions,” Hobie said.
The guy just looked at him through the silence, uneasy.
“You didn’t think to ask those fairly basic questions?”
The second guy nodded. “We asked them. We were asking them like crazy.”
“But Costello wouldn’t answer?”
“He was going to,” the first guy said.
“But?”
“He died on us,” the second guy said. “He just upped and died. He was old, overweight. It was maybe a heart attack, I think. I’m very sorry, sir. We both are.”
Hobie nodded again, slowly. “Exposure?”
“Nil,” the first guy said. “He’s unidentifiable.”
Hobie glanced down at the fingertips of his left hand. “Where’s the knife?”
“In the sea,” the second guy said.
Hobie moved his arm and tapped a little rhythm on the desktop with the point of his hook. Thought hard, and nodded again, decisively.
“OK, not your fault, I guess. Weak heart, what can you do?”
The first guy relaxed and joined his partner on the sofa. They were off the hook, and that had a special meaning in this office.
“We need to find the client,” Hobie said into the silence.
The two guys nodded and waited.
“Costello must have had a secretary, right?” Hobie said. “She’ll know who the client was. Bring her to me.”
The two guys stayed on the sofa.
“What?”
“This Jack Reacher,” the first guy said. “Supposed to be a big guy, three months in the Keys. Costello told us people were talking about a big guy, been there three months, worked nights in a bar. We went to see him. Big tough guy, but he said he wasn’t Jack Reacher.”
“So?”
“ Miami airport,” the second guy said. “We took United because it was direct. But there was an earlier flight just leaving, Delta to Atlanta and New York.”
“And?”
“The big guy from the bar? We saw him, heading down to the gate.”
“You sure?”
The first guy nodded. “Ninety-nine percent certain. He was a long way ahead, but he’s a real big guy. Difficult to miss.”
Hobie started tapping his hook on the desk again. Lost in thought.
“OK, he’s Reacher,” he said. “Has to be, right? Costello asking around, then you guys asking on the same day, it spooks him and he runs. But where? Here?”
The second guy nodded. “If he stayed on the plane in Atlanta, he’s here.”
“But why?” Hobie asked. “Who the hell is he?”
He thought for a moment and answered his own question.
“The secretary will tell me who the client is, right?”
Then he smiled.
“And the client will tell me who this Reacher guy is.”
The two guys in the smart suits nodded quietly and stood up. Threaded their way around the furniture and walked out of the office.
REACHER WAS WALKING south through Central Park. Trying to get a grip on the size of the task he had set himself. He was confident he was in the right city. The three accents had been definitive. But there was a huge population to wade through. Seven and a half million people spread out over the five boroughs, maybe altogether 18 million in the metropolitan area. Eighteen million people close enough to focus inward when they want a specialized urban service like a fast and efficient private detective. His gut assumption was Costello may have been located in Manhattan, but it was entirely possible that Mrs. Jacob was suburban. If you’re a woman living somewhere in the suburbs and you want a private detective, where do you look for one? Not next to the supermarket or the video rental. Not in the mall next to the dress shops. You pick up the Yellow Pages for the nearest major city and you start calling. You have an initial conversation and maybe the guy drives out to you, or you get on the train and come in to him. From anywhere in a big dense area that stretches hundreds of square miles.