Echo Burning by Lee Child Page 3

  He shrugged. “I like being alone.”

  She paused. “Why did your girlfriend leave you?”

  “She went to work in Europe.”

  “And you couldn’t go with her?”

  “She didn’t really want me to go with her.”

  “I see,” she said. “Did you want to go with her?”

  He was quiet for a beat.

  “Not really, I guess,” he said. “Too much like settling down.”

  “And you don’t want to settle down?”

  He shook his head. “Two nights in the same motel gives me the creeps.”

  “Hence one day in Lubbock,” she said.

  “And the next day in Pecos,” he said.

  “And after that?”

  He smiled.

  “After that, I have no idea,” he said. “And that’s the way I like it.”

  She drove on, silent as the car.

  “So you are running away from something,” she said. “Maybe you had a very settled life before and you want to escape from that particular feeling.”

  He shook his head again. “No, the exact opposite, really. I was in the army all my life, which is very unsettled, and I grew to like the feeling.”

  “I see,” she said. “You became habituated to chaos, maybe.”

  “I guess so.”

  She paused. “How is a person in the army all his life?”

  “My father was in, too. So I grew up on military bases all over the world, and then I stayed in afterward.”

  “But now you’re out.”

  He nodded. “All trained up and nowhere to go.”

  He saw her thinking about his answer. He saw her tension come back. She started stepping harder on the gas, maybe without realizing it, maybe like an involuntary reflex. He had the feeling her interest in him was quickening, like the car.

  Ford builds Crown Victorias at its plant up in St. Thomas, Canada, tens of thousands a year, and almost all of them without exception are sold to police departments, taxicab companies, or rental fleets. Almost none of them are sold to private citizens. Full-size turnpike cruisers no longer earn much of a market share, and for those die-hards who still want one from the Ford Motor Company, the Mercury Grand Marquis is the same car in fancier clothes for about the same money, so it mops up the private sales. Which makes private Crown Vics rarer than red Rolls-Royces, so the subliminal response when you see one that isn’t taxicab yellow or black and white with Police all over the doors is to think it’s an unmarked detective’s car. Or government issue of some other kind, maybe U.S. Marshals, or FBI, or Secret Service, or a courtesy vehicle given to a medical examiner or a big-city fire chief.

  That’s the subliminal impression, and there are ways to enhance it a little.

  In the empty country halfway to Abilene, the tall fair man pulled off the highway and headed through vast fields and past dense woodlands until he found a dusty turn-out probably ten miles from the nearest human being. He stopped there and turned off the motor and popped the trunk. The small dark man heaved the heavy valise out and laid it on the ground. The woman zipped it open and handed a pair of Virginia plates to the tall fair man. He took a screwdriver from the valise and removed the Texas plates, front and rear. Bolted the Virginia issue in their place. The small dark man pulled the plastic covers off all four wheels, leaving the cheap black steel rims showing. He stacked the wheel covers like plates and pitched them into the trunk. The woman took radio antennas from the valise, four of them, CB whips and cellular telephone items bought cheap at a Radio Shack in L.A. The cellular antennas stuck to the rear window with self-adhesive pads. She waited until the trunk was closed again and placed the CB antennas on the lid. They had magnetic bases. They weren’t wired up to anything. They were just for show.

  Then the small dark man took his rightful place behind the wheel and U-turned through the dust and headed back to the highway, cruising easily. A Crown Vic, plain steel wheels, a forest of antennas, Virginia plates. Maybe an FBI pool car, three agents inside, maybe on urgent business.

  “What did you do in the army?” the woman asked, very casually.

  “I was a cop,” Reacher said.

  “They have cops in the army?”

  “Sure they do,” he said. “Military police. Like cops, inside the service.”

  “I didn’t know that,” she said.

  She went quiet again. She was thinking hard. She seemed excited.

  “Would you mind if I asked you some questions?” she said.

  He shrugged. “You’re giving me a ride.”

  She nodded. “I wouldn’t want to offend you.”

  “That would be hard to do, in the circumstances. Hundred and ten degrees out there, sixty in here.”

  “There’ll be a storm soon. There has to be, with a temperature like this.”

  He glanced ahead at the sky. It was tinted bottle-green by the windshield glass, and it was blindingly clear.

  “I don’t see any sign of it,” he said.

  She smiled again, briefly. “May I ask where you live?”

  “I don’t live anywhere,” he said. “I move around.”

  “You don’t have a home somewhere?”

  He shook his head. “What you see is what I’ve got.”

  “You travel light,” she said.

  “Light as I can.”

  She paused for a fast mile.

  “Are you out of work?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Usually.”

  “Were you a good cop? In the army?”

  “Good enough, I guess. They made me a major, gave me some medals.”

  She paused. “So why did you leave?”

  It felt like an interview. For a loan, or for a job.

  “They downsized me out of there,” he said. “End of the Cold War, they wanted a smaller army, not so many people in it, so they didn’t need so many cops to look after them.”

  She nodded. “Like a town. If the population gets smaller, the police department gets smaller, too. Something to do with appropriations. Taxes, or something.”

  He said nothing.

  “I live in a very small town,” she said. “Echo, south of Pecos, like I told you. It’s a lonely place. That’s why they named it Echo. Not because it’s echoey, like an empty room. It’s from ancient Greek mythology. Echo was a young girl in love with Narcissus. But he loved himself, not her, so she pined away until just her voice was left. So that’s why it’s called Echo. Not many inhabitants. But it’s a county, too. A county and a township. Not as empty as Loving County, but there’s no police department at all. Just the county sheriff, on his own.”

  Something in her voice.

  “Is that a problem?” he asked.

  “It’s a very white county,” she said. “Not like Pecos at all.”

  “So?”

  “So one feels there might be a problem, if push came to shove.”

  “And has push come to shove?”

  She smiled, awkwardly.

  “I can tell you were a cop,” she said. “You ask so many questions. And it’s me who wanted to ask all the questions.”

  She fell silent for a spell and just drove, slim dark hands light on the wheel, going fast but not hurrying. He used the cushion-shaped buttons again and laid his seat back another fraction. Watched her in the corner of his eye. She was pretty, but she was troubled. Ten years from now, she was going to have some excellent frown lines.

  “What was life like in the army?” she asked.

  “Different,” he said. “Different from life outside the army.”

  “Different how?”

  “Different rules, different situations. It was a world of its own. It was very regulated, but it was kind of lawless. Kind of rough and uncivilized.”

  “Like the Wild West,” she said.

  “I guess,” he said back. “A million people trained first and foremost to do what needed doing. The rules came afterward.”

  “Like the Wild West,” she said again. “I think
you liked it.”

  He nodded. “Some of it.”

  She paused. “May I ask you a personal question?”

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Reacher,” he said.

  “Is that your first name? Or your last?”

  “People just call me Reacher,” he said.

  She paused again. “May I ask you another personal question?”

  He nodded.

  “Have you killed people, Reacher? In the army?”

  He nodded again. “Some.”

  “That’s what the army is all about, fundamentally, isn’t it?” she said.

  “I guess so,” he said. “Fundamentally.”

  She went quiet again. Like she was struggling with a decision.

  “There’s a museum in Pecos,” she said. “A real Wild West museum. It’s partly in an old saloon, and partly in the old hotel next door. Out back is the site of Clay Allison’s grave. You ever heard of Clay Allison?”

  Reacher shook his head.

  “They called him the Gentleman Gunfighter,” she said. “He retired, actually, but then he fell under the wheels of a grain cart and he died from his injuries. They buried him there. There’s a nice headstone, with ‘Robert Clay Allison, 1840–1887’ on it. I’ve seen it. And an inscription. The inscription says, ‘He never killed a man that did not need killing.’ What do you think of that?”

  “I think it’s a fine inscription,” Reacher said.

  “There’s an old newspaper, too,” she said. “In a glass case. From Kansas City, I think, with his obituary in it. It says, ‘Certain it is that many of his stern deeds were for the right as he understood that right to be.’”

  The Cadillac sped on south.

  “A fine obituary,” Reacher said.

  “You think so?”

  He nodded. “As good as you can get, probably.”

  “Would you like an obituary like that?”

  “Well, not just yet,” Reacher said.

  She smiled again, apologetically.

  “No,” she said. “I guess not. But do you think you would like to qualify for an obituary like that? I mean, eventually?”

  “I can think of worse things,” he said.

  She said nothing.

  “You want to tell me where this is heading?” he asked.

  “This road?” she said, nervously.

  “No, this conversation.”

  She drove on for a spell, and then she lifted her foot off the gas pedal and coasted. The car slowed and she pulled off onto the dusty shoulder. The shoulder fell away into a dry irrigation ditch and it put the car at a crazy angle, tilted way down on his side. She put the transmission in park with a small delicate motion of her wrist, and she left the engine idling and the air roaring.

  “My name is Carmen Greer,” she said. “And I need your help.”

  2

  “It wasn’t an accident I picked you up, you know,” Carmen Greer said.

  Reacher’s back was pressed against his door. The Cadillac was listing like a sinking ship, canted hard over on the shoulder. The slippery leather seat gave him no leverage to struggle upright. The woman had one hand on the wheel and the other on his seat back, propping herself above him. Her face was a foot away. It was unreadable. She was looking past him, out at the dust of the ditch.

  “You going to be able to drive off this slope?” he asked.

  She glanced back and up at the blacktop. Its rough surface was shimmering with heat, about level with the base of her window.

  “I think so,” she said. “I hope so.”

  “I hope so, too,” he said.

  She just stared at him.

  “So why did you pick me up?” he asked.

  “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I thought I just got lucky. I guess I thought you were a kind person doing a stranger a favor.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, I was looking for a guy like you,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I must have picked up a dozen guys,” she said. “And I’ve seen hundreds. That’s about all I’ve been doing, all month long. Cruising around West Texas, looking at who needs a ride.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged the question away. A dismissive little gesture.

  “The miles I’ve put on this car,” she said. “It’s unbelievable. And the money I’ve spent on gas.”

  “Why?” he asked again.

  She went quiet. Wouldn’t answer. Just went into a long silence. The armrest on the door was digging into his kidney. He arched his back and pressed with his shoulders and adjusted his position. Found himself wishing somebody else had picked him up. Somebody content just to motor from A to B. He looked up at her.

  “Can I call you Carmen?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Sure. Please.”

  “O.K., Carmen,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on here, will you?”

  Her mouth opened, and then it closed again. Opened, and closed.

  “I don’t know how to start,” she said. “Now that it’s come to it.”

  “Come to what?”

  She wouldn’t answer.

  “You better tell me exactly what you want,” he said. “Or I’m getting out of the car right here, right now.”

  “It’s a hundred and ten degrees out there.”

  “I know it is.”

  “A person could die in this heat.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “You can’t get your door open,” she said. “The car is tilted too much.”

  “Then I’ll punch out the windshield.”

  She paused a beat.

  “I need your help,” she said again.

  “You never saw me before.”

  “Not personally,” she said. “But you fit the bill.”

  “What bill?”

  She went quiet again. Came up with a brief, ironic smile.

  “It’s so difficult,” she said. “I’ve rehearsed this speech a million times, but now I don’t know if it’s going to come out right.”

  Reacher said nothing. Just waited.

  “You ever had anything to do with lawyers?” she asked. “They don’t do anything for you. They just want a lot of money and a lot of time, and then they tell you there’s nothing much to be done.”

  “So get a new lawyer,” he said.

  “I’ve had four,” she said. “Four, in a month. They’re all the same. And they’re all too expensive. I don’t have enough money.”

  “You’re driving a Cadillac.”

  “It’s my mother-in-law’s. I’m only borrowing it.”

  “You’re wearing a big diamond ring.”

  She went quiet again. Her eyes clouded.

  “My husband gave it to me,” she said.

  He looked at her. “So can’t he help you?”

  “No, he can’t help me,” she said. “Have you ever gone looking for a private detective?”

  “Never needed one. I was a detective.”

  “They don’t really exist,” she said. “Not like you see in the movies. They just want to sit in their offices and work with the phone. Or on their computers, with their databases. They won’t come out and actually do anything for you. I went all the way to Austin. A guy there said he could help, but he wanted to use six men and charge me nearly ten thousand dollars a week.”

  “For what?”

  “So I got desperate. I was really panicking. Then I got this idea. I figured if I looked at people hitching rides, I might find somebody. One of them might turn out to be the right type of person, and willing to help me. I tried to choose pretty carefully. I only stopped for rough-looking men.”

  “Thanks, Carmen,” Reacher said.

  “I don’t mean it badly,” she said. “It’s not uncomplimentary.”

  “But it could have been dangerous.”

  She nodded. “It nearly was, a couple of times. But I had to take the risk. I had to
find somebody. I figured I might get rodeo guys, or men from the oil fields. You know, tough guys, roughnecks, maybe out of work, with a little time on their hands. Maybe a little anxious to earn some money, but I can’t pay much. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “So far, Carmen, everything is going to be a problem.”

  She went quiet again.

  “I talked to them all,” she said. “You know, chatted with them a little, discussed things, like we did. I was trying to make some kind of judgment about what they were like, inside, in terms of their characters. I was trying to assess their qualities. Maybe twelve of them. And none of them were really any good. But I think you are.”

  “You think I’m what?”

  “I think you’re my best chance so far,” she said. “Really, I do. A former cop, been in the army, no ties anywhere, you couldn’t be better.”

  “I’m not looking for a job, Carmen.”

  She nodded happily. “I know. I figured that out already. But that’s better still, I think. It keeps it pure, don’t you see that? Help for help’s sake. No mercenary aspect to it. And your background is perfect. It obligates you.”

  He stared at her. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “You were a soldier,” she said. “And a policeman. It’s perfect. You’re supposed to help people. That’s what cops do.”

  “We spent most of our time busting heads. Not a whole lot of helping went on.”

  “But it must have. That’s what cops are for. It’s like their fundamental duty. And an army cop is even better. You said it yourself, you do what’s necessary.”

  “If you need a cop, go to the county sheriff. Pecos, or wherever it is.”

  “Echo,” she said. “I live in Echo. South of Pecos.”

  “Wherever,” he said. “Go to the sheriff.”

  She was shaking her head. “No, I can’t do that.”

  Reacher said nothing more. Just lay half on his back, pressed up against the door by the car’s steep angle. The engine was idling patiently, and the air was still roaring. The woman was still braced above him. She had gone silent. She was staring out past him and blinking, like she was about to cry. Like she was ready for a big flood of tears. Like she was tragically disappointed, maybe with him, maybe with herself.

  “You must think I’m crazy,” she said.

  He turned his head and looked hard at her, top to toe. Strong slim legs, strong slim arms, the expensive dress. It was riding up on her thighs, and he could see her bra strap at her shoulder. It was snow white against the color of her skin. She had clean combed hair and trimmed painted nails. An elegant, intelligent face, tired eyes.