Bad Luck and Trouble

crush the child’s skull. He suggested the kid stay outside and practice his foul throws while he went inside for an important chat with Mom.
    The chat started with a confession. Lamaison told Berenson exactly what had happened to Swan. Every detail. And he hinted as to the reason. This time Berenson put two and two together and made four. She recalled Dean’s stress. By and by Lamaison revealed that Dean was cooperating with a special project, because if he didn’t his daughter would disappear and be found weeks later with blood running down to her ankles amid a happy band of bikers.
    Or on the other hand, maybe she would never be found at all.
    Then Lamaison said the exact same thing could happen to Berenson’s son. He said a lot of outlaw bikers were happy to swing both ways. Most of them had been in prison, and prison distorted a person’s tastes.
    He issued a warning, and two instructions. The warning was that sooner or later two men and two women would show up and start asking questions. Old friends from Swan’s service days. The first instruction was that they were to be deflected, firmly, politely, and definitively. The second instruction was that nothing of this current conversation was ever to be revealed.
    Then he made Berenson take him upstairs and perform a certain sexual act on him. To seal their understanding, he said.
    Then he went out and sank a few more baskets with her son.
    Then he drove away.

    Reacher believed her. In his life he had listened to people telling lies, and less often to people telling the truth. He knew how to distinguish between the two. He knew what to trust and what to distrust. He was a supremely cynical man, but his special talent lay in retaining a small corner of open-mindedness. He believed the basketball part, and the prison reference, and the sex act. People like Margaret Berenson didn’t make up that kind of stuff. They couldn’t. Their frames of reference weren’t wide enough. He took the kitchen knife and cut the duct tape off her. Helped her to her feet.
    “So who knew?” he asked.
    “Lamaison,” Berenson said. “Lennox, Parker, and Saropian.”
    “That’s all?”
    “Yes.”
    “What about the other four ex-LAPD?”
    “They’re different. From a different era and a different place. Lamaison wouldn’t really trust them on a thing like this.”
    “So why did he hire them?”
    “Warm bodies. Numbers. And he trusts them on everything else. They do what he tells them.”
    “Why did he hire Tony Swan? Swan was always going to be a rod for his back.”
    “Lamaison didn’t hire Swan. He didn’t want him. But I convinced our CEO we needed some diversity of background. It wasn’t healthy to have all of them from the same place.”
    “So you hired him?”
    “Basically. I’m sorry.”
    “Where did all the bad stuff happen?”
    “Highland Park. The helicopter is there. And there are outbuildings. It’s a big place.”
    “Is there somewhere you can go?” Reacher asked.
    “Go?” Berenson said.
    “For a couple of days, until this is over.”
    “It won’t be over. You don’t know Lamaison. You can’t beat him.”
    Reacher looked at Neagley.
    “Can we beat him?” he asked.
    “Like a drum,” she said.
    Berenson said, “But there are four of them.”
    “Three,” Reacher said. “Saropian is already down. Three of them, four of us.”
    “You’re crazy.”
    “They’re going to think so. That’s for damn sure. They’re going to think I’m completely psychotic.”
    Berenson was quiet for a long moment.
    “I could go to a hotel,” she said.
    “When does your son get home?”
    “I’ll go get him out of school.”
    Reacher nodded. “Pack your bags.”
    Berenson said, “I will.”
    “Who flew?” Reacher asked.
    “Lamaison, Lennox, and Parker. Just the three of them.”
    “Plus the pilot,” Reacher said. “That’s four.”

    Berenson went upstairs to pack and Reacher put the kitchen knife away. Then he put Swan’s rock back in his pocket and pulled the Evian bottle off the Glock.
    “Would that really have worked?” Neagley asked. “As a silencer?”
    “I doubt it,” Reacher said. “I read it in a book once. It worked on the page. But in the real world I imagine it would have exploded and blinded me with shards of flying plastic. But it looked good, didn’t it? It added an extra element. Better than just pointing the gun.”
    Then his phone rang. His Radio Shack pay-as-you-go, not Saropian’s cell from Vegas. It was