Bad Luck and Trouble

asked.
    “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
    “You should. It’s the very least you can do.”
    “It’s why we’re here.”
    “But there are no answers here.”
    “There must be. Starting with the client.”
    Tammy glanced at Milena, tearstained, puzzled.
    “Client?” she said. “Don’t you already know who it was?”
    “No,” Reacher said. “Or we wouldn’t be here asking.”
    “They didn’t have clients,” Milena said, as if on Tammy’s behalf. “Not anymore. I told you that.”
    “Something started this,” Reacher said. “Someone must have come to them with a problem, at their office, or out in one of the casinos. We need to know who it was.”
    “That didn’t happen,” Tammy said.
    “Then they must have stumbled over the problem on their own. In which case we need to know where and when and how.”
    There was a long silence. Then Tammy said, “You really don’t understand, do you? This was nothing to do with them. Nothing at all. It was nothing to do with Vegas.”
    “It wasn’t?”
    “No.”
    “So how did it start?”
    “They got a call for help,” Tammy said. “That’s how it started. One day, suddenly, out of the blue. From one of you guys in California. From one of their precious old army buddies.”

51
    Azhari Mahmoud dropped Andrew MacBride’s passport in a Dumpster and became Anthony Matthews on his way to the U-Haul depot. He had a wad of active credit cards and a valid driver’s license in that name. The address on the license would withstand sustained scrutiny, too. It was an actual building, an occupied house, not just a mail drop or a vacant lot. The billing address for the credit cards matched it exactly. Mahmoud had learned a lot over the years.
    He had decided to rent a medium-sized truck. In general he preferred medium options everywhere. They stood out less obviously. Clerks remembered people who demanded the biggest or the smallest of anything. And a medium truck would do the job. His science education had been meager, but he could do simple arithmetic. He knew that volume was calculated by multiplying height by width by length. Therefore he knew a pile containing six hundred and fifty boxes could be constructed by stacking them ten wide and thirteen deep and five high. At first he had thought that ten wide would be a greater dimension than any available truck could accommodate, but then he realized he could reduce the required width by stacking the boxes on their edges. It would all work out.
    In fact he knew it would all work out, because he was still carrying the hundred quarters he had won in the airport.

    They gave their condolences and Curtis Mauney’s name to Tammy Orozco and left her alone on her sofa. Then they walked Milena back to the bar with the fire pit. She had a living to earn and she was already three hours down on the day. She said she could get fired if she missed the happy hour crush later in the afternoon. The Strip had gotten a little busier as the day had worn on. But the construction zone was still deserted. No activity at all. The slick in the gutter had finally dried. Apart from that there was no change. The sun was high. Not blazing, but it was warm enough. Reacher started thinking about how shallow the dead guy was buried. And about decomposition, and gases, and smells, and curious animals.
    “You get coyotes here?” he asked.
    “In town?” Milena said. “I never saw one.”
    “OK.”
    “Why?”
    “Just wondering.”
    They walked on. Took the same shortcut they had used before. Arrived outside the bar a little after three o’clock in the afternoon.
    “Tammy’s angry,” Milena said. “I’m sorry about that.”
    “It’s to be expected,” Reacher said.
    “She was there when the bad guys came to search. Asleep. They hit her on the head. She was unconscious for a week. She doesn’t remember anything. Now she blames whoever it was who called for all her troubles.”
    “Understandable,” Reacher said.
    “But I don’t blame you,” Milena said. “It wasn’t any of you that called. I guess half of you were involved and half of you weren’t.”
    She ducked inside the bar without looking back. The door closed behind her. Reacher stepped away and sat down on the wall, where he had waited that morning.
    “I’m sorry, people,” he said. “We just wasted a lot of time. My fault, entirely.”
    Nobody answered.
    “Neagley should take over,” he said. “I’m losing my touch.”
    “Mahmoud came