Echo Burning

we’re not ready to do that. It’ll be months before I can even start working on it. My calendar is totally full. And even when I can start, it’ll take months to prepare, in these circumstances.”
    “What circumstances?”
    “Her word against a dead man’s reputation. If we’ve got no eyewitnesses, we’ll have to subpoena her medical records and find experts who can testify her injuries weren’t caused by falling off horses. And clearly she’s got no money, or you wouldn’t be in here on her behalf, so we’re going to have tofind some experts who’ll appear for free. Which isn’t impossible, but it can’t be done in a hurry.”
    “So what can be done in a hurry?”
    “I can run over to the jail and say ‘Hi, I’m your lawyer, I’ll see you again in a year.’ That’s about all can be done in a hurry.”
    Reacher glanced around the room. It was teeming with people.
    “Nobody else will be faster,” Alice said. “I’m relatively new here. I’ve got less of a backlog.”
    It seemed to be true. She had just two head-high stacks of files on her desk. The others all had three or four or five.
    “What’s the second way?”
    “Of what?”
    “Getting bail. You said there were two ways.”
    She nodded. “Second way is we convince the DA not to oppose it. If we stand up and ask for bail and he stands up and says he has no objection, then all that matters is whether the judge thinks it’s appropriate. And the judge will be influenced by the DA’s position, probably.”
    “Hack Walker was Sloop Greer’s oldest buddy.”
    Alice’s shoulder’s sagged again.
    “Great,” she said. “He’ll recuse himself, obviously. But his staff will go to bat for him. So forget bail. It isn’t going to happen.”
    “But will you take the case?”
    “Sure I will. That’s what we do here. We take cases. So I’ll call Hack’s office, and I’ll go see Carmen. But that’s all I can do right now. You understand? Apart from that, right now taking the case is the same thing as not taking the case.”
    Reacher sat still for a second. Then he shook his head.
    “Not good enough, Alice,” he said. “I want you to get to work right now. Make something happen.”
    “I can’t,” she said. “Not for months. I told you that.”
    She went quiet and he watched her for a second more.
    “You interested in a deal?” he asked.
    “A deal?”
    “Like I help you, you help me.”
    “How can you help me?”
    “There are things I could do for you. Like, I could recover the twenty grand for your pepper growers. Today. And then you could start work for Carmen Greer. Today.”
    “What are you, a debt collector?”
    “No, but I’m a quick learner. It’s probably not rocket science.”
    “I can’t let you do that. It’s probably illegal. Unless you’re registered somewhere.”
    “Just suppose the next time you saw me I was walking back in here with a check for twenty grand in my pocket?”
    “How would you do that?”
    He shrugged. “I’d just go ask the guy for it.”
    “And that would work?”
    “It might,” he said.
    She shook her head. “It would be unethical.”
    “As opposed to what?”
    She didn’t answer for a long time. Just stared off somewhere behind his head. But then he saw her glance down at the phone. He saw her rehearsing the good news call in her mind.
    “Who’s the rancher?” he asked.
    She glanced at the drawer. Shook her head again.
    “I can’t tell you,” she said. “I’m worried about the ethics.”
    “I’m offering,” he said. “You’re not asking.”
    She sat still.
    “I’m volunteering,” he said. “Like a paralegal assistant.”
    She looked straight at him.
    “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.
    She stood up suddenly and walked away. She was wearing denim shorts, and she was taller than he had guessed. Short shorts, long legs. A fine tan. Walking, she looked pretty good from the back. She went through a door in the rear wall of the old store. He stood up and leaned over the desk and pulled open the drawer. Lifted the top file out and reversed it so he could read it. It was full of legal paper. He shuffled through to some kind of a deposition printed on a single sheet. There was a name and address typed neatly in a box labeled “Defendant.” He folded the paper into quarters and put it in his shirt pocket. Closed the file and dropped it back in thedrawer. Hooked the drawer shut and sat down again. A moment later Alice Amanda Aaron came out through