Echo Burning

down to the ground, all the way up to the next pole a hundred yards away.
    He coiled the rope again and dropped it back in the footwell. Got in the car and backed up and turned in under the white-painted gate. Drove the best part of a mile down a private driveway to a white-painted house that should have been in a historical movie. It had four massive columns at the front, holding up a second-story balcony. There were broad steps leading up to a double front door. There was a tended lawn. A parking area made from raked gravel.
    He stopped the car on the gravel at the bottom of the steps and shut off the motor. Tucked his shirt tight into the waistband of his pants. Some girl who worked as a personal trainer had told him it made his upper body look more triangular. He slipped the gun into his right hip pocket. Its shape showed through nicely. Then he rolled the sleeves of his new shirt all the way up to the shoulders. Gripped the LeBaron’s wheel and squeezed until it started to give and the veins in his biceps were standing out big and obvious. When you’ve got arms bigger than most people’s legs, sometimes you need to exploit what nature has given you.
    He got out of the car and went up the steps. Used a bell he found to the right of the doors. Heard a chime somewhere deep inside the mansion. Then he waited. He was about to use the bell again when the left-hand door opened. There was a maid standing there, about half the height of the door. She was dressed in a gray uniform and looked like she came from the Philippines.
    “I’m here to see Lyndon Brewer,” Reacher said.
    “Do you have an appointment?” the maid said. Her English was very good.
    “Yes, I do.”
    “He didn’t tell me.”
    “He probably forgot,” Reacher said. “I understand he’s a bit of an asshole.”
    Her face tensed. Not with shock. She was fighting a smile.
    “Who shall I announce?”
    “Rutherford B. Hayes,” Reacher said.
    The maid paused and then smiled, finally.
    “He was the nineteenth President,” she said. “The one after Ulysses S. Grant. Born 1822 in Ohio. Served from 1877 until 1881. One of seven presidents from Ohio. The middle one of three consecutive.”
    “He’s my ancestor,” Reacher said. “I’m from Ohio, too. But I’ve got no interest in politics. Tell Mr. Brewer I work for a bank in San Antonio and we just discovered stock in his grandfather’s name worth about a million dollars.”
    “He’ll be excited about that,” the maid said.
    She walked away and Reacher stepped through the door in time to see her climbing a wide staircase in back of the entrance foyer. She moved neatly, without apparent effort, one hand on the rail all the way. The foyer was the size of a basketball court, and it was hushed and cool, paneled in golden hardwood polished to a deep luster by generations of maids. There was a grandfather clock taller than Reacher, ticking softly to itself once a second. An antique chaise like you see society women perched on in oil-painted portraits. Reacher wondered if it would break in the middle if he put his weight on it. He pressed on the velvet with his hand. Felt horsehair padding under it. Then the maid came back down the stairs the same way she had gone up, gliding, her body perfectly still and her hand just grazing the rail.
    “He’ll see you now,” she said. “He’s on the balcony, at the back of the house.”
    There was an upstairs foyer with the same dimensions and the same decor. French doors let out onto the rear balcony, which ran the whole width of the house and looked out overacres of hot grassland. It was roofed and fans turned lazily near the ceiling. There was heavy wicker furniture painted white and arranged in a group. A man sat in a chair with a small table at his right hand. The table held a pitcher and a glass filled with what looked like lemonade, but it could have been anything. The man was a bull-necked guy of about sixty. He was softened and faded from a peak that might have been impressive twenty years ago. He had plenty of white hair and a red face burned into lines and crags by the sun. He was dressed all in white. White pants, white shirt, white shoes. It looked like he was ready to go lawn bowling at some fancy country club.
    “Mr. Hayes?” he called.
    Reacher walked over and sat down without waiting for an invitation.
    “You got children?” he asked.
    “I have three sons,” Brewer replied.
    “Any of them at home?”
    “They’re all away,