Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor

find it.”
    The manager strolled off. Roscoe and I walked the length of the corridor again and rode back down in the elevator. We found the service staircase and went down to the basement. Housekeeping was a giant hall stacked with linens and towels. There were hampers and baskets full of soap and those free sachets you find in the showers. Maids were pulling in and out with the trolleys they use for servicing the rooms. There was a glassed-in office cubicle in the near corner with a woman at a small desk. We walked over and rapped on the glass. She looked up. Roscoe held out her badge.
    “Help you?” the woman said.
    “Room six-two-one,” Roscoe said. “You cleared out some belongings, Saturday morning. You got them down here?”
    I was holding my breath again.
    “Six-two-one?” the woman said. “He came by for them already. They’re gone.”
    I breathed out. We were too late. I went numb with disappointment.
    “Who came by?” I asked. “When?”
    “The guest,” the woman said. “This morning, maybe nine, nine thirty.”
    “Who was he?” I asked her.
    She pulled a small book off a shelf and thumbed it open. Licked a stubby finger and pointed to a line.
    “Joe Reacher,” she said. “He signed the book and took the stuff.”
    She reversed the book and slid it toward us. There was a scrawled signature on the line.
    “What did this Reacher guy look like?” I asked her.
    She shrugged.
    “Foreign,” she said. “Some kind of a Latino. Maybe from Cuba? Little dark guy, slender, nice smile. Very polite sort of a guy, as I recall.”
    “You got a list of the stuff?” I said.
    She slid the stubby finger further along the line. There was a small column filled with tight handwriting. It listed a garment bag, eight articles of clothing, a toilet bag, four shoes. The last item listed was: one briefcase.
    We just walked away from her and found the stairs back to the lobby. Walked out into the morning sun. It didn’t feel like such a great day anymore.
    We reached the car. Leaned side by side on the front fender. I was weighing up in my mind whether Joe would have been smart enough and careful enough to do what I would have done. I figured maybe he would have been. He’d spent a long time around smart and careful people.
    “Roscoe?” I said. “If you were the guy walking out of here with Joe’s stuff, what would you do?”
    She stopped with the car door half open. Thought about it. “I’d keep the briefcase,” she said. “Take it wherever I was supposed to take it. The rest of the stuff, I’d get rid of it.”
    “That’s what I would do as well,” I said. “Where would you get rid of it?”
    “First place I saw, I guess,” she said.
    There was a service road running between the hotel and the next one in line. It looped behind the hotels and then out onto the perimeter road. There was a line of Dumpsters along a twenty-yard stretch of it. I pointed.
    “Suppose he drove out that way?” I said. “Suppose he stopped and lobbed the garment bag straight into one of those Dumpsters?”
    “But he’d have kept the briefcase, right?” Roscoe said.
    “Maybe we aren’t looking for the briefcase,” I said. “Yesterday, I drove miles and miles out to that stand of trees, but I hid in the field. A diversion, right? It’s a habit. Maybe Joe had the same habit. Maybe he carried a briefcase but kept his important stuff in the garment bag.”
    Roscoe shrugged. Wasn’t convinced. We started walking down the service road. Up close, the Dumpsters were huge. I had to lever myself up on the edge of each one and peer in. The first one was empty. Nothing in it at all, except the baked-on kitchen dirt from years of use. The second one was full. I found a length of studding from some demolished drywall and poked around with it. Couldn’t see anything. I heaved myself down and walked to the next one.
    There was a garment bag in it. Lying right on top of some old cartons. I fished for it with the length of wood. Hauled it out. Tossed it onto the ground at Roscoe’s feet. Jumped down next to it. It was a battered, well-traveled bag. Scuffed and scratched. Lots of airline tags all over it. There was a little nameplate in the shape of a miniature gold credit card fastened to the handle. It said: Reacher.
    “OK, Joe,” I said to myself. “Let’s see if you were a smart guy.”
    I was looking for the shoes. They were in the outside pocket of the bag. Two pairs. Four shoes, just like it said on the