Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor

New Orleans. I heard one ring tone and a busy voice.
    “Fifteenth squad, detectives,” the voice said.
    “Detectives?” I said. “Is that the NOPD?”
    “Fifteenth squad,” the voice said again. “Can I help you?”
    “You got somebody there with the initials J.S.?” I asked.
    “J.S.?” the voice said. “I got three of them. Which one do you want?”
    “Don’t know,” I said. “Does the name Joe Reacher mean anything to you?”
    “What the hell is this?” the voice said. “Twenty Questions or something?”
    “Ask them, will you?” I said. “Ask each J.S. if they know Joe Reacher. Will you do that? I’ll call back later, OK?”
    Down in New Orleans, the fifteenth squad desk guy grunted and hung up. I shrugged at Roscoe and put the phone back on the nightstand.
    “We wait for Molly?” she said.
    I nodded. I was a little nervous about meeting Molly. It was going to be like meeting a ghost connected to another ghost.

    WE WAITED AT THE CRAMPED TABLE IN THE WINDOW . Watched the sun fall away from its noontime peak. Wasted time passing Joe’s torn printout back and forth between us. I stared at the heading. E Unum Pluribus. Out of one comes many. That was Joe Reacher, in three words. Something important, all bound up in a wry little pun.
    “Let’s go,” Roscoe said.
    We were early, but we were anxious. We gathered up our things. Rode the elevator to the lobby and let the dead guys settle up for our phone calls. Then we walked over to Roscoe’s Chevy. Started threading our way around to arrivals. It wasn’t easy. The airport hotels were planned for people heading out of arrivals or heading into departures. Nobody had thought of people going our way.
    “We don’t know what Molly looks like,” Roscoe said.
    “But she knows what I look like,” I said. “I look like Joe.”
    The airport was vast. We saw most of it as we crabbed over to the right quarter. It was bigger than some cities I’d been in. We drove for miles. Found the right terminal. Missed a lane change and passed the short-term parking. Came around again and lined up at the barrier. Roscoe snatched the ticket and eased into the lot.
    “Go left,” I said.
    The lot was packed. I was craning over, looking for spaces. Then I saw a vague black shape slide by in the line on my right. I caught it out of the corner of my eye.
    “Go right, go right,” I said.
    I thought it was the rear end of a black pickup. Brand-new. Sliding by on my right. Roscoe hauled the wheel over and we swung into the next aisle. Caught a flash of red brake lights in black sheetmetal. A pickup swung out of sight. Roscoe howled down the aisle and cornered hard.
    The next aisle was empty. Nothing moving. Just ranks of automobiles standing quiet in the sun. Same thing in the next aisle. Nothing on the move. No black pickup. We drove all over the lot. Took us a long time. We were held up by the cars moving in and out. But we covered the whole area. Couldn’t find a black pickup anywhere.
    But we did find Finlay. We parked up in an empty space and started the long walk to the terminal. Finlay had parked in a different quarter and was walking in on a different diagonal. He walked the rest of the way with us.
    The terminal was very busy. And it was huge. Built low, but it spread horizontally over acres. The whole place was crowded. Flickering screens high up announced the arrivals. The two o’clock Delta from Washington was in and taxiing. We walked down toward the gate. Felt like a half-mile walk. We were in a long corridor with a ribbed rubber floor. A pair of moving walkways ran down the center of the corridor. On the right was an endless row of bright gaudy advertisements about the attractions of the Sunbelt. Business or pleasure, it was all down here, that’s for sure. On the left was a glass partition, floor to ceiling, with a white etched stripe at eye level to stop people trying to walk through the glass.
    Behind the glass were the gates. There was an endless sequence of them. The passengers came out of the planes and walked along on their side of the glass. Half of them disappeared sideways into the baggage claim areas. Then they came out again and found exit doors in the glass partition which let them out into the main corridor. The other half were the short-haul fliers with no checked baggage. They went straight to the doors. Each set of doors was mobbed by big knots of meeters and greeters. We pushed our way through them as we headed