Jack Reacher 01 - Killing Floor

vehicles between him and me. I settled back and relaxed. We were going to L.A., according to Roscoe’s menorah theory.
    We cruised slowly north. Not much more than fifty miles an hour. The Cadillac’s tank was near enough full. Might get me three hundred miles, maybe three fifty. At this slow cruise, maybe more. Acceleration was the killer. Gunning the worn eight-year-old V-8 would use gas faster than coffee comes out of a pot. But a steady cruise would give me reasonable mileage. Might get me up to four hundred miles. Enough to get as far west as Memphis, maybe.
    We rolled on. The dirty red truck sat up big and obvious, three hundred yards ahead. It bore left around the southern fringe of Atlanta. Setting itself to strike out west, across the country. The distribution theory was looking good. I slowed down and hung back through the interchange. Didn’t want the driver to get suspicious about being followed. But I could see by the way he was handling his lane changes this was not a guy who made much use of his rearview mirrors. I closed up a little tighter.
    The red truck rolled on. I stayed eight cars behind it. Time rolled by. It got late in the afternoon. It got to be early evening. I ate candy and sipped water for dinner as I drove. I couldn’t work the radio. It was some kind of a fancy Japanese make. The guy at the auto shop must have transplanted it. Maybe it was busted. I wondered how he was doing with tinting the Bentley’s windows. I wondered what Charlie was going to say about getting her car back with black glass. I figured maybe that was going to be the least of her worries. We rolled on.
    We rolled on for almost four hundred miles. Eight hours. We drove out of Georgia, right through Alabama, into the northeast corner of Mississippi. It got pitch dark. The fall sun had dropped away up ahead. People had switched their lights on. We drove on through the dark for hours. It felt like I had been following the guy all my life. Then, approaching midnight, the red truck slowed down. A half-mile ahead, I saw it pull off into a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. Near a place called Myrtle. Maybe sixty miles short of the Tennessee state line. Maybe seventy miles shy of Memphis. I followed the truck into the lot. Parked up well away from it.
    I saw the driver get out. A tall, thickset type of a guy. Thick neck and wide, powerful shoulders. Dark, in his thirties. Long arms, like an ape. I knew who he was. He was Kliner’s son. A stone-cold psychopath. I watched him. He did some stretching and yawning in the dark standing by his truck. I stared at him and pictured him Thursday night, at the warehouse gate, dancing.

    THE KLINER KID LOCKED UP THE TRUCK AND AMBLED OFF toward the buildings. I waited a spell and followed him. I figured he would have gone straight for the bathroom, so I hung around the newsstand in the bright neon and watched the door. I saw him come out and watched him amble into the diner area. He settled at a table and stretched again. Picked up the menu with the expansive air of a guy who was taking his time. He was there for a late dinner. I figured he’d take twenty-five minutes. Maybe a half hour.
    I headed back out to the parking lot. I wanted to break into the red truck and get a look inside. But I saw there was no chance of doing it out there in the lot. No chance at all. People were walking around and a couple of police cruisers were loafing about. The whole place was lit up with bright lights. Breaking into that truck was going to have to wait.
    I walked back to the buildings. Crammed myself into a phone booth and dialed the station house in Margrave. Finlay answered right away. I heard his deep Harvard tones. He’d been sitting by the phone, waiting for me to check in.
    “Where are you?” he said.
    “Not far from Memphis,” I said. “I watched a truck load up and I’m sticking with it until I get a chance to look inside. The driver’s the Kliner kid.”
    “OK,” he said. “I heard from Picard. Roscoe’s safely installed. Fast asleep now, if she’s got any sense. He said she sends her love.”
    “Send mine back if you get the chance,” I said. “Take care, Harvard guy.”
    “Take care yourself,” he said. Hung up.
    I strolled back to the Cadillac. Got in and waited. It was a half hour before the Kliner kid came out again. I saw him walk back toward the red truck. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Looked like he’d had a good dinner. Certainly taken