Never Go Back

She was a talker, he figured.
    She said, ‘I was followed.’
    ‘That was dumb,’ he said, because she didn’t like mindless agreement.
    ‘I spotted him early. There were lights behind him and I could see it was only one guy. A solo driver, and that was all. So I didn’t think much of it. And lots of people like Mulholland Drive, so it didn’t bother me he was going the same direction.’
    ‘So what did?’
    ‘He was also going the same speed. Which is unnatural. Speed is a personal thing. And I’m pretty slow, most of the time. Usually people are bunching up behind me, or I’m getting passed by altogether. But this guy was just there, always. Like I was towing him on a rope. And I knew it wasn’t the 75th MP or the FBI, because neither one knows what we’re driving, so it had to be our other friends, except there was only one guy in the car, not two, which meant either it was neither one of them, or they’ve split up now and they’re hunting solo, but whatever, it got old real quick, and the movies say Mulholland gets wild real quick, so I figured I better stop at the very first turn-out I saw, like a message, to tell him I had made him, which would then give him a choice, either accept defeat gracefully and keep on rolling down the road, or be a sore loser and stop and harass me in person.’
    ‘And he stopped?’
    ‘He sure did. He was the third of the four in the dented car this morning. What you call the driver from the first night. They’ve split up and they’re hunting solo.’
    ‘I’m glad it was him, and not the other one.’
    ‘He was bad enough.’
    ‘How bad?’
    ‘Real bad.’
    ‘Bullshit,’ Reacher said. ‘He was a waste of food. He was the one I hit second. Which makes him worse than the one who just bought us dinner.’
    ‘Busted,’ Turner said. ‘It was like taking candy from a baby.’
    ‘What kind of taking?’
    ‘He had a gun.’
    ‘That would level the playing field a little.’
    ‘It did, for about three-quarters of a second, and then he didn’t have a gun any more, which meant I did, and some voice in my head was screaming threat threat threat centre mass bang and I blinked and found out I had gone and done it, right through the heart. The guy was dead before he hit the ground.’
    ‘And you need me right now for what?’
    ‘Are you telling me you don’t offer counselling?’
    ‘Not a core strength.’
    ‘Fortunately I’m a professional soldier, and won’t need counselling.’
    ‘Then how may I help you?’
    ‘I need you to move the body. I can’t lift it.’
    Mulholland looked exactly like the movies, but smaller. They drove in as cautious as G-men, prepared to stop if the coast was clear, prepared to keep on going if there were flashing lights and crackling radios already on the scene. But there weren’t. So they stopped. Traffic on the road was light. Picturesque, but not practical.
    But the night-time view from the turn-out was spectacular.
    Turner said, ‘Not the point, Reacher.’
    The dead guy was on the ground near his car’s front corner. His knees were folded sideways, but other than that he was flat on his back. There was no doubt about it. It was the driver from the first night. With a hole in his chest.
    Reacher said, ‘What gun was it?’
    ‘Glock 17.’
    ‘Which is where right now?’
    ‘Wiped and back in his pocket. For the time being. We have to work out how to play it.’
    ‘Only two possible ways,’ Reacher said. ‘Either the LAPD finds him sooner, or later. Best bet would be to throw him in the ravine. He could be there a week. He could get eaten up. Or at least chewed, especially the fingers. Putting him in the car is much worse. Doesn’t matter if we make it suicide or homicide, because the first thing they’ll do is run the fingerprints, and from that moment onward Fort Bragg will go crazy, and this whole thing will unravel from the far end.’
    ‘As in, not our end. And you don’t want that.’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘I just want it unravelled. I don’t care who does it.’
    ‘Then you’re the least feral person I ever met. They slandered you in the worst possible way. You should cut their heads off with a butter knife.’
    ‘No worse than they said about you, with the Big Dog.’
    ‘Exactly. I’m about to stop and buy a butter knife. So give me a sporting chance. A few days in the ravine won’t hurt anyone. Because even if we don’t wrap it up personally, then the LAPD and Fort Bragg will, maybe next week,