One Shot

“You’d rat me out?”
    “I would have to,” Helen said.
    “Not if you were my lawyer. You couldn’t say a word.”
    “I’m not your lawyer.”
    “I could hire you.”
    “Rosemary Barr would know too, and she’d rat you out in a heartbeat. And Franklin. He heard you tell the story.”
    Reacher nodded.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said again.
    “How do we find this guy?”
    “Like you said, why would I want to?”
    “Because I don’t think you’re the type who settles for half a loaf.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “I think you want the truth,” Helen said. “I don’t think you like it when the wool gets pulled over your eyes. You don’t like being played for a sucker.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    “Plus, this whole situation stinks,” Helen said. “There were six victims here. The five who died and Barr himself.”
    “That expands the definition of
victimhood
a little too far for me.”
    “Dr. Niebuhr expects we’ll find a preexisting relationship. Probably recent. Some new friend. We could go at it that way.”
    “Barr told me he doesn’t have any new friends,” Reacher said. “Only has one or two old friends.”
    “Was he telling the truth?”
    “I think he was.”
    “So is Niebuhr wrong?”
    “Niebuhr’s guessing. He’s a shrink. All they do is guess.”
    “I could ask Rosemary.”
    “Would she know his friends?”
    “Probably. They’re pretty close.”
    “So get a list,” Reacher said.
    “Is Dr. Mason guessing, too?”
    “No question. But in her case I think she’s guessing right.”
    “If Niebuhr’s wrong about the friend, what do we do?”
    “We go proactive.”
    “How?”
    “There had to have been a guy following me last night and I know for sure there was one following me this morning. I saw him out there in the plaza. So the next time I see him I’ll have a word with him. He’ll tell me who he’s working for.”
    “Just like that?”
    “People usually tell me what I want to know.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I ask them nicely.”
    “Don’t forget to ask Eileen Hutton nicely.”
    “I’ll see you around,” Reacher said.

    He walked south, beyond his hotel, and found a cheap place to eat dinner. Then he walked north, slowly, through the plaza, past the black glass tower, under the highway, all the way back to the sports bar. Altogether he was on the street the best part of an hour, and he saw nobody behind him. No damaged men in odd suits. Nobody at all.
    The sports bar was half-empty and there was baseball on every screen. He found a corner table and watched the Cardinals play the Astros in Houston. It was a listless late-season game between two teams well out of contention. During the commercial breaks he watched the door. Saw nobody. Tuesday was even quieter than Monday, out there in the heartland.

    Grigor Linsky dialed his cell.
    “He’s back in the sports bar,” he said.
    “Did he see you?” the Zec asked.
    “No.”
    “Why is he in the sports bar again?”
    “No reason. He needed a destination, that’s all. He paraded around for nearly an hour, trying to make me show myself.”
    Silence for a beat.
    “Leave him there,” the Zec said. “Come in and we’ll talk.”

    Alex Rodin called Emerson at home. Emerson was eating a late dinner with his wife and his two daughters, and he wasn’t thrilled about taking the call. But he did. He went out to the hallway and sat on the second-to-bottom stair, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, the phone trapped between his shoulder and his ear.
    “We need to do something about this Jack Reacher guy,” Rodin said to him.
    “I don’t see how he’s a huge problem,” Emerson said. “Maybe he wants to, but he can’t make the facts go away. We’ve got more than we need on Barr.”
    “This is not about facts now,” Rodin said. “It’s about the amnesia. It’s about how hard the defense is going to push it.”
    “That’s up to your daughter.”
    “He’s a bad influence on her. I’ve been reading the case law. It’s a real gray area. The test isn’t really about whether Barr remembers the day in question. It’s about whether he understands the process, right now, today, and whether we’ve got enough other stuff on him to convict without his direct testimony.”
    “I would say we do.”
    “Me too. But Helen needs to swallow that. She needs to agree. But she’s got that guy standing over her all the time, turning her head. I know her. She’s not going to suck it