One Shot

numbers on it and dialed his cell.
    “Yes?” Emerson said.
    “Guess who?” Reacher said.
    “This isn’t a game, Reacher.”
    “Only because you’re losing.”
    Emerson said nothing.
    “How easy am I to find?” Reacher asked.
    No reply.
    “Got a pen and paper?”
    “Of course I do.”
    “So listen up,” Reacher said. “And take notes.” He recited the plate numbers from the two Cadillacs. “My guess is one of those cars was in the garage before Friday, leaving the cone. You should trace the plates, check the tapes, ask some questions. You’ll find some kind of an organization with at least six men. I heard some names. Raskin and Sokolov, who seem to be low-level guys. Then Chenko and Vladimir. Vladimir looks good for the guy who killed the girl. He’s as big as a house. Then there’s some kind of a lieutenant whose name I didn’t get. He’s about sixty and has an old spinal injury. He talked to his boss and referred to him as the Zec.”
    “Those are Russian names.”
    “You think?”
    “Except Zec. What kind of a name is Zec?”
    “It’s not Zec. It’s
the
Zec. It’s a word. A word, being used as a name.”
    “What does it mean?”
    “Look it up. Read some history books.”
    There was a pause. The sound of writing.
    “You should come in,” Emerson said. “Talk to me face-to-face.”
    “Not yet,” Reacher said. “Do your job and I’ll think about it.”
    “I am doing my job. I’m hunting a fugitive. You killed that girl. Not some guy whose name you claim you heard, as big as a house.”
    “One more thing,” Reacher said. “I think the guy called Chenko also goes by the name of Charlie and is James Barr’s friend.”
    “Why?”
    “The description. Small guy, dark, with black hair that sticks up like a brush.”
    “James Barr has got a Russian friend? Not according to our inquiries.”
    “Like I said, do your job.”
    “We’re doing it. Nobody mentioned a Russian friend.”
    “He sounds American. I think he was involved with what happened on Friday, which means maybe this whole crew was involved.”
    “Involved how?”
    “I don’t know. But I plan to find out. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
    “You’ll be in jail tomorrow.”
    “Like I’m in jail now? Dream on, Emerson.”
    “Where are you?”
    “Close by,” Reacher said. “Sleep well, Detective.”
    He clicked the phone off and put Emerson’s number back in his pocket and took out Helen Rodin’s. Dialed it and moved around the concrete pillar into deep shadow.
    “Yes?” Helen Rodin said.
    “This is Reacher.”
    “Are you OK? The cop is right outside my door now.”
    “Suits me,” Reacher said. “Suits him too, I expect. He’s probably getting forty bucks an hour for the overtime.”
    “They put your face on the six o’clock news. It’s a big story.”
    “Don’t worry about me.”
    “Where are you?”
    “Free and clear. Making progress. I saw Charlie. I gave Emerson his plate number. Are you making progress?”
    “Not really. All I’ve got is five random names. No reason I can see why anybody told James Barr to shoot any one of them.”
    “You need Franklin. You need research.”
    “I can’t afford Franklin.”
    “I want you to find that address in Kentucky for me.”
    “Kentucky?”
    “Where James Barr went to shoot.”
    Reacher heard her juggle the phone and flip through paper. Then she came back and read out an address. It meant nothing to Reacher. A road, a town, a state, a zip.
    “What’s Kentucky got to do with anything?” Helen asked.
    Reacher heard a car on the street. Close by, to his left, fat tires rolling slow. He slid around the pillar and looked. A PD prowl car, crawling, lights off. Two cops in the front, craning their necks, looking right, looking left.
    “Got to go,” he said. He clicked the phone off and put it on the ground at the base of the pillar. Emerson’s caller ID would have trapped the number and any cell phone’s physical location could be tracked by the recognition pulse that it sends to the network, once every fifteen seconds, regular as clockwork. So Reacher left the phone in the dirt and headed west, forty feet below the raised roadbed.

    Ten minutes later he was opposite the back of the black glass tower, in the shadows under the highway, facing the vehicle ramp. There was an empty cop car parked on the curb. It looked still and cold. Settled. Like it had been there for a spell.
The guy outside Helen’s door,
Reacher thought. He crossed the street