Persuader

questions of their own. It's human nature. They say Sorry, no, why, what happened? I put my hand in my pocket and peeled off a bill from Beck's wad purely by feel. Took it out. It was a hundred. I folded it in half and held it up between my finger and my thumb.
    "Now did you see?" I said.
    He glanced to his left. My right. Toward the business park beyond his walls. Just a fast glance, furtive, out and back.
    "No," he said again.
    "Black Town Car?" I said. "Drove off that way?"
    "I didn't see," he said. "I was busy." I nodded. "You're practically rushed off your feet in here. I can see that. It's a miracle one man can handle the pressure."
    "I was in the back. On the phone, I guess." I kept the hundred up there in my hand for another long moment. I guessed a hundred tax-free dollars would represent a healthy slice of his week's net take. But he looked away from it. That told me plenty, too.
    "OK," I said. I put the money back in my pocket and walked out.
    I drove the Saab two hundred yards south on Route One and stopped at the first gas station I saw. Went in and bought a bottle of spring water and two candy bars. I paid four times more for the water than I would have for gasoline, if you calculated it by the gallon.
    Then I came out and sheltered near the door and peeled a candy bar and started eating it.
    Used the time to look around. No surveillance. So I stepped over to the pay phones and used my change to call Duffy. I had memorized her motel number. I crouched under the plastic bubble and tried to stay dry. She answered on the second ring.
    "Drive north to Saco," I said. "Right now. Meet me in the big brick mall on the river island in a coffee shop called Café Café. Last one there buys." I finished my candy bar as I drove south. The Saab rode hard and it was noisy compared to Beck's Cadillac or Harley's Lincoln. It was old and worn. The carpets were thin and loose. It had six figures on the clock. But it got the job done. It had decent tires and the wipers worked. It made it through the rain OK. And it had nice big mirrors. I watched them all the way. Nobody came after me. I got to the coffee shop first. Ordered a tall espresso to wash the taste of chocolate out of my mouth.
    Duffy showed up six minutes later. She paused in the doorway and looked around and then headed over toward me and smiled. She was in fresh jeans and another cotton shirt, but it was blue, not white. Over that was her leather jacket and over that was a battered old raincoat that was way too big for her. Maybe it was the old guy's. Maybe she had borrowed it from him. It wasn't Eliot's. That was clear. He was smaller than she was. She must have come north not expecting bad weather.
    "Is this place safe?" she said.
    I didn't answer.
    "What?" she said.
    "You're buying," I said. "You got here second. I'll have another espresso. And you owe me for the first one." She looked at me blankly and then went to the counter and came back with an espresso for me and a cappuccino for herself. Her hair was a little wet. She had combed it with her fingers. She must have parked her car on the street and walked in through the rain and checked her reflection in a store window. She counted her change in silence and dealt me bills and coins equal to the price of my first cup. Coffee was another thing way more expensive than gasoline, up here in Maine. But I guessed it was the same everywhere.
    "What's up?" she said.
    I didn't answer.
    "Reacher, what's the matter?"
    "You put another agent in eight weeks ago," I said. "Why didn't you tell me?"
    "What?"
    "What I said."
    "What agent?"
    "She died this morning. She underwent a radical double mastectomy without the benefit of anesthetic." She stared at me. "Teresa?" I shook my head.
    "Not Teresa," I said. "The other one."
    "What other one?"
    "Don't bullshit me," I said.
    "What other one?" I stared at her. Hard. Then softer. There was something about the light in that coffee shop. Maybe it was the way it came off all the blond wood and the brushed metal and the glass and the chrome. It was like X-ray light. Like a truth serum. It had shown me Elizabeth Beck's genuine uncontrollable blush. Now I was expecting it to show me the exact same thing from Duffy. I was expecting it to show me a deep red blush of shame and embarrassment, because I had found her out. But it showed me total surprise instead.
    It was right there in her face. She had gone very pale. She had gone stark white with shock. It was like the blood had