Running Blind (The Visitor)

is grunting. Pretending to be bored, while secretly he’s thrilled to have an important mission. Maybe the first he’s ever had. See you later, the Bureau guy is saying.
    The black-and-white moves up the hill and turns in the road. The Buick’s engine starts and the car lurches as the agent slams it into drive. The black-and-white noses in behind it. The Buick moves away down the hill. The black-and-white rolls forward and stops. Exactly where the Buick was, inch for inch. It bounces twice on its springs and settles. The motor stops. The white vapor drifts and disappears. The cop turns his head to the right and gets exactly the same view of the path the Bureau guy had gotten. Maybe not such a dumb-ass, after all.
    HARPER DROVE THE Maxima into a commercial parking garage on West Ninth Street, right after Reacher told her the grid pattern was about to finish and the street layout was about to get messy. They walked back east and south and found a bistro with a view of Washington Square Park. The waitress had a copy of a digest-sized philosophy journal to lean her order pad on. A student from NYU, making ends meet. The air was cold, but the sun was out. The sky was blue.
    “I like it here,” Harper said. “Great city.”
    “I told Jodie I’m selling the house,” Reacher said.
    She looked across at him. “She OK with that?”
    He shrugged. “She’s worried. I don’t see why. It makes me a happier person, how can that worry her?”
    “Because it makes you a footloose person.”
    “It won’t change anything.”
    “So why do it?”
    “That’s what she said.”
    Harper nodded. “She would. People do things for a reason, right? So she’s thinking, what’s the reason here?”
    “Reason is I don’t want to own a house.”
    “But reasons have layers. That’s only the top layer. She’s asking herself, OK, why doesn’t he want to own a house?”
    “Because I don’t want the hassle. She knows that. I told her.”
    “Bureaucratic type of hassle?”
    He nodded. “It’s a big pain in the ass.”
    “Yes, it is. A real big pain in the ass. But she’s thinking bureaucratic hassle is just a kind of symbol for something else.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like wanting to be footloose.”
    “You’re just going around in a circle.”
    “I’m just telling you how she’s thinking.”
    The philosophy student brought coffee and Danish. Left a check written out in a neat, academic hand. Harper picked it up.
    “I’ll take care of it,” she said.
    “OK,” Reacher said.
    “You need to convince her,” Harper said. “You know, make her believe you’re going to stick around, even though you’re selling the house.”
    “I told her I’m selling my car too,” he said.
    She nodded. “That might help. Sounds like a stick-around thing to do.”
    He paused for a beat.
    “I told her I might travel a little,” he said.
    She stared at him. “Christ, Reacher, that’s not very reassuring, is it?”
    “She travels. She’s been to London twice this year. I didn’t make a big fuss about it?”
    “How much do you plan to travel?”
    He shrugged again. “I don’t know. A little, I guess. I like getting around. I really do. I told you that.”
    Harper was quiet for a second.
    “You know what?” she said. “Before you convince her you’re going to stick around, maybe you should convince yourself.”
    “I am convinced.”
    “Are you? Or do you figure you’ll be in and out, as and when?”
    “In and out a little, I guess.”
    “You’ll drift apart.”
    “That’s what she said.”
    Harper nodded. “Well, I’m not surprised.”
    He said nothing. Just drank his coffee and ate his Danish.
    “It’s make-your-mind-up time,” Harper said. “On the road or off the road, you can’t do both together.”
    HIS LUNCH BREAK will be the first big test. That’s your preliminary conclusion. At first you wondered about bathroom arrangements, but he just went inside and used hers. He got out of the car after about ninety minutes, after his morning coffee had worked its way through. He stood stretching on the sidewalk. Then he walked up the looping path and rang the doorbell. You adjusted the focus on the field glasses and got a pretty good side view. You didn’t see her. She stayed in the house. You saw his body language, a little awkward, a little embarrassed. He didn’t speak. He didn’t ask. Just presented himself at the door. So the arrangement had been set up ahead of time. Tough on Scimeca, you think to