Running Blind (The Visitor)

open. And that was a fairly trivial mistake, because it’s not getting us anywhere. So we’ve got a guy who’s successfully handled a thousand decisions, a thousand details, under urgent and stressful conditions. He’s killed four women and so far we don’t even know how .”
    “So?” Blake said. “What’s your point?”
    “His intelligence,” Reacher said. “It’s a specific type. It’s practical, efficient, real-world. He’s got his feet on the ground. He’s a planner, and he’s pragmatic. He’s a problem solver. He’s intensely rational. He deals with reality .”
    “So?” Blake said again.
    “So let me ask you a question. You got a problem with black people?”
    “What?”
    “Just answer the question.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Good or bad as anybody, right?”
    “Sure. Good or bad.”
    “What about women? Good or bad as anybody, right?”
    Blake nodded. “Sure.”
    “So what if some guy is saying to you that black people are no good, or women are no good?”
    “I’d say he’s wrong.”
    “You’d say he’s wrong, and you’d know he’s wrong, because deep down you know what the truth of the matter is.”
    Blake nodded again. “Sure. So?”
    “So that’s my experience, too. Racists are fundamentally wrong. Sexists, too. No room for argument about it. Fundamentally, it’s a completely irrational position to hold. So think about it. Any guy who gets in a big tantrum about this harassment issue is a guy who’s wrong . Any guy who blames the victims is very wrong. And any guy who goes around looking for revenge against the victims is very wrong. He’s got a screw loose. His brain doesn’t function right. He’s not rational. He’s not dealing with reality. He’s can’t be. Deep down, he’s some kind of an idiot.”
    “So?”
    “But our guy isn’t an idiot. We just agreed he’s very smart. Not eccentric smart, not lunatic smart, but real-world smart, rational and pragmatic and practical. He’s dealing with reality. We just agreed on that.”
    “So?”
    “So he’s not motivated by anger at these women. He can’t be. It’s not possible. You can’t be real-world smart and real-world dumb, all at the same time. You can’t be rational and irrational. You can’t deal with reality and simultaneously not deal with it.”
    There was silence again.
    “We know what his motive is,” Lamarr said. “What else could it be? The target group is too exact for it to be anything else.”
    Reacher shook his head. “Like it or not, the way you’re describing his motive, you’re calling him deranged. But a deranged guy couldn’t commit these crimes.”
    Lamarr clamped her teeth. Reacher heard them click and grind. He watched her. She shook her head. Her thin hair moved with it, stiff, like it was full of lacquer.
    “So what’s his real motive, smart guy?” she asked, her voice low and quiet.
    “I don’t know,” Reacher said.
    “You don’t know? You better be kidding. You question my expertise and you don’t know ?”
    “It’ll be something simple. It always is, right? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the simple thing is the correct thing. Maybe doesn’t work like that for you guys down here, but that’s how it works out there in the real world.”
    Nobody said a word. Then the door opened and Poulton walked into the silence, small and sandy with a faint smile hanging there under his mustache. The smile disappeared as soon as the atmosphere hit him. He sat down quietly next to Lamarr and pulled a stack of paper in front of him, defensively.
    “What’s going on?” he asked.
    Blake nodded toward Reacher. “Smart guy here is challenging Julia’s reading of the motive.”
    “So what’s wrong about the motive?”
    “Smart guy is about to tell us. You’re just in time for the expert seminar.”
    “What about the screwdriver?” Reacher asked. “Any conclusions?”
    Poulton’s smile came back. “Either that screwdriver or an identical one was used to lever the lids off. The marks match perfectly. But what’s all this about the motive?”
    Reacher took a breath and looked around the faces opposite him. Blake, hostile. Lamarr, white and tense. Harper, curious. Poulton, blank.
    “OK, smart guy, we’re listening,” Blake said.
    “It’ll be something simple,” Reacher said again. “Something simple and obvious. And common. And lucrative enough to be worth protecting.”
    “He’s protecting something?”
    Reacher nodded. “That’s my guess. I think