The Hard Way

middle four were blank.
    “Low rent,” Pauling said. “Short leases. Transients. Except for Mr. or Ms. Kublinski. Judging by that handwriting style they’ve been here forever.”
    “They probably moved to Florida fifty years ago,” Reacher said. “Or died. And nobody changed the tag.”
    “Shall we try the super?”
    “Use one of your business cards. Put your finger over the
Ex-
part. Make out like you’re still with the Bureau.”
    “Think that’ll be necessary?”
    “We need all the help we can get. This is a radical building. We’ve got Che Guevara watching over us. And macramé.”
    Pauling put an elegant nail on the super’s call button and pressed. She was answered a long minute later by a distorted burst of sound from the speaker. It might have been the word
yes,
or
who
, or
what.
Or just a blast of static.
    “Federal agents,” Pauling called. Which was remotely true. Both she and Reacher had once worked for Uncle Sam. She slipped a business card out of her purse. There was another burst of noise from the speaker.
    “He’s coming,” Reacher said. He had seen plenty of buildings like this one, back in the day, when his job had been chasing AWOL soldiers. They liked cash rents and short leases. And in his experience building superintendents usually cooperated. They liked their free accommodations well enough not to jeopardize them. Better that someone else should go to jail, and they should stay where they were.
    Unless the super was the bad guy, of course.
    But this one seemed to have nothing to hide. The blue door opened inward and revealed a tall gaunt man in a stained wife-beater. He had a black knit cap on his head and a flat Slavic face like a length of two by-four.
    “Yes?” he said. Strong Russian accent. Almost
Da?
    Pauling waved her card long enough for some of the words to register.
    “Tell us about your most recent tenant,” she said.
    “Most recent?” the guy repeated. No hostility. He sounded like a fairly smart guy struggling with the nuance of a foreign language, that was all.
    Reacher asked, “Did someone sign on within the last couple of weeks?”
    “Number five,” the guy said. “One week ago. He responded to a newspaper advertisement I was asked to place by the management.”
    “We need to see his apartment,” Pauling said.
    “I’m not sure I should let you,” the guy said. “There are rules in America.”
    “Homeland Security,” Reacher said. “The Patriot Act. There are no rules in America anymore.”
    The guy just shrugged and turned his tall thin frame around in the narrow space. Headed for the stairs. Reacher and Pauling followed him in. Reacher could smell coffee coming through the walls from the café. There was no apartment number one or number two. Number four was the first door they came to, at the head of the stairs at the back of the building. Then number three was on the same floor, along a hallway at the front of the building. Which meant that number five was going to be directly above it, third floor, looking east across the street. Pauling glanced at Reacher, and Reacher nodded.
    “The one with nothing in the window,” he said to her.
    On the third floor they passed number six at the back of the building and walked forward toward number five. The smell of coffee had faded and been replaced by the universal hallway smell of boiled vegetables.
    “Is he in?” Reacher asked.
    The super shook his head. “I only ever saw him twice. He’s out now for sure. I was just all over the building fixing pipes.” He used a master key from a ring on his belt and unlocked the door. Pushed it open and stood back.
    The apartment was what a real estate broker would have called an alcove studio. All one room, with a crooked L that was theoretically large enough for a bed if the bed was small. A kitchen corner and a tiny bathroom with an open door. But mostly what was on show was dust and floorboards.
    Because the apartment was completely empty.
    Except for a single upright dining chair. The chair was not old, but it was well used. It was the kind of thing you see for sale on the Bowery sidewalks where the bankrupt restaurant dealers hawk seized inventory. It was set in front of the window and turned slightly north and east. It was about twenty feet above and three feet behind the exact spot that Reacher had chosen for coffee, two nights running.
    Reacher stepped over and sat down on the chair, feet planted, relaxed but alert. The way his body settled