The Hard Way

Ever. Like Patti Joseph had said:
This city is incredibly anonymous. You can go years without ever laying eyes on your neighbor.
    Or his guests, Reacher thought.
    “You think there are doormen here twenty-four hours?” he asked.
    “I doubt it,” Pauling said. “Not this far downtown. Mine aren’t. They’re probably part-time here. Maybe until eight.”
    “Then that might explain the delays. He couldn’t bring them in past a doorman. Not kicking and struggling. The first day, he would have had to wait hours. Then he kept the intervals going for consistency.”
    “And to create an impression of distance.”
    “That was Gregory’s guess. He was right and I was wrong. I said the Catskills.”
    “It was a reasonable assumption.”
    Reacher said nothing.
    Pauling asked, “What next?”
    “I’d like to meet with your Pentagon buddy again.”
    “I’m not sure if he’ll agree to. I don’t think he likes you.”
    “I’m not crazy about him, either. But this is business. Make him an offer.”
    “What can we offer him?”
    “Tell him we’ll take Lane’s crew off the board if he helps us out with one small piece of information. He’ll take that deal. Ten minutes with us in a coffee shop will get him more than ten years of talking at the U.N. One whole band of real live mercenaries out of action forever.”
    “Can we deliver that?”
    “We’ll have to anyway. Sooner or later it’s going to be them or us.”

----

    They walked back to Pauling’s office by their previous route in reverse. Saint Luke’s Place, Seventh Avenue, Cornelia Street, West 4th. Then Reacher lounged in one of Pauling’s visitor chairs while she played phone tag around the U.N. Building, looking for her friend. She got him after about an hour of trying. He was reluctant but he agreed to meet in the same coffee shop as before, at three o’clock in the afternoon.
    “Time is moving on,” Pauling said.
    “It always does. Try Brewer again. We need to hear from him.”
    But Brewer wasn’t back at his desk and his cell was switched off. Reacher leaned back and closed his eyes.
No use fretting about what you can’t control.

----

    At two o’clock they went out to find a cab, well ahead of time, just in case. But they got one right away and were in the Second Avenue coffee shop forty minutes early. Pauling tried Brewer again. Still no answer. She closed her phone and put it on the table and spun it like a top. It came to rest with its antenna pointing straight at Reacher’s chest.
    “You’ve got a theory,” she said to him. “Haven’t you? Like a physicist. A unified theory of everything.”
    “No,” Reacher said. “Not everything. Not even close. It’s only partial. I’m missing a big component. But I’ve got a name for Lane.”
    “What name?”
    “Let’s wait for Brewer,” Reacher said. He waved to the waitress. The same one as before. He ordered coffee. Same brown mugs, same Bunn flask. Same hot, strong, generic taste.

----

    Pauling’s phone buzzed with thirty minutes to go before the Pentagon guy was due to show. She answered it and said her name and listened for a spell and then she gave their current location.
A coffee shop, east side of Second between 44th and 45th, booth in the back.
Then she hung up.
    “Brewer,” she said. “Finally. He’s meeting us here. Wants to talk face-to-face.”
    “Why?”
    “He didn’t say.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “He’s leaving the morgue.”
    “It’s going to be crowded in here. He’s going to arrive at the same time as your guy.”
    “My guy’s not going to like that. I don’t think he likes crowds.”
    “If I see him balking I’ll talk to him outside.”
    But Pauling’s Pentagon friend showed up a little early. Presumably to scope out the situation ahead of the rendezvous. Reacher saw him out on the sidewalk, looking in, checking the clientele one face at a time. He was patient about it. Thorough. But eventually he was satisfied and he pulled the door. Walked quickly through the room and slid into the booth. He was wearing the same blue suit. Same tie. Probably a fresh shirt, although there was no real way of telling. One white button-down Oxford looks pretty much the same as another.
    “I’m concerned about your offer,” he said. “I can’t condone illegality.”
    Take the poker out of your ass,
Reacher thought.
Be grateful for once in your miserable life. You might be a general now but you know how things are.
But he said, “I understand