The Hard Way

picture like a cardsharp looking for luck.
    Then he flipped it over.
    It was the guy he had seen twice before.
    No question about it.
    Taylor.
    White, a little sunburned, lean, chiseled, clean-shaven, jaw clamped, not smiling, maybe forty years old. Blue jeans, blue shirt, blue ball cap, white sneakers. All the clothing worn and comfortable. It was clearly a very recent shot. Patti Joseph had caught him coming out of the Dakota one late-summer morning. It looked like he had paused on the sidewalk and lifted his gaze to check the weather. By doing so he had met the angle of Patti’s long Nikon lens perfectly.
    “No doubt about it,” Reacher said. “That’s the guy I saw getting into the Mercedes and the Jaguar.”
    He turned the second picture over. It was a closer shot. Maximum zoom, and therefore not quite as clear. There was a little camera shake. The focus wasn’t perfect. But it was a viable photograph. Same location, same angle, different day. Same guy. But this time his mouth was open. His lips were drawn back. He wasn’t smiling. Maybe he was just grimacing against the sudden glare of the sun after stepping out of the dark Dakota lobby. He had terrible teeth. Some were missing. The rest were gappy and uneven.
    “There you go,” Reacher said. “There’s another reason. No wonder everyone told us he kept his mouth clamped shut all the time. He’s not dumb. He was concealing two pieces of evidence at the same time, not just one. His English accent, and his British dentistry. Because that’s
really
a no-brainer. Someone from Lane’s crew hears about a Brit with bad teeth? It would have been like wearing a nametag around his neck.”
    “Where is he now? England?”
    “That’s my guess. He flew home, where he feels safe.”
    “With the money?”
    “Checked luggage. Three bags.”
    “Could he do that? With all the X-rays?”
    “I don’t see why not. I once had a lesson about paper money from an expert. Right here in New York City, as a matter of fact. At Columbia University. The paper isn’t really paper, as such. It’s mostly linen and cotton fibers. More in common with the shirt on your back than a newspaper. I think it would show up like clothing on an X-ray machine.”
    Pauling slid the photographs across the table and butted them together side by side in front of her. Looked at one, looked at the other. Reacher sensed her running through an explanation in her head. An analysis. A narrative.
    “He’s tan from the Hamptons,” she said. “He was there all summer with the family. And then he was worried about someone checking his apartment from the street, afterward. That’s why he took the lightbulb out of the guest room and covered the window. The place had to look empty, if anyone ever checked.”
    “He was very thorough.”
    “And very unsentimental. He walked away from that great apartment.”
    “He can rent ten apartments now.”
    “That’s for sure.”
    “It’s a shame,” Reacher said. “I liked him when I thought he was dead. Everyone spoke well of him.”
    “I wouldn’t take recommendations from those guys.”
    “I guess not. But I usually like Brits. Gregory seems OK.”
    Pauling said, “He’s probably as bad as the rest of them.”
    Then she stacked the photographs and slid them back.
    “Well, you’ve got the name to give to Lane,” she said.
    Reacher didn’t reply.
    “A unified theory of everything,” she said. “Like a physicist. I don’t see why you say it’s only partial. Taylor did it all.”
    “He didn’t,” Reacher said. “He didn’t make the phone calls. An American made the phone calls.”

CHAPTER 55
    “TAYLOR HAD A partner,” Reacher said. “Obviously. He had to, because of the accent thing again. At first I thought it might be the guy in the river. Like you said, I thought maybe they fell out afterward. Or that Taylor got greedy and wanted the whole nine yards for himself. But that won’t work now. The guy in the river was just a regular New York corpse. An unrelated homicide. He was in Rikers at the relevant time. So, I don’t know who made the phone calls. That’s why it’s only a partial theory.”
    “Lane will want to know who the partner was. He won’t settle for half a loaf.”
    “You bet your ass he won’t.”
    “He’s not going to pay.”
    “He’ll pay part. We’ll get the rest later. When we tell him who the partner was.”
    “How do we find out who the partner was?”
    “The only sure way is to find Taylor and