Gone Tomorrow - Lee Child [15]
“Kinko’s is a wonderful place,” I said. “Isn’t it? Maybe I’ll get some cards that say John Smith, King of the World.”
“The card is legit,” the guy said. “And we’re legit.”
“Who are you working for?”
“We can’t say.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
“Better that you talk to us than our principal. We can keep things civilized.”
“Now I’m really scared.”
“Just a couple of questions. That’s all. Help us out. We’re just working stiffs, trying to get paid. Like you.”
“I’m not a working stiff. I’m a gentleman of leisure.”
“Then look down on us from your lofty perch and take pity.”
“What questions?”
“Did she give anything to you?”
“Who?”
“You know who. Did you take anything from her?”
“And? What’s the next question?”
“Did she say anything?”
“She said plenty. She was talking all the way from Bleecker to Grand Central.”
“Saying what?”
“I didn’t hear very much of it.”
“Information?”
“I didn’t hear.”
“Did she mention names?”
“She might have.”
“Did she say the name Lila Hoth?”
“Not that I heard.”
“Did she say John Sansom?”
I didn’t answer. The guy asked, “What?”
I said, “I heard that name somewhere.”
“From her?”
“No.”
“Did she give you anything?”
“What kind of a thing?”
“Anything at all.”
“Tell me what difference it would make.”
“Our principal wants to know.”
“Tell him to come ask me himself.”
“Better to talk to us.”
I smiled and walked on, through the alley they had created. But one of the guys on the right side-stepped and tried to push me back. I caught him shoulder-to-chest and spun him out of my way. He came after me again and I stopped and started and feinted left and right and slid in behind him and shoved him hard in the back so that he stumbled on ahead of me. His jacket had a single center vent. French tailoring. British suits favor twin side vents and Italian suits favor none at all. I leaned down and caught a coat tail in each hand and heaved and tore the seam all the way up the back. Then I shoved him again. He stumbled ahead and veered right. His coat was hanging off him by the collar. Unbuttoned at the front, open at the back, like a hospital gown.
Then I ran three steps and stopped and turned around. It would have been much more stylish to just keep on walking slowly, but also much dumber. Insouciance is good, but being ready is better. The four of them were caught in a moment of real indecision. They wanted to come get me. That was for sure. But they were on West 35th Street at dawn. At that hour virtually all the traffic would be cops. So in the end they just gave me hard looks and moved away. They crossed 35th in single file and headed south at the corner.
You’re done.
But I wasn’t. I turned to move away and a guy came out of the precinct house and ran after me. Creased gray T-shirt, red sweatpants, gray hair sticking up all over the place. The family member. The brother. The small-town cop from Jersey. He caught up with me and grabbed my elbow in a wiry grip and told me he had seen me inside and had guessed I was the witness. Then he told me his sister hadn’t committed suicide.
Chapter 11
I took the guy to a coffee shop on Eighth Avenue. A long time ago I was sent on a one-day MP seminar at Fort Rucker, to learn sensitivity around the recently bereaved. Sometimes MPs had to deliver bad news to relatives. We called them death messages. My skills were widely held to be deficient. I used to walk in and just tell them. I thought that was the nature of a message. But apparently I was wrong. So I was sent to Rucker. I learned good stuff there. I learned to take emotions seriously. Above all I learned that cafés and diners and coffee shops were good environments for bad news. The public atmosphere limits the likelihood of falling apart, and the process of ordering and waiting and sipping punctuates the flow of information in a way that makes it easier to absorb.
We took a booth next to a mirror. That helps, too. You can look at each other in the glass. Face-to-face, but not really. The place was about half-full. Cops from the precinct, taxi drivers on their