The Affair_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [36]
I made it to the T-junction and turned right. In the daylight the road speared dead straight ahead of me. Narrow shoulders, deep ditches. The traffic lanes banked up and over the rail crossing and then the shoulders and the ditches resumed and the road ran onward through the trees.
There was a truck parked my side of the crossing. Facing me. A big, blunt-nosed thing. Brush-painted in a dark color. Two guys in it. Staring at me. Fur, ink, hair, dirt, grease.
My two pals, from the night before.
I walked on, not fast, not slow, just strolling. I got within about twenty yards. Close enough for me to see detail in their faces. Close enough for them to see detail in mine.
This time they got out of their truck. The doors opened as one and they climbed out and down. They skirted the hood and stood together in front of the grille. Same height, same build. Like cousins. They were each about six-two and around two hundred or two hundred and ten pounds. They had long knotted arms and big hands. Work boots on their feet.
I walked on. I stopped ten feet away. I could smell them from there. Beer, cigarettes, rancid sweat, dirty clothes.
The guy on my right said, “Hello again, soldier boy.”
He was the alpha dog. Both times he had been driving, and both times he was the first to speak. Unless the other guy was some kind of a silent mastermind, which seemed unlikely.
I said nothing, of course.
The guy asked, “Where are you going?”
I didn’t answer.
The guy said, “You’re going to Kelham. I mean, where the hell else does this road go?”
He turned and swept his arm through an extravagant gesture, indicating the road, and its relentless straightness, and its lack of alternative destinations. He turned back and said, “Last night you told us you weren’t from Kelham. You lied to us.”
I said, “Maybe I live on that side of town.”
“No,” the guy said. “If you’d tried living on that side of town, we’d have visited you before.”
“For what purpose?”
“To explain the facts of life. Different places are for different folks.” He came a little closer. His buddy came with him. The smell grew stronger.
I said, “You guys need to take a bath. Not necessarily together.”
The guy on my right asked, “What have you been doing this morning?”
I said, “You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, we do.”
“No, you really don’t.”
“You’re not welcome here. Not anymore. None of you.”
“It’s a free country,” I said.
“Not for people like you.” Then he paused, and his gaze suddenly shifted and focused into the far distance over my shoulder. The oldest trick in the book. Except this time he wasn’t faking. I didn’t turn, but I heard a car on the road behind me. Far away. A big car, quiet, with wide highway tires. Not a cop car, because no recognition dawned in the guy’s eyes. No familiarity. It was a car he hadn’t seen before. A car he couldn’t explain.
I waited and it swept past us. It was going fast. It was a black town car. Urban. Dark windows. It thumped up the rise, pattered across the tracks, and thumped back down again. Then it kept on going straight. A minute later it was tiny in the haze. Effectively lost to sight.
An official visitor, heading to Kelham. Rank and prestige.
Or panic.
The guy on my right said, “You need to get back on the base. And then stay there.”
I said nothing.
“But first you need to tell us what you’ve been doing. And who you’ve been seeing. Maybe we should go check she’s still alive.”
I said, “I’m not from Kelham.”
The guy took a step forward.
He said, “Liar.”
I took a breath and made like I was going to speak. Then I head-butted the guy full in the face. No warning. I just braced my feet and snapped forward from the waist and crashed my forehead