The Affair_ A Reacher Novel - Lee Child [75]
“Munro told me he knows you by reputation.”
I nodded. “We’ve never met.”
“Reputations are dangerous things to have, in times like these.”
I said nothing.
She said, “If I asked my old buddies to check you out, what would they find?”
“Parts of it aren’t pretty,” I said.
“So this is payback time,” she said. “It’s a win-win for somebody. Either they break you or they get rid of you. You’ve got an enemy somewhere. Any idea who?”
“No,” I said.
We ate in silence for a moment, and finished up. Clean plates. Meat, bread, cheese, potatoes, all gone. I felt full. Deveraux was half my size. Or less. I didn’t know how she did it. She said, “Anyway, tell me about your brother.”
“I’d rather talk about you.”
“Me? There’s nothing to say. Carter Crossing, the Marine Corps, Carter Crossing again. That’s the story of my life. No sisters, no brothers. How many do you have?”
“Just the one.”
“Older or younger?”
“Two years older. Born way far away in the Pacific. I haven’t seen him for a long time.”
“Is he like you?”
“We’re like two alternative versions of the same person. We look alike. He’s smarter than me. I get things done better. He’s more cerebral, I’m more physical. He was good and I was bad, according to our parents. Like that.”
“What does he do for a living?”
I paused.
“I can’t tell you that,” I said.
“His job is classified?”
“Not really,” I said. “But it might give you a clue about one of the things the army is worried about here.”
She smiled. She was a very tolerant woman. She said, “Should we get pie?”
We ordered two peach pies, the same as I had eaten the night before. And coffee, for both of us, which I took to be a good sign. She wasn’t worried about being kept awake. Maybe she was planning on it. The old couple from the hotel got up and left while the waitress was still in the kitchen. They stopped by our table. No real conversation. Just a lot of nodding and smiling. They were determined to be polite. Simple economics. Deveraux was their meal ticket, and I was temporarily the icing on their cake.
The clock in my head hit ten in the evening. The pies arrived, and so did the coffee. I didn’t pay much attention to either. I spent most of my time looking at the third button on Deveraux’s shirt. I had noticed it before. It was the first one that was done up. Therefore it was the first one that would need to be undone. It was a tiny mother-of-pearl thing, silvery gray. Behind it was skin, neither pale nor dark, and very three dimensional. Left to right it curved toward me, then away from me, then toward me again. It was rising and falling as she breathed.
The waitress came by and offered more coffee. For possibly the first time in my life I turned it down. Deveraux said no, too. The waitress put the check on the table, face down, next to me. I flipped it over. Not bad. You could still eat well on a soldier’s pay, back in 1997. I dropped some bills on it and looked across at Deveraux and said, “Can I walk you home?”
She said, “I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter
43
Pellegrino and Butler had done their work. They had earned their overtime payments. The McKinney boys were gone. Main Street was silent and completely deserted. The moon was out and the air was soft. Deveraux was taller in her heels. We walked side by side, close enough for me to hear the whisper of silk on skin, and to catch the scent of her perfume.
We got to the hotel and went up the worn steps and crossed the porch. I held the door for her. The old guy was working behind the counter. We nodded goodnight to him and headed for the stairs. At the top Deveraux paused and said, “Well, goodnight, Mr. Reacher, and thanks again for your company at dinner.”
Loud and clear.
I just stood there.
She crossed the corridor.
She took out her key.
She put it in room seventeen’s lock.
She opened the door.
Then she closed it again loudly and tiptoed back to me and stretched up and put her hand on my shoulder. She put her lips close to my ear and whispered, “That was for the old man