Blue Moon

“Two things in one,” he said. “Both at the same time. Loansharking and money laundering. They wired dirty electrons and in return they got random clean cash from the streets. Plus a healthy rate of interest on top. Most money laundering involves losing a percentage, not gaining one. I guess those boys weren’t dumb.”

“Not in our experience.”

“You think the Ukrainians will be better or worse?”

“Worse, I expect. The law of the jungle seems to be proving it already.”

“So how are you going to pay them back?”

“That’s tomorrow’s problem.”

“You have nothing left to sell.”

“Something might show up.”

“In your dreams.”

“No, in reality. We’re waiting for something. We have reason to believe it will come very soon. We have to hang tough until it does.”

They absolutely would not say what they were waiting for.

—

Twenty minutes later Reacher stepped down the far curb unencumbered, and crossed the street in four fast strides, and stepped up the near curb, and pulled the bar door. Inside it felt brighter than before, because it was darker outside, and it was a click noisier, because there were more people, including a group of five men all squeezed around a four-top table, all reminiscing about something or other.

The pale guy was still in the far back corner.

Reacher walked toward him. The pale guy watched him all the way. Reacher dialed it back a little. There were conventions to follow. Lender and borrower. He walked what he thought of as his friendly walk, pure unselfconscious locomotion, no threat to anybody. He sat down in the same chair he had used before.

The pale guy said, “Aaron Shevick, right?”

“Yes,” Reacher said.

“What brings you back so soon?”

“I need a loan.”

“Already? You just paid me off.”

“Something came up.”

“I told you,” the guy said. “Losers like you always come back.”

“I remember,” Reacher said.

“How much do you want?”

“Eighteen thousand nine hundred dollars,” Reacher said.

The pale guy shook his head.

“Can’t do it,” he said.

“Why not?”

“It’s a big jump up from eight hundred last time.”

“Fourteen hundred.”

“Six hundred of that was fees and charges. The capital sum was eight hundred only.”

“That was then. This is now. It’s what I need.”

“You good for it?”

“I always was before,” Reacher said. “Ask Fisnik.”

“Fisnik is history,” the pale guy said.

Nothing more.

Reacher waited.

Then the pale guy said, “Maybe there’s a way I can help you. Although you got to understand, I would be taking a risk, which would have to be reflected in the price. You comfortable with that scenario?”

“I guess,” Reacher said.

“And I have to tell you, I’m pretty much a round-figures guy. Can’t do eighteen-nine. We would have to call it twenty. Then I would take eleven hundred off the top as an administration fee. You would get the exact amount you need. You want to hear the interest rates?”

“I guess,” Reacher said again.

“Things have moved on since Fisnik’s day. We’re in an era of innovation now. We operate what they call dynamic pricing. We pitch the rate up or down, depending on supply and demand and things like that, but also on what we think of the borrower. Will he be reliable? Can we trust him? Questions of that nature.”

“So what am I?” Reacher asked. “Up or down?”

“I’m going to start you off way up there at the very top. Where the worst risks are. Truth is, I don’t like you very much, Aaron Shevick. I’m not getting a good feeling. You take twenty tonight, you bring me twenty-five, a week from today. After that, interest continues at twenty-five percent a week or part of a week, plus a late fee of a thousand dollars a day, or part of a day. After the first deadline, all sums become payable in full immediately on demand. Refusal or inability to pay on demand may expose you to unpleasant things of various different types. You have to understand that ahead of time. I need to hear you say so, in your own words. It’s not the kind of thing that can be written down and signed. I have photographs for you to look at.”

“Terrific,” Reacher said.

The guy dabbed at his phone, menus, albums, slideshows, and he handed it over sideways, like a landscape, not a portrait, which was appropriate, because all the subjects of all the pictures were lying down. Mostly they were duct-taped to an iron bedstead, in a room with whitewashed walls gone gray with age and damp. Some had their eyeballs popped out with a spoon, and some had been grazed by an electric saw, deeper and deeper, and some had been burned with a smoothing iron, and some had been drilled with cordless power tools, which were left in the pictures as if in proof, yellow and black, top heavy and wobbling, their bits two-thirds buried in yielding flesh.

Pretty bad.

But not the worst things Reacher had ever seen.

Maybe the worst things all on one phone, though.

He handed it back. The guy dabbed through his menus again, until he got where he wanted to be. Serious business now.

He said, “Do you understand the terms of the contract?”

“Yes,” Reacher said.

“Do you agree to them?”

“Yes,” Reacher said.

“Bank account?”