Make Me

“I was going to say I would save the money and choose the shotgun. But that would be tough on whoever found me. There would be a lot of mess. Same with the handgun. Same with hanging myself, or jumping off the roof. Stepping in front of a train isn’t fair to the engineer. Even drinking the Kool-Aid in a motel room isn’t fair to the maid. Maybe that’s why people choose the concierge service. Easier on the folks they leave behind. That’s worth a premium, I guess. But I still don’t see how it adds up to Merchenko money.”

“I don’t see how we get back there. It’s like they have a ten-mile-high razor-wire fence. Except laid down flat.”

“We should start out in Oklahoma City.”

“You want to take the train?”

“I want to keep our options open. We’ll figure out the fine print later. Tell Westwood to book the flights.”

Reacher woke very early the next morning, before Chang, and he slid out of bed and shut himself in the bathroom. He had given up on his previous theory. Forever. It had been proven categorically wrong. Repeatedly. There was no ceiling. There was no upper limit. There was no reason why it should ever stop.

Which was good to know.

He stood in front of the mirror and twisted and turned and checked himself over. He had new bruises from falling down. The old bruise on his back where Hackett had hit him was vivid yellow and the size of a dinner plate. But he wasn’t pissing blood, and the ache was going away, and the stiffness was easing. The side of his head was still tender, and a little soft, but not exactly swollen. Not enough flesh, like the doctor had said. His headache was moderate. He wasn’t sleepy. He wasn’t dizzy. He stood on one leg and closed his eyes, and didn’t sway. He was conscious. No nausea. He hadn’t thrown up. No seizures. He walked a line of tiles, from the tub to the toilet, and back again with his eyes closed, and he didn’t stray. He touched his nose with his fingertip, and then rubbed his stomach while patting his head. No problems with coordination or movement, beyond his innate and inevitable slight clumsiness. He was no ballet dancer. Neat and deft and dexterous were adjectives that had never applied.

The door opened behind him and Chang stepped in. He saw her in the mirror. She looked soft and sleepy. She yawned and said, “Good morning.”

He said, “To you too.”

“What are you doing?”

“Checking my symptoms. The doctor gave me a hell of a list.”

“How far did you get?”

“I still have to do memory, vision, speech, hearing, managing emotion, and thinking.”

“You already passed managing emotion. I’ve been quite impressed. For a guy. Who was in the army. Now tell me three famous Oklahomans, since that’s where we’re going.”

“Mickey Mantle, obviously. Johnny Bench. Jim Thorpe. Bonus points for Woody Guthrie and Ralph Ellison.”

“Your memory is fine.” She retreated to the tub and held up two fingers. “How many?”

“Two.”

“Your vision is fine.”

“Not a very stringent test.”

“OK, stay where you are and tell me who made the bathtub.”

He looked. There was small faint writing near the overflow hole.

“American Standard,” he said, because he already knew.

“Your vision is fine,” she said again.

She whispered something very softly.

“On the plane?” he said. “I’m totally up for that.”

“Your hearing is fine. That’s for sure. What’s the longest word in the Gettysburg Address?”

“Which symptom is that?”

“Thinking.”

He thought. “There are three. All with eleven letters. Proposition, battlefield, and consecrated.”

“Now recite the first sentence. Like you were an actor on a stage.”

“Lincoln was coming down with smallpox at the time. Did you know that?”

“That’s not it.”

“I know. That was for extra credit on memory.”

“We already did memory. Remember? Now we’re doing speech. The first sentence.”

“The guy who founded Getty Oil was descended from the guy the town of Gettysburg was named for.”

“That’s not it either.”

“That was general knowledge.”

“Which is not even a symptom.”

“It relates to memory.”

“We did memory ages ago.”

He said, loud like an actor, “ ‘Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’ ”

It sounded good in a bathroom. The marble gave it echo and resonance.

He said, louder, “ ‘Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure.’ ”

She said, “Has your headache gone?”

He said, “More or less.”

“Which means it hasn’t yet.”

“It’s on its way out. It was never a big deal.”

“The doctor thought it was.”

“The medical profession has gotten very timid. Very cautious. No sense of adventure. I lived through the night. I didn’t need observation.”

Chang said, “I’m glad he was cautious.”

Reacher said nothing.