Make Me

“Makes me feel better about the assisted homicide.”

“Makes me wish I had found a butter knife in the kitchen and cut his head off.”

Chang drove out the gate, and took random lefts and rights. They heard no howling sirens in the distance. No commotion. Just the perpetual Phoenix traffic, three shiny lanes, like a slow river, rolling along forever.

“Where to?” she said.

“Let’s go find a cup of coffee. And there’s a call you need to make.”

They pulled in at a strip mall in Paradise Valley. There was a big-name coffee shop sandwiched between a store selling leather belts with silver buckles, and a store selling china plates with fancy patterns. Chang got iced coffee, and Reacher got hot. They sat at a sticky table in back.

Reacher said, “Tell Westwood to pick a hotel. Somewhere convenient, to suit his budget. Tell him we’ll join him there in two hours.”

“Why two hours?”

“Do you guys have a Phoenix office?”

“Of course. Lots of retired FBI in Phoenix.”

“We need local knowledge.”

“About the guys at the house?”

“About their boss. Who was also Hackett’s boss. A provider of outsourced security, for what is no doubt a varied roster of clients. The service economy at work. Physically he sounded like a big guy to me. On the phone. And then the guy who did all the talking at the house called him the fat man. Did you hear that? He was moaning about not getting paid, and not being able to renegotiate afterward, and he said those are the fat man’s rules. So we need a name. An Eastern European Phoenix-area crime boss who runs Eastern European muscle locally and people like Hackett elsewhere. And who could plausibly be called fat. Behind his back, presumably. Known locations would be good too.”

“Why?”

“I want to pay him a visit.”

“Why?”

“For Emily. And for McCann’s sister. And the guard in the gatehouse. And my back hurts and I have a headache now. Some things can’t be allowed to continue.”

Chang nodded. “And some things have side benefits.”

“Exactly.”

“Mother’s Rest will be left wide open. We’ll be canceling its security contract. By cutting off its head. Before we go back there.”

“Is that the kind of information your local person would have?”

“I would, if someone called me about Seattle.”

She took out her phone and dialed, first Westwood, about the hotel, and then she scrolled through her contacts and found her local number. A spare bedroom, presumably. Close by. In Mesa or Glendale or Sun City. Fitted out with matching shelves and cabinets, and a desk, and a chest of drawers. And a computer and a telephone and a fax machine and a printer. Investments, for a new career. We have offices everywhere.

Reacher got up and headed for the men’s room, where he checked himself in the mirror, for blood, whether his or not, or other signs of mayhem. Always prudent. Once he arrested a guy who had his victim’s tooth stuck in his hair, front and center, like a pale yellow bead from a salon near the beach. Then he washed his hands very thoroughly, and his wrists, and his forearms, with plenty of soap. To get rid of the gunshot residue. Also always prudent. Why make it easy?

Back at the table Chang said, “He’s Ukrainian and his name is Merchenko.”

Reacher said, “Is he fat?”

“Apparently he’s colossal.”

“Do we know where he does business?”

“He has a private club south of the airport.”

“Security?”

“We don’t know.”

“Can we get in the club?”

“Members only.”

“We could apply for jobs. I could be a bouncer.”

“What could I be?”

“Depends what kind of club it is.”

“I think we can guess.”

“Works for me aesthetically,” Reacher said. “We should go look at the place. Right now. Better to see it in the daylight.”

South of the airport was not all badlands, but it was brighter and brasher than what they saw on the way. Merchenko’s club was a metal building about the size of Yankee Stadium. But square. It filled its own block, sidewalk to sidewalk. The walls were painted pink and softened in shape by hundreds of giant foil balloons, also pink, some in the shape of hearts, and some in the shape of lips, all of them somehow fixed to the siding. Lacing in and out between them were miles of neon, right then bleached gray by the sun, but at night no doubt pink. What other color would the neon be? The door was pink, and it had a pink plastic awning above it, and the name of the place was Pink.

Chang said, “Should we risk going around the block?”

“It’s early,” Reacher said. “Should be safe enough.”

So she turned left off the frontage, and drove down the right-hand side. Same huge size. Same pink. Same lips and hearts. Which were kind of drunk-friendly, Reacher thought. Better than swaying the other way, into traffic.