Nothing to Lose

Reacher found a bell push and tapped it twice with his knuckle. An old habit, about not leaving fingerprints if not strictly necessary. Then he waited. In Reacher’s experience the average delay when knocking at a suburban door in the middle of the evening was about twenty seconds. Couples looked up from the television and looked at each other and asked,Who could that be? At this time of night? Then they mimed their way through offer and counteroffer and finally decided which one of them should make the trip down the hall. Before nine o’clock it was usually the wife. After nine, it was usually the husband.

It was Mrs. Gardner who opened up. The wife, after a twenty-three-second delay. She looked similar to her husband, bulky and somewhere over sixty, with a full head of white hair. Only the amount of the hair and the style of her clothing distinguished her gender. She had the kind of large firm curls that women get from big heated rollers and she was wearing a shapeless gray dress that reached her ankles. She stood there, patterned and indistinct behind a screen door. She said, “May I help you?”

Reacher said, “I need to see the judge.”

“It’s awful late,” Mrs. Gardner said, which it wasn’t. According to an old longcase clock in the hallway behind her it was eight twenty-nine, and according to the clock in Reacher’s head it was eight thirty-one, but what the woman meant was:You’re a big ugly customer. Reacher smiled.Look at yourself, Vaughan had said.What do you see? Reacher knew he was no kind of an ideal nighttime visitor. Nine times out of ten only Mormon missionaries were less welcome than him.

“It’s urgent,” he said.

The woman stood still and said nothing. In Reacher’s experience the husband would show up if the doorstep interview lasted any longer than thirty seconds. He would crane his neck out of the living room and call,Who is it, dear? And Reacher wanted the screen door open long before that happened. He wanted to be able to stop the front door from closing, if necessary.

“It’s urgent,” he said again, and pulled the screen door. It screeched on worn hinges. The woman stepped back, but didn’t try to slam the front door. Reacher stepped inside and let the screen slap shut behind him. The hallway smelled of still air and cooking. Reacher turned and closed the front door gently and clicked it against the latch. At that point the thirty seconds he had been counting in his head elapsed and the judge stepped out to the hallway.

The old guy was dressed in the same gray suit pants Reacher had seen before, but his suit coat was off and his tie was loose. He stood still for a moment, evidently searching his memory, because after ten long seconds puzzlement left his face and was replaced by an altogether different emotion, and he said, “You?”

Reacher nodded.

“Yes, me,” he said.

“What do you want? What do you mean by coming here?”

“I came here to talk to you.”

“I meant, what are you doing in Despair at all? You were excluded.”

“Didn’t take,” Reacher said. “So sue me.”

“I’m going to call the police.”

“Please do. But they won’t answer, as I’m sure you know. Neither will the deputies.”

“Where are the deputies?”

“On their way up to the first-aid station.”

“What happened to them?”

“I did.”

The judge said nothing.

Reacher said, “And Mr. Thurman is up in his little airplane right now. Out of touch for another five and a half hours. So you’re on your own. It’s initiative time for Judge Gardner.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to invite me into your living room. I want you to ask me to sit down and whether I take cream and sugar in my coffee, which I don’t, by the way. Because so far I’m here with your implied permission, and therefore I’m not trespassing. I’d like to keep it that way.”

“You’re not only trespassing, you’re in violation of a town ordinance.”

“That’s what I’d like to talk about. I’d like you to reconsider. Consider it an appeals process.”

“Are you nuts?”

“A little unconventional, maybe. But I’m not armed and I’m not making threats. I just want to talk.”

“Get lost.”

“On the other hand I am a large stranger with nothing to lose. In a town where there is no functioning law enforcement.”

“I have a gun.”

“I’m sure you do. In fact I’m sure you have several. But you won’t use any of them.”

“You think not?”

“You’re a man of the law. You know what kind of hassle comes afterward. I don’t think you want to face that kind of thing.”

“You’re taking a risk.”

“Getting out of bed in the morning is a risk.”

The judge said nothing to that. Didn’t yield, didn’t accede. Impasse. Reacher turned to the wife and took all the amiability out of his face and replaced it with the kind of thousand-yard stare he had used years ago on recalcitrant witnesses.

He asked, “What do you think, Mrs. Gardner?”