Make Me

The woman said, “Of course he has.”

“And you know what it is?”

“Yes, I do. But I can’t tell you.”

“Is it local?”

“I can’t give you the address.”

“I don’t want it. I don’t care about the address anymore. I wouldn’t listen if you told me. I just want to know if it’s local. That’s all. Which doesn’t give anything away. Every neighborhood has thousands of people.”

“Yes, it’s local.”

“How local? Does he walk here, the days he works?”

“You’re asking me for his address.”

“No, I’m not. I don’t want his address. I wouldn’t even let you tell me now. I would stick my fingers in my ears and sing la-la-la. I just want to know if it’s walking distance. It’s a geography question. Or physiology. How old would you say Mr. McCann is?”

“How what?

“Old. His age is different than his address. You’re free to talk about it. You’re free to share your impressions.”

“He’s sixty. He was sixty last year.”

“Is he in good shape?”

“Hardly. He looks terrible.”

“That’s too bad. In what way?”

“He’s too thin. He doesn’t look after himself. He takes no care at all.”

“Is he lacking in energy?”

“Yes, I would say so. He’s kind of down all the time.”

“Then he wouldn’t want to walk too far, would he? Let’s say three blocks maximum. Would that be a fair conclusion?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“A three block radius is thirty-six square blocks. That’s bigger than Milwaukee. You wouldn’t be telling me anything.”

“OK, yes, he walks to work, and yes, it’s a short walk. But that’s it. I can’t tell you anything else.”

“What’s his first name? Can you tell us that?”

“It’s Peter. Peter McCann.”

“What about his wife? How long has he been widowed?”

“I think that was all a long time ago.”

“What’s his son’s name?”

“It’s Michael, I think. Michael McCann.”

“Is there an issue with Michael?”

“We didn’t talk about it.”

“But you must have pieced something together.”

“I would be betraying a confidence.”

“Not if he didn’t tell you himself. You would be sharing your own conclusions. That’s all. That’s a big difference.”

“I think Mr. McCann’s son Michael has a behavioral issue. I don’t know what, exactly. Not something to be proud of, I think. That would be my conclusion.”

Reacher made a sympathetic face, and tried one last time, but still she wouldn’t give up McCann’s address. So they took their leave and detoured to the reference desk and checked the Chicago phone books. There were too many P. McCanns and too many M. McCanns to be useful. They stepped back out to the street armed with precisely nothing except impressions and guesses.

Chapter 33

They turned left on the sidewalk outside the library door, and found the mom-and-pop pharmacy exactly where it should have been, which was directly adjacent. It was a narrow storefront, with an awning and a door and a small display window, which was full of not-very-tempting items, including elastic bandages and heat pads and a toilet seat for folks having difficulty with mobility. Pharmacy windows were a marketing challenge, in Reacher’s opinion. It was hard to think of a display liable to make people rush inside with enthusiasm. But he saw one item of interest. It was a burner cell, in a plastic package, hanging on a peg on a board. The phone looked old-fashioned. The plastic package looked dusty. The price was advertised as super-low.

They went inside and found six more identical phones pegged to a panel otherwise covered with two-dollar cases and two-dollar chargers, and car adapters, and wires of many different descriptions, most of them white. The phones themselves were priced a penny shy of thirteen dollars. They came pre-loaded with a hundred minutes of talk time.

Reacher said, “We should buy one.”

Chang said, “I was thinking of something more modern.”

“How modern does it need to be? All it has to do is work.”

“It won’t get the internet.”

“You’re talking to the wrong person. That’s a feature, as far as I’m concerned. And it’s a karma thing. We’ll have the same phone as McCann. It might bring us luck.”

“Doesn’t seem to have worked for him,” Chang said. But she unhooked a phone from the display anyway, and carried it to the counter, where an old lady waited behind the register. She had steel-gray hair in a bun, and she was dressed with last-century, old-country formality. Way in the back of the store was an old guy working on prescriptions. Same kind of age, same kind of style. A white coat over a suit and tie. Same kind of hair, apart from the bun. Mom and Pop, presumably. No other staff. Low overhead.

Reacher asked the woman, “Do these phones have voice mail?”

She repeated the question, much louder, not directed at him, he realized, but at Pop in back, who called out, “No.”

The woman said, “No.”

Reacher said, “A friend of ours bought one here. Peter McCann. Do you know him?”

She called out loudly, “Do we know Peter McCann?”

The old guy in back shouted, “No.”

“No,” the woman said.

“Do you know his son Michael?”

“Do we know his son Michael?”

“No.”

“No.”