Nothing to Lose

He climbed out of the truck. The rooming house was built of dull brick, on a corner lot. Three stories high, narrow windows, flat roof, four stone steps up to a doorway set off center in the façade. There was a wooden board on the wall next to the door, under a swan-neck lamp with a dim bulb. The board had been painted maroon way back in its history, and the wordsRooms to Rent had been lettered in white over the maroon by a careful amateur. A plain and to-the-point announcement. Not the kind of place Reacher favored. Such establishments implied residency for longer periods than he was interested in. Generally they rented by the week, and had electric cooking rings in the rooms. Practically the same thing as setting up housekeeping.

He went up the stone steps and pushed the front door. It was open. Behind it was a square hallway with a brown linoleum floor and a steep staircase on the right. The walls were painted brown with some kind of a trick effect that matched the swirls in the linoleum. A bare bulb was burning dimly a foot below the ceiling. The air smelled of dust and cabbage. There were four interior doors, all dull green, all closed. Two were in back and two were in front, one at the foot of the staircase and the other directly opposite it across the hallway. Two front rooms, one of which would house the owner or the super. In Reacher’s experience the owner or the super always chose a ground-floor room at the front, to monitor entrances and exits. Entrances and exits were very important to owners and supers. Unauthorized guests and multiple occupancies were to be discouraged, and tenants had been known to try to sneak out quietly just before final payment of long-overdue rent had been promised.

He opted to start with the door at the foot of the staircase. Better surveillance potential. He knocked and waited. A long moment later the door opened and revealed a thin man in a white shirt and a black tie. The guy was close to seventy years old, and his hair was the same color as his shirt. The shirt wasn’t clean. Neither was the tie, but it had been carefully knotted.

“Help you?” the old guy said.

“Is this your place?” Reacher asked.

The old guy nodded. “And my mother’s before me. In the family for close to fifty years.”

“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Reacher said. “From California. I heard he was staying here.”

No reply from the old man.

“Young guy,” Reacher said. “Maybe twenty. Very big. Tan, with short hair.”

“Nobody like that here.”

“You sure?”

“Nobody here at all.”

“He was seen stepping out your door this afternoon.”

“Maybe he was visiting.”

“Visiting who, if there’s nobody here at all?”

“Visiting me,” the old man said.

“Did he visit you?”

“I don’t know. I was out. Maybe he knocked on my door and got no reply and left again.”

“Why would he have been knocking on your door?”

The old guy thought for a moment and said, “Maybe he was at the hotel and wanted to economize. Maybe he had heard the rates were cheaper here.”

“What about another guy, shorter, wiry, about the same age?”

“No guys here at all, big or small.”

“You sure?”

“It’s my house. I know who’s in it.”

“How long has it been empty?”

“It’s not empty. I live here.”

“How long since you had tenants?”

The old guy thought for another moment and said, “A long time.”

“How long?”

“Years.”

“So how do you make a living?”

“I don’t.”

“You own this place?”

“I rent it. Like my mother did. Close to fifty years.”

Reacher said, “Can I see the rooms?”

“Which rooms?”

“All of them.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t believe you. I think there are people here.”

“You think I’m lying?”

“I’m a suspicious person.”

“I should call the police.”

“Go right ahead.”

The old guy stepped away into the gloom and picked up a phone. Reacher crossed the hallway and tried the opposite door. It was locked. He walked back and the old guy said, “There was no answer at the police station.”

“So it’s just you and me,” Reacher said. “Better that you lend me your passkey. Save yourself some repair work later, with the door locks.”

The old guy bowed to the inevitable. He took a key from his pocket and handed it over. It was a worn brass item with a length of furred string tied through the hole. The string had an old metal eyelet on it, as if the eyelet was all that was left of a paper label.