"But he didn't dump you, evidently. "
She looked down at the table.
"No," she said. "He didn't dump me. He started hitting me instead. First time, he punched me in the face. Then Ellie was born the next day. "
* * *
The Crown Victoria turned back into a normal Hertz rental behind a stand of trees eight miles off the highway, halfway between Abilene and Big Spring. The Virginia plates came off, and the Texas plates went back on. The plastic wheel covers were kicked back into place. The cellular antennas were peeled off the rear glass and laid back in the valise. The CB whips pulled clear of the sheet metal and joined them. The souvenir ball caps were nested together and packed away with the handguns. Eugene's mobile phone was smashed against a rock and the pieces hurled deep into the thicket. A little grit from the shoulder of the road was sprinkled onto the front passenger seat, so that the rental people would have to vacuum up any of Eugene's stray hairs and fibers along with it.
Then the big sedan pulled back onto the blacktop and wound its way back to the highway. It cruised comfortably, heading west, a forgettable vehicle filled with three forgettable people. It made one more stop, at a comfort area named for the Colorado River, where sodas were consumed and a call was made from an untraceable payphone. The call was to Las Vegas, from where it was rerouted to Dallas, from where it was rerouted to an office in a small town in the west of Texas. The call reported complete success so far, and it was gratefully received.
* * *
"He Split my lip and loosened my teeth," Carmen Greer said.
Reacher watched her face.
"That was the first time," she said. "He just lost it. But straight away he was full of remorse. He drove me to the emergency room himself. It's a long, long drive from the house, hours and hours, and the whole way he was begging me to forgive him. Then he was begging me not to tell the truth about what had happened. He seemed really ashamed, so I agreed. But I never had to say anything anyway, because as soon as we arrived I started into labor and they took me straight upstairs to the delivery unit. Ellie was born the next day. "
"And then what?"
"And then it was O. K. ," she said. "For a week, at least. Then he started hitting me again. I was doing everything wrong. I was paying too much attention to the baby, I didn't want sex because I was hurting from the stitches. He said I had gotten fat and ugly from the pregnancy. "
Reacher said nothing.
"He got me believing it," she said. "For a long, long time. That happens, you know. You've got to be very self-confident to resist it. And I wasn't, in that situation. He took away all my self-esteem. Two or three years, I thought it was my fault, and I tried to do better. "
"What did the family do?"
She pushed her glass away. Left the iced coffee half-finished.
"They didn't know about it," she said. "And then his father died, which made it worse. He was the only reasonable one. He was O. K. But now it's just his mother and his brother. He's awful, and she's a witch. And they still don't know. It happens in secret. It's a big house. It's like a compound, really. We're not all on top of each other. And it's all very complicated. He's way too stubborn and proud to ever agree with them he's made a mistake. So the more they're down on me, the more he pretends he loves me. He misleads them. He buys me things. He bought me this ring. "
She held up her right hand, bent delicately at the wrist, showing off the platinum band with the big diamond. It looked like a hell of a thing. Reacher had never bought a diamond ring. He had no idea what they cost. A lot, he guessed.
"He bought me horses," she said. "They knew I wanted horses, and he bought them for me, so he could look good in front of them. But really to explain away the bruises. It was his stroke of genius. A permanent excuse. He makes me say I've fallen off. They know I'm still just learning to ride. And that explains a lot in rodeo country, bruises and broken bones. They take it for granted. "
"He's broken your bones?"
She nodded, and started touching parts of her body, twisting and turning in the confines of the tight booth, silently recounting her injuries, hesitating slightly now and then like she couldn't recall them all.
"My ribs, first of all, I guess," she said. "He kicks me when I'm on the floor. He does that a lot, when he's mad. My left arm, by twisting it. My collarbone. My jaw. I've had three teeth reimplanted. "
He stared at her.
She shrugged. "The emergency room people think I'm the worst rider in the history of the West. "
"They believe it?"
"Maybe they just choose to. "
"And his mother and brother?"
"Likewise," she said. "Obviously I'm not going to get the benefit of the doubt. "
"Why the hell did you stick around? Why didn't you just get out, the very first time?"
She sighed, and she closed her eyes, and she turned her head away. Spread her hands on the table, palms down, and then turned them over, palms up.
I can't explain it," she whispered. "Nobody can ever explain it. You have to know what it's like. I had no confidence in myself. I had a newborn baby and no money. Not a dime. I had no friends. I was watched all the time. I couldn't even make a call in private. "
He said nothing. She opened her eyes and looked straight at him.
"And worst of all, I had nowhere to go," she said.
"Home?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"I never even thought about it," she said. "Taking the beatings was better than trying to crawl back to my family, with a white blond baby in my arms. "
He said nothing.
"And the first time you pass up the chance, you've had it," she said. "That's how it is. It just gets worse. Whenever I thought about it, I still had no money, I still had a baby, then she was a one-year-old, then a two-year-old, then a three-year-old. The time is never right. If you stay that first time, you're trapped forever. And I stayed that first time. I wish I hadn't, but I did. "
He said nothing. She looked at him, appealing for something.
"You have to take it on faith," she said. "You don't know how it is. You're a man, you're big and strong, somebody hits you, you hit him back. You're on your own, you don't like someplace, you move on. It's different for me. Even if you can't understand it, you have to believe it. "
He said nothing.
"I could have gone if I'd left Ellie," she said. "Sloop told me if I left the baby with him, he'd pay my fare anyplace I wanted to go. First class. He said he'd call a limo all the way from Dallas, right there and then, to take me straight to the airport. "
He said nothing.
"But I wouldn't do that," she said quietly. "I mean, how could I? So Sloop makes out this is my choice. Like I'm agreeing to it. Like I want it. So he keeps on hitting me. Punching me, kicking me, slapping me. Humiliating me, sexually. Every day, even if he isn't mad at me. And if he is mad at me, he just goes crazy. "
There was silence. Just the rush of air from the cooling vents in the diner's ceiling. Vague noise from the kitchens. Carmen Greer's low breathing. The clink of fracturing ice in her abandoned glass. He looked across the table at her, tracing his gaze over her hands, her arms, her neck, her face. The neckline of her dress had shifted lef
t, and he could see a thickened knot on her collarbone. A healed break, no doubt about it. But she was sitting absolutely straight, with her head up and her eyes defiant, and her posture was telling him something.
"He hits you every day?" he asked.
She closed her eyes. "Well, almost every day. Not literally, I guess. But three, four times in a week, usually. Sometimes more. It feels like every day. "
He was quiet for a long moment, looking straight at her.
Then he shook his head.
"You're making it up," he said.
* * *
The watchers stayed resolutely on station, even though there was nothing much to watch. The red house baked under the sun and stayed quiet. The maid came out and got in a car and drove away in a cloud of dust, presumably to the market. There was some horse activity around the barn. A couple of listless ranch hands walked the animals out and around, brushed them down, put them back inside. There was a bunkhouse way back beyond the barn, same architecture, same blood-red siding. It looked mostly empty, because the barn was mostly empty. Maybe five horses in total, one of them the pony for the kid, mostly just resting in their stalls because of the terrible heat.
The maid came back and carried packages into the kitchen. The boy made a note of it in his book. The dust from her wheels floated slowly back to earth and the men with the telescopes watched it, with their tractor caps reversed to keep the sun off their necks.
* * *
"You're lying to me," Reacher said.
Carmen turned away to the window. Red spots the size of quarters crept high into her cheeks. Anger, he thought. Or embarrassment, maybe.
"Why do you say that?" she asked, quietly.
"Physical evidence," he said. "You've got no bruising visible anywhere. Your skin is clear. Light makeup, too light to be hiding anything. It's certainly not hiding the fact you're blushing like crazy. You look like you've just stepped out of the beauty parlor. And you're moving easily. You skipped across that parking lot like a ballerina. So you're not hurting anyplace. You're not stiff and sore. If he's hitting you almost every day, he must be doing it with a feather. "
She was quiet for a beat. Then she nodded.
"There's more to tell you," she said.
He looked away.
"The crucial part," she said. "The main point. "
"Why should I listen?"
She took another drinking straw and unwrapped it. Flattened the paper tube that had covered it and began rolling it into a tight spiral, between her finger and thumb.
"I'm sorry," she said. "But I had to get your attention. "
Reacher turned his head and looked out of the window, too. The sun was moving the bar of shadow across the Cadillac's hood like the finger on a clock.
His attention? He recalled opening his motel room door that morning. A brand-new day, ready and waiting to be filled with whatever came his way. He recalled the reflection of the cop in the mirror and the sticky whisper of the Cadillac's tires on the hot pavement as they slowed alongside him.
"O. K. , you got my attention," he said, looking out at the car.
"It happened for five whole years," she said. "Exactly like I told you, I promise. Almost every day. But then it stopped, a year and a half ago. But I had to tell it to you backward, because I needed you to listen to me. "
He said nothing.
"This isn't easy," she said. "Telling this stuff to a stranger. "
He turned back to face her. "It isn't easy listening to it. "
She took a breath. "You going to run out on me?"
He shrugged. "I almost did, a minute ago. "
She was quiet again.
"Please don't," she said. "At least not here. Please. Just listen a little more. "
He looked straight at her.
"O. K. , I'm listening," he said.
"But will you still help me?"
"With what?"
She said nothing.
"What did it feel like?" he asked. "Getting hit?"
"Feel like?" she repeated.
"Physically," he said.
She looked away. Thought about it.
"Depends where," she said.
He nodded. She knew it felt different in different places.
"The stomach," he said.
"I threw up a lot," she said. "I was worried, because there was blood. "
He nodded again. She knew what it felt like to be hit in the stomach.
"I swear it's true," she said. "Five whole years. Why would I make it up?"
"So what happened?" he said. "Why did he stop?"
She paused, like she was aware people might be looking at her. Reacher glanced up, and saw heads turn away. The cook, the waitress, the two guys at the distant tables. The cook and the waitress were faster about it than the two guys chose to be. There was hostility in their faces.
"Can we go now?" she asked. "We need to get back. It's a long drive. "
"I'm coming with you?"
"That's the whole point," she said.
He glanced away again, out of the window.
"Please, Reacher," she said. "At least hear the rest of the story, and then decide. I can let you out in Pecos, if you won't come all the way to Echo. You can see the museum. You can see Clay Allison's grave. "
He watched the bar of shadow touch the Cadillac's windshield. The interior would be like a furnace by now.
"You should see it anyway," she said. "If you're exploring Texas. "
"O. K. ," he said.
"Thank you," she said.
He made no reply.
"Wait for me," she said. "I need to go to the bathroom. It's a long drive. "
She slid out of the booth with uninjured grace and walked the length of the room, head down, looking neither left nor right. The two guys at the tables watched her until she was almost past them and then switched their blank gazes straight back to Reacher. He ignored them and turned the check over and dumped small change from his pocket on top of it, exact amount, no tip. He figured a waitress who didn't talk didn't want one. He slid out of the booth and walked to the door. The two guys watched him all the way. He stood in front of the glass and looked out beyond the parking lot. Watched the flat land bake under the sun for a minute or two until he heard her footsteps behind him. Her hair was combed and she had done something with her lipstick.
"I guess I'll use the bathroom too," he said.
She glanced right, halfway between the two guys.
"Wait until I'm in the car," she said. "I don't want to be left alone in here. I shouldn't have come in here in the first place. "
She pushed out through the doors and he watched her to the car. She got in and he saw it shudder as she started the engine to run the air. He turned and walked back to the men's room. It was a fair-sized space, two porcelain urinals and one toilet cubicle. A chipped sink with a cold water faucet. A fat roll of paper towels sitting on top of the machine it should have been installed in. Not the cleanest facility he had ever seen.
He unzipped and used the left-hand urinal. Heard footsteps outside the door and glanced up at the chromium valve that fed the flush pipes. It was dirty, but it was rounded and it reflected what was behind him like a tiny security mirror. He saw the door open and a man step inside. He saw the door close again and the man settle back against it. He was one of the customers. Presumably one of the pick-up drivers. The chromium valve distorted the view, but the guy's head was nearly to the top of the door. Not a small person. And he was fiddling blindly behind his back. Reacher heard the click of the door lock. Then the guy shifted again and hung his hands loose by his sides. He was wearing a black T-shirt. There was writing on it, but Reacher couldn't read it backward. Some kind of an insignia. Maybe an oil company.
"You new around here?" the guy asked. Reacher made no reply. Just watched the reflection. "I asked you a question," the guy said. Reacher ignored him. "I'm talking to yo
u," the guy said.
"Well, that's a big mistake," Reacher said. "All you know, I might be a polite type of person. I might feel obligated to turn around and listen, whereupon I'd be pissing all over your shoes. "
The guy shuffled slightly, caught out. Clearly he had some kind of set speech prepared, which was what Reacher had been counting on. A little improvised interruption might slow him down some. Maybe enough to get zipped up and decent. The guy was still shuffling, deciding whether to react.
"So I guess it's down to me to tell you," he said. "Somebody's got to. " He wasn't reacting. No talent for repartee. "Tell me what?" Reacher asked. "How it is around here. " Reacher paused a beat. The only problem with coffee was its diuretic effect. "And how is it around here?" he asked.
"Around here, you don't bring beaners into decent folks' places. "
"What?" Reacher said.
"What part don't you understand?"
Reacher breathed out. Maybe ten seconds to go. "I didn't understand any of it," he said.
"You don't bring beaners in a place like this. "
"What's a beaner?" Reacher asked.
The guy took a step forward. His reflection grew disproportionately larger. "Latinos," he said. "Eat beans all the time. "
"Latina," Reacher said. "With an a. Gender counts with inflected languages. And she had iced coffee. Haven't seen her eat a bean all day. "
"You some kind of a smart guy?"
Reacher finished and zipped up with a sigh. Didn't flush. A place like that, it didn't seem like standard practice. He just turned to the sink and operated the faucet.
"Well, I'm smarter than you," he said. "That's for damn sure. But then, that's not saying much. This roll of paper towels is smarter than you. A lot smarter. Each sheet on its own is practically a genius, compared to you. They could stroll into Harvard, one by one, full scholarships for each of them, while you're still struggling with your GED. "
It was like taunting a dinosaur. Some kind of a brontosaurus, where the brain is a very long distance from anyplace else. The sound went in, and some time later it was received and understood. Four or five seconds, until it showed in the guy's face. Four or five seconds after that, he swung with his right. It was a ponderous slow swing with a big bunched fist on the end of a big heavy arm, aiming wide and high for Reacher's head. It could have caused some damage, if it had landed. But it didn't land. Reacher caught the guy's wrist in his left palm and stopped the swing dead. A loud wet smack echoed off the bathroom tile.
"The bacteria on this floor are smarter than you," he said.
He twisted his hips ninety degrees so his groin was protected and he squeezed the guy's wrist with his hand. There had been a time when he could break bones by squeezing with his hand. It was more about blind determination than sheer strength.
But right then, he didn't feel it.
"This is your lucky day," he said. "All I know, you could be a cop. So I'm going to let you go. "
The guy was staring desperately at his wrist, watching it get crushed. The clammy flesh was swelling and going red.
"After you apologize," Reacher said.
The guy stared on, four or five seconds. Like a dinosaur.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I apologize. "
"Not to me, asshole," Reacher said. "To the lady. "
The guy said nothing. Reacher turned up the pressure. Felt his thumb go slick with sweat, sliding up over the tip of his index finger. Felt the bones in the guys wrist click and move. The radius and the ulna, getting closer than nature intended.
O. K. ," the guy gasped. "Enough. "
Reacher released the wrist. The guy snatched it back and cradled his hand. Panting, looking up, looking down.
"Give me the keys to your truck," Reacher said.
The guy twisted awkwardly to get into his right pocket with his left hand. Held out a large bunch of keys.
"Now go wait for me in the parking lot," Reacher said.
The guy unlocked the door left-handed and shuffled out. Reacher dropped the keys in the unflushed urinal and washed his hands again. Dried them carefully with the paper towels and left the bathroom behind him. He found the guy out in the lot, halfway between the diner door and the Cadillac.
"Be real nice, now," Reacher called to him. "Maybe offer to wash her car or something. She'll say no, but it's the thought that counts, right? If you're creative enough, you get your keys back. Otherwise, you're walking home. "
He could see through the tinted glass that she was watching them approach, not understanding. He motioned with his hand that she should let her window down. A circular motion, like winding a handle. She buzzed the glass down, maybe two inches, just wide enough to frame her eyes. They were wide and worried.
"This guy's got something to say to you," Reacher said.
He stepped back. The guy stepped up. Looked down at the ground, and then back at Reacher, like a whipped dog. Reacher nodded, encouragingly. The guy put his hand on his chest, like an operatic tenor or a fancy maitred. Bent slightly from the waist, to address the two-inch gap in the glass.
"Ma'am," he said. "Just wanted to say we'd all be real pleased if y'all would come back real soon, and would you like me to wash your car, seeing as you're here right now?"
"What?" she said.
They both turned separately to Reacher, the guy pleading, Carmen astonished.
"Beat it," he said. "I left your keys in the bathroom. "
Four, five seconds later, the guy was back on his way to the diner. Reacher stepped around the hood to his door. Pulled it open.
"I thought you were running out on me," Carmen said. "I thought you'd asked that guy for a ride. "
"I'd rather ride with you," he said.
* * *
The Crown Victoria drove south to a lonely crossroads hamlet. There was an old diner on the right and a vacant lot on the left. A melted stop line on the road. Then a decrepit gas station, and opposite it a one-room schoolhouse. Dust and heat shimmer everywhere. The big car slowed and crawled through the junction at walking pace. It rolled past the school gate and then suddenly picked up speed and drove away.
Little Ellie Greer watched it go. She was in a wooden chair at the schoolroom window, halfway through raising the lid of her big blue lunch box. She heard the brief shriek of rubber as the car accelerated. She turned her head and stared after it. She was a serious, earnest child, much given to silent observation. She kept her big dark eyes on the road until the dust settled. Then she turned back to matters at hand and inspected her lunch, and wished her mom had been home to pack it, instead of the maid, who belonged to the Greers and was mean.