“You OK?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“So let’s go.”
The driver fought traffic twenty blocks uptown and went underground into the same crowded garage Lamarr had brought him to. They used the same elevator in the corner. Rode up to the twenty-first floor. Stepped out into the same quiet gray corridor. The driver preceded them like a host and pointed to his left.
“Third door,” he said.
James Cozo was behind his desk and looked as though he might have been there for an hour. He was in shirtsleeves. His jacket was on a hanger on a bent-wood hatstand. He was watching television, political cable, an earnest reporter in front of the Capitol, rapid cutaways to the Hoover Building. The budget hearings.
“The return of the vigilante,” he said.
He nodded to Harper and closed a file. Muted the television sound and pushed back from his desk and rubbed his hands over his narrow face, like he was washing without water.
“So what do you want?” he asked.
“Addresses,” Reacher said. “For Petrosian’s boys.”
fufVltnA ^iitVt( 247
“The two you put in the hospital? They won’t be pleased to see you.”
“They’ll be pleased to see me leave.”
“You going to hurt them again?”
“Probably.”
Cozo nodded. “Suits me, pal.”
IB He pulled a file from a stack and rooted through it. Copied an address onto
a slip of paper.
“They live together,” he said. “They’re brothers.”
Then he thought again and tore the paper into shreds. Reversed the open file on the desk and took a new sheet of paper. Tossed a pencil on top of it.
“You copy it,” he said. “Don’t want my handwriting anywhere near this, literally or metaphorically.”
The address was near Fifth, on Sixty-sixth Street.
“Nice neighborhood,” Reacher said. “Expensive.”
Cozo nodded again. “Lucrative operation.”
Then he smiled.
“Well, it was,” he said. “Until you got busy down in Chinatown.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Take a taxi,” Cozo said to Harper. “And you stay out of the way. No overt Bureau involvement here, OK?”
She nodded, reluctantly.
“Have fun,” Cozo said.
i< {(M walked over to Madison with Harper craning like a tourist. Caught a cab uptown and got out on the corner of Sixtieth Street. "We'll walk the rest of the way," Reacher said. "We?" Harper said. "Good. I want to stay involved." "You have to stay involved," Reacher said. "Because I won't get in without 1 y°U'" (tm) The address led them six blocks north to a plain, medium-height apartment building faced with gray brick. Metal window frames, no balconies. Air conditioners built through the walls under the windows. No awning over the sidewalk, no doorman. But it was clean and well kept. "Expensive place?" Harper asked. Reacher shrugged. "I don't know. Not the most expensive, I guess. But they won't be giving them away." 248 IfeW The street door was open. The lobby was narrow, with hard stucco walls carefully streaked with paint so they looked a little like marble. There was a single elevator at the back of the lobby, with a narrow brown door. The apartment they wanted was on the eighth floor. Reacher touched the elevator button and the door rolled back. The car was lined with bronze mirror on all four sides. Harper stepped in and Reacher crowded after her. Pressed 8. An infinite number of reflections rode up with them. "You knock on their door," Reacher said. "Get them to open up. They won't if they see me in the spyhole." She nodded and the elevator stopped on 8. The door rolled back. They stepped out on a dull landing the same shape as the lobby. The apartment they were looking for was in the back of the building on the right. Reacher stood flat against the wall and Harper stood in front of the door. She bent forward and then back to flip her hair off her face. Took a breath and raised her hand and knocked on the door. Nothing happened for a moment. Then Harper stiffened like she was under scrutiny. There was a rattle of chain from the inside and the door opened a crack. "Building management," Harper said. "I need to check the air conditioners."