coat.’
So he was on a windswept corner with the sea gale flattening
his pants against his legs, making a final decision. The highway,
or a coat store? He ran a brief fantasy through his head, La Jolla
maybe, a cheap room, warm nights, bright stars, cold beer.
Then: the old woman at B. B. King’s new club in New York,
some retro-obsessed young A&R man stops by, gives her a
contract, she makes a CD, she gets a national tour, a sidebar in Rolling Stone, fame, money, a new house. A new car. He turned
his back on the highway and hunched against the wind and
walked east in search of a clothing store.
On that particular Monday there were nearly twelve thousand
FDIC-insured banking organizations licensed and operating inside
the United States and between them they carried over a
thousand million separate accounts, but only one of them was
listed against UNSUB’s name and Social Security number. It
was a simple current account held at a branch of a regional
bank in Arlington, Virginia. M. E. Froelich stared at the
branch’s business address in surprise. That’s less than four
miles from where I’m sitting right now. She copied the details
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onto her yellow paper. Picked up her phone and called a senior
colleague on the other side of the organization and asked him
to contact the bank in question for all the details he could get.
Especially a home address. She asked him to be absolutely as
fast as possible, but discreet, too. And completely off the record.
Then she hung up and waited, anxious and frustrated about
being temporarily hands-off. Problem was, the other side of the
organization could ask banks discreet questions quite easily,
whereas for Froelich to do so herself would be regarded as very
odd indeed.
Reacher found a discount store three blocks nearer the ocean
and ducked inside. It was narrow but ran back into the building
a couple of hundred feet. There were fluorescent tubes all over
the ceiling and racks of garments stretching as far as the eye
could see. Seemed to be women’s stuff on the left, children’s in
the centre, and men’s on the right. He started in the far back
corner and worked forward.
There were all kinds of coats commercially available, that was
for damn sure. The first two rails had short padded jackets. No
good. He went by something an old army buddy had told him: a good coat is like a good lawyer. It covers your ass. The third
rail was more promising. It had neutral-coloured thigh-length
canvas coats made bulky by thick flannel linings. Maybe there
was some wool in there. Maybe some other stuff, too. They
certainly felt heavy enough.
‘Can I help you?’
He turned round and saw a young woman standing right
behind him.
‘Are these coats good for the weather up here?’ he asked.
qney’re perfect,’ the woman said. She was very animated.
She told him all about some kind of special stuff sprayed on the
canvas to repel moisture. She told him all about the insulation
inside. She promised it would keep him warm right down to a
sub-zero temperature. He ran his hand down the rail and pulled
out a dark olive XXL.
‘OK, I’ll take this one,’ he said
‘You don’t want to try it on?’
He paused and then shrugged into it. It fitted pretty well.
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Nearly. Maybe it was a little tight across the shoulders. The
sleeves were maybe an inch too short.
‘You need the 3XLT,’ the woman said. ‘What are you, a fifty?’
‘A fifty what?’
‘Chest.’
‘No idea. I never measured it.’
‘Height about six-five?’
‘I guess,’ he said.
‘Weight?’
¢I’wo-forty,’ he said. ‘Maybe two-fifty.’
‘So you definitely need the big-and-tall fitting,’ she said. Try
the 3XLT.’
The 3XLT she handed him was the same dull colour as the
XXL he had picked. It fitted much better. A little roomy, which
he liked. And the sleeves were right.
‘You OK for pants?’ the woman called. She had ducked away
to another rail and was flicking through heavy canvas work
pants, glancing at his waist and the length of his legs. She came