Child, Lee – Without Fail

out with a pair that matched one of the colours in the flannel

lining inside the coat. ‘And try these shirts,’ she said. She jumped over to another rail and showed him a rainbow of

flannel shirts. ‘Put a T-shirt underneath it and you’re all set.

Which colour do you like?’

‘Something dull,’ he said.

She laid everything out on top of one of the rails. The coat,

the pants, the shirt, a T-shirt. They looked pretty good together,

muddy olives and khakis.

‘OK?’ she said brightly.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘You got underwear too?’

‘Over here,’ she said.

He rooted through a bin of reject-quality boxers and selected

a pair in white. Then a pair of socks, mostly cotton, flecked with

all kinds of organic colours.

‘OK?’ the woman said again. He nodded and she led him to

the register at the front of the store and bleeped all the tags

under the little red light.

‘One hundred and eighty-nine dollars even,’ shesaid.

He stared at the red figures on the register’s display. ‘I

thought this was a discount store,’ he said.

21

qhat’s incredibly reasonable, really,’ she said. He shook his

head and dug into his pocket and came out with a wad of

crumpled bills. Counted out a hundred and ninety. The dollar

change she gave him left him with four bucks in his hand.

The senior colleague from the other side of the organization

called Froelich back within twenty-five minutes.

‘You get a home address?’ she asked him.

‘One hundred Washington Boulevard,’ the guy said.

‘Arlington, Virginia. Zip code is 20310-1500.’

Froelich wrote it down. ‘OK, thanks. I guess that’s all I need.’

‘I think you might need a little more.’

‘Why?’

‘You know Washington Boulevard?’

Froelich paused. ‘Runs up to the Memorial Bridge, right?’

‘It’s just a highway.’

‘No buildings? Got to be buildings.’

q’here is one building. Pretty big one. Couple hundred yards

off the east shoulder.’

‘What?’

‘The Pentagon,’ the guy said. q’his is a phony address,

Froelich. One side of Washington Boulevard is Arlington Cemetery

and the other side is the Pentagon..That’s it. Nothing else.

There’s no number one hundred. There are no private mailing

addresses at all. I checked with the Postal Service. And that zip

code is the Department of the Army, inside the Pentagon.’

‘Great,’ Froelich said. ‘You tell the bank?’

‘Of course not. You told me to be discreet.’

q’hanks. But I’m back at square one.’

‘Maybe not. This is a bizarre set-up, Froelich. Six-figure

balance, but it’s all just stuck in a current account, earning

nothing. And the customer accesses it via Western Union only.

Never comes in. It’s a phone arrangement. Customer calls in

with a password, the hank wires cash through Western Union,

wherever.’

‘No ATM card?’

‘No cards at all. No cheque book was ever issued, either.’

‘Western Union only? I never heard of that before. Are there

any records?’

22

‘Geographically, all over the place, literally. Forty states and

counting in five years. Occasional deposits and plenty of nickel

and-dime withdrawals, all of them to Western Union offices in

the boonies, in the cities, everywhere.’

‘Bizarre.’

‘Like I said.’

‘Anything you can do?’

‘Already done it. They’re going to call me next time the

customer calls them.’

‘And then you’re going to call me?’

‘I might.’

‘Is there a frequency pattern?’

‘It varies. Maximum interval recently has been a few weeks.

Sometimes it’s every few days. Mondays are popular. Banks are

closed on the weekend.’

‘So I could get lucky today.’

‘Sure you could,’ the guy said. ‘Question is, am I going to get

lucky too?’

‘Not that lucky,’ Froelich said.

The lounge manager watched Reacher step into his motel

lobby. Then he ducked back into a windy side street and fired

up his cell phone. Cupped his hand round it and spoke low and

urgently, and convincingly, but respectfully, as was required.

‘Because he’s dissing me,’ he said, in answer to a question.

q’oday would be good,’ he said, in answer to another.

i’wo at least,’ he said, in answer to the final question, q’his is

a big guy.’

Reacher changed one of his four dollars for quarters at the

motel desk and headed for the pay phone. Dialled his bank

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