`Operation E Unum Pluribus,’ Roscoe said.
Underneath was a triple-spaced list of initials with telephone numbers opposite. The first set of initials was P.H. The phone number was torn off.
`Paul Hubble,’ Roscoe said. `His number and the other half of the heading was what Finlay found.’
I nodded. Then there were four more sets of initials. The first two were W.B. and K.K. They had phone numbers alongside. I recognized a New York area code against K.K. The W.B. area code I figured I’d have to look up. The third set of initials was J.S. The code was 504. New Orleans area. I’d been there less than a month ago. The fourth set of initials was M.B.G. There was a phone number with a 202 area code. I pointed to it, so Roscoe could see it.
`Molly Beth Gordon,’ she said. `Washington DC.’
I nodded again. It wasn’t the number I had called from the rosewood office. Maybe her home number. The final two items on the torn paper were not initials, and there were no corresponding phone numbers. The second-to-last item was just two words: Stollers’ Garage. The last item was three words: Gray’s Kliner File. I looked at the careful capital letters and I could just about feel my dead brother’s neat, pedantic personality bursting off the page.
Paul Hubble we knew about. He was dead.
Molly Beth Gordon we knew about. She’d be here at two o’clock. We’d seen the garage up at Sherman Stoller’s place on the golf course. It held nothing but two empty cartons. That left the underlined heading, three sets of initials with three phone numbers, and the three words: Gray’s Kliner File. I checked the time. Just past noon. Too early to sit back and wait for Molly Beth to arrive. I figured we should make a start.
`First we think about the heading,’ I said. `E Unum Pluribus.’
Roscoe shrugged.
`That’s the US motto, right?’ she said. `The Latin thing?’
`No,’ I said. `It’s the motto backwards. This more or less means out of one comes many. Not out of many comes one.’
`Could Joe have written it down wrong?’ she said.
I shook my head.
`I doubt it,’ I said. `I don’t think Joe would make that kind of a mistake. It must mean something.’ Roscoe shrugged again.
`Doesn’t mean anything to me,’ she said. `What else?’
`Gray’s Kliner File,’ I said. `Did Gray have a file on Kliner?’
`Probably,’ Roscoe said. `He had a file on just about everything. Somebody spat on the sidewalk, he’d put it in a file.’
I nodded. Stepped back to the bed and picked up the phone. Called Finlay down in Margrave. Baker told me he’d already left. So I dialled the other numbers on Joe’s printout. The W.B. number was in New Jersey. Princeton University. Faculty of modern history. I hung up straight away. Couldn’t
see the connection. The K.K. number was in New York City. Columbia University. Faculty of modern history. I hung up again. Then I dialled J.S. in New Orleans. I heard one ring tone and a busy voice.
`Fifteenth squad, detectives,’ the voice said.
`Detectives?’ I said. `Is that the NOPD?’
`Fifteenth squad,’ the voice said again. `Can I help you?’
`You got somebody there with the initials J.S.?’ I asked.
JS.?’ the voice said. `I got three of them. Which one do you want?’
`Don’t know,’ I said. `Does the name Joe Reacher mean anything to you?’
`What the hell is this?’ the voice said. `Twenty Questions or something?’
`Ask them, will you?’ I said. `Ask each J. S. if they know Joe Reacher. Will you do that? I’ll call back later, OK?’
Down in New Orleans, the fifteenth squad desk guy grunted and hung up. I shrugged at Roscoe and put the phone back on the nightstand.
`We wait for Molly?’ she said.
I nodded. I was a little nervous about meeting Molly. It was going to be like meeting a ghost connected to another ghost.
We waited at the cramped table in the window. Watched the sun fall away from its noontime peak. Wasted time passing Joe’s torn printout back and forth between us. I stared at the heading. E Unum Pluribus. Out of one comes many. That was Joe Reacher, in three words. Something important, all bound up in a wry little pun.