asked.
`No,’ I said.
Finlay wrote it all down. Then there was a long silence. I knew for sure what the next question was going to be.
`So why?’ he asked. `Why get off the bus at an unscheduled stop and walk fourteen miles in the rain to a place you had absolutely no reason to go to?’
That was the killer question. Finlay had picked it out right away. So would a prosecutor. And I had no real answer.
`What can I tell you?’ I said. `It was an arbitrary decision. I was restless. I have to be somewhere, right?’
`But why here?’ he said.
`I don’t know,’ I said. `Guy next to me had a map, and I picked this place out. I wanted to get off the main drags. Thought I could loop back down toward the Gulf, further west, maybe.’
`You picked this place out?’ Finlay said. `Don’t give me that shit. How could you pick this place out? It’s just a name. It’s just a dot on the map. You must have had a reason.’
I nodded.
`I thought I’d come and look for Blind Blake,’ I said.
`Who the hell is Blind Blake?’ he said.
I watched him evaluating scenarios like a chess computer evaluates moves. Was Blind Blake my friend, my enemy, my accomplice, conspirator, mentor, creditor, debtor, my next victim?
`Blind Blake was a guitar player,’ I said. `Died sixty years ago, maybe murdered. My brother bought a record, sleeve note said it happened in Margrave. He wrote me about it. Said he was through here a couple of times in the spring, some kind of business. I thought I’d come down and check the story out.’
Finlay looked blank. It must have sounded pretty thin to him. It would have sounded pretty thin to me too, in his position.
,You came here looking for a guitar player?’ he said. `A guitar player who died sixty years ago? Why? Are you a guitar player?’
`No,’ I said.
`How did your brother write you?’ he asked. ‘When you got no address?’
`He wrote my old unit,’ I said. `They forward my mail to my bank, where I put my severance pay. They send it on when I wire them for cash.’
He shook his head. Made a note.
`The midnight Greyhound out of Tampa, right?’ he said.
I nodded.
`Got your bus ticket?’ he asked.
`In the property bag, I guess,’ I said. I remembered Baker bagging up all my pocket junk. Stevenson tagging it.
`Would the bus driver remember?’ Finlay said.
`Maybe,’ I said. `It was a special stop. I had to ask him.’
I became like a spectator. The situation became abstract. My job had been not that different from Finlay’s. I had an odd feeling of conferring with him about somebody else’s case. Like we were colleagues discussing a knotty problem.
`Why aren’t you working?’ Finlay asked.
I shrugged. Tried to explain.
`Because I don’t want to work,’ I said. `I worked thirteen years, got me nowhere. I feel like I tried it their way, and to hell with them. Now I’m going to try it my way.’
Finlay sat and gazed at me.
`Did you have any trouble in the army?’ he said.
`No more than you did in Boston,’ I said. He was surprised.
`What do you mean by that?’ he said.
`You did twenty years in Boston,’ I said. `That’s what you told me, Finlay. So why are you down here in this no-account little place? You should be taking your pension, going out fishing. Cape Cod or wherever. What’s your story?’
`That’s my business, Mr Reacher,’ he said. `Answer my question.’
I shrugged.
`Ask the army,’ I said.
`I will,’ he said. `You can be damn sure of that. Did you get an honourable discharge?’
`Would they give me severance if I didn’t?’ I said.
`Why should I believe they gave you a dime?’ he said. `You live like a damn vagrant. Honourable discharge? Yes or no?’
`Yes,’ I said. `Of course.’
He made another note. Thought for a while. `How did it make you feel, being let go?’ he asked.
I thought about it. Shrugged at him.