‘Let’s have dinner,’ he said. ‘Not just coffee. My treat.’
‘OK,’ she said, and linked her arm through his again.
The dinner for two cost him the price of the new shirt, which he thought was not outrageous. They had dessert and coffee, and then some of the smaller stores were closing up for the day.
‘OK, home,’ he said. ‘And we play it real cautious from here.’
They walked through the department store, through the displays in reverse, first the pastel summer cottons and then the fierce smell of the cosmetics. He stopped her inside the brass-and-glass doors and scanned ahead out in the garage, where the air was warm and damp. A million-to-one possibility, but worth taking into account. Nobody there, just people hustling back to their cars with bulging bags. They walked together to the Bravada and she slid into the driver’s seat. He got in beside her.
‘Which way would you normally go?’
‘From here? FDR Drive, I guess.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Head out for LaGuardia, and we’ll come in down through Brooklyn. Over the Brooklyn Bridge.’
She looked at him. ‘You sure? You want to do the tourist thing, there are better places to go than the Bronx and Brooklyn.’
‘First rule,’ he said. ‘Predictability is unsafe. If you’ve got a route you’d normally take, today we take a different one.’
‘You serious?’
‘You bet your ass. I used to do VIP protection for a living.’
‘I’m a VIP now?’
‘You bet your ass,’ he said again.
An hour later it was dark, which is the best condition for using the Brooklyn Bridge. Reacher felt like a tourist as they swooped around the ramp and up over the hump of the span and Lower Manhattan was suddenly there in front of them with a billion bright lights everywhere. One of the world’s great sights, he thought, and he had inspected most of the competition.
‘Go a few blocks north,’ he said. ‘We’ll come in from a distance. They’ll be expecting us to come straight home.’
She swung wide to the right and headed north on Lafayette. Hung a tight left and another and came back travelling south on Broadway. The light at Leonard was red. Reacher scanned ahead in the neon wash.
“Three blocks,’ Jodie said.
‘Where do you park?’
‘Garage under the building.’
‘OK, turn off a block short,’ he said. ‘I’ll check it out. Come around again and pick me up. If I’m not waiting on the sidewalk, go to the cops.’
She made the right on Thomas. Stopped and let him out. He slapped lightly on the roof and she took off again. He walked around the corner and found her building. It was a big square place, renovated lobby with heavy glass doors, big lock, a vertical row of fifteen buzzers with names printed behind little plastic windows. Apartment twelve had JacoblGarber, like there were two people living there. There were people on the street, some of them loitering in knots, some of them walking, but none of them interesting. The parking garage entrance was farther on down the sidewalk. It was an abrupt slope into darkness. He walked down. It was quiet and badly lit. There were two rows of eight spaces, fifteen altogether because the ramp up to the street was where the sixteenth would be. Eleven cars parked up. He checked the full length of the place. Nobody hiding out. He came back up the ramp and ran back to Thomas. Dodged the traffic and crossed the street and waited. She was coming south through the light towards him. She saw him and pulled over and he got back in alongside her.
‘All clear,’ he said.
She made it back out into the traffic and then pulled right and bumped down the ramp. Her headlights bounced and swung. She stopped in the centre aisle and backed into her space. Killed the motor and the lights.
‘How do we get upstairs?’ he asked.
She pointed. ‘Door to the lobby.’
There was a flight of metal steps up to a big industrial door, which had a steel sheet riveted over it. The door had a big lock, same as on the glass doors to the street. They got out and locked the car. He carried her garment bag. They walked to the steps and up to the door. She worked the lock and he swung it open. The lobby was empty. A single elevator opposite them.