‘He died in ‘Nam, right?’ he said.
‘I need some background.’
‘Checking for his folks again?’ He said it without surprise, and there was an edge of weariness in there, too. Like the Hobies’ problems were well known in the town, and gladly tolerated, but no longer exciting any kind of urgent sympathy.
Reacher nodded. ‘I need to get a feel for what sort of a guy he was. Story is you knew him pretty well.’
Steven looked blank again. ‘Well, I did, I guess. But we were just kids. I only saw him once, after high school.’
‘Want to tell me about him?’
‘I’m pretty busy. I’ve got unloading to see to.’
‘I could give you a hand. We could talk while we’re doing it.’
Steven started to say a routine no, but then he glanced at Reacher, saw the size of him, and smiled like a labourer who’s been offered the free use of a forklift.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Out back.’
He came out from the corral of counters and led Reacher through a rear door. There was a dusty pickup parked in the sun next to an open shed with a tin roof. The pick-up was loaded with bags of cement.
The shelves in the open shed were empty. Reacher took his jacket off and laid it on the hood of the truck.
The bags were made of thick paper. He knew from his time with the pool gang that if he used two hands on the middle of the bags, they would fold themselves over and split. The way to do it was to clamp a palm on the corner and lift them one-handed. That would keep the dust off his new shirt, too. The bags weighed a hundred pounds, so he did them two at a time, one in each hand, holding them out, counterbalanced away from his body. Steven watched him, like he was a sideshow at the circus.
‘So tell me about Victor Hobie,’ Reacher grunted.
Steven shrugged. He was leaning on a post, under the tin roof, out of the sun.
‘Long time ago,’ he said. ‘What can I tell you? We were just kids, you know? Our dads were in the chamber of commerce together. His was a printer. Mine ran this place, although it was just a lumberyard back then. We were together all the way through school. We started kindergarten on the same day, graduated high school on the same day. I only saw him once after that, when he was home from the Army. He’d been in Vietnam a year, and he was going back again.’
‘So what sort of a guy was he?’
Steven shrugged again. ‘I’m kind of wary about giving you an opinion.’
‘Why? Some kind of bad news in there?’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Steven said. ‘There’s nothing to hide. He was a good kid. But I’d be giving you one kid’s opinion about another kid from thirty-five years ago, right? Might not be a reliable opinion.’
Reacher paused, with a hundred-pound bag in each
hand. Glanced back at Steven. He was leaning on his post in his red apron, lean and fit, the exact picture of what Reacher assumed was a typical cautious smalltown Yankee businessman. The sort of guy whose judgement might be reasonably solid. He nodded.
‘OK, I can see that. I’ll take it into account.’
Steven nodded back, like the ground rules were clear. ‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-eight,’ Reacher said.
‘From around here?’
Reacher shook his head. ‘Not really from around anywhere.’
‘OK, couple of things you need to understand,’ Steven said. ‘This is a small, small suburban town, and Victor and I were born here in ’48. We were already fifteen years old when Kennedy got shot, and sixteen before the Beatles arrived, and twenty when there was all that rioting in Chicago and LA. You know what I’m saying here?’
‘Different world,’ Reacher said.
‘You bet your ass it was,’ Steven said back. ‘We grew up in a different world. Our whole childhood. To us, a real daring guy was one who put baseball cards in the wheels of his Schwinn. You need to bear that in mind, when you hear what I say.’