The Christmas Scorpion_A Jack Reacher Short Story by Lee Child

Author:Lee Child [Child, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2018-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

TWO

THE TREES COOLED and freshened the air, so Reacher was happy to keep up a steady four miles an hour, which for his length of leg was exactly eighty-eight beats a minute, which was exactly the tempo of a whole bunch of great music, so it was easy time to pass. He did thirty minutes, two miles, seven classic tracks in his head, and then he heard real sounds behind him, and turned around to see an ancient pick-up coming crabwise towards him, as if each of the wheels wanted to go in a different direction.

Reacher stuck out his thumb.

The truck stopped. An old guy with a long white beard leaned across inside and wound down the passenger window and said, ‘I’m going to Laconia.’

‘Me too,’ Reacher said.

‘Well, OK.’

Reacher got in, and wound the window back up. The old guy pulled out and wobbled back up to speed.

He said, ‘I guess this is the part where you tell me I need to get new tyres.’

‘It’s a possibility,’ Reacher said.

‘But at my age I try to avoid large capital expenditures. Why invest in the future? Do I have one?’

‘That argument is more circular than your tyres.’

‘Actually the frame is bent. I was in a wreck.’

‘When?’

‘Close on twenty-three years ago.’

‘So this is normal to you now.’

‘Keeps me awake.’

‘How do you know where to point the steering wheel?’

‘You get used to it. Like sailing a boat. Why are you going to Laconia?’

‘I was passing by,’ Reacher said. ‘My father was born there. I want to see it.’

‘What’s your last name?’

‘Reacher.’

The old guy shook his head.

He said, ‘I never knew anyone in Laconia named Reacher.’

The reason for the previous Y-shaped fork in the road turned out to be a lake, wide enough to make north– south drivers pick a side, right bank or left bank. Reacher and the old guy squirmed and shuddered along the right bank, which was mechanically stressful, but visually beautiful, because the view was stunning and the sun was less than an hour from setting. Then came the town of Laconia itself. It was a bigger place than Reacher was expecting. Fifteen or twenty thousand people. A county seat. Solid and prosperous. There were brick buildings and neat old-fashioned streets. The low red sun made them look like they were in an old-time movie.

The squirming pick-up truck wobbled to a stop at a downtown corner. The old guy said, ‘This is Laconia.’

Reacher said, ‘How much has it changed?’

‘Around here, not much.’

‘I grew up thinking it was smaller than this.’

‘Most people remember things bigger.’

Reacher thanked the guy for the ride, and got out, and watched the truck squeal away, each tyre insisting the other three were wrong. Then he turned away and walked random blocks, getting a sense for what might be where, in particular two specific destinations for start of business the next day, and two for immediate attention that evening, the first being a place to eat, and the second being a place to sleep.

Both were available, in a historic-downtown kind of way.

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