"You don't shoot me, either," Picard screamed. "My phone call is the only way you're going to save that woman. That's for sure. You better believe it."
"I know that, Picard," I yelled back. "I believe it. I'm not going to shoot you. Are you going to shoot me?"
He shook his head over the.38.
"I'm not going to shoot you, Reacher," he said.
It looked like a stalemate. We circled the Bentley with our fingers white on the triggers, telling each other we weren't going to shoot.
He was telling the truth. But I was lying. I waited until he was lined up with the wreckage of the truck and I was next to the Bentley. Then I pulled the trigger. The.44 shell caught him and smashed his huge bulk backward into the tangled metal. I didn't wait around for a second shot. I slammed the trunk lid and jumped for the driver's seat. Fired the car up and burned rubber. I peeled away from the shoulder and dodged the people running around after the dollar bills. Jammed my foot down and hurtled east.
Twenty miles to go. Took me twenty minutes. I was gasping and shaky with adrenaline. I forced my heartbeat down and took big gulps of air. Then I yelled to myself in triumph. Screamed and yelled out loud. Picard was gone.
Chapter Thirty-One
IT WAS DARK WHEN I HIT THE OUTLYING AUGUSTA SUBURBS. I pulled off the highway as soon as the taller buildings started to thicken up. Drove down the city streets and stopped at the first motel I saw. Locked the Bentley up and dodged into the office. Stepped over to the desk. The clerk looked up.
"Got a room?" I asked him.
"Thirty-six bucks," the guy said.
"Phone in the room?" I asked him.
"Sure," he said. "Air-conditioning and cable TV."
"Yellow Pages in the room?" I asked him.
He nodded.
"Got a map of Augusta?" I said.
He jerked his thumb over to a rack next to a cigarette machine. It was stuffed with maps and brochures. I peeled off thirty-six bucks from the roll in my trouser pocket. Dropped the cash on the desk. Filled in the register. I put my name down as Roscoe Finlay.
"Room twelve," the guy said. Slid me the key.
I stopped to grab a map and hustled out. Ran down the row to room twelve. Let myself in and locked the door. I didn't look at the room. Just looked for the phone and the Yellow Pages. I lay on the bed and unfolded the map. Opened up the Yellow Pages to H for hotels.
There was a huge list. In Augusta, there were hundreds of places where you could pay for a bed for the night. Literally hundreds. Pages and pages of them. So I looked at the map. Concentrated on a wedge a half mile long and four blocks deep, either side of the main drag in from the west. That was my target area. I downgraded the places right on the main drag. I upgraded the places a block or two off. Prioritized the places between a quarter mile and a half mile out. I was looking at a rough square, a quarter mile long and a quarter mile deep. I put the map and the phone book side by side and made a hit list.
Eighteen hotels. One of them was the place I was lying there in. So I picked up the phone and dialed zero for the desk. The clerk answered.
"You got a guy called Paul Lennon registered?" I asked him.
There was a pause. He was checking the book.
"Lennon?" he said. "No, sir."
"OK," I said. Put the phone down.
I took a deep breath and started at the top of my list. Dialed the first place.
"You got a guy called Paul Lennon registered?" I asked the guy who answered.
There was a pause.
"No, sir," the guy said.
I worked down the list. Dialed one place after another.
"You got a guy called Paul Lennon registered?" I asked each clerk.
There was always a pause while they checked their registers. Sometimes I could hear the pages turning. Some of them had computers. I could hear keyboards pattering.
"No, sir," they all said. One after the other.
I lay there on the bed with the phone balanced on my chest. I was down to number thirteen out of the eighteen on my list.
"You got a guy called Paul Lennon registered?" I asked.
There was a pause. I could hear pages turning.
"No, sir," the thirteenth clerk said.
"OK," I said. Put the phone down.
I picked it up again and stabbed out the fourteenth number. Got a busy signal. So I dabbed the cradle and stabbed out the fifteenth number.
"You got a guy called Paul Lennon registered?" I asked.
There was a pause.
"Room one twenty," the fifteenth clerk said.
"Thank you," I said. Put the phone down.
I lay there. Closed my eyes. Breathed out. I put the phone back on the nightstand thing and checked the map. The fifteenth hotel was three blocks away. North of the main drag. I left the room key on the bed and went back out to the car. The engine was still warm. I'd been in there about twenty-five minutes.
I had to drive three blocks east before I could make a left. Then three blocks north before I could make another. I went around a kind of jagged spiral. I found the fifteenth hotel and parked at the door. Went into the lobby. It was a dingy sort of a place. Not clean, not well lit. It looked like a cave.
"Can I help you?" the desk guy asked.
"No," I said.
I followed an arrow down a warren of corridors. Found room one twenty. Rapped on the door. I heard the rattle of the chain going on. I stood there. The door cracked open.
"Hello, Reacher," he said.
"Hello, Hubble," I said.
HE WAS SPILLING OVER WITH QUESTIONS FOR ME, BUT I JUST hustled him out to the car. We had four hours on the road for all that stuff. We had to get going. I was over two hours ahead of schedule. I wanted to keep it that way. I wanted to put those two hours in the bank. I figured I might need them later.