And then he turned around and headed out, ready for the next in line. Maybe a coder, maybe not. The door swung shut behind him.

Reacher said, “It’s a bruise. It’s getting better.”

Chang said, “Thank you for having it checked. Let’s go find the hotel.”

“Should have gone direct.”

“Reacher, you fell over.”

He walked carefully, all the way to the cab line.

Chapter 48

People said that on a map San Francisco looked like a thumb sticking up south to north, shielding the Bay from the Pacific, but Reacher thought it curved more like a raised middle finger. Although why the city should be mad at the ocean, he didn’t know. The fog, maybe. But either way, the hotel Westwood had chosen was at the tip, where either the thumbnail or the fingernail would be. Right on the waterfront. It was dark, so the view was a void, apart from the Golden Gate Bridge, which was all lit up, on the left, and then further out on the right was the distant twinkle of Sausalito and Tiburon.

They checked in and washed up and met in the restaurant for dinner. It was a pretty room, with plenty of crisp white linen. There were couples and foursomes in there. They were the only threesome. Trysts and deals were going on all around them. Westwood got the internet on his phone and said, “Forty thousand suicides every year in America. One every thirteen minutes. Statistically we’re more likely to kill ourselves than each other. Who knew?”

Chang said, “If five of them every nine days use the Mother’s Rest concierge service, that’s a couple hundred a year. Like Keever’s note. We already saw two.”

Reacher said, “What would you pay for that?”

“I wouldn’t, I hope.”

“If it’s nine hundred bucks to do it yourself in bed, then what would be reasonable? Five times as much? Say five grand?”

“Maybe. For the pampering. Like going to the spa instead of filing your nails at home.”

“That would be a million dollars a year. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”

“But?”

“Their proposed hit list this week alone was Keever, McCann, you, me, and the Lair family. Seven people. Which is not a problem, apparently, because they rent a Ukrainian tough guy to do the heavy lifting. That’s a big reaction for a million bucks.”

“People get killed for a dollar.”

“On the street in a panic. Not as a strategic imperative. I think there’s more in this than a million bucks. But I don’t see how. Folks wouldn’t pay ten or twenty grand. Or more. Would they? They could buy their own 1970s Chevy. They could buy a garden shed and drill a hole.”

“This is not necessarily a rational decision. And it’s totally based on not buying your own Chevy. That’s the point. Full service.”

“So what would they pay?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to picture it. Imagine you’re a rich guy, and you want out. One final luxury. Discreet people in the background, making sure it all goes OK. Care and concern, and hands to hold. It’s a major event in your life, obviously. You might pay what you paid for your car. Which is probably a Mercedes or a BMW. Fifty grand, maybe. Or even eighty. Or more. I mean, why not? You can’t take it with you.”

Westwood said, “When are we going there?”

Reacher said, “When we’ve made a plan. It’s a tactical challenge. Like approaching a small island across an open sea. It’s as flat as a pool table there. The grain elevators are the tallest things in the county. I’m sure they have all kinds of ladders and catwalks. For maintenance. They’ll post lookouts. They’ll see us coming ten minutes away. And if we come by train, they’ll be lined up on the ramp, just waiting for us.”

“We could drive in by night.”

“They would see the headlights a hundred miles away.”

“We could switch them off.”

“We wouldn’t see our way. It’s pitch black at night. It’s the countryside.”

“The roads are straight.”

“Plus at the moment we’re unarmed.”

Westwood said nothing.

After dinner Westwood went to his room and Reacher and Chang took a stroll outside, on the Embarcadero. Near the water. The night was cool. Literally half of the Phoenix temperature. Chang had nothing but her T-shirt. She walked pressed up hard against him, for warmth. It made them clumsy, like a three-legged creature.

Reacher said, “Are you holding me upright?”

She said, “How do you feel now?”

“Still got a headache.”

“I don’t want to go back to Mother’s Rest until you feel better.”

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“I wouldn’t go back there at all if it wasn’t for Keever. Who am I to judge? They’re meeting a need. Maybe Westwood is right. Maybe we’ll all be doing it in a hundred years.”

Reacher said nothing.

She said, “What?”