Chang didn’t answer. Reacher’s hands felt dirty. From moving furniture, and touching surfaces not regularly cleaned. He stepped into the bathroom and flipped up the tap to wet his hands. The soap was a new cake, still wrapped in tissue paper. Light blue, all pleated and stuck down with a gold label. Not the worst place Reacher had ever seen. He pulled off the paper and balled it up. The trash can was under the vanity. The vanity was deep. A kind of underhand through-the-slot change-up was required. Left-handed, too. Which he executed. And then he washed his hands, the new soap hard at first, and then better later. He dried his hands on a fresh towel, and then his conscience got the better of him, and he bent down to check his tissue-paper spitball had in fact hit the target.

It hadn’t.

The trash can was round, like a short cylinder, but it was jammed up in a left-hand corner, which meant there was a shallow space behind. The kind of space that got ignored, especially by maids with mops. Not for two-dollar tips. It was the kind of space that ended up the graveyard of errant throws.

Three of them.

One was his own spitball. He could tell by the dampness. One was an older version of the same thing. Bone dry. A previous cake of soap.

And one was a piece of furred paper, like junk from a pocket.

Chapter 12

The paper was a stiff white square, about three and a half inches on a side, with one gummed edge. A sheet from a memo block or cube. Reacher had seen such things before. It had been folded in four, and it had ridden in a pocket for a month or more. The folds were worn, and the corners had deteriorated, and the surfaces were rubbed. Reacher guessed it had been flicked toward the trash can, maybe two-fingered like a trick with a playing card, but it had sailed too far, and hit the deck in no-man’s-land.

He unfolded it and smoothed it flat. What could be called the outer face was blank. Just a rub of grime, and faint indigo staining, probably from denim. From the back pocket of a pair of blue jeans, he thought.

He turned the paper over.

What could be called the inner face had writing on it. Ballpoint pen, a hurried note. A scrawl, really. There was a phone number, and the words 200 deaths.

Reacher asked, “Is this Keever’s handwriting?”

Chang said, “I don’t know. I’ve never seen Keever’s handwriting. And it isn’t a great sample. So we can’t be certain. Think like a defense attorney. There’s no unbroken chain of custody. Anyone could have left this here. At any time.”

“Sure,” Reacher said. “But suppose it’s Keever’s. What would it be?”

“Be? A note, probably made during a phone call. In his office. His spare bedroom, anyway. Maybe an initial contact, or a follow-up call. High stakes, with two hundred deaths, and a phone number, which might be either the client, or a source of independent corroboration. Or a source of further information.”

“Why would he throw it away?”

“Because later he wrote it up in longer form, so he didn’t need it anymore. Maybe he was standing here at the mirror, checking himself over, like people do. Maybe he dumped his old Kleenex and took new, and maybe he checked his other pockets at the same time. Maybe he hadn’t used those pants for a while.”

The phone number’s area code was 323. Reacher said, “Los Angeles, right?”

Chang nodded and said, “Either a cell or a land line.”

“Two hundred deaths. That would qualify as serious danger.”

“If it’s Keever’s. If it was about this current case. It could be anybody’s about anything.”

“Who else would pass through here with two hundred deaths on his mind?”

“Who says they did? Even if it’s Keever’s, it could have been an old case. Or a different case. Or it could have been a liability lawyer a year ago, chasing ambulances. How could there even be two hundred deaths here? That’s twenty percent of the population. Someone would have noticed. You wouldn’t need a private investigator.”

“Let’s call the number,” Reacher said. “Let’s see who answers.”

Reacher locked up the room, and they went down the metal stairs, and a hundred feet away the one-eyed guy came out of his office and bustled across toward them, waving and gesturing. When he arrived he said, “Excuse me, sir, but 215 is not your registered room.”

Reacher said, “Then amend your register. The room was paid for by an associate of ours, and I’m going to be using it until he returns.”

“You can’t do that.”

“No such word.”

“How did you get the key?”

“I found it under a bush. Just lucky, I guess.”

“This is not allowed.”

“Then call the cops,” Reacher said.

The guy said nothing. He just huffed and puffed for a moment, and then he turned around and headed back, without another word.

Chang said, “Suppose he does call the cops?”