Revealing: Forty-five degrees ahead and to the left, a man sprawled in a doorway. A big man, but inert. His limbs were relaxed in sleep. His head was cradled on his arms and canted sideways at a characteristic angle.
Drunk? Passed out?
Who was he?
The man in the hooded sweatshirt paused at the Prince Street crosswalk. Waited for the light, even though there was no traffic. Used the time to complete his inspection. The big guy's clothes were garbage, but his shoes were good. Leather, heavy, solid, proper stitched welts. Probably English. Probably three hundred dollars a pair. Maybe three-fifty. Each shoe on its own was worth twice the price of everything else the guy was wearing.
So who was he?
A bum who had stolen a pair of fancy shoes? Or not?
Not, thought the man in the hooded sweatshirt.
He turned ninety degrees and crossed West Broadway against the light. Headed straight for the doorway.
Gregory blew past a small traffic snarl at 42nd Street and caught green lights all the way to the back of the Post Office at 31st. Then the lights and his luck changed. He had to stop the BMW behind a garbage truck. He waited. Checked his watch. He had plenty of time.
The man in the hooded sweatshirt stopped one quiet pace north of the doorway. Held his breath. The guy at his feet slept on. He didn't smell. His skin was good. His hair was clean. He wasn't malnourished.
Not a bum with a pair of stolen shoes.
The man in the hooded sweatshirt smiled to himself. This was some asshole from some million-dollar SoHo loft, been out for some fun, had a little too much, couldn't make it home.
A prime target.
He shuffled half a pace forward. Breathed out, breathed in. Leveled the twin searchlights on the chino pockets. Scoped them out.
There it was.
The left-hand front pocket. The familiar delicious bulge. Exactly two and five-eighths inches wide, half an inch thick, three and a quarter inches long.
Folding money.
The man in the hooded sweatshirt had plenty of experience. He could call it sight unseen. There would be a bunch of crisp new twenties from an ATM, a couple of leathery old fives and tens from taxi change, a wrapping of crumpled ones. Total: a hundred and seventy-three dollars. That was his prediction. And his predictions were usually pretty good. He doubted that he would be disappointed. But he was prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
He bent at the waist and extended his arm.
He used his fingertips to lift the top seam of the pocket. To make a little tunnel. Then he flattened his hand, palm down, and slid his index and middle fingers inside, light, like feathers. He crossed them, like scissors, or a promise. His index finger went under the cash, all the way to the first knuckle. His middle finger went over the cash. Over the fold. Like a pincer. He used light pressure. Used the pad of his middle finger to press down through the wad to the nail of his index finger. Used a brief subtle tug to break the fiber-on-fiber bond between money and pocket. Started the slow, smooth extraction.
Then his wrist broke.
Two giant hands seized it and snapped it like a rotten twig. One shattering sudden explosion of motion. A blur. At first there was no pain. Then it kicked in like a tidal wave. But by then it was too late to scream. One of the giant hands was clamped over his mouth. It was like being hit hard in the face with a first baseman's mitt.
"I've got three questions," the big guy said, quietly. "Tell me the truth and I'll let you go. Tell me a lie and I'll break your other wrist. We clear on that?"
The big guy had hardly moved. Just his hands, once, twice, three times, fast, efficient, and lethal. He wasn't even breathing hard. The man in the hooded sweatshirt couldn't breathe at all. He nodded desperately.
"OK, first question: What exactly are you doing?" The big guy took his hand away, to enable the answer.
"Your money," the man in the hooded sweatshirt said. His voice wouldn't work properly. It was all strangled up with pain and panic.
"Not your first time," the big guy said. His eyes were half-open, clear blue, expressionless. Hypnotic. The man in the sweatshirt couldn't lie.
"I call it the dawn patrol," he said. "There's sometimes two or three guys like you."
"Not exactly like me," the big guy said.
"No."
"Bad choice."
"I'm sorry."
"Second question: Are you alone?"
"Yes, I am."
"Third question: Do you want to walk away now?"
"Yes, I do."
"So do it. Slow and natural. Go north. Turn right on Prince. Don't run. Don't look back. Just disappear. Right now."
Gregory turned left off Hudson Street onto Houston and waited at the light at the bottom of Seventh Avenue. He was a block and a half from the fireplug and about eight minutes early. He figured he would pull in at the curb before he got to Sixth. He figured he should try to time it exactly.
Reacher's heart rate was back to normal within about fifteen seconds. He jammed his cash deeper in his pocket and put his arms back behind his head. Let his head fall sideways and let his eyes half-close. He saw nobody near the red door. Saw nobody even glance at it.
The man in the hooded sweatshirt cradled his broken wrist and made it as far as Prince. Then he abandoned the slow and natural walk and just ran east as fast as he could. Stopped two blocks away and threw up in the gutter. Stayed there for a spell, bent at the waist, panting, his good hand on his knee, his bad hand tucked in the sweatshirt pocket like a sling.
Reacher had no watch but he figured when he saw Gregory it must have been between eight and nine minutes after seven o'clock. Below Houston the north-south blocks are long. Eight or nine minutes was about right for the walk down from the fireplug on Sixth. So Gregory was right on time. He came in on Spring from the west. He was walking briskly. His hand was in the pocket of his suit coat. He stopped on the sidewalk outside the dull red door and turned with military precision and walked up the three short steps, light and easy, balanced on the balls of his feet. Then his hand came out of his pocket and Reacher saw the flash of metal and black plastic. Saw Gregory lift the mail slot's flap with his left hand and shovel the keys through with his right. Saw him drop the flap back into place and turn and walk away. Saw him make the left onto West Broadway. He didn't look back. He just kept on walking, playing his part, trying to keep Kate Lane alive.
Reacher kept his eyes on the red door. Waited. Three minutes, he figured. Five million bucks was a lot of money. There would be a certain degree of impatience. As soon as the one guy confirmed that Gregory was safely distant, the other guy would be in through the door. And they would figure one long block plus a crosswalk was safely distant. So as soon as Gregory was south of Broome, the call would come.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
Nothing happened.
Reacher laid back, stayed relaxed, stayed casual. No outward sign of his interest. Or his concern.
Four minutes. Nothing happened.
Reacher kept his eyes half-closed but stared at the door so hard that its details etched themselves in his mind. Scars, nicks, streaks of dirt and rust, graffiti overspray. He felt that fifty years in the future he would be able to draw a picture as accurate as a Polaroid.
Six minutes. Eight. Nine.
Nothing happened.
There were all kinds of people on the sidewalks now but none of them went anywhere near the red door. There was traffic and there were trucks unloading and there were bodegas and bakeries open for business. There were people with newspapers and closed cups of coffee heading for the subway.
Nobody stepped up to the red door.