Tripwire

odds. Reacher saw him doing it and figured full and fair disclosure was called for. He held his right hand up, eye level, to confirm it was free and ready for activity. It was a huge hand, brown, callused from the shovel handle, and the guy got the message. He shrugged and started down the stairs. Reacher straight-armed his pal after him.
    “We’ll see you again,” the guy said.
    “Bring all your friends,” Reacher called down. “Three bucks each to get in.”
    He started back into the room. The dancer called Crystal was standing right there behind him.
    “What did they want?” she asked.
    He shrugged.
    “Looking for somebody.”
    “Somebody called Reacher?”
    He nodded.
    “Second time today,” she said. “There was an old guy in here before. He paid the three bucks. You want to go after them? Check them out?”
    He hesitated. She swept his shirt off the barstool and handed it to him.
    “Go for it,” she said. “We’re OK in here for a spell. Quiet night.”
    He took the shirt. Pulled the sleeves right side out.
    “Thanks, Crystal, he said.”
    He put the shirt on and buttoned it. Headed for the stairs.
    “You’re welcome, Reacher,” she called after him.
    He spun around, but she was already walking back toward the stage. He looked blankly at the desk girl and headed down to the street.
    KEY WEST AT eleven in the evening is about as lively as it gets. Some people are halfway through their night, others are just starting out. Duval is the main street, running the length of the island east to west, bathed in light and noise. Reacher wasn’t worried about the guys waiting for him on Duval. Too crowded. If they had revenge on their minds, they’d pick a quieter location. Of which there was a fair choice. Off Duval, especially to the north, it gets quiet quickly. The town is miniature. The blocks are tiny. A short stroll takes you twenty blocks up into what Reacher thought of as the suburbs, where he dug pools into the tiny yards behind the small houses. The street lighting gets haphazard and the bar noise fades into the heavy buzz of nighttime insects. The smell of beer and smoke is replaced by the heavy stink of tropical plants blooming and rotting in the gardens.
    He walked a sort of spiral through the darkness. Nobody around. He walked in the middle of the road. Anybody hiding in a doorway, he wanted to give them ten or fifteen feet of open space to cover. He wasn’t worried about getting shot at. The guys had no guns. Their suits proved it. Too tight to conceal weapons. And the suits meant they’d come south in a hurry. Flown down. No easy way to get on a plane with a gun in your pocket.
    He gave it up after a mile or so. A tiny town, but still big enough for a couple of guys to lose themselves in. He turned left along the edge of the graveyard and headed back toward the noise. There was a guy on the sidewalk against the chain-link fence. Sprawled out and inert. Not an unusual sight in Key West, but there was something wrong. And something familiar. The wrong thing was the guy’s arm. It was trapped under his body. The shoulder nerves would be shrieking hard enough to cut through however drunk or stoned the guy was. The familiar thing was the pale gleam of an old beige jacket. The top half of the guy was light, the bottom half was dark. Beige jacket, gray pants. Reacher paused and glanced around. Stepped near. Crouched down.
    It was Costello. His face was pounded to pulp. Masked in blood. There were crusty brown rivulets all over the triangle of blue-white city skin showing through at the neck of his shirt. Reacher felt for the pulse behind the ear. Nothing. He touched the skin with the back of his hand. Cool. No rigor, but then it was a hot night. The guy was dead maybe an hour.
    He checked inside the jacket. The overloaded wallet was gone. Then he saw the hands. The fingertips had been sliced off. All ten of them. Quick efficient angled cuts, with something neat and sharp. Not a scalpel. A broader blade. Maybe a linoleum knife.

2
    “’IT’S MY FAULT,“ Reacher said.
    Crystal shook her head.
    “You didn’t kill the guy,” she said.
    Then she looked up at him, sharply. “Did you?”
    “I got him killed,” Reacher said. “Is there a difference?”
    The bar had closed at one o’clock and they were side by side on two chairs next to the empty stage. The lights were off and there was no music. No sound at all, except the hum of the air-conditioning running at quarter speed, sucking