Without Fail

than four miles from where I’m sitting right now . She copied the details onto her yellow paper. Picked up her phone and called a senior colleague on the other side of the organization and asked him to contact the bank in question for all the details he could get. Especially a home address. She asked him to be absolutely as fast as possible, but discreet, too. And completely off the record. Then she hung up and waited, anxious and frustrated about being temporarily hands-off. Problem was, the other side of the organization could ask banks discreet questions quite easily, whereas for Froelich to do so herself would be regarded as very odd indeed.

    Reacher found a discount store three blocks nearer the ocean and ducked inside. It was narrow but ran back into the building a couple of hundred feet. There were fluorescent tubes all over the ceiling and racks of garments stretching as far as the eye could see. Seemed to be women’s stuff on the left, children’s in the center, and men’s on the right. He started in the far back corner and worked forward.
    There were all kinds of coats commercially available, that was for damn sure. The first two rails had short padded jackets. No good . He went by something an old Army buddy had told him: a good coat is like a good lawyer. It covers your ass . The third rail was more promising. It had neutral-colored thigh-length canvas coats made bulky by thick flannel linings. Maybe there was some wool in there. Maybe some other stuff, too. They certainly felt heavy enough.
    “Can I help you?”
    He turned around and saw a young woman standing right behind him.
    “Are these coats good for the weather up here?” he asked.
    “They’re perfect,” the woman said. She was very animated. She told him all about some kind of special stuff sprayed on the canvas to repel moisture. She told him all about the insulation inside. She promised it would keep him warm right down to a subzero temperature. He ran his hand down the rail and pulled out a dark olive XXL.
    “OK, I’ll take this one,” he said.
    “You don’t want to try it on?”
    He paused and then shrugged into it. It fit pretty well. Nearly. Maybe it was a little tight across the shoulders. The sleeves were maybe an inch too short.
    “You need the 3XLT,” the woman said. “What are you, a fifty?”
    “A fifty what?”
    “Chest.”
    “No idea. I never measured it.”
    “Height about six-five?”
    “I guess,” he said.
    “Weight?”
    “Two-forty,” he said. “Maybe two-fifty.”
    “So you definitely need the big-and-tall fitting,” she said. “Try the 3XLT.”
    The 3XLT she handed him was the same dull color as the XXL he had picked. It fit much better. A little roomy, which he liked. And the sleeves were right.
    “You OK for pants?” the woman called. She had ducked away to another rail and was flicking through heavy canvas work pants, glancing at his waist and the length of his legs. She came out with a pair that matched one of the colors in the flannel lining inside the coat. “And try these shirts,” she said. She jumped over to another rail and showed him a rainbow of flannel shirts. “Put a T-shirt underneath it and you’re all set. Which color do you like?”
    “Something dull,” he said.
    She laid everything out on top of one of the rails. The coat, the pants, the shirt, a T-shirt. They looked pretty good together, muddy olives and khakis.
    “OK?” she said brightly.
    “OK,” he said. “You got underwear too?”
    “Over here,” she said.
    He rooted through a bin of reject-quality boxers and selected a pair in white. Then a pair of socks, mostly cotton, flecked with all kinds of organic colors.
    “OK?” the woman said again. He nodded and she led him to the register at the front of the store and bleeped all the tags under the little red light.
    “One hundred and eighty-nine dollars even,” she said.
    He stared at the red figures on the register’s display.
    “I thought this was a discount store,” he said.
    “That’s incredibly reasonable, really,” she said. He shook his head and dug into his pocket and came out with a wad of crumpled bills. Counted out a hundred and ninety. The dollar change she gave him left him with four bucks in his hand.

    The senior colleague from the other side of the organization called Froelich back within twenty-five minutes.
    “You get a home address?” she asked him.
    “One hundred Washington Boulevard,” the guy said. “Arlington, Virginia. Zip