A top-floor walk-up, in other words, with no view. In an unremarkable building on a second-rate street. Location was working against the guy.The street door was stout and securely locked.Chang pressed McCann’s call button. They heard no sound inside. Too far away, presumably. There was no crackling reply over the speaker. Nothing at all. Just a hot quiet morning, with nothing stirring.Reacher said, “Try his phone again.”Their burner had a redial facility. Not bad for thirteen bucks. Chang hit it and they waited cheek to cheek.It rang and rang.No answer.She killed the call.She said, “Now what?”“Too early for pizza,” Reacher said. “We’ll have to be UPS.” He pressed nine separate buttons, and when the first of them answered he said, “Package delivery, ma’am.”There was a pause, and then the door lock buzzed and clicked.They went inside, through a hot vestibule with bikes and baby carriages and drifts of Thai menus and locksmiths’ cards, into a downstairs hallway that bore traces of family living from a hundred years before, with crown moldings and wallpaper.
