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A uniform, Reacher guessed, partly practical and partly suggestive of the kind of thing an Indy 500 pit mechanic might wear. Behind one of the computers was a tall boy somewhere in his early twenties.
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There were registers and computers and thick paper manuals. In the army there had been guys to do it for him, and since the army he had never had a vehicle of his own.Ä«etween the glamour stuff and the boring stuff was a service corral made of four counters boxed together. Clutch plates, brake pads, radiator hoses, stuff like that, he guessed. In back were racks of things in red cardboard boxes.
#A heartbeat away by jack reacher full
At the front of the store were racks full of glass and chrome things. There were maybe a half-dozen customers walking around, looking. The air was set very cold and smelled of sharp chemical flavors. The Chevy had chromed silhouettes of reclining women on the mud flaps, which made the Toyota the redhead's car. One was a four-cylinder Chevy, and the other was a small Toyota SUV. They weren't allowed to park in the prime front-and-center slots, but they wanted their rides where they could see them through the windows. There were two cars alone together in the end bays. There were tired sedans halfway through their third hundred thousand miles. There were listing pickup trucks with broken springs. There were slammed Hondas with wide pipes and blue headlight bulbs and rubber-band tires on chrome wheels. The parking lot was about a quarter full. Cheap oil filters, cheap antifreeze, guaranteed brake parts, superduty truck batteries. New blacktop in the lot, urgent messages in the windows. It was a franchise operation, long and low, neat and clean. Trade-ins, Reacher guessed, looking for new homes. The wires had tinsel bunting attached to them. Behind them was a giant inflatable gorilla tied down with guy wires. He spent ten minutes hiking past a Ford dealership with about a thousand new pickup trucks lined up shoulder to shoulder with their front wheels up on ramps. No existing leases, nothing to tear down. Then there was a raw cross street and beyond it the lots got bigger and the buildings got newer. There was an old-fashioned motor court on a lot that once must have stood on the edge of town. There was a barbershop with a sign: Any Style $7. There was a gun store with heavy mesh on the windows. Closest to downtown it had small run-down establishments. The road he wanted came in at a shallow angle south of it and diverted him away. He went north and west, which meant he missed the sports bar by a block. At street level the air was warm and still. He rode down to the lobby and set out walking. He fixed its position in his mind, because that was the road he wanted. A long straight road came off the cloverleaf and ran back toward him. Far beyond it in the distance the northward spur carried on straight and met a cloverleaf about two miles away in the haze. Directly below him the highway spur curled around behind the library and the tower and ran away due east. He walked to the northwest corner, and wind whipped at him and flattened his shirt against his body and his pants against his legs. South and west, he could see where the raised highway separated. But it felt like the highest point in Indiana. It was fifteen stories up, which wasn't much in comparison with some cities. The roof was gray tar paper covered with gravel. He came out through a triangular metal hutch next to the water tank and the elevator winding gear. Reacher rode the elevator to the top of the black glass tower and found a maintenance stairwell that led to the roof.