49

Milena was looking shaky, so Reacher used his forearm to clear shards of broken china off the kitchen countertop, to give her a place to sit. She boosted herself up and sat with her elbows turned out and her hands laid flat on the laminate, palms down, trapped under her knees.

Reacher said, “We need to know what Jorge was working on. We need to know what caused all this trouble.”

“I don’t know what it was.”

“But you spent time with him.”

“A lot.”

“And you knew each other well.”

“Very well.”

“For years.”

“On and off.”

“So he must have talked to you about his work.”

“All the time.”

“So what was on his mind?”

Milena said, “Business was slow. That’s what was on his mind.”

“His business here? In Vegas?”

Milena nodded. “It was great in the beginning. Years ago, they were always busy. They had a lot of contracts. But the big places dropped them, one by one. They all set up in-house operations. Jorge said it was inevitable. Once they reach a certain size, it makes more sense.”

“We met a guy at our hotel who said Jorge was still busy. ‘Like a one-armed paperhanger.’”

Milena smiled. “The guy was being polite. And Jorge put a brave face on it. Manuel Orozco, too. At first they used to say, We’ll fake it until we make it. Then they said, We’ll fake it now we’re not making it anymore. They kept up a front. They were too proud to beg.”

“So what are you saying? They were going down the tubes?”

“Fast. They did a bit of muscle work here and there. Doormen at some of the clubs, running cheats out of town, stuff like that. They did some consulting for the hotels. But not much anymore. Those people always think they know better, even when they don’t.”

“Did you see what Jorge wrote on the napkin?”

“Of course. I cleared dinner away after he left. He wrote numbers.”

“What did they mean?”

“I don’t know. But he was very worried about them.”

“What did he do next? After Franz’s call?”

“He called Manuel Orozco. Right away. Orozco was very worried about the numbers, too.”

“How did it all start? Who came to them?”

“Came to them?”

Reacher asked, “Who was their client?”

Milena looked straight at him. Then she turned and twisted and looked at O’Donnell, and then Dixon, and then Neagley.

“You’re not listening to me,” she said. “They didn’t really have clients. Not anymore.”

“Something must have happened,” Reacher said.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, someone must have come to them with a problem. On the job somewhere, or at the office.”

“I don’t know who came to them.”

“Jorge didn’t say?”

“No. One day they were sitting around doing nothing, the next day they were as busy as blue-assed flies. That’s what they used to call it. Blue-assed flies, not one-armed paperhangers.”

“But you don’t know why?”

Milena shook her head. “They didn’t tell me.”

“Who else might know?”

“Orozco’s wife might know.”