Free The Lost Coast by Barry Eisler Page A

couldn’t. He needed to stay sharp. Just in case.
    No sense in allowing anyone to connect him to the vehicle, so he found an unregulated stretch of street a half mile from the hotel and parked there. He got out and started walking away from the hotel. No one was watching him, but if they were, they’d describe him heading in the wrong direction. In a few blocks, he’d turn and start to move obliquely toward his intended destination. He didn’t mind the walk. It had been a long drive and the early evening was pleasantly cool. He watched his breath fogging in the moist air and enjoyed the scent of the nearby forest. Outside the town center, the streets were exceptionally quiet, even lonely, the evening mist swirling slowly under intermittent lamplights. Other than the soft crunch of his boots on the sidewalk there was no sound at all.
    The entrance to the hotel was a step back in time: an intricately tiled floor; a great, winding staircase; lights the hue of candles strung in a line along the ceiling. The clerk, pony-tailed, bearded, and pierced through his left nostril, offered no objections to Larison’s story about the loss of a wallet and accompanying ID. Maybe the situation struck the guy as strange, but so what? If anyone asked, he would describe a solid man of about forty, dark hair, dark skin, a stubble of beard, and Larison doubted whether after the passage of a few hours or a day the guy would be able to offer even that much. The guy accepted cash for a single night in a second-floor room as Larison requested, gave Larison an old-fashioned key on a chain, and bid him a good evening.
    Larison took the stairway to the second floor and let himself into the room without turning on the light. He closed the door behind him, double locked it, and crossed the short distance to the large windows. He noted that, unlike what was commonly found in more modern hotel fare, these windows were designed to be raised completely, and he opened each to confirm. He looked down and saw a closed Dumpster in the alley directly below him. In a pinch, he’d be able to hang from the window and jump, which was why he’d wanted this floor. Low enough to get down from; too high to easily get into. Of course, the people he was up against would know to have the alley covered while they breached the front door, but it could never hurt to have more options. At a minimum, the presence of an escape hatch would compel them to divide their forces, improving his odds of blitzing through the segment attacking at the door or through the segment covering the alley.
    But he reminded himself that no one had followed him, no one knew he was here. The precautions were smart, but in the end, they wouldn’t be necessary. And Arcata itself was a sleepy little town. He wasn’t going to have any trouble here.
    He closed the windows, then the blinds, and then turned on the lights. The room was Spartan: a single bed under a faded spread; a tiny nightstand hosting a plastic alarm clock; a rickety-looking wooden table and matching chair. It was fine. It was all he needed.
    He went to the bathroom and flicked on the light. Just a pygmy-sized toilet, sink, and a claw foot tub with a curtain wrapped around it so it could double as a shower. He removed from the cross-draw shoulder holster the Glock C18C machine pistol he always kept at hand and placed it on the toilet tank within easy reach. Then he took a toothbrush and travel-sized toothpaste from his pocket and brushed his teeth. Everything else he had with him, and it wasn’t much—just a second pair of jeans, a few clean shirts, and a half dozen pairs of socks and underwear—was in the trunk of the car. Enough to keep going for at least a week before it was time to look for a coin-operated laundry. If he ever had to bug out, he didn’t want to have to come back to a hotel room, or leave anything behind if he couldn’t.
    When he was done with his teeth, he undressed and took a long, hot shower. Then he got