Lee Child - [Jack Reacher 01-16]

by Jack Reacher Series (epub)

  “You want to get some dinner?”

  “We’re on opposite sides.”

  “We had lunch.”

  “Only because I wanted something from you.”

  “We can still be civilized.”

  She shook her head. “I’m having dinner with my father.”

  “He’s on the opposite side.”

  “He’s my father.”

  Reacher said nothing.

  “Were the cops OK?” she asked.

  Reacher nodded. “They were courteous enough.”

  “They can’t have been very pleased to see you. They don’t understand why you’re really here.”

  “They don’t need to worry. They’ve got a great case.”

  “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

  “She’s been singing since Friday at five. Pretty loud.”

  “Maybe we could have a drink after dinner,” she said. “If I can get away in time. There’s a sports bar six blocks north of here. Monday night, it’s about the only place in town. I’ll drop by and see if you’re there. But I can’t promise anything.”

  “Neither can I,” Reacher said. “Maybe I’ll be at the hospital, unplugging James Barr’s life support.”

  He rode down in the elevator and found Rosemary Barr waiting for him in the lobby. He guessed she had just gotten back from the hospital and had called upstairs and Helen Rodin had told her he was on his way down. So she had waited. She was pacing nervously, side to side, crossing and recrossing the route between the elevator bank and the street door.

  “Can we talk?” she asked.

  “Outside,” he said.

  He led her through the door and across the plaza to the south wall of the pool. It was still filling slowly. The fountain splashed and tinkled. He sat where he had sat before, with the funeral tributes at his feet. Rosemary Barr stood in front of him, facing him, very close, her eyes on his, not looking down at the flowers and the candles and the photographs.

  “You need to keep an open mind,” she said.

  “Do I?” he said.

  “James wanted you here, therefore he can’t be guilty.”

  “That’s a leap.”

  “It’s logical,” she said.

  “I just saw the evidence,” he said. “More than enough for anyone.”

  “I’m not going to argue about fourteen years ago.”

  “You can’t.”

  “But he’s innocent now.”

  Reacher said nothing.

  “I understand how you feel,” Rosemary said. “You think he let you down.”

  “He did.”

  “But suppose he didn’t? Suppose he met your conditions and this is all a mistake? How would you feel then? What would you do for him? If you’re ready to stand up against him, don’t you think you should be equally ready to stand up for him?”

  “That’s too hypothetical for me.”

  “It’s not hypothetical. I’m just asking, if you’re proved wrong, if he didn’t do it, will you put the same energy into helping him?”

  “If I’m proved wrong, he won’t need my help.”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes,” Reacher said, because it was an easy promise to make.

  “So you need to keep an open mind.”

  “Why did you move out?”

  She paused. “He was angry all the time. It was no fun living with him.”

  “Angry at what?”

  “At everything.”

  “So maybe it’s you who should keep an open mind.”

  “I could have made up a reason. But I didn’t. I told you the truth. I don’t want to hide anything. I need you to trust me. I need to make you believe. My brother’s an unhappy man, maybe even disturbed. But he didn’t do this.”

  Reacher said nothing.

  “Will you keep an open mind?” she asked.

  Reacher didn’t answer. Just shrugged and walked away.

  He didn’t go to the hospital. Didn’t unplug James Barr’s machines. He went to the sports bar instead, after a shower back at the Metropole Palace. The six blocks north of the black glass tower took him under the highway again and out into a hinterland. Gentrification had a boundary to the south, as he had seen, and now he saw it had a boundary to the north, too. The bar was a little ways beyond it. It was in a plain square building that could have started out as anything. Maybe a feed store, maybe an automobile showroom, maybe a pool hall. It had a flat roof and bricked-up windows and moss growing where blocked rainwater gutters had spilled.

  Inside it was better, but generic. It was like every other sports bar he had ever been in. It was one tall room with black-painted air-conditioning ducts pinned to the ceiling. It had three dozen TV screens hanging from the walls and the ceiling. It had all the usual sports-bar stuff all over the place. Signed uniform jerseys framed under glass, football helmets displayed on shelves, hockey sticks, basketballs, baseballs, old game-day programs. The waitstaff was all female, all of them in cheerleader-style uniforms. The bar staff was male and dressed in striped umpire uniforms.

  The TVs were all tuned to football. Inevitable, Reacher guessed, on a Monday night. Some of the screens were regular TVs, and some were plasmas, and some were projectors. The same event was displayed dozens of times, all with slightly different color and focus, some big, some small, some bright, some dim. There were plenty of people in there, but Reacher got a table to himself. In a corner, which he liked. A hard-worked waitress ran over to him and he ordered beer and a cheeseburger. He didn’t look at the menu. Sports bars always had beer and cheeseburgers.

  He ate his meal and drank his beer and watched the game. Time passed and the place filled up and got more and more crowded and noisy, but nobody came to share his table. Reacher had that kind of an effect on people. He sat there alone, in a bubble of quiet, with a message plainly displayed: Stay away from me.

  Then someone ignored the message and came to join him. It was partly his own fault. He looked away from the screen and saw a girl hovering nearby. She was juggling a bottle of beer and a full plate of tacos. She was quite a sight. She had waved red hair and a red gingham shirt open at the neck and tied off at the navel. She had tight pants on that looked like denim but had to be spandex. She had the whole hourglass thing going, big-time. And she was in shiny lizard-skin boots. Open the encyclopedia to C for Country Girl and her picture was going to be right there staring back at you. She looked too young for the beer. But she was past puberty. That was for damn sure. Her shirt buttons were straining. And there was no visible panty line under the spandex. Reacher looked at her for a second too long, and she took it as an invitation.

  “Can I share your table?” she asked from a yard away.

  “Help yourself,” he said.

  She sat down. Not opposite him, but in the chair next to him.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  She drank from her bottle and kept her eyes on him. Green eyes, bright, wide open. She half-turned toward him and arched the small of her back. Her shirt was open three buttons. Maybe a 34D, Reacher figured, in a push-up bra. He could see the edge of it. White lace.

  She leaned close because of the noise.

  “Do you like it?” she asked.

  “Like what?” he said.

  “Football,” she said.

  “A bit,” he said.

  “Did you play?”

  Did you, not do you. She made him feel old.

  “You’re certainly big enough,” she said.

  “I tried out for Army,” he said. “When I was at West Point.”

  “Did you make the team?”

  “Only once.”

  “Were you injured?”

  “I was too violent.”

  She half-smiled, not sure if he was joking.

  “Want a taco?” she said.

  “I just ate.”

  “I’m Sandy,” she said.

  So was I, he thought. Friday, on the beach.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

&
nbsp; “Jimmy Reese,” he said.

  He saw a flash of surprise in her eyes. He didn’t know why. Maybe she had had a boyfriend called Jimmy Reese. Or maybe she was a serious fan of the New York Yankees.

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Jimmy Reese,” she said.

  “Likewise,” he said, and turned back to the game.

  “You’re new in town, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Usually,” he said.

  “I was wondering,” she said. “If you only like football a bit, maybe you would like to take me somewhere else.”

  “Like where?”

  “Like somewhere quieter. Maybe somewhere a little lonelier.”

  He said nothing.

  “I’ve got a car,” she said.

  “You old enough to drive?”

  “I’m old enough to do lots of things. And I’m pretty good at some of them.”

  Reacher said nothing. She moved on her chair. Pushed it out from the table a little way. Turned toward him and looked down.

  “Do you like these pants?” she asked.

  “I think they suit you very well.”

  “I do, too. Only problem is, they’re too tight to wear anything underneath.”

  “We all have our cross to bear.”

  “Do you think they’re too revealing?”

  “They’re opaque. That usually does it for me.”

  “Imagine peeling them off.”

  “I can’t. I doubt if I would have gotten them on.”

  The green eyes narrowed. “Are you a queer?”

  “Are you a hooker?”

  “No way. I work at the auto parts store.”

  Then she paused and seemed to think again. She reconsidered. She came up with a better answer. Which was to jump up from her chair and scream and slap his face. It was a loud scream and a loud slap and everyone turned to look.

  “He called me a whore,” she screamed. “He called me a damn whore!”

  Chairs scraped and guys stood up fast. Big guys, in jeans and work boots and plaid shirts. Country boys. Five of them, all the same.

  The girl smiled in triumph.

  “Those are my brothers,” she said.

  Reacher said nothing.

  “You just called me a whore in front of my brothers.”

  Five boys, all staring.

  “He called me a whore,” the girl wailed.

  Rule one: Be on your feet and ready.

  Rule two: Show them what they’re messing with.

  Reacher stood up, slow and easy. Six-five, two-fifty, calm eyes, hands held loose by his sides.

  “He called me a whore,” the girl wailed again.

  Rule three: Identify the ringleader.

  There were five guys. Any five guys will have one ringleader, two enthusiastic followers, and two reluctant followers. Put the ringleader down, and both of the keen sidekicks, and it’s over. The reluctant pair just run for it. So there’s no such thing as five-on-one. It never gets worse than three-on-one.

  Rule four: The ringleader is the one who moves first.

  A big corn-fed twentysomething with a shock of yellow hair and a round red face moved first. He stepped forward a pace and the others fell in behind him in a neat arrowhead formation. Reacher stepped forward a pace of his own to meet them. The downside of a corner table is there’s no other way to go except forward.

  But that was fine.

  Because, rule five: Never back off.

  But, rule six: Don’t break the furniture.

  Break furniture in a bar, and the owner starts thinking about his insurance policy, and insurance companies require police reports, and a patrolman’s first instinct is to throw everyone in jail and sort it out later. Which generally means: Blame it on the stranger.

  “He called me a whore,” the girl said plaintively. Like her heart was broken. She was standing off to the side, looking at Reacher, looking at the five guys, looking at Reacher. Her head was turning like a spectator at a tennis game.

  “Outside,” the big guy said.

  “Pay your check first,” Reacher said.

  “I’ll pay later.”

  “You won’t be able to.”

  “You think?”

  “That’s the difference between us.”

  “What is?”

  “I think.”

  “You’ve got a smart mouth, pal.”

  “That’s the least of your worries.”

  “You called my sister a whore.”

  “You prefer sleeping with virgins?”

  “Get outside, pal, or I’ll put you down right here.”

  Rule seven: Act, don’t react.

  “OK,” Reacher said. “Let’s go outside.”

  The big guy smiled.

  “After you,” Reacher said.

  “Stay here, Sandy,” the big guy said.

  “I don’t mind the sight of blood,” she said.

  “I’m sure you love it,” Reacher said. “One week in four, it makes you feel mighty relieved.”

  “Outside,” the big guy said. “Now.”

  He turned around and shooed the others toward the door. They formed up in single file and threaded between the tables. Their boots clattered on the wood. The girl called Sandy tagged after them. Other customers shrank away from them. Reacher put twenty dollars on his table and glanced up at the football game. Someone was winning, someone was losing.

  He followed the girl called Sandy. Followed the blue spandex pants.

  They were all waiting for him on the sidewalk. They were all tensed up in a shallow semicircle. There were yellow lamps on poles twenty yards away north and south and another across the street. The lamps gave each guy three shadows. There was neon outside the bar that filled the shadows with pink and blue. The street was empty. And quiet. No traffic. No noise, except sports bar sounds muffled by the door.

  The air was soft. Not hot, not cold.

  Rule eight: Assess and evaluate.

  The big guy was round and smooth and heavy, like a bull seal. Maybe ten years out of high school. An unbroken nose, no scar tissue on his brows, no misshapen knuckles. Therefore, not a boxer. Probably just a linebacker. So he would fight like a wrestler. He would be a guy who wants you on the ground.

  So he would start by charging. Head low.

  That was Reacher’s best guess.

  And Reacher was right.

  The guy exploded out of the blocks and charged, head low. Driving for Reacher’s chest. Looking to drive him backward and have him stumble and fall. Whereupon the other four could all pile in together and stomp him and kick him to their hearts’ content.

  Mistake.

  Because, rule nine: Don’t run head-on into Jack Reacher.

  Not when he’s expecting it. It’s like running into an oak tree.

  The big guy charged and Reacher turned slightly sideways and bent his knees a little and timed it just right and drove all his weight up and forward off his back foot and through his shoulder straight into the big guy’s face.

  Kinetic energy is a wonderful thing.

  Reacher had hardly moved at all but the big guy bounced off crazily, stunned, staggering backward on stiff legs, desperately trying to stay upright, one foot tracing a lazy half-circle in the air, then the other. He came to rest six feet away with his feet firmly planted and his legs wide apart, just like a big dumb capital letter A.

  Blood on his face.

  Now he had a broken nose.

  Put the ringleader down.

  Reacher stepped in and kicked him in the groin, but left-footed. Right-footed, he would have popped bits of the guy’s pelvis out through his nose. Your big soft heart, an old army instructor had said. One day it’ll get you killed.

  But not today, Reacher thought. Not here. The big guy went down. He fell on his knees and pitched forward on his face.

  Then it got real easy.

  The next two guys came in together shoulder-to-shoulder, and Reacher dropped the first with a head butt and the second with an elbow to the jaw. The
y both went straight down and lay still. Then it was over, because the last two guys ran. The last two guys always do. The girl called Sandy ran after them. Not fast. The tight spandex and the high-heeled boots impeded her. But Reacher let her go. He turned back and kicked her three downed brothers onto their sides. Checked they were still breathing. Checked their hip pockets. Found their wallets. Checked their licenses. Then he dropped them and straightened up and turned around because he heard a car pull up behind him at the curb.

  It was a taxi. It was a taxi with Helen Rodin getting out of it.

  She threw a bill at the driver and he took off fast, gazing straight ahead, deliberately not looking left or right. Helen Rodin stood still on the sidewalk and stared. Reacher was ten feet away from her, with three neon shadows and three inert forms on the ground behind him.

  “What the hell is going on?” she asked.

  “You tell me,” he said. “You live here. You know these damn people.”

  “What does that mean? What the hell happened?”

  “Let’s walk,” he said.

  They walked south, fast, and turned a corner and went east. Then south again. Then they slowed a little.

  “You’ve got blood on your shirt,” Helen Rodin said.

  “But not mine,” Reacher said.

  “What happened back there?”

  “I was in the bar watching the game. Minding my own business. Then some underage red-haired bimbo started coming on to me. I wasn’t playing and she got it to where she found a reason to slap me. Then five guys jumped up. She said they were her brothers. We took it outside.”

  “Five guys?”

  “Two ran away.”

  “After you beat up the first three?”

  “I defended myself. That’s all. Minimum force.”

  “She slapped you?”

  “Right in the face.”

  “What had you said to her?”

  “Doesn’t matter what I said to her. It was a setup. So I’m asking you, is that how people get their kicks around here? Picking on strangers in bars?”

  “I need a drink,” Helen Rodin said. “I came to meet you for a drink.”

  Reacher stopped walking. “So let’s go back there.”

  “We can’t go back there. They probably called the cops. You left three men on the sidewalk.”

  He looked back over his shoulder.

  “So let’s try my hotel,” he said. “There’s a lobby. There might be a bar.”