by Lee Child
“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.
“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 dow
n. 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. They 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.”
They walked together in silence, through dark quiet streets, four blocks south. They stayed east of the plaza and passed by the courthouse. Reacher glanced at it.
“How was dinner?” he asked.
“My father was fishing. He still thinks you’re my witness.”
“Did you tell him?”
“I can’t tell him. Your information is classified. Thank God.”
“So you let him stew.”
“He’s not stewing. He’s totally confident.”
“He should be.”
“So are you leaving tomorrow?”
“You bet I am. This place is weird.”
“Some girl comes on to you, why does that have to be a big conspiracy?”
Reacher said nothing.
“It’s not unheard-of,” she said. “Well, is it? A bar, the new guy in town all alone, why shouldn’t some girl be interested? You’re not exactly repulsive, you know.”
Reacher just walked.
“What did you say to her to get slapped?”
“I wasn’t showing any interest, she kept on coming on, I asked her if she was a hooker. Something like that.”
“A hooker? That’ll get you slapped in Indiana. And her brothers would hate it.”
“It was a setup, Helen. Let’s be realistic. It’s nice of you to say it, but I’m not the sort of guy that women chase after. I know that, OK? So it was a setup.”
“No woman ever chased you before?”
“She smiled in triumph. Like she had found an opening and delivered me. Like she had succeeded at something.”
Helen Rodin said nothing.
“And those guys weren’t her brothers,” Reacher said. “They were all more or less the same age, and when I checked their licenses they all had different last names.”
“Oh.”
“So it was all staged. Which is weird. There are only two reasons for doing something like that. Fun, or money. A guy in a bar might have a few bucks, but that’s not enough. So they staged it for fun. Which is weird. Doubly weird, because why pick on me? They must have known they were going to get their butts kicked.”
“There were five of them. Five guys never think one guy could kick their butts. Especially not in Indiana.”
“Or maybe I was the only stranger in the bar.”
She looked ahead, down the street. “You’re at the Metropole Palace?”
He nodded. “Me and not too many other people.”
“But I called and they said you weren’t registered. I called all the hotels, looking for you this afternoon.”
“I use aliases in hotels.”
“Why on earth?”
“Just a bad habit. Like I told you. It’s automatic now.”
They went up the front steps together and in through the heavy brass door. It wasn’t late, but the place was quiet. The lobby was deserted. There was a bar in a side room. It was empty, except for a lone barman leaning back against the register.
“Beer,” Helen Rodin said.
“Two,” Reacher said.
They took a table near a curtained window and the guy brought two beers in bottles, two napkins, two chilled glasses, and a bowl of mixed nuts. Reacher signed the check and added his room number.
Helen Rodin smiled. “So who does the Metropole think you are?”
“Jimmy Reese,” Reacher said.
“Who’s he?”
“Wait,” Reacher said.
A flash of surprise in her eyes. He didn’t know why.
I’m pleased to meet you, Jimmy Reese.
“The girl was looking for me personally,” he said. “She wasn’t looking for some random lone stranger. She was looking for Jack Reacher specifically.”
“She was?”
He nodded. “She asked my name. I said Jimmy Reese. It knocked her off balance for a second. She was definitely surprised. Like, You’re not Jimmy Reese, you’re Jack Reacher, someone just told me. She paused, and then she recovered.”
“The first letters are the same. Jimmy Reese, Jack Reacher. People sometimes do that.”
“She was fast,” he said. “She wasn’t as dumb as she looked. Someone pointed her at me, and she wasn’t going to be deflected. Jack Reacher was supposed to get worked over tonight, and she was going to make sure it happened.”
“So who were they?”
“Who knows my name?”
“The police department. You were just there.”
Reacher said nothing.
“What?” Helen said. “Were they cops? Protecting their case?”
“I’m not here to attack their case.”
“But they don’t know that. They think that’s exactly why you’re here.”
“Their case doesn’t need protecting. It’s solid gold. And they didn’t look like cops.”
“Who else has an interest?”
“Rosemary Barr. She has an interest. She knows my name. And she knows why I’m here.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Helen said.
Reacher said nothing.
“That’s ridiculous,” Helen said again. “Rosemary Barr is a mousy little legal secretary. She wouldn’t try a thing like that. She wouldn’t know how. Not in a million years.”
“It was a very amateur attempt.”
“Compared to what? It was fi
ve guys. Enough for most people.”
Reacher said nothing.
“Rosemary Barr was at the hospital,” Helen said. “She went over there after the client conference, and she stayed there most of the afternoon, and I bet she’s back there now. Because her brother is waking up. She wants to be with him.”
“A buck gets ten she’s got a cell phone.”
“Can’t use cell phones near the ICU. They cause interference.”
“A pay phone, then.”
“She’s too preoccupied.”
“With saving her brother.”
Helen Rodin said nothing.
“She’s your client,” Reacher said. “Are you sure you’re impartial?”
“You’re not thinking straight. James Barr asked for you. He wanted you here. Therefore his sister wants you here, too. She wants you to stick around long enough to figure out how you can help. And she knows you can help, or why would her brother have asked for you in the first place?”
Reacher said nothing.
“Accept it,” Helen said. “It wasn’t Rosemary Barr. It’s in her best interests to have you here, alive and well and thinking.”
Reacher took a long pull on his beer. Then he nodded. “I was followed to the bar tonight, obviously. From here. Therefore I was followed here, after lunch. If Rosemary went straight to the hospital this morning she didn’t have time to set that up.”
“So we’re back to someone who thinks you can damage the case. Why not the cops? Cops could follow you anywhere. There’s a lot of them and they all have radios.”
“Cops start trouble face-to-face. They don’t get a girl to do it for them.”
“The girl might be a cop, too.”
Reacher shook his head. “Too young. Too vacant. Too much hair.”
Helen took a pen from her purse and wrote something on her cocktail napkin. Slid it across the table.
“My cell phone number,” she said. “You might need it.”
“I don’t think anyone will sue me.”
“I’m not worried about you getting sued. I’m worried about you getting arrested. Even if it wasn’t cops actually doing it, they might have gone to the bar anyway. The owner might have called them. Or the hospital might have called them. Those three boys went to the hospital, that’s for sure. And the girl definitely knows your alias now. So you might be in trouble. If you are, listen to the Miranda and then call me.”
Reacher smiled. “Ambulance chasing?”
“Looking out for you.”
