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. 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?"
r /> "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 five 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. "
Reacher picked up the napkin. Put it in his back pocket.
"OK," he said. "Thanks. "
"Are you still going to leave tomorrow?"
"Maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll stick around and think about why someone would use violence to protect a case that's already a hundred percent watertight. "
Grigor Linsky called the Zec on his cell phone from his car.
"They failed," he said. "I'm very sorry. "
The Zec said nothing, which was worse than a tirade.
"They won't be traced to us," Linsky said.
"Will you make sure of that?"
"Certainly. "
The Zec said nothing.
"No harm, no foul," Linsky said.
"Unless it served merely to provoke the soldier," the Zec said. "Then there would be harm. Possibly considerable harm. He is James Barr's friend, after all. That fact will have implications. "
Now Linsky said nothing.
"Let him see you one more time," the Zec said. "A little additional pressure might help. But after that, don't let him see you again. "
"And then?"
"Then monitor the situation," the Zec said. "Make absolutely certain it doesn't turn from bad to worse. "
Reacher saw Helen Rodin into a cab and then went upstairs to his room. He took off his shirt and put it in the bathroom sink and left it to soak in cold water. He didn't want bloodstains on a one-day-old shirt. Three days old, maybe. But not a brand-new garment.
Questions. There were a lot of questions, but as always the key would be finding the basic question. The fundamental question. Why would someone use violence to protect a case that was already watertight? First question: Was the case already watertight? He trawled through the day in his head and heard Alex Rodin say: It's as good as it gets. The best I've ever seen. Emerson had said: It's the best done deal I ever saw. The morticianlike Bellantonio had said: It's the best crime scene I ever worked. I love it all. Those guys all had professional self-interest in play, of course. And pride, and expediency. But Reacher himself had seen Bellantonio's work. And had said: It's a cast-iron solid-gold slam dunk. It's Willie Mays under a fly ball.
Was it?
Yes, it was. It was Lou Gehrig with the bases loaded. It was as close to a certainty as human life offers.
But that wasn't the fundamental question.
He rinsed his shirt and wrung it out hard and spread it on the room heater. Turned the heater on high and opened the window. There was no noise outside. Just silence. New York City it wasn't. It sounded like they rolled up the sidewalks at nine o'clock. I went to Indiana, but it was closed. He lay down on the bed. Stretched out. Damp heat came off his shirt and filled the room with the smell of wet cotton.
What was the fundamental question?
Helen Rodin's cassette tape was the fundamental question. James Barr's voice, low, hoarse, frustrated. His demand: Get Jack Reacher for me.
Why would he say that?
Who was Jack Reacher, in James Barr's eyes?
Fundamentally?
That was the basic question.
The best crime scene I ever worked.
The best I've ever seen.
Why did he pay to park?
Will you keep an open mind?
Get Jack Reacher for me.
Jack Reacher stared at his hotel room ceiling. Five minutes. Ten. Twenty. Then he rolled over one way and pulled the cocktail napkin out of his back pocket. Rolled the other way and dialed the phone. Helen Rodin answered after eight rings. She sounded sleepy. He had woken her up.
"It's Reacher," he said.
"Are you in trouble?"
"No, but I've got some questions. Is Barr awake yet?"
"No, but he's close. Rosemary went back to the hospital. She left me a message. "
"What was the weather like last Friday at five?"
"The weather? Friday? It was kind of dull. Cloudy. "
"Is that normal?"
"No, not really. It's usually sunny. Or else raining. This time of year it's usually one or the other. More likely sunny. "
"Was it warm or cold?"
"Not cold. But not hot. It was comfortable, I guess. "
"What did you wear to work?"
"What is this, a dirty phone call?"
"Just tell me. "
"Same as I wore today. Pantsuit. "
"No coat?"
"Didn't need one. "
"Have you got a car?"
"A car? Yes, I've got a car. But I use the bus for work. "
"Use your car tomorrow. I'll meet you at eight o'clock in your office. "
"What's this about?"
"Tomorrow," he said. "Eight o'clock. Go back to sleep now. "
He hung up. Rolled off the bed and checked his shirt. It was warm and wet. But it would be dry by morning. He hoped it wouldn't shrink.