‘Who then?’
Joe said, ‘We need to know. And we have a right to know. We need to go up to that school and ask what’s in this thing.’
Reacher said, ‘You can’t do that with tests. That’s kind of opposite to the point of tests, don’t you think?’
‘We’re at least entitled to know what part or parts of which curriculum is being tested here.’
‘It’ll be reading and writing, adding and subtracting. Maybe some dividing if we’re lucky. You know the drill. Don’t worry about it.’
‘It’s an insult.’
Reacher said nothing.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE REACHER BROTHERS walked back together, across the four-way junction, and into the long concrete street. Their new place was ahead and on the left. In the distance the sliver of sea glowed pale blue in the sun. There was a hint of white sand. Maybe palm trees. Between their place and the sea there were kids out on the street. All boys. Americans, black and white, maybe two dozen of them. Marine families. Neighbours. They were clustered outside their own places, at the cheap end of the street, a thousand steps from the beach.
Reacher said, ‘Let’s go take a look at the East China Sea.’
Joe said, ‘I’ve seen it before. So have you.’
‘We could be freezing our butts off in Korea all winter.’
‘We were just on Guam. How much beach does a person need?’
‘As much as a person can get.’
‘We have a test in three days.’
‘Exactly. So we don’t have to worry about it today.’
Joe sighed and they walked on, past their own place, toward the sliver of blue. Ahead of them the other kids saw them coming. They got up off kerbstones and stepped over ditches and kicked and scuffed their way to the middle of the road. They formed up in a loose arrowhead, facing front, arms folded, chests out, more than twenty guys, some of them as young as ten, some of them a year or two older than Joe.
Welcome to the neighbourhood.
The point man was a thick-necked bruiser of about sixteen. He was smaller than Joe, but bigger than Reacher. He was wearing a Corps T-shirt and a ragged pair of khaki pants. He had fat hands, with knuckles that dipped in, not stuck out. He was fifteen feet away, just waiting.
Joe said quietly, ‘There are too many of them.’
Reacher said nothing.
Joe said, ‘Don’t start anything. I mean it. We’ll deal with this later, if we have to.’
Reacher smiled. ‘You mean after the test?’
‘You need to get serious about that test.’
They walked on. Forty different places. Forty different welcomes to forty different neighbourhoods. Except that the welcomes had not been different. They had all been the same. Tribalism, testosterone, hierarchies, all kinds of crazy instincts. Tests of a different kind.
Joe and Reacher stopped six feet from the bruiser and waited. The guy had a boil on his neck. And he smelled pretty bad. He said, ‘You’re the new kids.’
Joe said, ‘How did you figure that out?’
‘You weren’t here yesterday.’
‘Outstanding deduction. You ever thought of a career with the FBI?’
The bruiser didn’t answer that. Reacher smiled. He figured he could land a left hook right on the boil. Which would hurt like hell, probably.
The bruiser said, ‘You going to the beach?’
Joe said, ‘Is there a beach?’
‘You know there’s a beach.’
‘And you know where we’re going.’
‘This is a toll road.’
Joe said, ‘What?’
‘You heard. You have to pay the toll.’
‘What’s the toll?’
‘I haven’t decided yet,’ the bruiser said. ‘When I see what you’ve got, I’ll know what to take.’
Joe didn’t answer.
The guy said, ‘Understand?’
Joe said, ‘Not even a little bit.’
‘That’s because you’re a retard. You two are the retard kids. We heard all about you. They’re making you take the retard test, because you’re retards.’
Reacher said, ‘Joe, now that’s an insult.’
The big guy said, ‘So the little retard talks, does he?’
Joe said, ‘You seen that new statue in the square in Luzon?’
‘What about it?’
‘The last kid who picked a fight with my brother is buried in the pedestal.’
The guy looked at Reacher and said, ‘That doesn’t sound very nice. Are you a psycho retard?’
Reacher said, ‘What’s that?’
‘Like a psychopath.’
‘You mean do I think I’m right to do what I do and feel no remorse afterward?’
‘I guess.’
Reacher said, ‘Then yes, I’m pretty much a psychopath.’
Silence, except for a distant motorbike. Then two motorbikes. Then three. Distant, but approaching. The big kid’s gaze jumped to the four-way junction at the top of the street. Behind him the arrowhead formation broke up. Kids wandered back to the kerbs and their front yards. A bike slowed and turned into the street and puttered slowly along. On it was a Marine in BDUs. No helmet. An NCO, back from the base, his watch finished. He was followed by two more, one of them on a big Harley. Disciplinarian dads, coming home.
The big kid with the boil said, ‘We’ll finish this another time.’