A bad day.
Reacher said, ‘I’ve got six fat guys and a runt. That’s a walk in the park.’
He stood up. He turned and stepped on the guy on the floor and walked over him. Onward to the door. Out to the gravel, and the line of shiny bikes. He turned and saw the others come out after him. The not-very-magnificent seven. Generally stiff and bow-legged, and variously contorted due to beer guts and bad posture. But still, a lot of weight. In the aggregate. Plus fourteen fists, and fourteen boots.
Possibly steel-capped.
Maybe a very bad day.
But who cared, really?
The seven guys fanned out in a semicircle, three on Jimmy Rat’s left, and three on his right. Reacher kept moving, rotating them the way he wanted, his back to the street. He didn’t want to get trapped against someone’s rear fence. He didn’t want to get jammed in a corner. He didn’t plan on running, but an option was always a fine thing to have.
The seven guys tightened their semicircle, but not enough. They stayed about ten feet away, with better than a yard between each one of them. Which made the first two plays obvious. They would come shuffling in, slowly, maybe grunting and glaring, whereupon Reacher would move fast and punch his way through the line, after which everyone would turn around, Reacher now facing a new inverted semicircle, now only six in number. Then rinse and repeat, which would reduce them to five. They wouldn’t fall for it a third time, so at that point they would swarm, all except Jimmy Rat, who Reacher figured wouldn’t fight at all. Too smart. Which in the end would make it a close-quarters four-on-one brawl.
A bad day.
For someone.
‘Last chance,’ Reacher said. ‘Tell the little guy to answer my question, and you can all go back to your suds.’
No one spoke. They tightened some more and hunched down into crouches and started shuffling forward, hands apart and ready. Reacher picked out his first target and waited. He wanted him five feet away. One pace, not two. Better to save the extra energy for later.
Then he heard tyres on the road again, behind him, and in front of him the seven guys straightened up and looked around, with exaggerated wide-eyed innocence all over their faces. Reacher turned and saw the cop car again. The same guy. County Police. The car coasted to a stop and the guy took a good long look. He buzzed his passenger window down, and leaned across inside, and caught Reacher’s eye, and said, ‘Sir, please approach the vehicle.’
Which Reacher did, but not on the passenger side. He didn’t want to turn his back. Instead he tracked around the trunk to the driver’s window. Which buzzed down, while the passenger side buzzed back up. The cop had his gun in his hand. Relaxed, held low in his lap.
The cop said, ‘Want to tell me what’s going on here?’
Reacher said, ‘Were you army or Marine Corps?’
‘Why would I be either?’
‘Most of you are, in a place like this. Especially the ones who hike all the way to the nearest PX to get their hair cut.’
‘I was army.’
‘Me too. There’s nothing going on here.’
‘I need to hear the whole story. Lots of guys were in the army. I don’t know you.’
‘Jack Reacher, 110th MP. Terminal at major. Pleased to meet you.’
The cop said, ‘I heard of the 110th MP.’
‘In a good way, I hope.’
‘Your HQ was in the Pentagon, right?’
‘No, our HQ was in Rock Creek, Virginia. Some ways north and west of the Pentagon. I had the best office there for a couple of years. Was that your security question?’
‘You passed the test. Rock Creek it was. Now tell me what’s going on. You looked like you were fixing to fight these guys.’
‘So far we’re just talking,’ Reacher said. ‘I asked them something. They told me they would prefer to answer me outside in the open air. I don’t know why. Maybe they were worried about eavesdroppers.’
‘What did you ask them?’
‘Where they got this ring.’
Reacher rested his wrist on the door and opened his hand.
‘West Point,’ the cop said.
‘Sold to the pawn shop by these guys. I want to know who they got it from.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know exactly. I guess I want to know the story.’
‘These guys won’t tell you.’
‘You know them?’
‘Nothing we can prove.’
‘But?’
‘They bring stuff in from South Dakota through Minnesota. Two states away. But never enough to get the Feds interested in an interstate kind of thing. And never enough to put a South Dakota police detective on an airplane. So it’s pretty much risk-free for them.’
‘Where in South Dakota?’
‘We don’t know.’
Reacher said nothing.
The cop said, ‘You should get in the car. There are seven of them.’
‘I’ll be OK,’ Reacher said.
‘I’ll arrest you, if you like. To make it look good. But you need to be gone. Because I need to be gone. I can’t stay here my whole watch.’
‘Don’t worry about me.’
‘Maybe I should arrest you anyway.’
‘For what? Something that hasn’t happened yet?’
‘For your own safety.’
‘I could take offence,’ Reacher said. ‘You don’t seem very worried about their safety. You talk like it’s a foregone conclusion.’
‘Get in the car. Call it a tactical retreat. You can find out about the ring some other way.’
‘What other way?’
‘Then forget all about it. A buck gets ten there’s no story at all. Probably the guy came back all sad and bitter and sold the damn ring as fast as he could. To pay the rent on his trailer.’
‘Is that how it is around here?’
‘Often enough.’
‘You’re doing OK.’
‘It’s a spectrum.’
‘It wasn’t a guy. The ring is too small. It was a woman.’
‘Women live in trailers too.’
Reacher nodded. He said, ‘I agree, a buck gets ten it’s nothing. But I want to know for sure. Just in case.’
Silence for a moment. Just the engine’s whispered idle, and a breeze in the telephone wires.
‘Last chance,’ the cop said. ‘Play it smart. Get in the car.’
‘I’ll be OK,’ Reacher said again. He stepped back and straightened up. The cop shook his head in exasperation, and waited a beat, and then gave up and drove away, slowly, tyres hissing on the blacktop, exhaust fumes trailing. Reacher watched him all the way to the corner, and then he stepped back up on the sidewalk, where the black-clad semicircle re-formed around him.
FOUR
THE SEVEN BIKERS resumed their previous positions, and they hunched down into their combat stances again, feet apart, hands held wide and ready. But they didn’t move. They didn’t want to. Not right away. From their point of view a new factor had been introduced. Their opponent was completely batshit crazy. He had proved it. He had been offered a graceful exit by the county cops, and he had turned it down. He had stayed to fight it out.
Why?
They didn’t know.