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yielded to a basic instinct. He started to turn his head to look behind him. Irresistible. Then a split second later the auditory input went unambiguous when the roar got trapped behind buildings, and the guy came to his conclusion and stopped his move and started to turn his head back again.
But by then it was far too late. By then Reacher’s left hook was halfway through its travel. It was scything in, hard and fast, every sinew and ropy muscle in his greyhound’s frame unspooling in perfect coordination, with just one aim in sight: to land that big left fist on the guy’s neck.
Total success. The blow landed right on the boil, crushing it, crushing flesh, compressing bone, and the guy went down like he had run full speed into a clothesline. His legs came out from under him and he thumped more or less horizontally on the concrete, just sprawling, tangled and stunned like a pratfall stunt in a silent movie.
Next obvious move was for Reacher to start kicking him in the head, but he had an audience with feminine sensibilities, so he resisted the temptation. The big guy got his face off the floor and he looked nowhere in particular and said, ‘That was a sucker punch.’
Reacher nodded. ‘But you know what they say. Only suckers get sucker-punched.’
‘We’re going to finish this.’
Reacher looked down. ‘Looks kind of finished already.’
‘Dream on, you little punk.’
‘Take an eight count,’ Reacher said. ‘I’ll be back.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
REACHER HUSTLED HELEN up to her house and then he jogged across the street to his own. He went in the door and ran through to the kitchen and found his father in there, alone.
‘Where’s Joe?’ Reacher asked.
‘Taking a long walk,’ his father said.
Reacher stepped out into the back yard. It was a square concrete space, empty except for an old patio table and four chairs, and the empty incinerator. The incinerator was about the size of a big round garbage can. It was made of diagonal steel mesh. It was up on little legs. It was faintly grey with old ash, but it had been emptied and cleaned after its last use. In fact the whole yard had been swept. Marine families. Always meticulous.
Reacher headed back to the hallway. He crouched over the spool of electric cable and unwound six feet of wire and snipped it off with the cutters.
His father asked, ‘What are you doing?’
‘You know what I’m doing, Dad,’ Reacher said. ‘I’m doing what you intended me to do. You didn’t order boots. You ordered exactly what arrived. Last night, after the code book went missing. You thought the news would leak and Joe and I would get picked on as a result. You couldn’t bring us knives or knuckledusters, so you thought of the next best thing.’
He started to wind the heavy wire around his fist, wrapping one turn after another, the way a boxer binds his hands. He pressed the malleable metal and plastic flat and snug.
His father asked, ‘So has the news leaked?’
‘No,’ Reacher said. ‘This is a previous engagement.’
His father ducked his head out the door and looked down the street. He said, ‘Can you take that guy?’
‘Does the Pope sleep in the woods?’
‘He has a friend with him.’
‘The more the merrier.’
‘There are other kids watching.’
‘There always are.’
Reacher started wrapping his other hand.
His father said, ‘Stay calm, son. Don’t do too much damage. I don’t want this family to go three for three this week, as far as getting into trouble is concerned.’
‘He won’t rat me out.’
‘I know that. I’m talking about a manslaughter charge.’
‘Don’t worry, Dad,’ Reacher said. ‘It won’t go that far.’
‘Make sure it doesn’t.’
‘But I’m afraid it will have to go a certain distance. A little further than normal.’
‘What are you talking about, son?’
‘I’m afraid this time I’m going to have to break some bones.’
‘Why?’
‘Mom told me to. In a way.’
‘What?’
‘At the airport,’ Reacher said. ‘She took me aside, remember? She told me she figures this place is driving you and Joe crazy. She told me I had to keep an eye on you and him both. She said it’s up to me.’
‘Your mother said that? We can look after ourselves.’
‘Yeah? How’s that working out so far?’
‘But this kid has nothing to do with anything.’
‘I think he does,’ Reacher said.
‘Since when? Did he say something?’
‘No,’ Reacher said. ‘But there are other senses apart from hearing. There’s smell, for instance.’
And then he jammed his bulbous grey fists in his pockets and stepped out into the street again.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THIRTY YARDS AWAY there was a horseshoe gaggle of maybe ten kids. The audience. They were shifting from foot to foot and vibrating with anticipation. About ten yards closer than that the smelly kid was waiting, with a sidekick in attendance. The smelly kid was on the right, and the sidekick was on the left. The sidekick was about Reacher’s own height, but thick in the shoulders and chest, like a wrestler, and he had a face like a wanted poster, flat and hard and mean. Those shoulders and that face were about ninety per cent of the guy’s armoury, Reacher figured. The guy was the type that got left alone solely because of his appearance. So probably he didn’t get much practice, and maybe he even believed his own bullshit. So maybe he wasn’t really much of a brawler.
Only one way to find out.
Reacher came in at a fast walk, his hands still in his pockets, on a wide curving trajectory, heading for the sidekick, not slowing at all, not even in the last few strides, the way a glad-handing politician approaches, the way a manic church minister walks up to a person, as if delivering an eager and effusive welcome was his only aim in life. The sidekick got caught up in the body language. He got confused by long social training. His hand even came halfway up, ready to shake.
Without breaking stride Reacher head-butted him full in the face. Left, right, bang. A perfect ten, for style and content, and power and precision. The guy went over backward and before he was a quarter of the way to the floor Reacher was turning toward the smelly kid and his wrapped hands were coming up out of his pockets.
In the movies they would have faced off, long and tense and static, like the OK Corral, with taunts and muttered threats, hands away from their sides, up on their toes, maybe circling, narrowed eyes on narrowed eyes, building the suspense. But Reacher didn’t live in the movies. He lived in the real world. Without even a split second’s pause he crashed his left fist into the smelly guy’s side, a vicious low blow, the second beat in a fast rhythmic one-two shuffle, where the one had been the head butt. His fist must have weighed north of six pounds at that point, and he put everything he had into it, and the result was that whatever the smelly kid was going to do next, he was going to do it with three busted ribs, which put him at an instant disadvantage, because busted ribs hurt like hell, and any kind of violent physical activity makes them hurt worse. Some folks with busted ribs can’t even bear to sneeze.
