FOUR

THE DOCTOR TOOK A LEATHER BAG FROM THE BACK OF THE CAR. Then he repeated his uphill drunk-guy stumble all the way along the path, this time with more reason, because the gravel surface was difficult. But he made it unassisted to the door, which was a fine piece of old wood with glassy white paint carefully applied to it. Reacher found a brass button and laid a knuckle on it. Inside he heard the sound of an electric bell, and then nothing for a minute, and then the sound of slow feet on floorboards. Then the door opened a crack and a face looked out.

Quite a face. It was framed by black hair and had pale skin and frightened eyes at the top, and then a red-soaked handkerchief pressed tight at the apex of a triangular red gush that had flooded downward past the mouth and neck to the blouse below. There was a string of blood-soaked pearls. The blouse was silk and it was wet to the waist. The woman took the handkerchief away from her nose. She had split lips and blood-rimed teeth. Her nose was still leaking, a steady stream.

'You came,' she said.

The doctor blinked twice and focused hard and turned down his mouth in a frown and nodded. He said, 'We should take a look at that.'

'You've been drinking,' the woman said. Then she looked at Reacher and asked, 'Who are you?'

'I drove,' Reacher said.

'Because he's drunk?'

'He'll be OK. I wouldn't let him do brain surgery, but he can stop the bleeding.'

The woman thought about it for a moment and then she nodded and put the handkerchief back to her face and opened the door wide.

They used the kitchen. The doctor was drunk as a skunk but the procedure was simple and the guy retained enough muscle memory to get himself through it. Reacher soaked cloths in warm water and passed them across and the doctor cleaned the woman's face and jammed her nostrils solid with gauze and used butterfly closures on her cut lips. The anaesthetic took the pain away and she settled into a calm and dreamy state. It was hard to say exactly what she looked like. Her nose had been busted before. That was clear. Apart from that she had good skin and fine bone structure and pretty eyes. She was slim and fairly tall, well dressed and solidly prosperous. As was the house itself. It was warm. The floors were wide planks, lustrous with a hundred years of wax. There was a lot of millwork and fine detail and subtle pastel shades. Books on the shelves, paintings on the walls, rugs on the floors. In the living room there was a wedding photograph in a silver frame. It showed a younger and intact version of the woman with a tall reedy man in a grey morning suit. He had dark hair and a long nose and bright eyes and he looked very smug. Not an athlete or a manual worker, not a professor or a poet. Not a farmer, either. A businessman, probably. An executive of some kind. An indoors type of guy, soft, with energy but no vigour.

Reacher headed back to the kitchen and found the doctor washing his hands in the sink and the woman brushing her hair without the help of a mirror. He asked her, 'You OK now?'

She said, 'Not too bad,' slow and nasal and indistinct.

'Your husband's not here?'

'He decided to go out for dinner. With his friends.'

'What's his name?'

'His name is Seth.'

'And what's your name?'

'My name is Eleanor.'

'You been taking aspirin, Eleanor?'

'Yes.'

'Because Seth does this a lot?'

She paused a long, long time, and then she shook her head.

'I tripped,' she said. 'On the edge of the rug.'

'More than once, all in a few days? The same rug?'

'Yes.'

'I'd change that rug, if I were you.'

'I'm sure it won't happen again.'

They waited ten minutes in the kitchen while she went upstairs to take a shower and change. They heard the water run and stop and heard her call down that she was OK and on her way to bed. So they left. The front door clicked behind them. The doctor staggered to the car and dumped himself in the passenger seat with his bag between his feet. Reacher started up and reversed down the driveway to the road. He spun the wheel and hit the gas and took off, back the way they had come.

'Thank God,' the doctor said.

'That she was OK?'

'No, that Seth Duncan wasn't there.'

'I saw his picture. He doesn't look like much to me. I bet his dog's a poodle.'

'They don't have a dog.'

'Figure of speech. I can see a country doctor being worried about getting in the middle of a domestic dispute where the guy drinks beer and wears a sleeveless T-shirt and has a couple of pit bull terriers in the yard, with broken-down appliances and cars. But apparently Seth Duncan doesn't.'

The doctor said nothing.

Reacher said, 'But you're scared of him anyway. So his power comes from somewhere else. Financial or political, maybe. He has a nice house.'

The doctor said nothing.

Reacher asked, 'Was it him?'

'Yes.'

'You know that for sure?'

'Yes.'

'And he's done it before?'

'Yes.'

'How many times?'

'A lot. Sometimes it's her ribs.'

'Has she told the cops?'

'We don't have cops. We depend on the county. They're usually sixty miles away.'

'She could call.'

'She's not going to press charges. They never do. If they let it go the first time, that's it.'

'Where does a guy like Duncan go to eat dinner with his friends?'

The doctor didn't answer, and Reacher didn't ask again.

The doctor said, 'Are we heading back to the lounge?'

'No, I'm taking you home.'

'Thanks. That's good of you. But it's a long walk back to the motel.'

'Your problem, not mine,' Reacher said. 'I'm keeping the car. You can hike over and pick it up in the morning.'

Five miles south of the motel the doctor stared all over again at the three old houses standing alone at the end of their driveway, and then he faced front and directed Reacher left and right and left along the boundaries of dark empty fields to a new ranch house set on a couple of flat acres bounded by a post-and-rail fence.

'Got your key?' Reacher asked him.

'On the ring.'

'Got another key?'

'My wife will let me in.'

'You hope,' Reacher said. 'Goodnight.'

He watched the doctor stumble through the first twenty feet of his driveway and then he K-turned and threaded back to the main north-south two-lane. If in doubt turn left, was his motto, so he headed north a mile and then he pulled over and thought. Where would a guy like Seth Duncan go for dinner with his friends?

FIVE

A STEAKHOUSE, WAS REACHER'S CONCLUSION. A RURAL AREA, FARM country, a bunch of prosperous types playing good-old-boy, rolling their sleeves, loosening their ties, ordering a pitcher of domestic beer, getting sirloins cooked rare, smirking about the coastal pussies who worried about cholesterol. Nebraska counties were presumably huge and thinly populated, which could put thirty or more miles between restaurants. But the night was dark and steakhouses always had lit signs. Part of the culture. Either the word Steakhouse in antique script along the spine of the roof, all outlined in neon, or an upmarket name-board all blasted with spotlights.

Reacher killed his headlights and climbed out of the Subaru and grabbed one of the roof rails and stepped up on the hood and then crouched and eased himself up on the roof. He stood tall, his eye line eleven feet above the grade in a flat part of the world. He turned a full 360 and peered into the darkness. Saw the ghostly blue glow of the motel far off to the north, and then a distant pink halo maybe ten miles south and west. Maybe just a gas station, but it was the only other light to be seen. So Reacher drove south and then west. He stopped twice more to fix his bearings. The glow in the air grew brighter as he homed in on it. Red neon, made slightly pink by the night mist. Could be anything. A liquor store, another motel, Exxon.

It was a steakhouse. He came up on it end-on. It was a long low place with candles in the windows and siding like a barn and a swaybacked roof like an old mare in a field. It was standing alone in an acre of beaten dirt. It had a bright sign along its ridgeline, a bird's nest of glass tubing and metal supports spelling out the word Steakhouse in antique script and red light. It was ringed with parked cars, all of them nose-in like sucking pigs or jets at a terminal. There were sedans and pick-up trucks and SUVs, some of them new, some of them old, most of them domestic.

Reacher parked the doctor's Subaru on its own near the road. He climbed out and stood for a moment in the cold, rolling his shoulders, trying to get his upper body comfortable. He had never taken aspirin and wasn't about to start. He had been banged up in the hospital a couple of times, with IV morphine drips in his arms, and he remembered that experience quite fondly. But outside of the ICU he was going to rely on time and willpower. No other option.

He walked to the steakhouse door. Inside it was a small square lobby with another door. Inside that was an unattended maitre d' lectern with a reading light and a reservations book. To the right was a small dining room with two couples finishing up their meals. To the left, the exact same thing. Ahead, a short corridor with a larger room at the end of it. Low ceilings, unfinished wood on the walls, brass accents. A warm, intimate place.

Reacher stepped past the lectern and checked the larger room. Directly inside the arch was a table for two. It had one guy at it, eating, wearing a red Cornhuskers football jacket. The University of Nebraska. In the main body of the room was a table for eight. It was occupied by seven men, coats and ties, three facing three plus the guy from the wedding photograph at the head. He was a little older than the picture, a little bonier, even more smug, but it was the same guy. No question. He was unmistakable. The table held the wreckage of a big meal. Plates, glasses, serrated knives with worn wooden handles.

Reacher stepped into the room. As he moved the guy alone at the table for two stood up smoothly and sidestepped into Reacher's path. He raised his hand like a traffic cop. Then he placed that hand on Reacher's chest. He was a big man. Nearly as tall as Reacher himself, a whole lot younger, maybe a little heavier, in good shape, with some level of mute intelligence in his eyes. Strength and brains. A dangerous mixture. Reacher preferred the old days, when muscle was dumb. He blamed education. The end of social promotion. There was a genetic price to be paid for making athletes attend class.

Nobody looked over from the big table.

Reacher said, 'What's your name, fat boy?'

The guy said, 'My name?'

'It's not a difficult question.'

'Brett.'

Reacher said, 'So here's the thing, Brett. Either you take your hand off my chest, or I'll take it off your wrist.'

The guy dropped his hand. But he didn't move out of the way.

'What?' Reacher asked.

The guy asked, 'Are you here to see Mr Duncan?'

'What do you care?'

'I work for Mr Duncan.'

'Really?' Reacher said. 'What do you do for him?'

'I schedule his appointments.'

'And?'

'You don't have one.'

'When can I get one?'

'How does never work for you?'

'Not real well, Brett.'

'Sir, you need to leave.'

'What are you, security? A bodyguard? What the hell is he?'

'He's a private citizen. I'm one of his assistants, that's all. And now we need to get you back to your car.'

'You want to walk me out to the lot?'

'Sir, I'm just doing my job.'

The seven men at the big table were all hunched forward on their elbows, conspiratorial, six of them listening to a story Duncan was telling, laughing on cue, having a hell of a time. Elsewhere in the building there were kitchen noises and the sharp sounds of silverware on plates and the thump of glasses going down on wooden tabletops.

Reacher said, 'Are you sure about this?'

The young man said, 'I'd appreciate it.'

Reacher shrugged.

'OK,' he said. 'Let's go.' He turned and threaded his way back around the lectern and through the first door and through the second and out to the cold night air. The big guy followed him all the way. Reacher squeezed between two trucks and headed across open ground towards the Subaru. The big guy followed him all the way. Reacher stopped ten feet short of the car and turned around. The big guy stopped too, face to face. He waited, standing easy, relaxed, patient, competent.

Reacher said, 'Can I give you some advice?'

'About what?'

'You're smart, but you're not a genius. You just swapped a good tactical situation for a much worse one. Inside, there were crowded quarters and witnesses and telephones and possible interventions, but out here there's nothing at all. You just gave away a big advantage. Out here I could take my sweet time kicking your ass and there's no one to help you.'

'Nobody's ass needs to get kicked tonight.'

'I agree. But whatever, I still need to give Mr Duncan a message.'

'What message?'

'He hits his wife. I need to explain to him why that's a bad idea.'

'I'm sure you're mistaken.'

'I've seen the evidence. Now I need to see Duncan.'

'Sir, get real. You won't be seeing anything. Only one of us is going back in there tonight, and it won't be you.'

'You enjoy working for a guy like that?'

'I have no complaints.'

'You might, later. Someone told me the nearest ambulance is sixty miles away. You could be lying out here for an hour.'

'Sir, you need to get in your car and move right along.'

Reacher put his hands in his coat pockets, to immobilize his arms, to protect them from further damage. He said, 'Last chance, Brett. You can still walk away. You don't need to get hurt for scum like that.'

'I have a job to do.'

Reacher nodded, and said 'Listen, kid' very quietly, and the big guy leaned in fractionally to hear the next part of the sentence, and Reacher kicked him hard in the groin, right-footed, a heavy boot on the end of a driving leg, and then he stepped back while the guy jackknifed ninety degrees and puked and retched and gasped and spluttered. Then Reacher kicked him again, a solid blow to the side of the head, like a soccer player pivoting to drive a volleyed crossfield pass into the goal. The guy pinwheeled on the balls of his feet and went down like he was trying to screw himself into the ground.

Reacher kept his hands in his pockets and headed for the steakhouse door again.

SIX

THE PARTY WAS STILL IN FULL SWING IN THE BACK ROOM. NO more elbows on tables. Now all seven men were leaning back expansively, enjoying themselves, spreading out, owning the space. They were all a little red in the face from the warmth and the beer, six of them half listening to the seventh boasting about something and getting ready to one-up him with the next anecdote. Reacher strolled in and stepped behind Duncan's chair and took his hands out of his pockets. He put them on Duncan's shoulders. The room went absolutely silent. Reacher leaned on his hands and pulled them back a little until Duncan's chair was balanced uneasily, up on two legs. Then he let go and the chair thumped forward again and Duncan scrambled up out of it and stood straight and turned around, equal parts fear and anger in his face, plus an attempt to play it cool for his pals. Then he looked around and couldn't find his guy, which took out some of the cool and some of the anger and left all of the fear.

Reacher asked, 'Seth Duncan?'

The bony man didn't answer.

Reacher said, 'I have a message for you, pal.'

Duncan said, 'Who from?'

'The National Association of Marriage Counselors.'

'Is there such a thing?'

'Probably.'

'What's the message?'

'It's more of a question.'

'OK, what's the question?'

'The question is, how do you like it?' Reacher hit him, a straight right to the nose, a big vicious blow, his knuckles driving through cartilage and bone and crushing it all flat. Duncan went over backward and landed on the table. He bounced once and plates broke and glasses tipped over and knives skittered away and fell to the floor.

Duncan made no attempt to get up.

Reacher walked away, down the corridor, past the lectern, back to the lot.

The key the red-headed guy had given him was marked with a big figure six, so Reacher parked next to the sixth cabin and went inside and found a miniature version of the lounge, a purely circular space except for a straight section boxed off for a bathroom and a closet. The ceiling was domed and washed with light. The bed was against the wall, on a platform that had been custom built to fit the curve. There was a tub-shaped armchair and a small round table next to it, with an old-fashioned glass television on a larger table nearby. There was an old-fashioned telephone next to the bed. It had a rotary dial. The bathroom was small but adequate, with a shower head over a tub, and the closet was about the same size as the bathroom.

Everything he needed, and nothing he didn't.

He undressed and left his clothes on the bed and took a shower. He ran the water as hot as he could stand and let it play over his neck, his shoulders, his arms, his ribs. He raised one arm, then the other, then both of them together. They moved, but they moved like a newly constructed machine in need of some further development. The good news was that his knuckles didn't hurt at all.

Seth Duncan's doctor was more than two hundred miles away in Denver, Colorado. A first-class medical man, no question, but obviously impractical for emergency services. And the nearest ER was an hour away. And no one in his right mind would go near the local quack. So Duncan had a friend drive him to his uncle Jasper Duncan's place. Because his uncle Jasper Duncan was the kind of guy who could handle odd things at odd hours. He lived five miles south of the motel crossroads, in the northernmost of the three old houses that stood all alone at the end of their long shared driveway. The house was a warren, filled with all kinds of things saved against the day they might be useful. Uncle Jasper himself was more than sixty years old, built like the bole of an oak, a man of various arcane skills, a reservoir of folk wisdom and backwoods knowledge.

Jasper sat Seth Duncan in a kitchen chair and took a look at the injury. Then he went away and rooted around and came back with a syringe and some local anaesthetic. It was a veterinary product, designed for hogs, but mammals were mammals, and it worked. When the site was properly numb, Jasper used a strong thumb and a strong forefinger to set the bone and then went away again and rooted around and came back with an old aluminium facial splint. It was the kind of thing he could be counted on to have at hand. He worked at it and reshaped it to fit and taped it over his nephew's nose. He stopped up the nostrils with wads of gauze and used warm water to sponge away the blood.

Then he got on the phone and called his neighbours.

Next to him lived his brother Jonas Duncan, and next to Jonas lived their brother Jacob Duncan, who was Seth Duncan's father. Five minutes later all four men were sitting around Jasper's kitchen table, and a council of war had started.

Jacob Duncan said, 'First things first, son. Who was the guy?'

Seth Duncan said, 'I never saw him before.'

Jonas said, 'No, first things first, where the hell was your boy Brett?'

'The guy jumped him in the parking lot. Brett was escorting him out. The guy kicked him in the balls and then kicked him in the head. Just left him lying there.'

'Is he OK?'

'He's got a concussion. Doesn't know what day it is. Useless piece of shit. I want him replaced.'

'Plenty more where he came from,' Jonas said.

Jasper asked, 'So who was this guy?'

'He was a big man in a brown coat. With a watch cap on his head. That's all I saw. That's all I remember. He just came in and hit me.'

'Why would he?'

'I don't know.'

'Didn't he say anything?'

'Just some bullshit. But Brett said he was driving the doctor's car.'

'He doesn't know what day it is but he remembers what car the guy was in?'

'I guess concussions are unpredictable.'

'And you're sure it wasn't the doctor who hit you?'

'I told you, I never saw the guy before. I know the doctor. And the damn doctor wouldn't hit me, anyway. He wouldn't dare.'

Jacob Duncan said, 'What aren't you telling us, son?'

'I have a bad headache.'

'I'm sure you do. But you know that's not what I mean.'

'I don't want to talk.'

'But you know you have to. We can't let a thing like this go by.'

Seth Duncan looked left, looked right. He said, 'OK, I had a dispute with Eleanor tonight. Before I went out. No big deal. But I had to slap her.'

'How hard?'

'I might have made her nose bleed.'

'How bad?'

'You know she's delicate.'

The kitchen went quiet for a moment. Jonas Duncan said, 'So let's try to piece it together. Your wife called the doctor.'

'She's been told not to do that.'

'But maybe she did anyway. Because she's delicate. And maybe the doctor wasn't home. Maybe he was in the motel lounge, like he usually is, halfway through a bottle of Jim Beam, like he usually is. Maybe Eleanor reached him there.'

'He's been told to stay away from her.'

'But maybe he didn't obey. Sometimes doctors have strange notions. And perhaps he was too drunk to drive. He usually is. Because of the bourbon. So perhaps he asked someone else to drive him. Because of his level of concern.'

'Who else?'

'Another guy in the lounge.'

'Nobody would dare do that.'

'Nobody who lives here, I agree. Nobody who knows not to. But a stranger might do it. And it's a motel, after all. That's what motels are for. Strangers, passing through.'

'OK, so then what?'

'Maybe the stranger didn't like what he saw at your house, and he came to find you.'

'Eleanor gave me up?'

'She must have. How else would the guy have known where to look? He can't know his way around, if he's a stranger.'

Jacob Duncan asked, 'What exactly did he say to you?'

'Some bullshit about marriage counselling.'

Jonas Duncan nodded and said, 'There you go. That's how it played out. We've got a passer-by full of moral outrage. A guest in the motel.'

Seth Duncan said, 'I want him hurt bad.'

His father said, 'He will be, son. He'll be hurt bad and sent on his way. Who have we got?'

Jasper said, 'Not Brett, I guess.'

Jonas said, 'Plenty more where he came from.'

Jacob Duncan said, 'Send two of them. Have them call me for orders before they deploy.'