17 A Wanted Man

of her, meaty thighs close to her shoulders but not quite touching them, giving her no room at all to swivel and get out. They were talking about her to each other, over her head, coarse and boorish, wondering out loud why the pretty little lady wasn’t inviting them to sit down with her. They were truckers, probably. Possibly they mistook her for a business traveller far from home. A woman executive. The black pantsuit, the blue shirt. A fish out of water. They seemed to like her hair.
    Reacher stopped ten feet away and watched. He wondered which she would pull first, her ID or her Glock. He guessed ID, but would have preferred the Glock. But she pulled neither. She just sat there, taking it. She was a very patient person. Or perhaps there would be paperwork involved. Reacher didn’t know the ins and outs of Bureau protocol.
    Then one of the guys seemed to sense Reacher’s presence and he went quiet and his head turned and his eyes locked on. His pal followed suit. They were large men, both of them bulky with the kind of flesh that wasn’t quite muscle and wasn’t quite flab. They had small dull eyes and unshaven faces, and bad teeth and stringy hair. They were what a doctor friend of Reacher’s used to write up as PPP. A diagnosis, a message, a secret insider medical code, one professional to another, for ease of reference.
    It meant piss-poor protoplasm.
    Decision time, boys
, Reacher thought.
Either break eye contact and walk away, or don’t
.
    They didn’t. They kept on staring. Not just fascination with the nose. A challenge. Some kind of a brainless hormonal imperative. Reacher felt his own kick in. Involuntary, but inevitable. Adrenalin, seasoned with an extra component, something dark and warm and primitive, something ancient and prehistoric and predatory, something that took out all the jitters and left all the power and all the calm confidence and all the absolute certainty of victory. Not like bringing a gun to a knife fight. Like bringing a plutonium bomb.
    The two guys stared. Reacher stared back. Then the guy on the left said, ‘What are you looking at?’
    Which was a challenge all by itself, with a predictable dynamic. For some unknown reason most people backed down at that point. Most people squirmed, and got defensive, and got apologetic. Not Reacher. His instinct was to double down, not back down.
    He said, ‘I’m looking at a piece of shit.’
    No response.
    Reacher said, ‘But a piece of shit with a choice. Option one, get back in your truck and get breakfast fifty miles down the road. Option two, get in an ambulance and get breakfast through a plastic tube.’
    No response.
    ‘It’s a limited time offer,’ Reacher said. ‘So be quick, or I’ll choose for you. And to be absolutely honest, right now I’m leaning towards the ambulance and the feeding tube.’
    Their mouths moved and their eyes flicked from side to side. They stayed where they were. Just for a couple of seconds, just enough to save face. Then they picked option one, like Reacher knew they would. They turned and shuffled away, slowly enough to look unconcerned and a little defiant, but they kept on going. They made steady progress. They pushed out the door and disappeared into the lot. They didn’t look back. Reacher breathed out and sat down again.
    Sorenson said, ‘I don’t need you to look after me.’
    Reacher said, ‘I know. And I wasn’t. They were talking to me by that point. I was looking after myself.’
    ‘What would you have done if they hadn’t left?’
    ‘Moot point. Guys like that always leave.’
    ‘You sound disappointed.’
    ‘I’m perpetually disappointed. It’s a disappointing world. As in, why were you just sitting there and taking it?’
    ‘Paperwork,’ she said. ‘Arresting people is such a pain in the ass.’
    She took out her phone and lit it up. She checked it for bars and battery. She shut it down again.
    ‘Expecting a call?’ Reacher asked.
    ‘You know I am,’ she said. ‘I’m waiting to be taken off this case.’
    ‘Maybe that isn’t going to happen.’
    ‘It should have happened two hours ago.’
    ‘So what’s your best guess?’
    But she didn’t get a chance to answer that question, because right then, right on cue, her phone started ringing.

FORTY-TWO
    THE PHONE HOPPED and buzzed. The ring tone was thin and reedy. A plain electronic sound. Sorenson answered the call and listened. Reacher could see in her face it was not the call she was expecting. She