Nothing to Lose

send us.”
    “You run this place according to a manual?”
    “Sure. It’s a bureaucracy, like everywhere.”
    “You got a copy of the manual available?”
    “Somewhere.”
    “You want to show me the part where it says it’s OK to keep the rooms dirty and have mouse shit in the corridors?”
    The guy blinked and swallowed and said, “There’s no point cleaning, man. They wouldn’t know. How could they? This is the vegetable patch.”
    “Is that what you call it?”
    “It’s what it is, man.”
    “Wrong answer,” Reacher said. “This is not the vegetable patch. This is a veterans’ clinic. And you’re a piece of shit.”
    “Hey, lighten up, dude. What’s it to you?”
    “David Robert Vaughan is my brother.”
    “Really?”
    “All veterans are my brothers.”
    “He’s brain dead, man.”
    “Are you?”
    “No.”
    “Then listen up. And listen very carefully. A person less fortunate than yourself deserves the best you can give. Because of duty, and honor, and service. You understand those words? You should do your job right, and you should do it well, simply because you can, without looking for notice or reward. The people here deserve your best, and I’m damn sure their relatives deserve it.”
    “Who are you anyway?”
    “I’m a concerned citizen,” Reacher said. “With a number of options. I could embarrass your corporate parent, I could call the newspapers or the TV, I could come in here with a hidden camera, I could get you fired. But I don’t do stuff like that. I offer personal choices instead, face-to-face. You want to know what your choice is?”
    “What?”
    “Do what I tell you, with a cheery smile.”
    “Or?”
    “Or become patient number eighteen.”
    The guy went pale.
    Reacher said, “Stand up.”
    “What?”
    “On your feet. Now.”
    “What?”
    Reacher said, “Stand up, now, or I’ll make it so you never stand up again.”
    The guy paused a beat and got to his feet.
    “At attention,” Reacher said. “Feet together, shoulders back, head up, gaze level, arms straight, hands by your sides, thumbs in line with the seams of your pants.” Some officers of his acquaintance had barked and yelled and shouted. He had always found it more effective to speak low and quiet, enunciating clearly and precisely as if to an idiot child, bearing down with an icy stare. That way he had found the implied menace to be unmistakable. Calm, patient voice, huge physique. The dissonance was striking. It was a case of whatever worked. It had worked then, and it was working now. The guy in the sweatshirt was swallowing hard and blinking and standing in a rough approximation of parade-ground order.
    Reacher said, “Your patients are not just whatever they send you. Your patients are people. They served their country with honor and distinction. They deserve your utmost care and respect.”
    The guy said nothing.
    Reacher said, “This place is a disgrace. It’s filthy and chaotic. So listen up. You’re going to get off your skinny ass and you’re going to organize your people and you’re going to get it cleaned up. Starting right now. I’m going to come back, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe next month, and if I can’t see my face in the floor I’m going to turn you upside down and use you like a mop. Then I’m going to kick your ass so hard your colon is going to get tangled up in your teeth. Are we clear?”
    The guy paused and shuffled and blinked. Then he said, “OK.”
    “With a cheery smile,” Reacher said.
    The guy forced a smile.
    “Bigger,” Reacher said.
    The guy forced dry lips over dry teeth.
    “That’s good,” Reacher said. “And you’re going to get a haircut, and every day you’re going to shower, and every time Mrs. Vaughan comes by you’re going to stand up and welcome her warmly and you’re going to personally escort her to her husband’s room, and her husband’s room is going to be clean, and her husband is going to be shaved, and the window is going to be sparkling, and the room is going to be full of sunbeams, and the floor is going to be so shiny Mrs. Vaughan is going to be in serious danger of slipping on it and hurting herself. Are we clear?”
    “OK.”
    “Are we clear?”
    “Yes.”
    “Completely?”
    “Yes.”
    “Crystal?”
    “Yes.”
    “Yes what?”
    “Yes. Sir.”
    “You’ve got sixty seconds to get started, or I’ll break your arm.”
    The guy made a phone call while still standing and then used a walkie-talkie and