Worth Dying For

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
    T HE PARTY WAS STILL IN FULL SWING IN THE BACK ROOM . N O 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