Past Tense

Chapter 21

The guy from the apple farm was in the second row, behind the driver. Not a natural squad leader position. Not a throne of authority, like the front passenger seat. Maybe the guy saw himself more as an active-duty soldier. Just one of the boys. Which was encouraging. It might indicate a low bar. At least a lowered average. Like looking at the opposition batting order. It was nice to know there was a guy you could get out.

The other four were a generation younger. Not so different from the kid in the orchard. Same kind of build, same kind of muscle, same kind of tan. The same human species. But poorer. Different kind of grandfather. No one said life was fair. But they looked happy to help. Picking time was coming up. Maybe baby needed shoes.

The truck squelched to a stop, and all four doors opened, in a ragged sequence. Five men jumped down. Boots clattered on the blacktop. Two guys came around the hood and formed up shoulder to shoulder with the other three, with the older guy right in the middle, all of them gray and ghostly in the reflected half light. They looked like a faded billboard for an old-time black and white movie. Some sentimental story. Maybe their mother died young and the old guy raised them all solo. Now they’re grateful. Or now for the first time ever a fractured family is seeing eye to eye, because of a terrible external threat. Some kind of dramatic hokum. They were acting it out.

Reacher was thinking about Brenda Amos.

We don’t want trouble here.

But she was talking about collateral damage. Which in this case was likely to be very minor. Even non-existent. The street was empty. There were no guns. There was no action at all. Not yet. Just a staring competition. And posing. Which Reacher guessed he was, too. He was acting relaxed and unconcerned, standing easy, almost smiling, but not quite, as if he had just found out an irksome task might need attention, before an otherwise excellent day came finally to a close. Opposite him the other five were still giving it the full-on shoulder to shoulder thing, with high crossed arms and hard tilted-up stares, and slowly it dawned on Reacher that their display was not after all intended to be seen as a narrative tableau, with a poignant implied backstory explaining their sudden new solidarity. It was intended to be seen as a much less subtle message. It was a raw statement of numbers. Nothing more. It was five against one.

The guy from the apple farm said, “You need to come with us.”

Reacher said, “Do I?”

“Best to come quietly.”

Reacher said nothing.

The guy said, “Well?”

“I’m trying to figure out where that would fall, on a scale of likelihood. Where ten means it’s extremely likely to happen, and one means it ain’t going to happen in a million years. I have to tell you, right now the numbers popping up in my mind are all fairly small.”

“Your choice,” the guy said. “You could save yourself a couple of bruises. But you’re coming with us one way or the other. You put your hands on my son.”

“Only one hand,” Reacher said. “And only briefly. Not much more than a tap. The kid’s got a glass jaw. You should look after him better. You should explain to him why he can’t play with the grown ups. It’s cruel not to. You’re doing him a disservice.”

The guy didn’t answer.

Reacher said, “Are these new boys any better? I sure hope so. Or you need to explain to them, too. This is the big leagues now.”

A ripple ran down the line, like a little spasm. Sharply drawn breaths rustled arms against chests, and jabbed glares jerked heads above shoulders.

We don’t want trouble here.

Reacher said, “We don’t have to do this.”

The guy from the farm said, “Yes, we do.”

“This is a nice town. We shouldn’t make a mess.”

“Then come with us.”

“Where to?”

“You’ll see.”

“We already discussed that part. Right now the likelihood is still close to zero. But hey, I’m open to offers. You could sweeten the deal.”

“What?”

“You could pay me. Or offer me something.”

“We’re offering you the chance to save yourself a couple of extra bruises.”

Reacher nodded.

“You mentioned that before,” he said. “It raised a number of questions.”

He looked left and right and back again, at the four younger guys.

He asked, “Where were you born?”

None of them answered.

“You should tell me,” he said. “It’s important to your futures.”

“Around here,” one of them said.

“And then you grew up around here?”

“Yes.”

“Not Southie or the Bronx or South-Central LA?”

“No.”

“Not in a shantytown outside of Rio de Janeiro? Or in Baltimore or Detroit?”

“No.”

“Any law enforcement experience?”

“No.”

“Have you done time in prison?”

“No.”

“Any military service?”

“No.”

“Any secret clandestine training by Mossad? Or the SAS in Britain? Or the French Foreign Legion?”

“No.”

“You understand this is going to be different than picking apples, right?”

The boy didn’t answer.

Reacher turned back to the guy from the apple farm.

“See the problem?” he said. “This whole thing with the bruises just doesn’t work. It has no internal logic. It’s an optical illusion. You’re offering the absence of something you can’t deliver anyway. Not with this crew. You need to do better than that. Use your imagination. An inducement is required. Maybe a large cash payment would be tempting. Or the keys to the truck. Or maybe one of these boys could introduce me to his sister. Just one night. He could tear himself away.”

Obviously Reacher knew they would all react, which was exactly what he wanted, but he didn’t know which one of them would react first and fastest, so he stayed loose, already winding up his countermeasures, but keeping his aim flexible, as long as he could, hoping he would know before the point of no return, when finally he had to commit to a direction. And he did, because the kid to the left of center started forward a foot ahead of the others, enraged by the abuse and derision, so Reacher lined him up and threw his punch. Legend had it the fastest hands in boxing could move at thirty miles an hour, much faster than Reacher, who was happy with twenty, but even at that slower speed his fist crossed the yard of air in front of him in a tenth of a second. Virtually instantaneous. It hit the kid in the face, and then Reacher snapped it back just as fast, like a crisp parade ground move, and he stood upright and easy, like nothing had happened, like you had blinked and missed it.

Just for the drama.

The kid fell down.

Fifty yards away Elizabeth Castle and Carter Carrington stepped out of the bistro. He said something and she laughed. The sound was loud in the empty street. The guys from the truck turned to look. Not the guy on the ground. He wasn’t doing anything.

Fifty yards away Carrington took Elizabeth Castle’s hand, and they turned together and set out walking. Head on. Approaching. They were lit flat and bright by the stopped truck’s lights, like Reacher had been. He watched them for a second, and then he turned to the farm guy and said, “Now you got a choice of your own. The city attorney is coming. A credible witness, if nothing else. I’m prepared to stick around and slug it out. Are you?”

The guy from the farm glanced down the street. At the approaching couple. All lit up. Now forty yards away. Their heels were loud on the brick. Elizabeth Castle laughed again.

The guy from the farm said nothing.

Reacher nodded.

“I understand,” he said. “You don’t like letting things go. Because you’re the top dog. I get it. So I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll make sure we meet again. Tomorrow or the next day. One day soon. I’ll come back to Ryantown. I’m sure I’ll want to. Keep an eye out for me.”

He walked away. He didn’t look back. Behind him he heard nothing for a second, and then he heard muttered commands and scuffling feet, and the truck backing up, and thumps and gasps as the groggy guy was hauled up off the ground and stuffed in a seat. He heard a door slam. Then he turned in on a side street, and heard nothing more, all the way back to his room. Where he stayed the rest of the night. He caught most of a meaningless late-season Red Sox game out of Boston, and then the late local news, and then he went to bed, where he slept soundly.

Until one minute past three in the morning.