“I’m sure you love it,” Reacher said. “One week in four, it makes you feel mighty relieved.”

“Outside,” the big guy said. “Now.”

He turned around and shooed the others toward the door. They formed up in single file and threaded between the tables. Their boots clattered on the wood. The girl called Sandy tagged after them. Other customers shrank away from them. Reacher put twenty dollars on his table and glanced up at the football game. Someone was winning, someone was losing.

He followed the girl called Sandy. Followed the blue spandex pants.

They were all waiting for him on the sidewalk. They were all tensed up in a shallow semicircle. There were yellow lamps on poles twenty yards away north and south and another across the street. The lamps gave each guy three shadows. There was neon outside the bar that filled the shadows with pink and blue. The street was empty. And quiet. No traffic. No noise, except sports bar sounds muffled by the door.

The air was soft. Not hot, not cold.

Rule eight: Assess and evaluate.

The big guy was round and smooth and heavy, like a bull seal. Maybe ten years out of high school. An unbroken nose, no scar tissue on his brows, no misshapen knuckles. Therefore, not a boxer. Probably just a linebacker. So he would fight like a wrestler. He would be a guy who wants you on the ground.

So he would start by charging. Head low.

That was Reacher’s best guess.

And Reacher was right.

The guy exploded out of the blocks and charged, head low. Driving for Reacher’s chest. Looking to drive him backward and have him stumble and fall. Whereupon the other four could all pile in together and stomp him and kick him to their hearts’ content.

Mistake.

Because, rule nine: Don’t run head-on into Jack Reacher.

Not when he’s expecting it. It’s like running into an oak tree.

The big guy charged and Reacher turned slightly sideways and bent his knees a little and timed it just right and drove all his weight up and forward off his back foot and through his shoulder straight into the big guy’s face.

Kinetic energy is a wonderful thing.

Reacher had hardly moved at all but the big guy bounced off crazily, stunned, staggering backward on stiff legs, desperately trying to stay upright, one foot tracing a lazy half-circle in the air, then the other. He came to rest six feet away with his feet firmly planted and his legs wide apart, just like a big dumb capital letter A.

Blood on his face.

Now he had a broken nose.

Put the ringleader down.

Reacher stepped in and kicked him in the groin, but left-footed. Right-footed, he would have popped bits of the guy’s pelvis out through his nose. Your big soft heart, an old army instructor had said. One day it’ll get you killed.

But not today, Reacher thought. Not here. The big guy went down. He fell on his knees and pitched forward on his face.

Then it got real easy.

The next two guys came in together shoulder-to-shoulder, and Reacher dropped the first with a head butt and the second with an elbow to the jaw. They both went straight down and lay still. Then it was over, because the last two guys ran. The last two guys always do. The girl called Sandy ran after them. Not fast. The tight spandex and the high-heeled boots impeded her. But Reacher let her go. He turned back and kicked her three downed brothers onto their sides. Checked they were still breathing. Checked their hip pockets. Found their wallets. Checked their licenses. Then he dropped them and straightened up and turned around because he heard a car pull up behind him at the curb.

It was a taxi. It was a taxi with Helen Rodin getting out of it.

She threw a bill at the driver and he took off fast, gazing straight ahead, deliberately not looking left or right. Helen Rodin stood still on the sidewalk and stared. Reacher was ten feet away from her, with three neon shadows and three inert forms on the ground behind him.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked.

“You tell me,” he said. “You live here. You know these damn people.”

“What does that mean? What the hell happened?”

“Let’s walk,” he said.

They walked south, fast, and turned a corner and went east. Then south again. Then they slowed a little.

“You’ve got blood on your shirt,” Helen Rodin said.

“But not mine,” Reacher said.

“What happened back there?”

“I was in the bar watching the game. Minding my own business. Then some underage red-haired bimbo started coming on to me. I wasn’t playing and she got it to where she found a reason to slap me. Then five guys jumped up. She said they were her brothers. We took it outside.”

“Five guys?”

“Two ran away.”

“After you beat up the first three?”

“I defended myself. That’s all. Minimum force.”

“She slapped you?”

“Right in the face.”

“What had you said to her?”

“Doesn’t matter what I said to her. It was a setup. So I’m asking you, is that how people get their kicks around here? Picking on strangers in bars?”

“I need a drink,” Helen Rodin said. “I came to meet you for a drink.”

Reacher stopped walking. “So let’s go back there.”

“We can’t go back there. They probably called the cops. You left three men on the sidewalk.”

He looked back over his shoulder.

“So let’s try my hotel,” he said. “There’s a lobby. There might be a bar.”

They walked together in silence, through dark quiet streets, four blocks south. They stayed east of the plaza and passed by the courthouse. Reacher glanced at it.

“How was dinner?” he asked.

“My father was fishing. He still thinks you’re my witness.”

“Did you tell him?”

“I can’t tell him. Your information is classified. Thank God.”

“So you let him stew.”

“He’s not stewing. He’s totally confident.”

“He should be.”

“So are you leaving tomorrow?”

“You bet I am. This place is weird.”

“Some girl comes on to you, why does that have to be a big conspiracy?”

Reacher said nothing.

“It’s not unheard-of,” she said. “Well, is it? A bar, the new guy in town all alone, why shouldn’t some girl be interested? You’re not exactly repulsive, you know.”

Reacher just walked.

“What did you say to her to get slapped?”

“I wasn’t showing any interest, she kept on coming on, I asked her if she was a hooker. Something like that.”

“A hooker? That’ll get you slapped in Indiana. And her brothers would hate it.”

“It was a setup, Helen. Let’s be realistic. It’s nice of you to say it, but I’m not the sort of guy that women chase after. I know that, OK? So it was a setup.”

“No woman ever chased you before?”

“She smiled in triumph. Like she had found an opening and delivered me. Like she had succeeded at something.”

Helen Rodin said nothing.

“And those guys weren’t her brothers,” Reacher said. “They were all more or less the same age, and when I checked their licenses they all had different last names.”

“Oh.”

“So it was all staged. Which is weird. There are only two reasons for doing something like that. Fun, or money. A guy in a bar might have a few bucks, but that’s not enough. So they staged it for fun. Which is weird. Doubly weird, because why pick on me? They must have known they were going to get their butts kicked.”

“There were five of them. Five guys never think one guy could kick their butts. Especially not in Indiana.”

“Or maybe I was the only stranger in the bar.”

She looked ahead, down the street. “You’re at the Metropole Palace?”

He nodded. “Me and not too many other people.”

“But I called and they said you weren’t registered. I called all the hotels, looking for you this afternoon.”

“I use aliases in hotels.”

“Why on earth?”