Blue Moon

“Wait,” Hogan said. “There are guys on the street corners. Symmetrical. The back corners become the front corners. It won’t be easy to get in.”

“If I wanted easy I would have joined the Marines.”

—

They left the pawn shop the same way they came in, through the back hallway, through the rear door, out to the cross street. They hustled back to the car, at first cautious, and then fast. The car was still there. No ticket. Even the traffic cops were east of Center. Abby drove. She knew her way around. She made a wide loop, well out of sight of the taxi office. She stopped two blocks behind it, on a quiet street, outside a mom-and-pop store that sold washing machine hoses. She left the motor running. Hogan got out, and she scooted across to the passenger seat. Hogan walked around the hood and got in again behind the wheel. Reacher stayed in the back.

“Ready?” he said.

A tight nod from Hogan.

A determined nod from Abby.

“OK, let’s do it,” he said.

Hogan drove the rest of the block and made a left at the end. A block ahead in the new direction were two guys on the corner. On the far sidewalk. Black suits, white shirts. Previously the far left corner, now the near right corner. Symmetrical. They were standing with their backs to the block they were guarding, looking outward, like good sentries should.

What they saw was one of their own cars cruising toward them. A black Lincoln. Indistinct faces behind the windshield. Black glass in the back. It made the left in front of them. Into the cross street. Gregory’s real estate on the right, civilian real estate on the left. And way up ahead, two more guys, on the next corner. Previously the far right, now the near left.

The car slowed and stopped on the curb. The rear window rolled down and a hand came out and beckoned. The guys on the corner took a step toward it, automatically. Reflex action. Then they stopped and thought about it. But they didn’t change their minds. Why would they? It was their car, and anyone important enough to be out and about during Situation C wouldn’t want to be kept waiting. So they started up again and hustled.

Mistake.

The front door opened when they were ten feet away, and Abby stepped out. The rear door opened just as they got there, and Reacher stepped out. He head-butted the first to arrive, barely any effort or movement, all about timing and momentum, like a soccer forward meeting a hard cross from out wide. The guy went down in the gutter. His head cracked on the curbstone. Not his day.

Reacher moved on, to the second guy. A face he suddenly realized he knew. From the bar with the tiny pizzas and Abby waiting tables. The guy on the door. Run along now, kid, he had said to her. I’ll see you again, Reacher had said to him. I hope.

Good things come to those who wait.

Reacher popped him with a short left to the face, just a tap, to straighten him up, for a second short left, this time to the gut, to bend him over, to bring his head down to a convenient position, which was chest height to Reacher, maybe a little below, so he could grab it and twist it and jerk it with all the torque in his upper body. The neck broke and the guy went down. Pretty close to his pal. Reacher squatted between them and took the magazines out of their pistols.

The Lincoln drove away.

Reacher watched. The guys on the far corner had come closer. Inevitable. Symmetrical. For the same reasons. They were still coming closer. Now they were running. Hogan accelerated hard and mounted the sidewalk and smashed straight into them. Not pretty. They came flailing up in the air, proving all the clichés true, like rag dolls, like they were flying. Probably they were already dead. From the impact. Certainly they made no attempt to cushion their fall. They just smashed down, sliding, rolling, scraping, arms and legs everywhere. Hogan parked the car and got out. Reacher got up and started walking.

They met in the middle of the block. Abby was already there. She pointed back the way Hogan had come.

She said, “It’s that way.”

“How can you tell?” Reacher asked.

It was not the kind of street he was expecting. Not like behind the pawn shop. There was no sullen brick, no barred windows, no drooping wires or cables. Instead there was a neat line of newly restored buildings. Like the street with the law project office. Clean and bright. In this case mostly retail stores. Nicer and better than the strip with the taxi company and the bail bond operation. It was a block with two fronts, one coming up, one staying down.