Worth Dying For Read Free

haven’t seen me.’
    The guy with the hair relayed the lie and put the phone down. The drunk guy slumped and his face dropped almost level with the rim of his glass.
    ‘You’re a doctor?’ Reacher asked him.
    ‘What do you care?’
    ‘Is Mrs Duncan your patient?’
    ‘Technically.’
    ‘And you’re blowing her off?’
    ‘What are you, the ethics board? It’s a nosebleed.’
    ‘That won’t stop. Could be serious.’
    ‘She’s thirty-three years old and healthy. No history of hypertension or blood disorders. She’s not a drug user. No reason to get alarmed.’ The guy picked up his glass. A gulp, a swallow, a gulp, a swallow.
    Reacher asked, ‘Is she married?’
    ‘What, marriage causes nosebleeds now?’
    ‘Sometimes,’ Reacher said. ‘I was a military cop. Sometimes we would get called off-post, or to the married quarters. Women who get hit a lot take a lot of aspirin, because of the pain. But aspirin thins the blood, so the next time they get hit, they don’t stop bleeding.’
    The drunk guy said nothing.
    The barman looked away.
    Reacher said, ‘What? This happens a lot?’
    The drunk guy said, ‘It’s a nosebleed.’
    Reacher said, ‘You’re afraid of getting in the middle of a domestic dispute?’
    No one spoke.
    ‘There could be other injuries,’ Reacher said. ‘Maybe less visible. She’s your patient.’
    No one spoke.
    Reacher said, ‘Bleeding from the nose is the same as bleeding from anyplace else. If it doesn’t stop, she’s going to pass out. Like a knife wound. You wouldn’t leave her sitting there with a knife wound, would you?’
    No one spoke.
    ‘Whatever,’ Reacher said. ‘Not my business. And you’d be no good anyway. You’re not even fit to drive out there, wherever she is. But you should call someone.’
    The drunk guy said, ‘There isn’t anyone. There’s an emergency room sixty miles away. But they’re not going to send an ambulance sixty miles for a nosebleed.’
    Reacher took another sip of coffee. The drunk guy left his glass alone. He said, ‘Sure, I would have a problem driving. But I’d be OK when I got there. I’m a good doctor.’
    ‘Then I’d hate to see a bad one,’ Reacher said.
    ‘I know what’s wrong with you, for instance. Physically, I mean. Mentally, I can’t comment.’
    ‘Don’t push it, pal.’
    ‘Or what?’
    Reacher said nothing.
    ‘It’s a nosebleed,’ the doctor said again.
    ‘How would you treat it?’ Reacher asked.
    ‘A little local anaesthetic. Pack the nasal cavities with gauze. The pressure would stop the bleeding, aspirin or no aspirin.’
    Reacher nodded. He’d seen it done that way before, in the army. He said, ‘So let’s go, doctor. I’ll drive.’

THREE
    T HE DOCTOR WAS UNSTEADY ON HIS FEET . H E DID THE USUAL drunk-guy thing of walking across a flat floor and making it look like he was walking up a hill. But he got out to the lot OK and then the cold air hit him and he got some temporary focus. Enough to find his car keys, anyway. He patted one pocket after another and eventually came out with a big bunch on a worn leather fob that had Duncan Transportation printed on it in flaking gold.
    ‘Same Duncan?’ Reacher asked.
    The guy said, ‘There’s only one Duncan family in this county.’
    ‘You treat all of them?’
    ‘Only the daughter-in-law. The son goes to Denver. The father and the uncles treat themselves with roots and berries, for all I know.’
    The car was a Subaru wagon. It was the only vehicle in the lot. It was reasonably new and reasonably clean. Reacher found the remote on the fob and clicked it open. The doctor made a big show of heading for the driver’s door and then ruefully changing direction. Reacher got in and racked the seat back and started the engine and found the lights.
    ‘Head south,’ the doctor said.
    Reacher coughed.
    ‘Try not to breathe on me,’ he said. ‘Or the patient.’
    He put his hands on the wheel the same way a person might manoeuvre two baseball gloves