Worth Dying For by Lee Child Page A

what?’
    ‘Unless one of us took a couple of his calls already.’
    Jonas Duncan said, ‘Well, I didn’t.’
    ‘Me either,’ Jasper Duncan said.
    ‘You sure?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Because there’s really no other explanation here. And remember, this is a guy we can’t afford to mess with. This is a deeply unpleasant person.’
    Jacob’s brothers both shrugged. Two men in their sixties, gnarled, battered, built like fireplugs. Jonas said, ‘Don’t look at me.’
    ‘Me either,’ Jasper said again.
    Only Seth Duncan hadn’t spoken. Not a word. Jacob’s son.
    His father asked, ‘What aren’t you telling us, boy?’
    Seth looked down at the table. Then he looked up, awkwardly, the aluminium plate huge on his face. His father and his two uncles stared right back at him. He said, ‘It wasn’t me who broke Eleanor’s nose tonight.’

ELEVEN
    J ASPER D UNCAN TOOK A PART-USED BOTTLE OF K NOB C REEK whiskey from his kitchen cabinet and stuck three gnarled fingers and a blunt thumb in four chipped glasses. He put them on the table and pulled the cork from the bottle and poured four generous measures. He slid the glasses across the scarred wood, a little ceremony, focused and precise. He sat down again and each man took an initial sip, and then the four glasses went back to the table, a ragged little volley of four separate thumps in the quiet of the night.
    Jacob Duncan said, ‘From the beginning, son.’
    Seth Duncan said, ‘I’m dealing with it.’
    ‘But not very well, by the sound of it.’
    ‘He’s my customer.’
    Jacob shook his head. ‘He was your contact, back in the day, but we’re a family. We do everything together, and nothing apart. There’s no such thing as a side deal.’
    ‘We were leaving money on the table.’
    ‘You don’t need to go over ancient history. You found a guy willing to pay more for the same merchandise, and we surely appreciate that. But rewards bring risks. There’s no such thing as something for nothing. No free lunch. So what happened?’
    ‘We’re a week late.’
    ‘We aren’t. We don’t specify dates.’
    Seth Duncan said nothing.
    Jacob said, ‘What? You guaranteed a date?’
    Seth Duncan nodded.
    Jacob said, ‘That was dumb, son. We never specify dates. You know we can’t afford to. There are a hundred factors outside of our control. The weather, for one.’
    ‘I used a worst-case analysis.’
    ‘You think too much. There’s always something worse than the worst. Count on it. So what happened?’
    ‘Two guys showed up. At my house. Two days ago. His people. Tough guys.’
    ‘Where was Brett?’
    ‘I had to tell him I was expecting them.’
    ‘Were you?’
    ‘More or less.’
    ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
    ‘Because I’m dealing with it.’
    ‘Not very well, son. Apparently. What did they do?’
    ‘They said they were there to deliver a message from their boss. An expression of displeasure. I said I understood. I explained. I apologized. They said that wasn’t good enough. They said they had been told to leave marks. I said they couldn’t. I said I have to be out and about. I have a business to run. So they hit Eleanor instead. To make their point.’
    ‘Just like that?’
    ‘They asked first. They made me agree. They made her agree, too. They made me hold her. They took turns. I told her sorry afterwards. She said, what’s the difference? Them then or you later? Because she knew I was agitated.’
    ‘And then what?’
    ‘I asked for another week. They gave me forty-eight hours.’
    ‘So they came back again? Tonight?’
    ‘Yes. They did it all over again.’
    ‘So who was the guy in the restaurant? One of them?’
    ‘No, he wasn’t one of them. I told you, I never saw him before.’
    Jonas Duncan said, ‘He was a passer-by. Like we figured. From what he said at the time, to the boy. A passer-by full of the wrong end of the stick on this occasion.’
    Jacob said, ‘Well, at least he’s out of our hair.’
    Then they heard