There was a light fixture above him. It was long, about forty inches with six high wattage bulbs angled differently to cover the table below kind of like they have in pool parlours. This wasn't a pool parlour.
Reacher's arm hurt and he looked down at his left bicep. It was bruised and there were two puncture marks. A small piece of gauze attached to a piece of sticking plaster was lying on the table beside him. It had a smear of blood on it so must have been used to cover the puncture marks before it had become detached. The table was covered in white linen stretched tightly. It was kind of like an operating table. It was an operating table.
Reacher's memory stirred now that his mind was becoming free of whatever drug had been administered. He recalled a struggle. Four guys had tried to hold him down. Four guys had ended up in crumpled heaps around a room. A white room. Reacher looked about. There were no guys on the floor but he could see some scattered objects; several balls of cotton fibre; some stainless steel scissors; a metal bowl; a patch of blood. What had gone on here?
Reacher shrugged his shoulders and as he did so felt a pain down below. Well, not a pain actually, more of a discomfort. He concentrated on this. Yes, there it was. It was in his arse. Deep in his arse. What had happened here?
The curtain that screened off the table from the rest of the room was pulled apart. A man stepped in. He was tall. Cadaverous. He was wearing a white smock that was smeared here and there with some indeterminate stains. He had a grim look on his face.
"Assman" he said "Joel Assman, Proctologist. You OK now?"
"Proctologist" Reacher echoed....then.."
"Yes" said Assman "the colonoscopy you scheduled. You went berserk when we tried to insert the scope up your rectum. It took four attendants and a strong sedative to calm you down. Sorry, but we might have been a bit rough going in. You'll feel a bit sensitive down there for a while".
Reacher remembered. He'd had stomach pains for a while and a barmaid friend of his had talked him into getting the colonoscopy. He should have read up on the procedure before committing to it. The indignity of it!. "OK doc, sorry about that. How'd I do?"
The Proctologist looked at the clipboard in his hand and shook his head. "You really should have eaten your vegetables. That diet of black coffee and steak and hamburgers of yours has, well, come up to bite you on the ass. So to speak."
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"But those pains" the Doctor continued with a raised eye brow, "are from a hemeroid after your historectomy!"
Reacher took out the doctor with one savage blow to his windpipe. No one must know his secret. No one.
This is just going too damn far!
Reacher knew far. He'd been there. Beirut, Iraq, Nuova Lazio. There was no such thing as too far. He should know, after all, his mname was Reacher.
Reacher sat looking at a spot on the wall. I'm a woman! Suddenly it all became clear. That's why I want to beat up men.
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