Tod Goldberg - The Reformed

“Sounds perfect,” I said. “How much does he want?”

“Nothing yet,” Sam said. “I’m sure there’s a contingency. I’ll work it out.”

“Sam,” I said, “no more clients.”

“It’s not like that with this guy, don’t worry. He’s an ex-SEAL. Pride of country and all that.”

“Like Virgil?”

“Well, like Virgil, but with more bloodlust. Good guy. Lots of kills under his belt. This one time, in Latvia? I swear to God, he took out an entire city just by flossing his teeth and grunting. Anyway. I’ll meet you here in the morning. Nine?”

“Let’s do eight.”

“Eight thirty?”

“Why don’t you just show up whenever you want, Sam?”

“Perfect, Mikey. I’ll see you then.”

A few moments later, Barry came back down the stairs, looking essentially like Barry, though his hair still looked like a nest of vipers. I put my arm over his shoulder. “Barry, my friend,” I said, “I have a few things to clear with you tonight that you should be made aware of before tomorrow begins.”

“Oh, Mike, I don’t like how that sounds,” he said.

“You shouldn’t,” I said.

What Sam could remember about serving with Chris Alessio back in the day-they’d both been SEALS-was that he was never quite sure if the guy was a true-blooded American hero or just batshit crazy. He was the sort of guy who would rush a hill with nothing but a buck knife in his teeth, which is sort of neat in movies, but in real life is just a great way to get your tongue cut off. Never mind that if all you have is a knife, you’re literally taking a knife into a gunfight, and they don’t make up cliches like that without a basis in truth.

Crazy thing was, the guy never got shot. One time in Panama, Sam saw him rush into a Tupac Amaru hide-out with just a knife and flashlight, and five minutes later there were three dead rebels and ten rebel prisoners tied up in a corner, and all Chris had to show for his troubles were a torn shirt, a knife with a broken tip and, oddly, one missing shoe. They eventually found the shoe under one of the dead bodies, which is why, for a little while, other SEALS called him Kick-Ass Alessio, until it became clear Chris really just preferred to be called Chris. And when a guy that batshit crazy tells you what he’d like to be called, well, Sam figured you heeded that warning. Why piss the guy off, you know?

Now, though, Chris Alessio operated a sprawling paintball complex called Battle: World out past Tamiami, where the city began to give way to the Everglades. A few years back, this area was just farmland and marsh, but Alessio had turned it into a theme park of sorts. For the price of admission, you and your buddies could have paintball wars in Vietnam, Tikrit, Kabul, Germany, Normandy and even the Philippines. All the major wars, except for the Civil War, were represented, probably on account of Alessio’s deep well of patriotism. Or maybe because no one really wanted to kill other Americans anymore. It was too much fun killing some foreign entity… or at least your buddy as some foreign entity, anyway.

When Sam finally found the business office-the park had been closed for a few hours by the time he’d arrived-Alessio was sitting behind a desk of dark maple, but instead of being covered with papers, it was covered with paintball guns. It was a bit like walking into some militia headquarters. In fact, the last time they’d done any kind of mission together, Sam remembered Chris rather marveling at the nice office setup a Somali warlord had. It was that moment when Sam knew Chris wasn’t going to reenlist like the rest of the team. Once you start noticing furniture, it’s game over.

“That’s quite an array you have there,” Sam said.

“I’m just doing some cleanup,” he said. “I had a group of HP printer techs out here today. Talk about guys with anger-management issues. It was like watching us take on those Russian commandos in Belarus.”

“I’m not sure I remember that,” Sam said.

“You might have sat that one out,” he said. “That might have been a freelance job, actually, now that I think about it. It was after Yeltsin made nice, so I’m thinking it might not have been sanctioned.”

“The good old days,” Sam said.

“Anyway, these guys? They went after each other for hours on end today. Had to finally kick them out when they started dropping their goggles and helmets and really fucking each other up. Can’t have people’s eyes and teeth rolling around my grounds. That’s just not good for business.”

“Too much reality is a bad thing?” Sam said.

“People, it turns out, really like to shoot each other. They just don’t like to bleed or see blood.”

That made sense to Sam. All things being equal, not seeing blood for a few years would suit him just fine. Chris stood up then and came around the desk, and Sam marveled at how fit he still was. Where Sam had added a few pounds over the years-mostly water weight, he reasoned, mixed with hops-Chris looked like he could still be on active duty in the SEALS. Sure, Chris had a bit of salt and pepper in his hair these days, but who didn’t? But his waist and belly were on the same plain. Genetics. That was it. Chris Alessio must have been one of those guys who just woke up on his first day as a human physically fit and ready to fight.

“Let’s go take a look at what I got for you,” Chris said. He led Sam back out of the office and then they walked out into the park. There were still a few people milling about, cleaning up the place, raking out the paint, watering down the building facades, which made it all the more eerie, since the first portion of the paintball park was designed to look like your basic Downtown USA.

“You get a lot of guys wanna shoot up their own hometowns?” Sam asked.

“We had a team of postal workers last week who went completely agro out here.”

At the end of the block and just off the playing area was a building marked ARMORY, though unlike the other buildings on the block, it was an actual, fully enclosed building. Once Chris unlocked the door and they walked inside, Sam could see that his old friend had fully invested himself in branding. In addition to guns and helmets and gloves and other normal paintball accessories for sale, there were also ladies’ style T-shirts, coffee cups, license-plate frames, mousepads and anything else that might be enhanced by the Battle: World logo. Hell, Sam thought, Chris had spent half of his life fighting for the freedom of capitalism; he might as well get some for himself.

“Don’t bother looking at that stuff,” Chris said. Sam was admiring a rack of guns that were painted pink in honor of breast cancer. They even had one of those ribbons painted on the barrel, which was a nice touch. “I keep the test guns in the back.”

Sam tried to envision Fiona carrying a pink gun of any caliber or style and decided that part of her charm was that she could probably pull it off, at least once. Sam followed Chris past racks of shirts and hoodies, past a rack of commemorative postcards and through a set of double doors, into what ended up being the meat of the building-a large warehouse stacked high with merchandise on one side, and a test firing range on the other. Sam thought it was weird to have an indoor range, particularly when the entire park was made to shoot in. Or at least he thought it was weird until Chris unlocked an upright chest and began unloading paintball guns that looked heavier and more complex than one you might buy at Sportsmart.

Chris handed one to Sam. “That’s the Titan Legion Z-200 you’ve got there,” he said. “Stainless steel. Expanded barrel. Enlarged chamber. Officially, it doesn’t exist. Or not yet, anyway. They’ve had me testing it out here for a few weeks, and I’ve been adding my two cents to the designers. We’ve got it torqued up to go six-hundred-fifty feet per second without any problem, but I’ve been working to get it closer to eight hundred.”