Lori Armstrong - Mercy Kill

So what if I’d kept up with my PT and marksmanship training? At least I wouldn’t look like hell and act touchy about it like him. “What can I get for you tonight, Jason?”

“Jim Beam and Coke. Make it a double.”

“Want two cherries in it?”

“You’re a fucking riot.”

“I try.” I mixed the drink and plopped it in front of him.

“Thanks.”

Given Vinnie’s earlier speculation, I bailed to the back room, where I stacked chairs and picked up trash. But the mindless work funneled my thoughts back to the man out front, the soldier I’d served with off and on for a decade.

Major Jason “J-Hawk” Hawley was a shadow of the man he’d been, but my criticism wasn’t just about his appearance. I’d gotten used to returning from deployment and running into people at Fort Bragg I’d served with in the sandboxes, and not recognizing them stateside. Months of desert heat dropped pounds off even the chubbiest soldier. Months of access to real food and no real danger put those missing pounds back on in a helluva hurry.

The major was an exception. He’d lost a solid thirty, all of it muscle. His hair was longer, thinner, worn mullet-style. His skin was a pasty yellowish-white tone I secretly called a North Dakota tan. The physical changes were inevitable, but the personality change bothered me on a whole different level.

War transformed soldiers. Some become destructive outside of their military working hours. Some constantly spoiled for a fight as a reason to show off their training. Some became withdrawn, refusing to fraternize with fellow team members in their off-duty time.

But I’d always noticed the biggest change was in the deployed family men. Balls-to-the-wall aggression was lauded when you were in charge of a platoon or a brigade, but not so much when you were in the States running kids to soccer practice in the minivan. Male soldiers called newly deployed female soldiers “Queen for a Year,” but they never applied a like-minded derogatory moniker to themselves. So my all-female team and I referred to them as “Masturbators of the Universe”-henpecked guys, used to their wives calling the shots, who suddenly didn’t have a female to answer to. They became over-the-top bulging bags of testosterone, determined to prove to every woman in the compound that they’d brought their manhood with them, and their precious big balls weren’t at home with their wives… for a change.

J-Hawk hadn’t been that type of guy. As a Ranger team leader, he’d commanded respect without demanding it because he’d earned it. Something he definitely wasn’t doing in Eagle River County working as a representative for Titan Oil. Now he was a smooth-talking company guy, wearing a three-piece suit, Ray-Bans, and tasseled loafers. No one around here liked him. Plenty of guys were genuinely hostile. I’d tried to remain neutral, but several regulars noticed I wasn’t my usual caustic self around J-Hawk, and some people saw my friendliness as cavorting with the enemy. So I was screwed either way.

As I passed J-Hawk on my way back behind the bar, I tripped on the folded corner of the rubber mat.

Bix, the dumb-as-a-brick, but-strong-as-an-ox bricklayer caught me, his thick fingers circled my biceps. “Steady there, Mercy. You all right?”

“Just lost my footing. I’m fine. Thanks.”

He glanced over my shoulder, and his pale blue eyes frosted into chips of ice. “I can see why you stumbled. Mighty big pile of shit next to you. You’ll probably wanna avoid it next time.”

J-Hawk ignored Bix’s attempt to bait him and hunkered over his drink.

When Rose Corwin stopped in for her nightly fifth of cheap gin and cheap talk, I indulged her on the latter for a change. I chanced a look at the clock. The bar closed in an hour, and I still needed to change the register tape before I rang the till out for the night. I rummaged in the beer-soaked box beneath the counter for a new package.

The manufacturer had shrink-wrapped six rolls together. I poked my finger in the small hole, trying to rip it open. The plastic had no give, and I lifted the package to my mouth to tear it open with my teeth.

“Here. Save those pearly whites and pretty smile. Use this.”

Thud. J-Hawk had tossed his knife on the counter. The knife I’d helped my army buddy and former teammate Anna Rodriguez pick out for him. The knife with the engraving that read: 1001 Nights-4-Ever.

I met his gaze. “You still have this?”

“I’ll always have it. I’m never without it.”

“Never?”

“Never. It’s the only tangible thing I’ve got from…”

Anna.

“That time,” he said.

It was a sweet knife, a stainless-steel Kershaw. I flicked the blade open with the thumb catch. Three and a half inches of steel sliced through the plastic like hot butter, then through the paper roll, leaving a precise starting point to thread through the cash register’s feeding mechanism. Hell, I could’ve cut through skin, bone, and the shellacked countertop with it. I clicked the blade shut into the knifewell and slid it back to him. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” J-Hawk stirred his still nearly full drink. “Look, Mercy, I’d really like to talk to you.”

“Sure. If it’s about you telling those fuckers at Titan Oil to take their pipeline and jam it up their ass, I’m all ears.”

“Regardless of how you view them, I’m asking to talk to you strictly as your friend. I’d like to catch up with what you’ve been doing.”

Right. Most likely J-Hawk wanted to catch up on news about Anna, his former star-crossed lover.

He tugged his sleeve back to look at his watch.

I barely withheld a disgusted gasp. His watchband dug into the flesh of his wrist so deeply I couldn’t discern the thickness of the strap. The bloated skin surrounding it reminded me of an overcooked chicken sausage about to burst its casing.

“Can I get a twelve-pack of Keystone Light to go?” he asked, interrupting my gawking at his grotesque arm.

“Sure. Seems a little low-end for you.”

He shrugged. “Don’t you remember, back in the day? When you were looking for a cheap drunk? What’d you drink?”

“Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

“Good old PBR. Brings back memories.”

I yanked a twelve-pack from the cooler. Seemed odd Jason wanting a cheap drunk. Odd and sort of lonely. Sitting in his motel or vehicle, drinking alone.

Like you have any room to talk about solo drinking habits.

“What’re the damages?”

“Total is twenty-one bucks.”

As J-Hawk riffled through his wallet, I noticed another peculiar thing. He didn’t carry pictures of his kids. He’d never carried photos of his family in the field. Back then I hadn’t thought anything of it; I never carried pictures either. The lack of personal effects was a hallmark of Special Forces rather than personal preferences.

So it struck me as strange that Jason the civilian wouldn’t have a few snapshots of his offspring.

“Here.” He handed me twenty and rooted in his jacket pocket for a handful of wadded-up ones. “Keep the change. See you around.”

As I watched him leave, I felt other bar patrons eyeing me suspiciously. I’d had enough fun for one day. I announced, “Last call, people.”

Fourteen minutes afterI barred the front door, I’d counted out the till and locked the money in the office safe. A record shutdown for me.

Sad, that my life was still measured in clicks. Not clicks of my scope as I adjusted my sights on a target, but clicks of the second hand on a time clock.

Late spring meant chilly nights, especially at the zero hour, and I shivered in my jean jacket. I set the alarm and started across the pitch-black parking area behind the building. My night vision sucked, but I was too proud to carry a flashlight, so I stumbled around and cursed the darkness.