Chuck Hogan - Devils in Exile

“Not surprised. Belt should match the shoes, by the way. At least look like you want to get lucky.”

Maven checked: woven black leather belt, brown boots.

“You’re too alone,” said Royce, patting the table. “Gotta get some people around you, keep your head straight. You’re what, twenty-seven? No infirmities?”

“No.”

“Not a scratch?”

Maven shrugged. “I got scratched. I was lucky overall.”

“Good. Good to be lucky. Honorable discharge, of course.”

“Sure.”

“You’d had it?”

“I don’t know. Seemed like I needed to try something else.”

“They let you go?”

“My contract was up. I could be recalled.”

“You will be recalled, don’t kid yourself. Hell, I’m twelve years out, they better not come back for me. You got a short window here, maybe real short, you should make the most of it. Post-traumatic stress?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Loud noises? Crowds?”

“Getting better now.”

Royce set down his fork and pushed back his plate to lean closer to Maven. “So. Let me ask you this then. Why’d you run off?”

Royce’s scrutiny made an already uncomfortable question even more uncomfortable. “I don’t really know.”

“You want me to tell you?” Royce waited patiently for permission. “You ran off because you almost killed that guy. Because you wanted to kill him, and you were going to kill him.” Royce swiped his mouth gently with his linen napkin before laying it down next to his plate. “And that scared you.”

Maven didn’t answer. He didn’t move.

“Muscle memory is all that is. Doesn’t mean anything. You’re not some twitchy Vietnam vet. It’s your training. You were attacked. You responded.”

Maven nodded.

“What you are now, you’re like a guy who doesn’t know his own strength anymore. Like an astronaut back from the moon, dealing with gravity again. You know how when you go into the refrigerator for a gallon of milk sometimes, and you pick it up expecting it to be full, and you hit the ceiling of the fridge with it because it’s basically empty? Your hands are too big for your arms. Am I right?”

“You’re right.”

“It’s clear you’ve had Special Forces training. And I don’t care where you served, what battalion, who with. Because it doesn’t apply here at home, and because fuck you what you did, everybody did something. Guys who think they’re owed something, those guys are the ones fucked from the jump.” Royce shook his head. “This isn’t about any of that. This is about now.” He scanned the other diners, checking for eavesdroppers. “So. Being honest now. You miss the action?”

“I don’t know.” Maven exhaled. “Maybe.”

“Meaning you do, but you wish you didn’t. Because you think it’s taboo to admit it.” The contradiction made Royce grin. “So admit it.”

Royce’s grin pulled one out of Maven. “I miss the action.”

“You’re damn right you miss it.”

Royce pulled back, scanning the other diners yet again. This time his gaze settled upon one in particular. Maven glanced over his shoulder at a man sitting alone, bald with an immaculately clean scalp, a little smudge of sandy hair beneath his lower lip, wearing a sage green jacket and thumbing through messages on a BlackBerry. The man’s napkin rested next to an empty pasta bowl.

“So,” said Royce, pulling Maven’s attention back to their table. “You’re home now, you made it in one piece — no small feat. Big question is, now what? What are you going to do with the rest of your life? A cliché for everyone else, but for you, right now, a critical question. Looking ahead. What is it you want out of life?”

Maven knew he should have an answer. “I don’t really know.”

“What’s your passion? Obviously it isn’t food.” Royce pointed to the basil pesto pizza sitting left on the round warming stone. “A goal. In the distance. Gotta be something.”

Maven said, in order to say something, “A house.”

“A house.”

“Yeah. Nothing big, just... something not rented. An actual house on actual land. Ownership.”

Royce finished his glass of Italian water. “Good. That’s good. It’s tangible. Most guys, nine months out — I’m serious — they say, ‘Rock star,’ you know? ‘I just wanna get my raps heard...’” Royce drew a neat wad of U.S. currency from his pants pocket, peeling off two fresh fifties and a twenty, tucking them into the leather booklet without even looking at the check. “U.S. military is putting out more Eminem wannabes than firemen and cops.”

Maven pulled his eyes off the cash roll, playing a hunch, glancing back at the guy in the green cashmere jacket.

He was laying a credit card faceup into his leather booklet.

Royce said, “You done?”

Maven looked at his pizza. It was rude not to eat more. “I guess I should...”

Royce pushed back from the table, nudging Maven’s arm as he stood. “You’re done.”

Maven watched Royce start away from the tables, wondering what was happening. Had he flunked the test?

He stood after a moment and followed Royce out, catching him on the sidewalk outside. Royce was feeding his ticket to a black-vested valet, who took off jogging toward Mass. Ave.

“Look around you, Maven,” said Royce, putting on a sleek pair of sunglasses.

It was a sunny November afternoon, a break from the late-year chill, probably the last warm day until early spring. The fashionable street crowd milled past carrying oversize shopping bags and grande lattes.

Royce said, “You look at these people, and you think, ‘This is who I went over there to protect?’”

A heavy woman in a too tight business suit passed them, spooning candy-studded ice cream into her mouth.

“Grazing on sweets, wandering around a major city like kids inside a resort hotel. This guy.”

A dumpy man in his thirties exited a shoe store across the street, dressed in a T-shirt, loose shorts, and flip-flops, mobile phone wedged against his ear.

“Out-of-shape guys in the prime years of their lives. I see someone walking around town in flip-flops, you know what I think? Gazelle sunning itself on the plain. Who’s he going to outrun in those things? Who’s he going to take in a fight? That’s a willing victim right there. I think to myself, ‘I could take your wife, your kids.’” Royce snapped his fingers. “You saw it, right? Iraqis whose families were taken from them? This guy would say, ‘But this isn’t Iraq.’ And I say, ‘Neither was New Orleans.’” Royce passed behind Maven like a breeze. “Nobody’s fucking ready. None of them. Take away their mobile phones, and you’ve all but cut their throats. When the shit goes down, you might as well scratch ‘nine one one’ in the dirt with a stick, the good it’s going to do you. They think big-daddy government is going to protect them? Think the police can keep them safe?”

Maven said, surprising himself, “Cops are out jerking off to Cheri magazine in their cruisers.”

Royce shot Maven an approving glance. “Damn right they are. I’m telling you things you already thought of but never put words to. You’ve been to the other side. You’ve seen what happens when the strings get cut. These people, the fight has been programmed out of them. These poor fucks actually believe they are entitled to peace and security. That war thing in the newspaper? It’s a message that’s not getting through. A warning they just don’t want to hear. They’d rather trust, and be lied to. It’s easier that way. But you, you’re ready. You’ve got that good tension just below the surface. These fucking sleepwalkers — they have no idea. You’ve come back to a dream world, Maven. A world of virgins. They don’t know.”