Mercy Kill_ A Mystery - Lori Armstrong [4]
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 Some became withdrawn, refusing to fraternize with fellow team members in their off-duty time.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