by Tod Goldberg
“No,” Father Eduardo said, “no, I don’t think that’s true. And neither do you.”
“No,” I said, “I guess I don’t.”
Eduardo Santiago, who used to rob little kids, who ran the Latin Emperors, who did federal time, snitched out his gang, found God and came out a changed man, came out a priest, smiled at me in a way I found unnerving, too. “Maybe he was a spy, too?”
“Not a chance,” I said. “Get some rest. Tomorrow we go to war.”
Eduardo still had that unnerving smile going. “I didn’t think this was going to happen to me again. I thought this period of my life was done.”
“It will be,” I said. One way or the other, that was true.
Father Eduardo left for good then, so I opened up the fridge and pulled out three beers and one blueberry yogurt.
“You gonna get a beer for yourself?” Sam said.
“I thought you weren’t drinking anymore,” I said.
“That was this morning,” he said, and cracked open one of the bottles. “It’s a new day in Australia, mate.”
I slid one of the bottles to Fiona, but she pushed it away. “What?” I said.
“This Leticia business,” she said. “I’m all wrapped up in it.”
“We’re all wrapped up in it,” I said. “Even your boyfriend, Barry.”
“No,” she said. “That Killa is Father Eduardo’s brother makes this all the more complicated for her. How does she know who to trust? I mean, really, Michael—how will she ever know who to trust?”
“She won’t,” I said, “just like the rest of us.”
“And that poor child has a great genetic makeup. Both of his parents are criminals, for God’s sake.”
I couldn’t remember a time when I’d seen Fiona this worked up over one of our clients. “We’ll get her out of this,” I said.
“Sam, can you get her into Witness Protection or something?”
Sam took a sip of his beer and then made a smacking sound with his lips. “Ah, to be in love ... No luck, sister,” Sam said, “not when Father Eduardo won’t even admit there’s something criminal going on. I could talk to my guys in the FBI, but Father Eduardo would have to cop to this blackmail, and he won’t do that. Hell, he won’t even let us have squirt guns.”
Barry made a snorting noise in his sleep that echoed down from upstairs, which got Fiona’s attention. She raised her eyebrows in a silent question to me.
“Maybe,” I said. “Let’s see if Barry makes it out of this alive before we have him getting your best girlfriend Leticia smuggled out of the country.”
“Okay,” she said.
“In the meantime,” I said, “we need to get some guns that aren’t guns. I don’t suppose you know anyone, Fi, with a gross of paintball guns for sale?”
“I could get us 50 Vektor CR-21 assault rifles, if you’d like,” she said, and suddenly was full of perk again. Nothing like a little gun talk to get Fiona out of a funk. “But no, nothing with paint. My clients rarely want to make an Impressionist work of art. A body is far more preferable.”
“Sam?”
“I got a guy I went to basic with about a million years ago who now runs one of those paramilitary camps where accountants spend an entire weekend shooting each other for kicks. I could ask him.”
“He know how to keep a secret?”
“He’s ex-military,” Sam said.
“Right,” I said.
“Right,” Sam said. “Well, I’ll tell him I’m helping a bunch of at-risk kids. Which wouldn’t be a lie, right?”
“If he’s running a camp for rich people,” I said, “he’s probably been tinkering with the guns already. Tell him you want the ones he keeps for the whales in the group.”
Paintball guns aren’t really guns. They’re markers. Get hit with a paintball and really what you’re getting hit with is a paint-filled gelatin capsule traveling at three hundred feet per second, which is fast enough to bruise you or put out your eye or break your nose, all of which are good reasons to wear a helmet and goggles when people are shooting at you. If you really want to hurt someone with a paintball gun, you need to amp up the velocity to six hundred feet per second, which will generate enough force to break a bone. But breaking bones isn’t usually enough if you’re fighting people with guns. People with guns can still shoot you with a broken foot or clavicle. So instead of a gelatin cap filled with paint, you want to get a gelatin cap filled with pepper spray. Get hit at six hundred feet per second by a paintball filled with pepper spray and you’ll have a broken bone and you’ll think you’re about to die. And if pepper spray isn’t available, mix together bleach and ammonia and you’ll find that they make a rather debilitating and disabling combination, too.
Sam drained the rest of his beer and then stepped outside to call his guy, which left Fiona and me alone with Barry’s snoring. She was still upset but had on her bravest face, which only meant she was thinking of ways to do this all her way.
“Fi,” I said, “tomorrow, when we face Junior again, I need you to follow my lead.”
“Don’t I always, Michael?”
“No,” I said.
“Don’t I usually?”
“It’s about seventy-thirty,” I said. “My plan is to attack all the angles, but systematically. I’m going to start with Leticia. I want you to know that. She’s going to be at the door, and I’m going to put her into enough fear that she might run out right then.”
“I don’t know why this is getting to me so much,” she said. “Maybe because Leticia is so young. Maybe because she has a child. I don’t know, Michael.”
I took her into my arms for a moment and she held on. It wasn’t one of those desperate moments we’ve had before, where it feels like the world is about to explode. Instead, it just felt like a time when Fiona might need to be treated like someone who needed a hug.
A sound from upstairs halted the moment. Or, really, the end of a sound, as Barry’s snoring came to an abrupt halt. I heard him rummaging around for a moment, and then he appeared on top of the stairs, shirtless, pantsless (except for his boxer shorts) and disheveled. I could see he was trying to focus his eyes, but wasn’t having much luck.
“Where am I?” he said.
“You’re asleep,” I said.
Barry tried to consider that for a moment, but it didn’t compute. “Did you drug me?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Sam did.”
“He put something in my drink?”
“Yes,” I said. “Alcohol.”
Barry scratched at a place on his stomach and then sniffed at the air. “Do I smell fried chicken?”
“No,” I said.
“Could we work on that?”
My default answer wouldn’t work here, particularly since I needed to explain to Barry that tomorrow he’d have to face his fears. That tomorrow, I had a plan for him that might involve a fantasy or two—I had a vision of Fiona smacking him, which I’m sure was a vision Barry had on occasion, too—and that if he wanted my help getting out from under the problems he encountered with the Latin Emperors, he’d need to do exactly as I told him. And I needed to tell him that tomorrow, if things went poorly, this could be his last substantial meal.
I decided to leave that last part out. Why scare the guy?
“Fiona,” I said, “why don’t we take our friend Barry out for a delicious dinner?”
“Why don’t you take your friend Barry out for a delicious dinner, and I’ll stay here and read fashion magazines and memorize your yogurt selection.”
“I could stay here with Fiona while you run out and get food,” Barry said. Fiona shot him a look that was equal parts warning and promise. “Easy there,” Barry said. “I was just saying. I’m happy to go with Michael. If you want to make yourself comfortable, I left a warm space up there on the nice throw rug you let me sleep on.”
“I’ll pass,” Fiona said. “And please, put on some pants, Barry. The neighborhood dogs have begun to howl.”
Barry disappeared back i
nto the darkness, which was good, since Sam walked back in from the patio then, looking far too happy. “Just talked to my guy,” he said. “I’m going to his place right now. He says he’s got some guns he doctored up for some boys who were doing prison control in Kabul a few months back.”
“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.
12
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 clichés 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 Túpac 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.”
&n
bsp; “Wouldn’t that be lethal?”
“You’d have to be a sniper and you’d have to hit a defenseless person for it to have that effect,” Chris said. “And even then you’d have to be pretty close.”
“Wouldn’t that be the point?”
“And you’d have to want to kill him,” Chris said. He shrugged, and Sam remembered that this was a guy who used to really like killing people, until he started to notice the wider world outside his kill zone. “You’re not gonna kill someone shooting them in the foot. You aim at someone’s head, yeah, you could kill them. Most likely, you’d just put them down for a bit. Bruise their brain a bit. But if you’re coming at me to the point that I need to unload, then I’m happy to bruise your brain.”
Sam wasn’t really sure a person could bruise his brain, but he was certain that if he got hit in the head with just about anything traveling eight hundred feet per second, there was a good chance it would serve as a pretty good deterrent to whatever abhorrent behavior he was engaged in.
Chris loaded the gun and handed it back to Sam. “Shoot it,” Chris said.
There was a full human target made of ballistics gel about thirty yards away. Chris wasn’t screwing around out here. Sam took the gun and aimed it, thinking, Well, if it even breaks the skin, I’ll be surprised, and fired away. It didn’t have that same satisfying sound that a Glock might make, or an AK, but it did make a nice pop, and when the ball hit the target, there was a loud slapping sound. Sam had aimed for the midsection, hoping to hit the pubis bone, a spot that when punched tends to crumple an assailant.
Sam and Chris walked out to the target and examined the damage. There was a spatter of red paint where Sam had hit the body, and the flesh was torn open. Sam shoved his index finger inside the gap—it was about a third of an inch.
“Not a great place to get stitches,” Sam said.
Chris waved him off. “Cuts are nothing. Who cares about a flesh wound?” He went behind the dummy, and that’s when Sam saw that it was hooked up to a laptop. Chris tapped the keys a few times and up came a series of three-dimensional re-creations of the shot. “That poor bastard you just shot? You separated his pelvis.”