“Un huh.”
“Missed that,” Red said. “But I done some shit in‘ Malaya. God damn, I love it. A fire fight. Jesus. A fire fight’s better than fucking, you know. That’s got to be the most fun in the world. You like that shit?”
“Fucking ain’t bad,” Hawk said.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Red said. “How ‘bout you, pal. Where’d you soldier?”
“Korea,” I said.
“He got medals,” Hawk said.
“And seventy-eight bucks a month,” I said.
“Mercenary’s better,” Red said. “Get the same fun and a lot more bread.”
We finished the round and had another. “You quit soldiering after Korea?” Red said.
“Yes.”
“Don’t like the life?”
“Don’t like the chain of command.”
Red nodded. “Yeah, that’s a pain in the ass. The chicken shit. That’s why I like this. I don’t like the chicken shit, I quit. Move on. Fuck it.” He drank his whiskey. “And the guys, man. I love soldiering with the guys, you know?”
I nodded. “I know,” I said.
“So what do you do for a living,” Red said.
I shrugged. “Little of this, little of that.”
“Mostly we scuffle,” Hawk said.
Red tipped his head. “Scuffle?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re good with guns, we got quick hands.”
“Shit,” Red said, “that ain’t bad. You working now?”
“No. We’re sort of looking.”
Red turned toward the bartender and gestured. “Man die of fucking thirst around here,” he said.
“What kind of soldiering you do around here,” I said.
“We’re training right now.”
“Giving or receiving,” I said.
Red frowned. “Huh?”
“Are you training people or being trained.”
“Being trained,” Red said. “Counter-insurgency.”
“Figured you might already know that,” Hawk said.
“Oh man, shit,” Red said. “Course I know that. I been an insurgent and a counter-insurgent and an imperialist fucking warmonger and fifty-three other things. But they pay me and they want to train me and I get trained.”
“How come a weapons manufacturer is training troops?” I said.
Red shrugged. “Supposed to familiarize us with some new-generation weapons. So’s we can go train customers. But I know counter-insurgency training when I take it.”
“We were out past there yesterday,” I said. “Just cruising around and the security people told us to screw.”
“Yeah. Security’s real tight.”
“Don’t want people slipping in and scooping samples,” I said.
Red grinned. “Ain’t people slipping in,” he said. “They don’t want people slipping out.” His face had reddened and for the first time his speech began to slur a little. If I’d had that many boilermakers they could iron clothes on me.
“You’re out,” I said.
“Sure, they don’t worry about us. They worry about the workers.”
“The workers don’t get out?”
Red shook his head. He drank. Looked around the room. His eyes picked up the thin waitress and followed her across the room. “Getting drunk,” Red said. “Always tell when Doreen starts looking better.”
“How come the workers don’t get out?” I said.
“Got me,” Red said, his eyes still on Doreen. “Probably paying them shit and afraid one of them will complain to somebody. Most of them are foreign, probably illegal.”
“Complain about pay and get deported,” I said.
Red shrugged. “Company gets its ass burned too, though.”
