Dead Six

his eyes hidden behind Oakley sunglasses. I opened the door.

“Tailor.” His head was slightly less misshapen in person. Tailor grinned. He hadn’t changed a bit. His dirty blond hair was buzzed down to almost nothing, as always. He was dressed casually but still looked uptight. He was wearing a nice leather jacket.

“Val.” He stuck out his hand. I took it, and we shook firmly. “Long time no see, bro.”

“C’mon in,” I said, stepping aside.

Tailor looked around my apartment. “This is where you live? What’d you do, spend all your money?”

“I’ve got plenty of money in savings,” I said testily. “I just wanted to keep a low profile. This place isn’t bad.” Tailor then noticed my blue uniforms hanging against the wall.

“You’re a security guard?” he asked incredulously. “You’ve been in how many wars? And now you’re a security guard?”

“Ain’t much demand for my skill set, you know,” I said, looking for my jacket. “Where are we going?”

“I found a steakhouse.”

“You’re buying me a steak? What? Okay, what the hell is going on?”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you about it over lunch.” I looked at him hard for a moment. I was about to tell him to get the hell out of my apartment and go back to bed. Something told me to hear him out, though. I felt that I owed him that much; hesaved my life more than once. I nodded, put on my sunglasses, and followed him out the door.

“It’s good to see you again,” I said from the passenger’s seat of Tailor’s Ford Expedition, looking out the window. Neither one of us had said anything since we’d left my apartment.

“You, too, bro,” Tailor replied, his voice sounding unusually upbeat.

“So, where are we going?” I asked as he drove me across town. We were headed downtown, toward the Strip.

“Ruth’s Chris,” he said. “It’s over on Paradise.”

“Dude, that place is expensive.”

“When did you become so cheap, Val?” Tailor asked. “Besides, I’m buying. Don’t worry about it! You think I’d drag you out of bed and not buy lunch?”

“Yes,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

“Fair enough.” A lopsided grin appeared on his face. “But I didn’t this time.”

A short while later, I found myself sitting at a booth in the steakhouse, waiting for my food. Tailor sat across from me. We both sipped glasses of Dr. Pepper and talked about nothing.

“Okay, Tailor, what’s this all about? I haven’t heard from you since Mexico. Now you show up on my doorstep and buy me an expensive steak. What’s going on?”

Tailor set down his Dr. Pepper. “Have you thought about going back to work?”

“I have a job,” I said, sounding a little huffy.

“What do you make, ten bucks an hour?” Tailor asked, sarcasm in his voice.

“I make eighteen bucks an hour,” I said, sounding more than a little huffy this time. “And no one shoots at me. Also? I haven’t been to a single funeral since I started.”

“Okay, how’s that working out for you? Are you happy?”

“What?”

“Are you happy doing this? Going to work every day like a regular guy? Is that what you want?

“Well, I . . .” I fell silent, and remained quiet for a long moment. I took a deep breath. “I hate this,” I said quietly. “It’s like . . . I try so hard to fit in, to understand people, to make this work. But I can’t. I just . . .”

“You know what the problem is, Val?” Tailor asked, interrupting me. I raised my eyebrows at him. “You’re a killer.”

“That’s not it,” I protested.

“The fuck it’s not,” he said. “How long have I known you? Four years, right?”

“Since Africa,” I said, remembering my first deployment with Vanguard. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since then.

“Right. And you know what I’ve learned in all that time? You’re a badass. You don’t think you are, and you’ve got that baby face and stupid smile, and you act all quiet and shy. But when you strip all that away, you’re a killer.”

“So?” I asked. His analysis of my personality was making me uncomfortable. I looked around the restaurant, studying the other customers, watching the doors as people came in and out.

“See what you’re doing right now? You’re checking the exits, aren’t you?” Tailor said.

“Fine. So I’m the problem. I’m some kind of badass that can’t understand how to fit in the real world, just like in that old Kurt Russell movie. Is that it?”

“No. The problem isn’t that you don’t understand. It’s that they don’t understand,” he said, moving his arm to indicate the other people in the restaurant. “They don’t live in the real world. They haven’t seen the things that you’ve seen or done the things that you’ve done. Most of these people have never killed a man or buried a friend. Hell, most probably have never even fired a gun. And there you sit, concealing a 44 Magnum, watching the exits, surrounded by people who just don’t get it. You’re a killer, Val, and no matter how long you work a bullshit nine-to-five job, you’re not gonna change that.”

I didn’t respond for a few moments. “You’re more perceptive than you look,” I said at last, rubbing my eyes.

“The question is,” Tailor went on, “what changed? It didn’t used to bother you. I know you have nightmares, Val. Everybody has nightmares. Everybody has regrets. Well, except me. I don’t. But most people do. It didn’t used to eat you up. It’s eating you up now. I can see it on your face. What happened?”

“Mexico happened, Tailor,” I said flatly, looking him in the eye again.

Tailor took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat. “That was ugly, wasn’t it?”

“Ugly? We got stranded in hostile territory, abandoned, left to die. We barely got out alive. So yeah, I guess you could say it was ugly.”

“We got out, didn’t we?”

“Only because of Ling and her people.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Tailor said, taking another sip of his soda. “We lived.”

“Tell that to Ramirez’s family.”

“Ramirez didn’t have any family, Val,” Tailor snapped, setting his glass down hard. “None of us did. It’s why we were good at our jobs. It’s why we got the good jobs, the good pay, and the good equipment. It’s why we were on the Switchblade teams in the first place. We had nothing to come home to anyway. Ramirez is dead. Harper is dead. Tower is dead. Everybody dies, Val. You don’t get to pick how or when. I worked with Ramirez longer than you. Don’t you dare use his death as an excuse to mope around like a teenaged drama queen!”

I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t look at Tailor. We were briefly interrupted as the waitress brought us our food.

“Is that what’s eating you, Val?” Tailor asked at last, chewing expensive steak with his mouth open. “Survivor’s guilt?”

“You don’t understand,” I said quietly, cutting my steak.

“How the hell do you know what I understand?” Tailor said to me. “I’ve been doing this longer than you, Val. You think you’ve seen some shit? I’ve seen some shit, too. The difference is, I deal with it instead of letting it screw me up. Until you do that, nothing’s going to change for you. Living in this dump, punishing yourself with a stupid job and a stupid life isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

I ate my steak in silence, not sure what to say. We were quiet for an awkwardly long time before either one of us spoke. I set my fork down and looked at my former partner. “What’s this all about, Tailor? I know you didn’t drive all the way to Vegas and buy me an expensive steak just to yell at me about my angst.”