Rescue Me

Wilson standing next to stockpiles of RPG launchers, AK–47 magazines, Russian-made grenades, Stinger missiles, and what someone claimed to be Osama bin Laden’s very own personal copy of the Koran. Vince had always had a doubt or two about that, but it made for a good story.
    The operation orders had called for the insertions of four SEALs and a seven-mile hump to the caves. Marine security covered their right and left flanks, watching for enemy snipers hiding in the cracks and crevasses. The assault took longer than expected because of the rough terrain and heat. They’d paused halfway to strip off the jackets they’d worn for the flight in, but that still left him packing water, MREs, H-gear, assorted weaponry, body armor, and ballistics helmet.
    The first thing they’d noticed as they’d neared the objective was that the bombs the flyboys had dropped earlier to soften the area missed about eighty percent of their targets. The platoon patrolled up to the entrance and entered the caves like they would a house or ship. The lights on their weapons faded in the deep caverns.
    “ ‘Little surprises around every corner,’ ” Wilson said as they rounded the mouth of one cave. Before anyone asked, he added, “Willy Wonka. The original movie. Not the fucked-up Johnny Depp remake.”
    “Shit on rye. That’s an ass-load of Gobstoppers.” Vince shone the light from his weapon on boxes of Stingers. “Looks like someone planned on playing war with us.”
    Wilson laughed. That deep staccato ha ha ha that always brought a smile to Vince’s face. The laugh he missed when he thought of his friend.
    Vince set the sledgehammer on Luraleen’s old desk, which he decided to keep for old times’ sake, and grabbed pieces of busted-up wood and counter. Thinking about Wilson usually made him smile. Dreaming about him made him shake like a baby and run into walls.
    He walked out of the office and through the back door he’d left wedged open with a brick earlier. He moved a few feet to a Dumpster and tossed the debris inside. He figured it would take a week or two to finish demolition and another three or four to renovate.
    The fading evening sun lowered in the cloudless Texas sky as a red Volkswagen pulled to a stop in the back. A trickle of sweat slid down his temple and he lifted his arm and wiped at it with his shoulder. Becca cut the engine of the Bug and waved through the windshield at Vince.
    “Sweet baby Jesus save me.” For some inexplicable reason, she still stopped by on her way home a few times a week. He’d never done anything to encourage the “friendship.”
    “Hi, Vince,” she called out as she walked toward him.
    “Hey, Becca.” He turned toward the building, then stopped and looked back. “You cut your hair.”
    “One of the girls did it at school.”
    He pointed to the left side. “It looks longer on one side.”
    “It’s supposed to.” She ran her fingers through it. “Do you like it?”
    He supposed he could lie, but that just might encourage her to stick around. “No.”
    Instead of getting all upset and leaving, she smiled. “That’s what I like about you, Vince. You don’t sugarcoat things.”
    There was a reason. Sugarcoating encouraged relationships he didn’t want. “You’re not pissed about that hair?” The women he’d known would have freaked.
    “No. I’ll get it fixed tomorrow. Do you need your hair cut? I’m getting pretty good with the clippers.”
    Pretty good? “That’s okay. I don’t want my head lopsided.”
    Again she laughed. “I’d use a number two on you ’cause you look like you like it high and tight.”
    He thought of Sadie, and not for the first time since he’d left her house. He’d thought of her several times a day since then. If there’d been anything going on beyond mindless demo work, he might be worried about how much he thought about her.
    “I need your advice on something.”
    “Me? Why?” He’d given his sister advice but she’d never listened to him. Becca wasn’t even related, so why should he suffer?
    She put her hand on his forearm. “Because I care about you, and I think you care about me. I trust you.”
    Oh no. A bad feeling pinched the back of his neck. This was one of those times that called for finesse and a precision extraction. “Becca, I’m thirty-six.” Much too old for her.
    “Oh, I thought you were older.”
    Older? What? He didn’t look old.
    “And if my dad was still alive, I think he’d listen to me