Charisma

by Steven Barnes

  It was almost overwhelmingly strange to watch the video image. What a different man Renny Sand had been then. A younger, better man. Sometimes, fourteen years was an entire lifetime.

  Muriel peered at him over the rim of her glass. “Impressive, wasn’t he?”

  “Mmm-hmm. I wanted to have his baby.”

  She laughed throatily, and linked her slender arm through his. “Kitty might still have some sperm samples. You could check.”

  “His mom?”

  “They were very close. Some say he never married because of her.”

  “Or the Goon Squad.”

  She laughed again, the long and slender line of her neck catching his eye for the first time that night, reminding him of …

  He caught his breath. “Yeah.” Renny fought to fasten his attention elsewhere. “Where are they now?”

  Muriel pursed her lips and touched a slender finger to them with slightly forced elegance. “Rumor says D’Angelo’s playing sheriff somewhere in the southwest. The rest of the Praetorians just scattered.” She took another sip.

  “And the woman?”

  She chuckled. “Oh, that was Kelly Kerrigan. She was secret service, assigned to him in ’87, while he was still running for president. They called her ‘Gramma’ even then.”

  “Wonder if there isn’t a story in her.”

  She smiled approvingly. “Not a bad idea. Maybe I’ll have someone look her up.” She paused. “The Praetorians served with Marcus in Vietnam, back when we were just ‘advisors.’ Story is that he simply saved their butts, and they came back, black and white, swearing that he was the best officer in the war, and committed to him. When he went into business, he offered some of them positions, and they came. Those who weren’t really suited to lead, he made his private guard. They are more than just loyal. I think that their greatest regret is that he dropped out of the race in ’87.”

  Sand nodded. “I can understand that. I was disappointed myself. The polls put him pretty high. Got the skinny on why he flaked?”

  “Oh, I know where a great number of bodies are buried,” she said. Someone pressed her from the other side, and suddenly Sand became aware of the warmth and weight of her firm and shapely hip against his. “But you don’t get it out of me that easily.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “Because then I wouldn’t have any leverage over you.”

  “You need more leverage than being my boss?”

  “You exaggerate.”

  “Yeah, right. Well, you could probably get my boss fired, anyway.”

  “Ah,” she said. “But I wouldn’t.” Her eyes narrowed until they resembled a cat’s. “Couldn’t you tell? I’m the kind of girl who likes to be in charge, but not too much.” Her laugh was musical, and very very young. “What would you say,” she said carefully, “if I suggested that we get out of here, go back over to my place…”

  Renny had the urge, that was certain. He and Muriel were probably two of a type, even if there was a power differential between them, and had been for three long years. Once upon a time, they’d been on track to a live-in relationship. These days it was a now-and-then thing. When Muriel said now, then it happened. The whole thing felt a little cheap, but the visceral memory of her strong, slender, welcoming body was just too tempting.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  10

  DIABLO, ARIZONA

  Bobby Ray Kerrigan kept a companionable silence as his wife Kelly drove their beat-up Chevy truck down the rutted dirt road. They were heading back to town, traveling through scrub land a little east of Diablo, the western-themed tourist town a hundred and forty miles southeast of Phoenix.

  At almost seventy-five, even devoid of the jet-black hair she had loved, Bobby Ray was lean and handsome, at least in Kelly’s eyes. Kelly herself was nearing seventy, but still had all of her red hair and most of the 30-20 vision in her gold eyes. Gravity had taken a bit of a toll, but she was still fit and trim, and walked as lightly as a forty-something aerobics instructor.

  If there was a shadow in their lives, it was Kelly’s unequivocal knowledge that she would outlive Bobby Ray. Not a misty someday, either, but soon, according to the sad eyes of Phoenix General’s geriatric oncologist. The tumor was growing again and they had run out of effective medications. Radiation had worn Bob to a nub, and the malignancy was currently too large for an operation. If they could shrink it again …

  But that would require an experimental protocol, and although Bob was on the short list, the clock was ticking, and time running out.

  Perhaps not this month, or the next, but his body was no longer the reliable engine it had been when they were married back in ’58. They had had four good decades together. It wasn’t enough, but it was all they were going to get.

  The distant crack-pop of gunfire grew steadily louder and more urgent as they trundled down the dirt road toward main street. Kelly’s smile broadened and thinned as she heard it. She gripped at the wheel with her leather gloves, bowing her buckskin-clad arms with controlled excitement.

  “Sounds like they’re at it.”

  “Yep.” Bob’s pale blue eyes, clear and sharp, narrowed as they scanned the approaching parking lot. “Lotsa folks. Been a hot day.”

  “But a good day.”

  He chuckled. “Ain’t they all?” That was her Bobby Ray. God, she was going to miss him.

  They laughed at the small joke as Kelly pulled into a dirt parking lot packed fender to fender with dusty cars and trucks. Not many tourists: these were mostly townies. A few people were still unloading guns and equipment. Many wore spurs, chaps, or cross-draw holsters. Others were decked out as trail hands, gamblers, bankers, or school marms.

  About seventy percent of them were men: leathery ranchers, townsmen, retirees, shopkeepers—the salt of the town. They were parking, unpacking, checking their weapons with professional care and placing them in little shooting carts with the loving delicacy of mothers depositing babies in bassinets.

  As they passed Kelly, they tipped their hats politely.

  “Evenin’, Miss Kate,” one of them said. He was Diablo’s longtime barber, and knew full well that her given name was Kelly.

  “Evenin’, Buffalo,” she yelled back.

  Bobby Ray levered himself out of the truck and walked back to the tailgate, favoring his left hip. “Well, Miss Kate, think you can take it?”

  “One shot at a time, Pecos,” she said philosophically, easing her voice into a far more pronounced western twang. “One at a time.”

  She very carefully and soberly removed her weapons and checked them. They were prized possessions: a Third-Generation Colt in .45 Long Colt (Very Good condition, worth about $1,100), plain blue with hard rubber grips. Her shotguns were Overland 12-gauge doubles, with .28-inch barrels and exposed hammers, and double triggers. Circa 1985 vintage (the Rossi factory stopped manufacturing them in 1988), they were plain blue with walnut stocks.

  The rifle was also a Rossi, a Model 92 copy of the infamous Winchester 92, a lever-action with a 24-inch half-octagon barrel and a brass blade front sight.

  The dust in the parking lot was high, even though the day was beginning to cool. As she checked the action and housing, none of the men and women, or even the children walking past, paid much mind except to say “howdy.” Not a single shooter allowed his rifle or handgun or shotgun barrel to point toward himself, another human being, or the town.

  Up at the sky, down into the ground, out toward the desert.

  That was the rule, and there were no exceptions. Violating this rule was an instant DQ: no argument, no exception, no second chance. Among these people, weapon safety was as automatic and important as breathing.

  She sight-checked that all cylinders were empty before placing her weapons in her little rolling wooden shooting cart. Ammunition was carried in a separate compartment.

  Bobby Ray had watched soberly as she completed her check. He nodded, and they started out across the parking lot. To the
west, the sun had sunk to an orange glow along the horizon. The artificial lighting winked on.

  Picnic tables dotted the tough brown grass between the parking lot and the row of low, caramel-colored buildings sheltering Helldorado, Diablo’s largest tourist trap, and home of the biggest and most popular shooting range within two hundred miles. Children scampered and scrambled around the tables, finishing their picnic suppers, playing games, awaiting the next round when Daddy or Mommy would shoot again.

  The tourist stage was closed today. Helldorado was hosting its annual all-day event featuring both day and night shooting. Whole families had been there since noon, and the entire affair resembled nothing so much as a church social wreathed with gun smoke.

  They said words of greeting to familiar faces. Almost everyone was familiar, either a townie or from nearby Fairbank, or Tombstone. A few familiar faces were from as far away as Tucson or Littletown.

  As they approached the range the crowd thickened, and Kelly nudged her way through to get a better look.

  A man in his fifties dressed in a bowler hat and spats—somewhat like Butch Cassidy—stood behind a waist-high wooden barricade, facing three five-inch porcelain plates suspended at eye level on white poles. A light to his immediate right flashed green. His right hand blurred to his hip, clearing leather. The shots that followed were so rapid they sounded like a short string of firecrackers. The targets exploded into powder and splinters, side by side by side.

  The crowd applauded politely, and another man stepped up to the platform, toting a double-barreled shotgun. The announcer introduced him as El Condor.

  El Condor was as long and wiry as a pipe cleaner. His teeth were so discolored and misshapen it was rumored he considered chewing tobacco one of the four basic food groups. He was dressed with shoulder-crossing bandoliers and a serape. He wore an obviously fake, droopy mustache, and had doffed an oversized Mexican sombrero.

  Bob nudged her. “Still in the specialty shooting.”

  The bandito’s weapon was open and unloaded while men were downrange, setting up four porcelain targets. As soon as they were done he loaded up, then stood relaxed, eyes closed. After a few seconds, he nodded.

  About twenty seconds later, the green light flashed on. El Condor fired from the hip, both barrels roaring. The targets simply disintegrated. He shucked shells and reloaded with incredible speed, then fired again, and two more targets exploded into splinters.

  Kelly applauded with the rest of the audience. There was a short lull as the crowd drifted about twenty-five yards to the left, to another set of targets and shooting stages. She stiffened slightly as the next man walked up.

  He was in his fifties, rangy, his golden hair receding but still beautiful. He was muscular, very erect, relaxed and confident. His sleeves were rolled up. His forearms were covered in a sheen of golden hairs that glinted in the light.

  “And now Angel Eyes takes his position,” the announcer said. Kelly smiled thinly. The new man’s name was Tristan D’Angelo. Kelly Kerrigan had known him for fifteen years.

  He had two pistols holstered at his waist, ivory-handled Colt Peacemakers, Model 1878 Single-Action Antiques in custom rigs. For any other man, the weapons would have been much, much too valuable to fire. But D’Angelo was easily Diablo’s wealthiest citizen, owning half the town including the Helldorado stage, and he reveled in his reputation as a man who would trash a $40,000 investment by pulling a trigger.

  He stood totally relaxed, yet with a curious electricity about him, as if he were less a creature of sinew and muscle than bundled wires and greased cogs.

  This stage was very different, set up like a Hollywood back lot stage, with a row of storefronts to either side, funneling toward a point a hundred yards ahead, much like parallel tracks meeting in infinity.

  D’Angelo stepped out, his hands hovering over his pistol butts, and he nodded.

  This time there was no green light. Instead, in the window of one of the buildings, a silhouette revolved, revealing the image of a masked man with a gun. D’Angelo drew smoothly, fired two, three times before another window to his left opened—revealing a mother holding a baby. D’Angelo’s hand twitched, but he didn’t squeeze. A man-shaped target dropped from a bordello balcony. D’Angelo missed his first shot, and got two others off and into the black so quickly that the crowd never had a chance to react.

  With a deliberately nerve-wracking rattling sound, a little track between two buildings began to move, carrying a silhouette of a man holding a young girl, a gun at her head. D’Angelo’s left hand blurred, and the Peacemaker sent two slugs into the kidnapper’s head before most of the observers had fully registered the scenario. And so it went with the next two, each villainous target drawing two shells, one innocent target almost drawing a shot before D’Angelo’s hyper-adrenalized senses could stop him.

  He called “I’m out!” and slid the revolver back into its holster as the crowd applauded.

  There was a pause while the targets were checked, and about ninety seconds later the announcer’s voice rang out again. “Seventeen seconds—with one miss. That brings Angel Eyes right up even with Pecos Kate in the shoot off. Where is Miss Kate? Anyone seen her?”

  “Right here,” Kelly yelled. “Bobby Ray had to deliver a rifle up to Phoenix. Told ya I’d be back.”

  As the crowd laughed, D’Angelo sauntered over in their direction. “Hello, Miss Kate,” he said, calling her by her competition name. He nodded in Bob’s direction. “Pecos. How are the hotcakes?”

  She ignored the implied jibe. “Drop by sometimes, try a stack,” she said.

  “Been here long?”

  “Just got in.”

  “Too bad. See me shoot?”

  She nodded, her face remaining studiedly neutral. “Seen it before, Angel.”

  Now his face lit up, with a very different, warmer, entirely more personable smile. This smile was wholly genuine, and almost neighborly. “That’s right,” he said. “You have, haven’t you?”

  Smile still warm as toast, D’Angelo walked away, calling back over his shoulder: “See you at the stage.”

  Bob spit into the dust at his feet. “I don’t like that man,” he said.

  “Aw,” Kelly said. “He ain’t so bad—if you like reptiles.”

  “I do like snakes and such.” He paused, and made another spitting sound, although this time his mouth was dry. “And I still don’t like that man.”

  She nudged him affectionately. “Probably mutual, you’ll be glad to know. Come on—let’s get set up. Want to get warm.”

  Kelly moved to her practice area, and ran though her mental checklist, inspecting her equipment carefully. When she was satisfied, she took a box of shells from her cart’s ammo dump, and loaded carefully.

  After she had inspected her handiwork and was satisfied, she flicked on the little microphone at the side of the stage. “Mr. Earp?”

  The answering voice came from a little box speaker by her head, not the big P.A. honkers. “Yes, Miss Kate?”

  She deliberately accentuated her twang. “I’d surely appreciate two targets.”

  “On their way,” he answered.

  Keeping the Rossi 12-gauge’s barrel pointed high, she walked out onto the range, and waited. Two targets, one at two o’clock and one at ten, popped up from a low stage. When Earp spoke again, he used the P.A.

  “How do you want it, Miss Kate?”

  “On your mark,” she said tightly, just loud enough for her words to reach one of the range masters, and be relayed to the unseen Earp.

  Kelly Kerrigan seemed to pull inside herself, and her grandmotherly aspect simply disappeared. Suddenly, she seemed not exactly younger, but somehow more vital. Ageless perhaps. She was so calm and inside herself that she seemed not an ordinary part of the time stream.

  The light blinked, and Kelly fired twice, a da-dum beat taking just over half a second.

  She shucked her shells and reloaded without taking her eyes from the targets. The world outside the s
hooting stage had temporarily vanished for Kelly. She fired twice more, and the last two targets exploded.

  Behind her, the crowd applauded wildly.

  Only then did she emerge from her near-somnambulant state. For once, the announcer’s flattened mechanical voice sounded impressed. “That’s some shootin’, Kate. Good thing it was just practice, or old Cody would be disappointed.”

  “Ain’t gunning for Cody,” she said flatly, shucking her shells. The unvoiced question: Then who are you gunning for, Kate?

  “Well, you get ready. We got the finals coming up.”

  She nodded and walked thoughtfully back to the ready line. Several of the spectators congratulated her, offering encouragement for the match to come.

  She acknowledged most of them politely, but didn’t relax her thoughtful expression until she was back at Bob’s side. He took the shotgun from her, checked it, and slid it into their cart. “Good shooting, hon.”

  “Want to take a try?”

  His smile was warm, but brittle. Bob Ray Kerrigan might have been only six years older than Kelly, but it had been a hard six years, filled with hospital beds and needles and specialists with cool, sympathetic eyes. “I had my time,” he said. “Get yours.”

  She bussed his cheek warmly, and then rested her head against his for a moment. “I’ll bring it home for you, Bob,” she said.

  “Just have fun, dumplin’.”

  Kelly spent the next half hour getting loose, practicing with the Colts, the Rossi Overlands, and the Model 92. She didn’t try for maximum speed; accuracy was marginally more important, that illusive sense of connection between eye and hand and weapon. But her accuracy never flagged. She wasn’t showing off: the next round, the final round, would tell the story.