The Triggerman Dance

by T. Jefferson Parker

  By late June the snowpack had melted back enough to reveal the yellow Piper.

  Stan and Dorrie drove him up to the Siskiyou County morgue, to identify and claim the bodies. It was a long ride from Orange County, punctuated by Dorrie's breakdowns. John bought a pair of "Jackelope" postcards from a diner up on 395 addressing one each to his mother and father and writing out a brief message: "Be home soon."

  There was some unutterable problem at the morgue. Stan and Dorrie consulted with the Sheriff-Coroner's deputy until Dorrie retreated to the lobby sofa, blubbering incoherently. Stan disappeared with another deputy, then returned to the lobby sheet-white.

  "I just can't say, for sure," Stan confessed.

  "I can," said John. "They're my parents."

  The deputy would have none of it. John was too young— both legally and emotionally—to make a valid identification. The Sheriff himself stepped in and called the party of three back to his office. His deputy explained the circumstance. The Sheriff was a big man with a bored but honest face, and John appreciate! that the Sheriff did not look at him like a dying patient.

  "You're willing to do this, young man?"

  "I've said so several times, sir."

  The identification room was small and official. It had four chairs along one wall, a sink and a faucet. Two large boxes of tissue sat on a counter, beside an arrangement of plastic flower in a gray vase.

  A morgue tech entered through a large sliding door on the opposite side of the chairs, pulling a wheeled gurney behind him He looked at John and the Sheriff, then excused himself and returned shortly with another.

  "They were exposed to fire, then the elements for sometime," he said.

  "He knows," said the Sheriff.

  The first body was unquestionably not that of his father John knew it less by what was left than by what was gone. It was easy to extrapolate. Add some flesh here. Muscle there. The flight jacket. Eyes. Hair. No—it wouldn't add up to Dad.

  He nodded but said nothing.

  Likewise for the body they thought was his mother's. Definitely not her, John thought. Everything is just wrong. He looked at the Sheriff.

  "These are not my parents."

  The big bored face was plainly startled. It blushed. For a moment the Sheriff's ice-blue eyes held John's, then the Sheriff waved away the tech. The tech pulled both gurneys from the room and the sliding doors met silently.

  "You sure, young man?"

  "I'm sure, Sheriff."

  "Well, then there we have it."

  He shook John's hand and they went back to his office. Stan and Dorrie were there, prim and ghastly. The Sheriff explained that the bodies did not belong to John's parents, and John just had to sign the papers to make it official. John signed in six places. The Sheriff leafed through the little stack, then placed it on the table in front of him. From his desk drawer he removed a small plastic bag and handed it to John.

  "You may as well keep these."

  John pressed the plastic tight and looked at the two wedding bands inside. Even through the plastic he recognized the engraving and the inscription inside each—"Love, Cherish and Honor." A fossilized sea shell rested in one corner of the bag.

  "I understand," John said.

  "Good man," said the Sheriff.

  A moment of pregnant silence passed, then all three adults as if on cue skidded back their chairs.

  On the long drive back home, John stared out the window and wondered where, exactly, his parents had gone.

  The earth is a small place, but there is sky everywhere, and it never ends. All you need is a little piece of earth to stand on. From there, you can look up and wonder, and find the things out there that are yours.

  CHAPTER 18

  John awoke at eight on Liberty Ridge. He had just showered, shaved and dressed in yesterday's clothes when he heard a knock. Looking down from the loft he saw Valerie through the glass inset of the door. When he called out the door opened and the dogs, damp and spiky from the lake, burst in ahead of her. She followed and looked toward the kitchen inquisitively. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She had on a white sleeveless blouse tucked into a pair of khaki shorts, white socks folded to the tops of the heavy suede hiking boots favored by so many young women that year. Her skin was brown, but not overly so, a natural shade produced by activity out of doors rather than hours basting on a beach.

  "There's coffee on," he said.

  She looked up and he noted the deep brown of her eyes and the arched, interrogatory brows. "Good morning," she said.

  "Good morning."

  "Beautiful morning, in fact. Fall's my favorite time of year.' She looked away, glancing at one of the ubiquitous Liberty Ridge computers, which in this case was stationed on one corner of the dining room table. "What's yours?"

  "Spring."

  "The labs sure like the water."

  "They don't get much, out in Anza."

  "Hey, I got to thinking we should go get you some clothes.'

  "Not a bad idea. Yesterday's wardrobe feels a skosh used."

  "We can take my Jeep. It's a good day to have the top off."

  They stopped at the Big House so John could call his boss at the paper. Valerie led him down the cool, vast foyer, which was framed in massive rough-cut timbers that looked a century old but were in fact older. The walls were hung with Indian blankets and baskets, each lovingly specified by a recessed light. A series of wrought-iron candelabra hung down from the cavernous ceiling on thick black chains. John looked into the huge living room as he walked by, noting the quiet fire in the tremendous fireplace. It looked almost distant. Then the kitchen, which was roughly the size of the house he'd grown up in. There was no sign of Holt and his guests, nor the Liberty Ridge staff, nor any of the dozen Liberty Ops insiders with whom Joshua Weinstein had made John familiar. He committed what he saw to memory. Valerie poked a few preliminary digits on the phone, saying that the system was a bit complicated here—"basic security." The phone was a cordless with an automatic channel search. The numbers to call out—this day's, at least—were 3-9-9.

  John started to explain what had happened, but Bruno—his garrulous and unlikely publisher—was full of questions: Did John shoot three or four of them; how many trailers did they burn out at the High Desert Rod and Gun Club; did the rape actually occur inside Olie's or in the lot itself; and since when did John travel with a pack of attack dogs? The publisher told him that the entire city—all 2,450 citizens of Anza Valley—was talking about the incident, and that some people feared the bikers might return for some kind of retribution. Riverside County Sheriffs wanted to talk to him. And of course, a first-person account in the Anza Valley News would draw advertisers, "fly off the stands," and was due before four p.m. the next day. A special section was a possibility for the week after. Did anyone take pictures?

  John said he'd be in at the regular time tomorrow, pressed "off," and listened for any sound of a recording being made. He heard none, then put the phone back in its cradle.

  "So, will there be a hero's welcome for you back in Anza Valley?"

  "A ticker-tape parade, major media, key to the city."

  "You deserve it."

  "Sheriffs, too."

  "That bother you?"

  "Better than bikers."

  They drove up the freeway to South Coast Plaza, a mall nationally known for its size, crowds and variety of stores. The Jeep—; bright red Wrangler—bounced along on its parsimonious shocks the roll cage rattling happily, the warm October air blasting through the cockpit. There was no real point in talking. Valerie drove the Jeep fast but with concentration—hands at ten and two, her eyes often on the mirrors, the radio turned up high enough that its static almost matched the roar of the road.

  John sat back and watched Orange County go by. Nothing much had changed in the last six months along the freeway here. It was coveted real estate that had been built up decades ago. The new airport gleamed off to his left while a silver 737 wavered toward the landing strip. T
raffic was bad, especially around the mall parking lot, but it was always bad. Almost any time of day any season of the year, this retail metropolis would be crammed with people buying and eating things. The place had seemed to give rise to an entire class of people—the shopping class—though John realized that the mall didn't create them, but simply gave them a place to gather.

  He looked over at Valerie several times, indulging the simple pie-minded pleasure of admiring her. She looked back at him once, then, smiling, returned her gaze to the road.

  By the time they parked, her hair was a bird's nest of tangle that she attempted to organize in the mirror, then matter-of factly gave up on.

  "Let's go consume," she said. "Be good little wheels in the capitalist machine."

  "I'll bet your dad cringes when you talk like that."

  "He loathes consumer society. I think he'd bomb this place if he had a chance."

  "No offense meant."

  "None taken. I'm going to buy you something for what you did yesterday."

  "I can't live off my reputation forever," he said. "How about I buy my own clothes?"

  "Fine. Then I'll accessorize you."

  "No, really—"

  "—Put a lid on it, Mr. Menden. You saved me from a rape and maybe more, and it cost you a dog and a home. So I can buy you some stuff if I want to. End of argument, White Knight."

  She bought him three pairs of pants, three shirts and three pairs of shoes at a store billing itself as an "outfitter." He gravitated to the sale items but Valerie seemed unfazed by price. At a department store he stocked up on socks and underwear while Valerie wandered off, only to return bearing a light jacket, a sweater and three neckties. She insisted on a cream linen summer-weight suit, with a shirt that matched and a shirt that complemented it, countering his protests with threats to buy more. At a drug emporium he got toiletries and some personal things. At a pet store so overpriced he could hardly believe it, John got a forty-pound bag of food for his batallion.

  They stopped for lunch in Laguna Beach. The cafe was little more than a few plastic tables and chairs strung along a cliff-top overlooking the ocean. They sat at the far end. The breeze was stiff from the water, crumbling the little waves onto the beach and trying to blow away their menus. Valerie's lifted off but she caught it mid-air.

  "Nice grab."

  "The Softball years."

  While Valerie ordered, John took the opportunity to study her. He knew from Joshua that she was twenty-two. He guessed her height at five feet eight, but was never any good at women's weights because they always seemed to weigh less than he thought they would. Average, he decided, maybe average plus a few, because Valerie Holt had a full but shapely body that seemed somehow to have retained just a hint of girlish fat. This gave her limbs a taut smoothness, as opposed to the weight-room definition of movie stars and models. Her wrists were slender, her fingers long and beautifully shaped, though the nails were cut short for her hunting and field work with the dogs. Her face was full, with a smattering of freckles on each cheek. Other than the freckles her complexion was flawless and had that kind of moist glow that speaks of health, youth, a body working well. Her mouth was wide and her lips quite pink without lipstick, and when she smiled her teeth were large and even, the kind of teeth no orthodontist could improve. Her nose was small. Her eyes were a dark chocolate brown in the strident October light. To John, her most delicate features were her brows, which arched finely to an inquisitive peak then angled down to frame her calm, steady eyes.

  This arch made her look almost uncertain at times, skeptical perhaps, giving her face an expression of intelligence and doubt. Her forehead was high and round, suggesting a youth belied by her twenty-two years. It was the kind of head, John mused, that would still look good when Valerie Holt was eighty years old Her hair at this point was still pulled away from her face in a wind-blown tail of gold and light copper. Valerie was by any standards a beautiful young woman, a woman still growing and still unfinished.

  She can be a useful tool, an unwitting voice, a conduit. You can know her only to use her.

  "Well," she asked, glancing up from the breeze-bent menu "Did I pass my physical?"

  "Sorry. Yes."

  "You're forgiven. You are a writer, after all."

  "Always studying."

  "Like what you see?"

  He looked down at his own menu, shrugging. "The chicken sandwich sounds good."

  She laughed. "You big oaf. That's what you are—a big sweet oaf. An accidental hero. A mystery man with a quick gun and long coat and a shy streak. What am I?"

  He looked at her, summoning distance. "A beautiful young woman with a whole life in front of her."

  "Not just a girl with a brain the size of a table grape and way more money than she needs?"

  "Naw."

  "Good, because you'll be sitting next to me tonight at the grad dinner. It's going to be quite the affair, and you have to b there because you are a guest of honor."

  "Grad dinner?"

  "Dad gives a bash for his new Holt Men every six month when they finish training."

  "He calls them Holt Men?"

  "That's what they are," she said cheerfully. "They're just glorified security guards, even though Dad educates the hell out of them. But you're the guest everyone's dying to meet."

  "Hmmm."

  "Hmmm nothing. It's a perfect time to wear your new suit.'

  "Okay, mom."

  Valerie smiled then, a wide-mouthed, honest, forthright smile. It was just a little more open on one side, which revealed some back teeth and gave it a shade of mischief. She looked down at her menu again, with an odd expression of satisfaction on her face. The wind blew a strand of golden brown hair over her round girlish forehead and she caught it without looking up then fingered it back behind her ear.

  John felt an odd shifting inside, and a very slight, very clear ringing in his ears.

  He spent the rest of the afternoon writing his account of the incident at Olie's Saloon for the Anza Valley News. He used the computer on the dining room table. It ran a brief fifty-five lines. John concentrated on dispelling rumors: the woman was not raped or even hurt; his trailer was the only one burned out; he had in fact shot only once, giving the woman's assailant a minor flesh wound that made her escape possible. He refused to give any names because they had asked him not to. He hoped the whole incident would be forgotten soon and that the citizens of Anza Valley would not worry about a vengeful motorcycle gang overrunning their town. He asked anyone with information about the bikers to call the Sheriff's substation in Indio. He also admitted that the single worst thing about the whole affair was the loss of Rusty—the day's true hero. That evening he walked along the lake with his dogs. He stopped to look at the marina and boathouse, the lovely Hatteras, Carolyn, docked there, the little covey of Boston Whalers tarped against the sun. He could see the beach on the island in the center of the lake and the dark oaks and conifers beyond. On the far shore he made out a row of small cabanas and scaffolding of what looked like a sporting clays tower. He thought back twenty-odd years to the summer days he and his friends would sneak past the "No Trespassing" signs, hike to the lake and spend the day swimming, fishing, hiking and looking for animals. They had outlegged the sheriffs more than once. He had even spent the night in the cave on the island, for which he was thoroughly thrashed by his father upon returning home late the next afternoon. John was struck that the place was more beautiful now than then—the foliage thicker and the trees more mature and the water level of the lake higher—no doubt due to Vann Holt's attentions. A flock of mallards veed out across the blue water in no hurry whatsoever, a chevron of ripples widening behind them He wished Rebecca could have seen this. He thought about the dream he'd had early that morning, the way she had seemed so present and actual. And tonight, he thought, I'll be having dinner with the man who blew her heart out of her chest.

  The foyer of the big house is as brightly lit as a movie set when John walks in, led by a ravis
hingly beautiful brunette who ha introduced herself as Laura Messinger. John has already recognized her. She takes him by the arm, saying she always wanted to touch a hero. She leads him into the expansive kitchen, at the far end of which is a bar. A waiter approaches and she dismisses him. She asks John his pleasure and gives the bow-tied barman the order. He can smell venison and elk on the stove-top grill, and wild, cilantro-based aroma coming from four huge saucepans.

  "Are you a friend of Mr. Holt?" he asks.

  "His attorney and techno-weenie, actually. A friend, toe Cheers."

  She hands him the scotch-and-soda and raises her own cocktail glass very sightly, not touching his, then brings it to her thick bright red lips. Her eyes are an astonishing blue that John decide can only be realized by colored lenses. Her breasts are large and tastefully displayed. She could be thirty, but John knows from Weinstein that she is forty-two.