The Triggerman Dance

by T. Jefferson Parker

  Must make some decisions before the last good nap.

  He realizes what nobody seems to know, or at least what nobody has bothered to tell him: Holt is dying. Yes, he thinks. Holt brought the bills home himself so Valerie, or Fargo, or whomever, wouldn't find them in the mail. They don't know. Josh doesn't know. Does anyone?

  He arranges the billing statements, open, in a loose square, then shoots them with this penlight camera. Then he replaces the bills, the pads and the cards very carefully, in the same order he found them. He checks his watch and looks out the window for a moment.

  The bathroom is spare and clean. Hoping for a clue to Holt's ailment, he opens the medicine cabinet, but finds nothing but over-the-counter remedies, shave gear and ChapStick.

  The last room is a kitchen, which appears only partially stocked at best. In the frig, is some fruit, milk, soda and a full ice-maker bucket. There is, of course, a container of fresh-squeezed orange juice. There are crackers and a half-used loaf of bread on the counter, beside the toaster. The cabinets contain the usual condiments and spices, and, much to John's surprise a box of peanut-butter flavored Cap'n Crunch cereal. He can hardly picture Holt sitting down to a breakfast of this kind. A liquor cabinet has two fifths of Scotch and several bottles of old California wine—Zinfandels, Carignanes, Cabernets. John stands in the kitchen for a long moment, trying to acquire a sense of the man who, at least on some mornings, begins his day here. He wonders, given Carolyn's condition, does Holt make love with her?

  Ten minutes later he sits at his own dining table in the cottage, watching through the big picture window as Valerie and her dog come across the meadow toward him. She is dressed in hiking boots and shorts, a blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and her red wool cap. The springers twist with patternles logic out in front of her, noses to the ground for birds. She wears a holster and pistol on her hip, slung down low like a gunfighter He decides that Valerie Anne Holt is one of the oddest women he's ever met.

  John's heart leaps, then plummets. It aches. It aches to soar. It aches for company other than the dead, their murderers and their memories.

  There she is, he thinks, a woman I can deny, mislead and betray.

  There she is, a tool I can use.

  There she is, a beautiful young woman coming to see me.

  The light of her approach brings out only the darkness in his own killer's soul. He goes out to the shaded cool of the porch to welcome her. He smiles but it feels like a grimace. He watches as Boomer, Bonnie and Belle charge into the meadow and commence an assault upon the springers. Valerie stops to watch, then joins John in the shade. She smiles.

  "Dad wants us to have dinner with him tonight."

  "He's back?"

  "Called from the jet. He'll be here by six."

  "Everything okay?"

  "He sounds elated. I suspect Titisi has signed on."

  "That's good news."

  She turns and looks back at the meadow to the dogs. Her hair is stacked up under the cap and coming loose like it always seems to be. "Whatcha been doin'?"

  "Making a list of editors to call. I'm thinking I might not want to live out in that desert anymore."

  "Be nice to have you closer. Help me with the dogs."

  "That would be nice."

  "You don't have a crush on me, do you?"

  "No.

  "She tries to smile, but her smile is buried by the sudden redness of her face. "Lane says you do. And that you're trustworthy as a rattlesnake. That's what this revolver here is for—rattlers."

  "Thought you were going to say for me."

  "Naw. I couldn't shoot the guy who saved my virginity. Not until I properly thanked him, anyway."

  She pauses and looks at him with a half-grin on her face, the kind where the bottom teeth show just a little and give her a look of mischief. Then she blushes again, washing the smile away.

  "Just a little crush, maybe?"

  "Maybe."

  She takes a deep breath. "I'm going for a walk. Wanna come?"

  "Sure."

  They start out around the lake. The dogs thunder past them and crash into the water, fighting over a stick. Boomer has it and all the others appear to be tearing him to shreds to get it away. The sun is warm on John's face and for a moment, the cold dead feeling inside him is in abeyance. When they reach the place where he had seen Vann, Carolyn and Pat Holt some twenty-three years ago, he tells her the story of Carlos and the cave and how her mother looked with Valerie inside.

  Valerie stops. "Right here?"

  "Yeah. About here is where they were. You were."

  "I'm kind of moved by that."

  "It's just a story."

  "No. It's more. I think you're somebody. Somebody who was sent here for a reason. Sent you then, and sends you now. God, maybe, or the devil."

  Her unwitting accuracy corners John into silence. He nods. "She was wearing a white dress."

  "Mom always wore white. Did you see the spring in the cave?"

  "I slept beside it."

  "It's still there, you know. I mean, I haven't been to the cave in years, but the spring's still there or the lake wouldn't be. We should go see it sometimes. How about tomorrow afternoon? I'll pack more food and we'll call it a picnic. Sick of my cooking yet?"

  "That quail was world class."

  "Settled, then.

  "They continue on for a while without talking. John feels the jitters leaving his nerves, replaced by the mild happiness of knowing one's body is alive, of feeling it move, of being in the company of someone it is drawn to.

  He notes something shiny on the path before he even sees it. He feels his body draw up tight as he registers the shape, a shape familiar to the deep part of the human mind—a very large rattlesnake stretched out in the dirt ahead. Reflexively he reaches for Valerie but she has already stepped forward, holding her revolver with both hands, glancing quickly back at the dogs. The sound of the gun slams into John's ears, the barrel jumps and the sand explodes red around the snake's head. The serpent retracts into tight coil, rattle buzzing off, then on, then off again. The dogs blunder toward it and John tries to grab Boomer's collar.

  "Don't worry, it's out of commission," says Valerie.

  "I'm not so sure."

  "I am."

  The springers try to converge but Valerie yells them off. John's dogs obey her firm command to sit. Boomer eyes John with the pride of finding an item of such vast importance. Valerie touches the snake with her boot and it strikes, knocking its heat less stump of a neck against her ankle. It rattles again. She slide her toe under it and flips in into the bushes. It twists white in the air, then vanishes out of sight, still buzzing.

  "I don't like to do that," she says. "But I lost two pups to rattlers. One died and the other one couldn't move his legs, so we had to put him down. Rattlesnakes aren't welcome on Liberty Ridge anymore."

  John looks at her and sees a darkness of mood has pushed the softness from her face. It is a wholly new countenance, or that speaks of regretful obligation, of acts finished only to the soul's remorse. She looks more like her father than herself.

  "Well, nice shot," he says.

  "Pretty easy, if you graduate from the Liberty Ops pistol school at the age of seventeen."

  "Top of the class?"

  "Yes. Dogs are family to me. And I'll do anything to protect family."

  Back at the cottage, John showered and dressed for dinner. He fed the dogs and had a cigarette on the porch. Just before he left, he saw the message indicator on the computer screen and keyed into his mailbox with nervous fingers:

  THIRD DRAWER DOWN. RIGHT OF REFRIGERATOR, BIG HOUSE. LIKE YOUR CARROTS, SWEETIE? COULDN'T FIND THEM ANYWHERE. SEND THEM TO THE FOOD TASTERS?

  CHAPTER 28

  Holt looked more like a man after a Caribbean cruise than on who had just logged several thousand air miles for the purpose as he put it to John, of "killing rattlesnakes and putting out fires." He was tanned, trim, expansive. He was sitting with Farg
o and Adam Sexton on the porch off the Big House kitchen when John joined them. It was shady under the slat redwood canopy that faced the expanse of lawn and trees. Beyond the lawn John could see the distant haze of the slough and the bright silver plate of the Pacific. The evening breeze was cool and clean and smelled of ocean and sage.

  Holt finished a story about Fargo's duel with the Uganda turista, a story told at the expense of Fargo, who looked pale and miserable as he reclined on a chaise lounge in the shade. Fargo glanced back at Holt after the punchline—something about Fargo's bottled water and Holt having eaten everything native he could get his hands on—and cast his boss a doleful look. The look wandered to John, where it turned both bored and hostile. John looked at Adam Sexton, who sipped his drink an shrugged.

  "Glad I missed it," he said. "I hate foreign countries. I like right here where I am. Domestic accounts—I'm made for it."

  "You wouldn't last a day on the dark continent," said Fargo. Roughly, my point," said Sexton. He favored John with conspiratorial look.

  "Also my point that ninety percent of the Liberty Ops profit is generated by me, right here in Southern Cal.

  So go get sick on an international scale, Fargo. I'll stay here and make dough."

  Holt chuckled. "Don't squabble, kids. Let's all just admit it's a good feeling to carry home several hundred grand for a few days' work." He studied John over his tumbler of Scotch and ice. "Does that kind of money interest you?"

  "Depends what I'd do for it, Mr. Holt."

  "What's the most you ever made in a week?"

  "Fifteen hundred."

  "And what did you do for that?"

  "Wrote some pieces for the Journal. And did a freelance job for Western Outdoor News."

  "Forty hours' worth?"

  "Forty-five, I'd guess. Plus the morning of bass fishing for the News article. I wrote off the gas and lures."

  Sexton chortled. "That's big money."

  Holt shot him a glance. "After taxes that left you what, nine hundred and change?"

  "I'd say."

  Holt drank from the tumbler, the long slow sip of a man who has all the time in the world. "Here's the thing about money, John. A man needs to work. It's what keeps his feet on the ground. Work opens the soul to the idea of heaven. The harder a man works the stronger he gets. I think some of the best moments of my life have been work. I spent eight years tracking down the men who bombed Odeh. You remember, the Arab activist? Those years flew by. Seemed to last about five minutes. By the time I got close to them, I was just getting warmed up. I could have followed those murderous bastards for decades. Never would have gotten tired."

  "Then the Jews let 'em go," said Fargo.

  "They were detained by Israeli Mossad, but not charged," corrected Holt. "Been watched ever since."

  "Some justice for blowing an Arab to bits."

  "No shit," added Sexton.

  Holt waved his hand. "Beside the point. Outside my purview. I completed my work. Now, the whole point is this, if you're going to work anyway—because it builds the soul—why not get a lot of money for it? You spend the same hours. Burn the same energy. Stay up the same nights. Sacrifice. So why not go for more return? Simple arithmetic." "Well, the arithmetic is simple, Mr. Holt, but finding work that pays a few hundred grand a week isn't."

  Holt shrugged and grinned. "Got to work your way up to that kind of thing. How does two thousand a week sound? That' over a hundred a year."

  "It sounds like triple what I'm making now."

  "Would that appeal to you?"

  "For what I'm doing at the Anza Valley News? Sure."

  "No, for something different than what you're doing at the paper. For something more . . . actual. More tactile. More . . hands on."

  "That could be embalming. No thanks."

  "Embalming," echoed Fargo from his lounge.

  Sexton laughed and crossed his ankles: loafers, no socks.

  "Embalming," said Holt. "No. No embalming required."

  Fargo sat up. "He's not exactly quick on the uptake, boss. Why not ask him what happened to Snakey?"

  Holt twirled the ice and liquid. "See Snakey while we were gone, John?"

  "No."

  "Not even once?"

  "Not once. I didn't know he was here."

  "See Val?"

  "We spent a lot of time together."

  "Oh, good. Doing what?"

  "Talking. Eating. Working the dogs. We rowed out to the island and had a picnic."

  "Killed at least one snake," said Fargo. "That's what Val said."

  "Couple hours ago."

  "But you never saw Snakey?"

  "No, Mr. Holt. What happened to him?"

  "He disappeared."

  John nodded, looked down at his Scotch. "Well, maybe he found something that pays a few hundred grand a week."

  "Real fuckin' funny," said Fargo.

  But Holt and Sexton were both grinning. Holt turned to look back at Fargo, then returned his amused gray eyes to John "Lane isn't—"

  "—I heard a couple of gunshots yesterday morning. Maybe John shot him and dumped him in the lake."

  With this, Valerie Holt sat down on a lawn chair next to her father. She held a tall glass half full of something clear that edged toward the lip of the glass before she righted it. The most graceful klutz I've seen, John thought.

  Fargo, about to speak, let his mouth hang open and stared at John.

  Valerie swung around to look at Fargo, her honey blond hair lifting out, then bouncing against the skin of her back. "A joke, Lane. Tee-hee. You look cadaverous. Hi, Sexy."

  "Hello, your highness," said Sexton.

  "What time were the shots, Val?" Fargo asked.

  "I just told you it was a joke, Lane. That means I didn't hear any shots. I didn't see Snakey either, thank Goodness. Dad, give Lane a raise and see if it improves his sense of humor. Or make him work for Adam a few weeks."

  "You're spicy this evening, daughter."

  "Sugar and spice, Daddy-o."

  "Mainly spice. Tabasco, maybe."

  "Hello, John," she said, turning to face him. She was scrubbed clean as a new coin, her skin aglow, hair shining, trailing a scent that was dark and unambiguous and slid into John's head like an opiate. She was wearing jeans and a green silk blouse.

  "Hello, Valerie," he said.

  "What am I interrupting?"

  "We're talking about the pleasures of money."

  "Dad, you're not showing off again, are you?"

  "Just running a little test."

  "Of what?"

  "John's monetary IQ."

  "Well into triple digits, I'd bet."

  "I was seeing if a hundred thousand a year might tempt him."

  "Into what, Pops?"

  "Same thing he asked."

  She looked at John and smiled. "Watch out. He'll have you signed on for some boring security work before you know it. I can't see you wearing a black shirt with Liberty Operations written over the pocket, Mr. Menden."

  Holt sat back with a contained smile, and a glance for John, then his daughter. "We'll resume that conversation after we visit Little Saigon tonight. After you see what we can do. Ah—m y bride has arrived!"

  Through the opened sliding door rolled Carolyn, in he wheelchair, guided by Joni, the night nurse. She was dressed in her baby blue flannel blouse with a high Victorian neck, her legs covered by a blue cotton blanket. Her face and hair were done carefully. They vibrated as her chair wheels passed over the flagstone of the patio. Then her face offered up a big smile when she saw her husband, who was standing now and moving toward her a Joni withdrew to the house.

  John watched them embrace. Carolyn's arms were out stretched, wrapping around Holt's neck. Holt leaned down am gathered her close. They kissed each other on the cheeks several times, then once on the lips. They looked to him like mother and son. When Carolyn sat back she arranged her hair with both hands, still smiling at her husband.

  "You look wonderful tonight, honey," he s
aid.

  "I feel like a million dollars. Oh, Janice!"

  "Momma!" Valerie swept over and kissed her mother. "Two million at least, Mom. I love that new blouse."

  Fargo had lined up behind Valerie, his posture and expression purely obligatory. With his back to Holt, he stared frankly at Valerie's butt as she bent over her mother, then looked at John When it was his turn he offered his hand and told Carolyn she lived in a family of skinflints, hiking up her looks to a cool billion.