The Triggerman Dance

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "She's not being auctioned," said Valerie.

  "I call them as I see them," said Fargo.

  "Smack your way into the family," said Sexton.

  "Patrick! My Patrick!"

  Carolyn grabbed her wheels and thrust the chair forward nearly spilling off the first level of the patio before John caught one tire with his foot. He smiled down uneasily, then glanced a Holt. Holt nodded.

  "Hello, Carolyn."

  "I got your letter."

  "That's good." He looked at Holt again, who held his stare then at Valerie, who looked away.

  "Did you win last week?"

  "No game, actually. Had the week off."

  "It seems like ages since I've seen you. How long has it been, Pat?"

  Sexton's jaw dropped.

  John looked over to Holt, who interceded.

  "You saw him last week, Honey."

  "We went shopping, didn't we?"

  "That was it," said Holt, a sudden exhaustion behind his voice. "Val, arrange your mum here. I'm going to make a fresh round of drinks. John, come with me."

  Carolyn smiled at John as he walked past her. "He's calling you John, now?"

  "Everybody is, Carolyn."

  "Kiss your Mumsey?"

  He leaned over and kissed her smartly on the cheek.

  Holt took his arm as they headed inside to the bar. Holt motioned Joni to join the party on the patio. When she had gone, Holt said, "I'm sorry about this, but play along. By dinnertime she'll think you're Robert Goulet or Sandy Koufax, or a kid named Deke. It doesn't fucking matter what you do."

  But after the dinner was over, Carolyn was still calling him Patrick, still bringing up an assortment of memories that, John gathered, were not altogether fabricated. She and Pat at the beach. She and Pat working on multiplication. She and Pat driving to Tijuana one day to see a bullfight, from which young Patrick had stormed out, sickened. He nodded along, a hollow smile plastered to his face, his own memories zig-zagging back and forth from Rebecca to Snakey to Valerie to Joshua Weinstein. With each sip of Scotch the fragments seemed to weld closer together, threatening to become one solid, unpassable gallstone of memory. He looked at Holt and Fargo, smile locked in place, wishing he could just stand up now, beat each to a bloody pulp and call in the cavalry. I didn't hire on to become a crazy lady's dead son, he thought. Poor girl.

  "Excuse me," he said, then got up and went into the kitchen. He found a tall glass, pulled out the third drawer right of the fridge with his toe and peered down into it as he held the glass under the ice dispenser. On top of the neatly folded kitchen towels was a video cassette in a plastic case. He glanced outside. Only Valerie was looking in his direction, all other attention was drawn to Carolyn. With the glass still pressed to the noisy dispenser, John bent down, whisked the cassette into the pocket of his coat and stood again, nudging shut the drawer. Valerie h turned away. He filled the glass with water and carried it back outside.

  After the dessert was served, Carolyn motioned Joni over, then whispered in her ear. Joni looked at her askance, but obeyed Carolyn's dismissing wave. The nurse went upstairs and returned with a cane.

  The conversation ended and a silence crept over the dim table.

  "I feel just great tonight," Carolyn announced. "Seeing Patrick makes me feel young again."

  "Don't get carried away, hon," said Holt.

  "A few small steps for womankind," said Carolyn.

  "May I help?" he asked, pushing back his chair.

  "You may stay right where you are. I'll walk these four steps to Patrick on my own. Patrick, rise."

  "Mrs. Holt," said Fargo, "you haven't walked in months. Remember last time?"

  "Put a lid on it, Lane," snapped Valerie.

  Carolyn smiled. "Patrick, rise."

  John stood.

  Holt cast a warning glance at Joni, who nodded and moved up close to the wheelchair. The nurse removed the blanket from Carolyn's lap, locked each tire in place, then knelt down and Carolyn's apparently lifeless shoes on the pavers. Care scrunched forward on the seat, then set the four rubber-tip legs of the quad cane down on the patio in front of her. She cleared her throat. Valerie quietly moved behind her.

  "Well, I'd say the old feet feel good, but they don't feel at all."

  "Get your balance first, Mom."

  "I've got that, Val. Ready . . . now . . . okay . . . forward

  ho."

  Carolyn Holt's face went red. Her hands—on the cane handle —went white. Her entire body shivered and her dark eyes focused somewhere in space before her. She lifted up, perhaps inch, then settled back to her seat again with a sigh. She smiled to herself. She was breathing quickly.

  "Nice try, Mom. Damn nice try."

  "Whew! What was it that McMurphy said in Cuckoo's Nest? Warming up? Just warming up? Well, that's me."

  Then she gathered herself to the end of the seat again and her eyes locked into space in front of her and her cheeks exploded with color and her hands whitened against the cane handle again and a hissing exhale escaped her mouth as her body lifted from the seat, then lifted more, and she froze there, bent forward like a swimmer prepared to start, all her weight resting on the four small cane feet that now wobbled greatly upon the patio. Her legs quaked. Her arms trembled. And slowly she unfurled herself, like the stem of a new flower. Her legs swayed, then steadied; her torso swayed, then steadied; her head swayed, then steadied as she lifted the ferocious concentration of her gaze from some private point in space to the speechless face of John Menden.

  He was surprised how tall she was. And even with the sedentary months in bed weighing her down, he saw that her frame was once both strong and fine. Composed now, Carolyn looked at him and shook back her hair, as a model might before a stroll down the runway. She exhaled.

  Her right foot moved up, forward, then down. An inch maybe, John thought. One whole inch.

  Then her left.

  Her eyes widened, never leaving John. And in spite of the intensity of her gaze and the rigid determination of her face, the corners of her mouth quivered upward—just slightly—in the most tenuous and fragile of grins.

  John was moved by her courage even more than by her damage. Each confronted him from the single spirit of Carolyn Holt, the battling twins of her being. Each was so clear and strong, so contradictory and unmistakable. The courage fought the damage; the damage fought the courage. He had never seen these essential polarities of the living locked in such close contest. With his heart he willed her forward. With his feet he took two steps toward her, matching her own.

  Then Carolyn focused her willpower again.

  Foot up, out and down. Another inch.

  Foot up, out and down. Another.

  Four steps.

  She smiled at him before collapsing, like a telescope, into herself. Valerie and Joni caught and straightened her, then eased her back into the chair. Through the sweat running down her face and her rapid breathing, her dark eyes still bore into John's.

  The applause rang clear and dry against the night. Valerie leaned over and hugged her. Joni hugged her, too. Fargo shook her hand, taking it off her lap himself because Carolyn was toe dazed to understand why he was standing there. Then John took the hand, just released by Fargo and still airbound, and kissed the back of it. Carolyn's eyes relaxed as she studied him.

  "Welcome home, son."

  The only thing he could think of to say was, "Nice to be here."

  He glanced at Valerie, who beheld him with an expression he could not decipher.

  When John finally turned to Vann Holt, all he saw was an empty chair.

  A moment later he heard the loud roar of an engine starting down on the helipad, then the accelerating swoosh of blades moving through air.

  Holt appeared, apparition-like in the near darkness of the driveway, waving John toward him. Then he vanished back toward the blurred propellor of the chopper.

  "Go," said Valerie. "He wants you."

  "Hey, John-Boy," said Fargo, his eyes
glittering deep within the twin caves of his dark sockets. "I found Snakey's tape recorder in his room. It's a little log of what he was doing before he disappeared."

  John looked from the chopper to Valerie, then Fargo. "Then maybe that's where you ought to be looking."

  "Right, John-Boy. Good luck with Holt. Shoot straight. Be impressive."

  "Hey John," said Sexton. "I'll give you a call tomorrow. We should talk."

  chapter 29

  Holt, ensconced within the Plexiglas cockpit of the Hughes 500, watched John Menden trot a radius through the helipad circle and climb aboard the craft. A moment later Holt felt the stomach-dropping thrust generated by the powerful engine. He loved it. He stayed low over the hills until he neared the freeway, then hoisted the craft up into an October night of breeze-polished stars.

  "Need some milk?" his passenger asked.

  Holt was in no mood for laconic humor, John's or anyone else's. He looked over at him, then back to the red ribbon of 1-5 taillights winding out below. He banked the chopper hard to the left, very hard, which pushed his shoulders against the seat back, then corrected hard right and down, gunning the throttle almost all the way, which made his head feel like it could float off his neck. The helicopter dove like a hawk. What strong joy it was to fly a chopper when he was high on Scotch. But not too high. He'd had three doubles with plenty of ice, and a big dinner. Just right for a visit to the birthplace of it all, he thought. He looked at John, thought again of his son, then turned away.

  "Little Saigon, Mr. Holt?"

  "We're making a stop first."

  Holt flew the chopper north, over Santa Ana, then descended in a controlled dive so steep that John, to his right, braced one hand on the instrument panel and the other against his window. Holt felt as if his heart had shot through the bottom of the craft to plummet down on its own. Using a triangulation of his usual landmarks—Charles Keating's defunct Lincoln Savings Bank on 17th Street, the darkened campus of Santa Ana Junior College, and a water tower that declared this as the "All American City"—Holt easily spotted the bright yellow logo of the fast food restaurant. Even so, the picture was a little blurred, not what it would have been only a year ago. He refused to think about his eyes. Instead, he thought about the rage he was beginning to feel, and the wonderful clarity he would feel after the rage passed. Yes, he thought, if I can make it through the Red Zone then things will become clear. He eased his fabulous rate of descent and spiraled gently down toward the building. The deceleration brought his heart back on board, returning it to his chest.

  "Your gut still with you?" he asked.

  "Somewhere in there."

  "This is it."

  Holt looked inquiringly into John's face. The young man had his usual placid expression, but the pupils of his eyes were big. Over the days, Holt had decided that John's calm was one of intelligence rather than dullness. And he thinks I'm half crazy, thought Holt, maybe more than that.

  He found room in the parking lot—easy, this late—and planted the Hughes on the ground. Looking through the cockpit glass and seeing the familiar walkway leading to the entrance, the red handrail, the planter alongside it filled with daisies, the cheery yellows and reds of the building, the dancing burger of the logo, the windows filled with posters of discounted combos, Holt felt all the familiar hatred come rushing back into his soul. Easy now.

  He told John to come with him.

  He walked up the ramp, pushed open the door and stepped inside. He looked first to his left at the scattered faces in the dining area, the sea of bright yellow tables with swiveling red chairs, and the immense trash cans paired in each corner. He stared directly into the face of anyone who looked at him, but almost no one did. Inside his face, his eyes felt warm—almost hot—and he could feel the heat in them touch every face they settled on. He saw mostly Latinos. The usual.

  "Look around you, John. This is our republic. View it."

  "Yes."

  "The place was full of people that day—the same kind of people you see here right now. Carolyn and Patrick sat there, by the window."

  When Holt pointed, the two girls sitting there looked at him, then down, then back at each other. Holt, through his building fury, was pleased. His eyeballs felt extra warm.

  He motioned John to come stand beside him. He spoke with clarity and force.

  "The shooter was just a kid, born here. He actually had a brain. Did a year at a local JC, worked on the school paper. Wrote some articles with lots of exclamation points about soft flabby white people occupying a California that rightfully belongs to his people. La Raza—The Race. He built a little following. Of losers mostly, as those who follow tend to be. The reason he gunned down my wife and son was because his aunt claimed that Patrick had raped her. That was a preposterous lie, fed and fattened by the media. The murder also lent some credibility to his politics. Politics and hatred, John—bad mix. They were just finishing their lunch. Patrick saw it coming and tried to get between the bullets and his mother. He was successful. The bullet that stopped in Carolyn's brain went through Pat's neck first. It was a mortal bullet, but the other three he took were, too. A .32 slug glances around a little before it goes through. They have a relatively low velocity."

  With every sentence of his history, Holt felt his anger heating up, approaching boil. And the anger brought him a little closer to Clarity. But before he felt Clarity, Holt knew he would have to go through the Red Zone.

  He watched the few faces that had been confronting him now turn away. A group of girls twittered. Mothers tried to hush their babies, tried to keep their toddlers from eating the wrappers on their food. The girls started putting on makeup.

  At times like this he just wanted to take out a good submachine gun and kill them all, but Holt knew the rage would pass into something more rational, and more effective.

  In a far corner sat four gangsters, blue bandanas and chinos, dark flannels and black work boots. Holt stared at them for a long beat, guessing their ages: fourteen or fifteen, maybe. He saw three of them conferring—over his presence, likely—while one returned his gaze.

  "This way, John."

  He walked to the table and stood over it, sliding his right hand in his coat pocket. It was always good to let these people wonder, he thought. By the time he stopped walking, he had entered the Red Zone, where everybody he looked at was outline in a visible aura of warm infared. He could actually see it. It w pink more than red, really, and it wasn't bright and solid like rod of neon but muted and wavering, like a pink mirage surrounding each human shape.

  Then he felt the very faint, first inkling of Clarity, an ic intelligent spot way back in his thoughts. He knew it was still long distance away. He knew it would come eventually, though piercing through the Red Zone like a beam of light through fog. He craved Clarity and disliked the anger of the Red Zone. He didn't trust it. Anger was red and it made his heart race and h hands shake, and made him want to do rash things. It made hi feel the cells that were reproducing without control inside him. But Clarity brought steadfastness to his vision and his limb Clarity allowed his eyes to see and his mind to work. You could ride Clarity, like a good machine, through thickets of confusion and rage, until you came out on the other side, and then you could see—really see—what you had to do.

  "Look at these things," he said to John, nodding down ; the boys.

  When Holt looked at him, John's hands were folded before him like a pastor beginning a sermon. His back was straight an his clear gray eyes—so much like Holt's own used to be—beheld unblinkingly the four boys sitting in the booth before them. Job was outlined in a warm pink aura.

  So were the four young men in the booth. It felt strange to Holt to confront people so powerless yet so harmful. As a boy, he had killed rattlesnakes by cracking them by the tail like whip He was smart enough to do this only in early spring or late fall when the reptiles were chilled and slow. It fascinated him that; something could be deadly, yet helpless. Later, at the Bureau, the same wonderment ca
me to him when he made his first arrest With very few exceptions, the crooks were afraid, confused and overmatched. But they could kill you, too. That was what kept your blood warm, your eyes keen and your hand steady. Any one of those nervous little men might be the one to shoot you dead with a cheap little gun. Many years later, when Holt began to lose respect for his quarry, he knew he had become vulnerable This was what led him to the more sophisticated game—the subversives, the assassins, the terrorists—because they were manifestly dangerous and they engaged his fear. As he gazed down at this tiny gang unit before him, at the clench-jawed little thing they called a leader, Holt thought: this is deadly vermin. Don't forget it.

  Deadly, pathetic and outlined in red. One option, he thought again, is just to kill them all and let God sort them out.