The Triggerman Dance

by T. Jefferson Parker

  In the silence that followed John heard the slap of the canvas over them and the hiss from the hills around them. Valerie's face had gone slack, her lips parted in astonishment.

  Carolyn smiled, not understanding.

  Scott sat with his arms crossed, expressionless.

  Thurmond Messinger looked at his plate; Laura had taken his arm in both her hands.

  Adam Sexton slouched in his seat, but his eyes were resolutely fixed on Holt.

  It was Fargo who surprised him. The dark man in his shrunken-head jacket was scanning the faces around him, as if much more interested in reactions to the news than the news itself. His eyebrows were raised in a thin attempt at alarm. His gaze came to John. It was frank and probing, maybe even a little amused.

  And John realized: Fargo knew. No surprise in his face, no befuddlement or sadness, not the slightest hint of shock. Fargo knew. John held the curious stare until it moved on.

  He felt Valerie's fingers digging into the flesh of his palm.

  "Now," said Holt. "Main reason I bother you all with this is that things are going to change. We've got a nice little empire here and I want it run right when I'm gone. I want things understood. I want things clear. One—Valerie, I've been trying to get you into Liberty Ops for a while now. Especially since you got out of school. I'm asking you again, right here and now, to think about it. Think hard. I want you in charge someday soon. Two—Laura and Thur, Adam, keep on doing what you do best. You're our glitter and our gold. You're the people to answer the world for us. I'm asking you to work with Valerie, when that time comes. Three—Lane, I'd take you to the grave with me but I think you might get cold. You're the best friend a man could have. I'm thanking you for everything you've ever done for me. I needed you for everything on Liberty Ridge. You watched my back. Kicked butt when you needed to. I don't know if anyone here appreciates all we've been through together. I don't know if you'll even want to be here when I'm gone. We have some time to ponder that. But you will be well taken care of, when the time comes. Taken care of very well. I've already started putting some of this organizational stuff in writing. I'll finish it, soon. We'll need some law for this company, just like the country does."

  John looked at Fargo again. Things were beginning to make sense: Lane was going to get his walking papers when Holt died. Fargo was nodding with approval, smiling slightly, as if basking in the glow of Holt's praise. But his eyes peered into deep space while the smile just stayed in place, preserved by effort.

  "Oh, go Vanny go."

  "Be quiet now, honey. There's just a couple of more things I want to say. You all know that Liberty Ridge was built up over the decades. It rose and fell with the times. It was cattle once, then horses, then nothing. Now citrus and security. Tomorrow, who knows? Things will change. We live in an ailing republic. Too many people. Too few values. Too much fear. Too many lies. All the spirit pounded down to mediocrity. My last years have been given over to work and hatred—you all know that. I'm good at those things. I learned to hate everything around me that wasn't you. I hated the people who took Pat. I hated the people who took away his good name. I hated the God that let it happen. We'll still find the kid who pulled the trigger. I'm honor-bound to finish that. I'll still have my day with the woman who smeared him in front of the world. John here is helping me see to her. I can't forgive the unforgivable. I'll see to the final justice for them. I said some things I shouldn't have. Thought some things. Did some things. But, quite frankly, I'm tired of it now. I've got a few months to be here with you people. I've got another winter and another spring. Summer's a maybe. If I could get one more fall to chase those quail and work those dogs, that would be a real good thing. If nothing else I've got you all pinned down here right now, with the Santa Anas blowing the ridge clean and that ocean out there heaving away. So, drink with me again tonight. To here and now. To all of us. Cheers. Boys—haul in the dessert."

  The conversation continued—muted, fretful and forced. Valerie was almost silent, but she moved to be as close to her father as she could. She kept drinking. John could see the emptiness in her eyes, and the pain the alcohol couldn't dull. Only Holt was expansive, and soon everyone else was quiet and listening. He was lost to tales of meeting Carolyn, his good days at the Bureau, his first Grand Slam, his best quail shots down in Anza. He drank four Scotch and waters, his voice and delivery unaffected so far as John could see, his big leonine head scanning the guests to let them know he was still here, still alive and powerful, still Holt. The wind blew harder and the canopy shivered. The guests huddled into themselves and still Holt held forth, his voice and the wind taking turns until they seemed to become one force, together breathing life and sound into the tiny universe of Liberty Ridge.

  The canopy lifted off and somersaulted across the lawn toward the ocean. Holt stood with his drink in hand, raising it to the sky. Valerie stood with hers; John with his. Then all of them were standing, even Carolyn locked to John's free arm, holding their glasses high while the wind snatched the tablecloth off the table and sent it skidding into the night.

  "To vengeance completed and the restoration of soul!"

  Then, all:

  "To vengeance completed and the restoration of soul!"

  They drank.

  Then Holt looked at John with all the consuming focus oi his character. His gray eyes looked hungry and hard. The wind bent his hair in one direction and lifted one lapel to the side ol his neck.

  John looked back, feeling reduced to the meager essentials of his falsehood.

  "Are you with me?" demanded Holt.

  "Yes, sir."

  At this, Valerie straightened and lifted her glass. "Dad, I'll run the Ops better than it's ever been run before. I'll make you proud. I promise."

  John glanced at the stony face of Lane Fargo while the applause lifted around him.

  Then Valerie sat heavily in her chair, her face gone the sudden pale of too much drink, and her eyes focusing on the surface of the table.

  "Oh," she whispered.

  "John," said Holt. "Take her to your cottage. Tend to her tonight."

  "I'll help," said Fargo.

  "She won't need you, Lane," said Holt.

  John thought: Fargo's future in a nutshell. And that's why he's been funneling the evidence to me. John suddenly understood, too, why the soundtrack to Rebecca's slaughter had been removed before he was led to the tape—because Holt's wasn't the only voice on it.

  Holt had shot Rebecca while Fargo shot the video.

  CHAPTER 38

  They walked across the lawn then through the trees and hedges until they came to the meadow. Valerie leaned hard into John as they started across. The wind gusted from behind and John could feel it pushing them forward. The grass lay flat in the moonlight He heard his dogs barking and saw them sitting three abreast in the cone of brightness from the porch light. Boomer lunged into the dark and the others followed. Against his outstretched arm Valerie's back was warm, and beneath his palm the curve of her hip rose and fell with each step she took. He thought: you are beautiful and I could love you and I would give almost anything on earth not to betray you.

  He carried her upstairs and laid her on his bed. He opened the windows to let in the cool, wild air. In the bathroom he wet a washcloth, folded the cloth, took it out to Valerie and set ii across her forehead. Her face was shiny and pale in the dark and her breathing was fast. He thought about his phone.

  "Nice," she whispered.

  He brought her the ice water and sat on the bedside. He turned over the washcloth and put the cooler side against her head. He could see the shine of her eyes down against the pillow

  "Think I drank a little too much. Today," she said. Her words seemed to wobble from her mouth and her punctuation was off. "Then drank a little more. Too."

  "I think you did."

  He ran the backs of his fingers down one clammy cheek. She began sobbing. He saw the shine of tears on her face and the pools of wet light on her eyes.

 
"I knew something was wrong with Dad. Sometimes I thought he didn't look. So good. Then a big burst of energy. Like tonight. Then tired or something. When he told us tonight it was like I knew and he was just . . . Confirming. Sometimes I try to picture the world. My world. And all I see is Dad standing there. He's it. He's the world. And I can't think about him gone now. I just can't see him in an urn. Fancy tomb or not. Quiet and cold. My heart's feeling weak and hard right now. Like it's gonna stop. Like when Pat and Mom. Funny feeling. Heart gets sideways in your chest and doesn't have any rhythm left. Throat tickles. Head gets light. Heart just beats anyway. Life keeps pounding away even though you're not interested. Is that a broken heart, John?"

  "Yeah."

  He took the ice water from her and set it on the nightstand. Then he climbed in beside her and she rolled toward him, putting her face into the crook of his shoulder. He felt her back shaking and the warm liquid of her tears soaking through his shirt.

  "In the beginning there was us. Mom 'n' Dad 'n' Pat 'n' me. Then Pat shot. Mom all messed up. But somehow it was still a family. But if Dad goes then it's over. It's just two crazy women and no men left. Bunch of oranges and guys with orange neckties. Bunch of money. Bunch of people. Dad goes, I don't want to run this place. I wanna get on a cruise ship and not come back. I wanna get a penthouse and not come out. I wanna follow the seasons and shoot birds 'til I keel over. From shotgun recoil. I'll be the first girl to die from recoil. Ever."

  "Stick around."

  "Why?"

  "Because you're bright and beautiful and the world needs you."

  "You need me?"

  "I'll always need you and I'll never forget you."

  "Sounds like you're tryin' to. Already. You gonna go like Pat and Dad?"

  "I'll be where you want me to be."

  "You're a good liar, huh?"

  "I don't think so."

  He looked at her eyes bright in the darkness. Their knowingness, even in her drunken state, unnerved him.

  "You got somethin' about you that's hard to not like. You got this face and this voice. You got this nice paint job. But I think underneath you don't have a you. Underneath it's all moving around, all these John molecules. Don't have a pattern. Don't have a plan. Don't have a place they came from or a place their wanna get back to. I think when Jillian died your compass broke down. The needle stuck. You didn't mind 'cause you needed to rest. Everybody needs a rest. After a loss. But you gotta be careful because if you float too long. If you just wander 'round being tall and cute and telling people what they want to hear, then you turn. You turn into a big bagga shit with a smile on it."

  Cogent, he thought. "Drunk and heartbroken, you still get the gist of it, Valerie."

  "What was she like?"

  "Kind. Pretty. Alive."

  "What did you like best about her?"

  "Her happiness."

  "Dream about her?"

  "A lot."

  Valerie was quiet for a long moment. John listened to hei fast breathing and to the wind outside antagonizing the overhang and window glass. He thought of standing on his uncle's roof with the bedsheet spread.

  Valerie took his hand. Her fingers felt hot and damp.

  "I had this dream," she said. "Then I had it again. Then I had it a bunch. These two men come to Liberty Ridge. One's dark and handsome. The other's light and handsome. The dark one, he takes Dad away and Dad doesn't ever come back. The light one, he makes love to me over and over again and I can't get enough it feels so. Good. Then the dark one comes back and they're standing there and they blend together into one guy. And Dad's gone and the light guy doesn't look the same anymore. I can tell he's gonna rape me. I try to kill him but he's too strong. After that I'm this dog that runs around here. I watch these guys run the place. They don't know I'm me, and pretty soon I don't either. Finally I just run away."

  "Your dream is telling you to stick around, too."

  Her breathing was a little faster now. John could smell the thin sour vapors of liquor coming up from her face. She pressed harder against him.

  "And when you came here, John. I wondered, is this the dark one or the light one? Is this the guy who's gonna make my dad disappear. Or the guy who's gonna love me? Then I realized it's one and the same guy—that's what the dream's about—it's about one thing turning out to be the other. And here it is a few weeks since you arrived and you do what the light guy does and Dad's sure enough gonna die. What the hell am I supposed to make of all this, John?"

  "Not sure."

  "What's your real name?"

  "John Menden."

  "Just checkin'."

  "Hold me."

  "I am."

  "I should barf."

  "Come on, then."

  He helped her off the bed and into the bathroom. Through the closed door he heard the toilet flush, then flush again, then flush once more. Water running, splashing, the sound of a soap bar thudding against the sink. Then the door opened and she came out with an air of minor replenishment.

  "Okay?"

  "Little better. I still got the spins."

  "Lie down."

  "Think I'd better sit up straight."

  She sat in a big armchair that overlooked the railing and faced the window of the living room. She put her feet up on the wooden staves of the railing. John stayed where he was, on the foot of the bed, still holding the now-warm washcloth.

  He stared out the window on which their reflections blended with the darkness outside, with the sycamores by the lake shaking in the wind, with the lake surface rippling left to right in the broad path of light where the moon beamed down. Looking at the glass it was hard for him to tell where one thing ended and another began. He tried to see one image at a time, clearly, because he wanted to feel in his heart one thing at a time, clearly. He did not want confusion, complication or compromise. He did not want to believe that for some questions there are no good answers, for some problems no solutions. So he tried to isolate the outline of a tree against the water. But the thin autumn branches became the ripples and the tree was gone—not lost to the water, really, but joined into it. Same with the reflection of Valerie. She became the room behind them projected back from the window, then became the water itself, her shining eyes just another pair of silver flickerings on the lake.

  This woman can mean nothing to you because Rebecca meant everything.

  "Can I get you anything?" he asked her reflection.

  She wrapped her arms around herself. He could see her head swaying very slightly. Her hair fell down around the sides of he face and in the window the white polka dots on her dress became the stars.

  "A cure for Dad. A declaration of your undying true love for me. Something for my head."

  "I'll get some aspirin. You get in bed."

  "One outta three. Not bad. I'm sorry."

  "For what?"

  "For what happened to your girl."

  She was under the covers when he came back. Her voice was just a whisper now, fading:

  "Thank you for taking care of me."

  "It's an honor."

  "You always say the right. Thing . . ."

  "I mean it."

  "Scariest thing. Scariest thing tonight was the way Lane looked at me when I said I'd run the Ops."

  "Lane wants it for himself."

  "Mine, now."

  "He's going to fight you for it."

  "Can take him. Easy. Easy . . ."

  Soon she was breathing deeply.

  Downstairs he checked his messages:

  THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE SOME FRIENDLY MAIL. STILL

  SHAKING FROM ALL WE DID TOGETHER. MUCH TOO SOON TO

  SAY I LOVE YOU BUT I DO SO ALL COMPLICATIONS STEMMING THEREFROM ARE YOURS . FEEL A CELEBRATION COMING ON TONIGHT. YOUR EX-VIRGIN QUEEN-

  VAH

  AM UP AND RUNNING AND FEELING BETTER. STAY IN TOUCH. SNAKEY

  LIKE THE MOVIE? KNEW THEY WOULD. WHEN'S IT ALL GOING DOWN?

  He played me well, thought John. Kept me dancing under
pressure when he knew all along. Had he found the toys? The hole? Had the waitress at Olie's ID'd Joshua somehow, put them together? It really didn't matter how. It was Fargo's job to know, and he had done it.

  What did matter was that Fargo had landed outside the Bureau's net for now—and if he'd destroyed the soundtrack, he might stay that way forever. Holt might talk, but it wasn't likely.

  That left Valerie. What would be in store for her, alone on Liberty Ridge with a killer and a traitor? A thousand reasons to leave control of Liberty Ops to him? Certainly. And those failing, as they were likely to fail on as stubborn and devoted a daughter as Valerie, then what? A good, old-fashioned hunting accident?