The Triggerman's Dance

by T. Jefferson Parker

  John told him. He told him again. The images slugged away at him until he couldn’t describe them anymore.

  “Fuckin’ enough, Joshua!” John listened to the hush on the other end of the line. “Give me something back, goddamnit. What about the notes on Baum? Are they real or not?”

  “Affirmative. Documents confirmed it against samples from Wayfarer’s Bureau days. It’s his writing.”

  “And the picture of Baum’s house?”

  “Unretouched. Unaltered. Genuine. His fingerprints on both of them.”

  “Then he isn’t testing me. So who’s setting him up for us? Who knows what I’m doing here?”

  “The Messingers might be next in line to run Liberty Ops if Holt is up the river. They might have intuited your true mission and decided to give him a push.”

  “Might doesn’t get me very goddamned far, Joshua.”

  “It’s a privately held company. We don’t know what the bylaws are, if there even are any. It’s Holt’s show. We can only speculate.”

  “What about Fargo?”

  “He’s loyal as a dog.”

  “So was Cassius. And he’s the one who checked me out. He was close, Joshua. He traced us to Olie’s together, but couldn’t get the proof. He knows you don’t hunt quail with a German shepherd. He knows I’m not good with a handgun because we shot together out there. He smells Rebecca all over me. Snakey, too. What if he found more than he’s telling Holt?”

  “If he did, then he’d blow you wide open. Why betray his master? It doesn’t make sense. What’s in it for Fargo? Do you think he really likes you?”

  “He hates me.”

  “Then he’s not going to feed you evidence to hang his own boss! Jesus, John. Try this: he’s not being set up by a traitor, but by a conscience. Someone who knows what he did and hopes you can do something with the evidence. Someone who suspects not that you’re a plant, but a man with a strong sense of right and wrong. Someone who knows everyone else is loyal to Holt. Someone who’s loyal to Holt too, but not quite enough to let him get away with murdering an innocent young woman.”

  “Who?”

  “His wife. His wife’s nurse. His daughter. Thurmond or Laura Messinger. One of the Holt Men who works closely with him. Holt himself. Maybe he’s broken down, needs to confess.”

  John tried to think through the possibilities, but they all sounded wrong. “Joshua, you don’t have a clue about what’s going on out here. Do you?”

  “John, I don’t give a damn what’s going on out there. We’ve got five days. We’re being fed evidence and I’m going to take it. If it comes from an unexpected source, fine. I’ll use any bit of rope I need. When Holt’s in lockup we’ll sort through the program and identify the players. But as long as it’s going like this, then in the name of God in heaven let’s burn his sorry carcass while we can!”

  John listened to Weinstein’s clear baritone. He imagined his Adam’s apple doing its little jig; he imagined Joshua’s black eyes and pale skin and the unshakable focus of his vengeance. And John realized for the first time that he was utterly expendable here, only a tool for Joshua. He was a conduit, a piece of pipe. And no amount of danger or threat would make Joshua waver in his crusade to ruin Vann Holt. What an odd feeling, he thought, to realize you are only valued for what you can do. I don’t care what’s going on out there. What a simpleton he had been.

  He said nothing for a long moment. Instead he felt the chill of the wind cutting through his coat, all the way to his bones, and the loneliness of his body here on Liberty Ridge. He felt the solitary nakedness that was his. He felt the border between his own skin and the world outside it, and knew that he could only trust what was within. He shivered and felt cold.

  “The tape’s in the box, Joshua.”

  “Very good, Owl. We can hope it’s good enough for a warrant, but that’s up for a judge to decide. Now, has he asked you to meet with Baum?”

  “He made it official tonight. I’m supposed set up a meeting somewhere, then bring her back to Liberty Ridge. So they can . . . talk.”

  Joshua was silent. His voice was even lower now, quieter. “It is happening, Dear Owl. Good things are happening for us. It is coming together. When? When does he want her?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “The gods are smiling. Call her this morning at 8:30. You’ll find her reluctant to meet, but not suspicious of you. She’ll insist that Sunday noon is the soonest, and best she can do.”

  “You’ve been busy.”

  “Always. Once Wayfarer agrees to a time, the clock starts ticking. I’ll need to know what he’s planning, where on the Ridge he might take her, anything you can find out. Sundays, the Liberty Ops training school is down. It’s quiet, not a lot of Holt Men around.”

  “And you’ll make the arrest while I’m out retrieving her?”

  “Ideally. Now, has Holt frisked you since the first day?”

  “Holt didn’t. Fargo did.”

  “Well, has Fargo?”

  “No.”

  “Have your things been disturbed?”

  “I told you he took my wallet, shotgun and ammo.”

  “Have your things been disturbed since?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Josh went quiet again. John heard the wind in the fallen oak leaves, the scratch of needles in darkness.

  “Owl, we’re down to five days. This, as ordered from mid-level deities you don’t need to know about. Sunday will be the third of those five—our last best window. We’ve played well, but our time is running out. I want you to do something different. I want you to keep your phone with you from now on. Hide it in the cottage. When you’ve set up the meeting with Baum, and Holt has agreed, call me as soon as it’s safe to do so.”

  “Fargo can check the cottage any time he wants.”

  “It’s time to take acceptable risks.”

  “You’ve got the whole sad thing on tape, Joshua. Holt’s finished.”

  “Not yet, he isn’t. We’ll need a warrant for his arrest. Judges frown on information obtained from covert, untrained, unsworn sources.”

  “I thought you trained me.”

  “Don’t get precious on me, now. It’s a little late in the game for that. We’re here to flay Wayfarer alive and let the vultures eat his guts. Aren’t we?”

  “I’ve got to be alive to enjoy it.”

  “I’ll keep you alive, Owl. You’re indispensable to me. You’re my secret agenda. My hidden reason. My invisible passion. Just like you were, to—”

  John hung up, slipped the phone into his coat pocket where the video tape of Rebecca had been, and set his box of toys back into the ground.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

  John rows toward Liberty Island, watching the shore in front of his cottage graduate into the distance. The dogs prowl the receding beach, ordered to stay and yelping with frustration. Boomer finally dives into the lake and swims a few yards before turning around and paddling back to shore where he shakes himself out in a nose-to-tailtip shiver, then starts barking again. It is morning of the next day and John’s heart is sick with memory.

  But his senses are attuned to Valerie. She sits astern in the little rowboat, side-saddle on the bench so she can look forward at John, backward to the shore, or to her right, where the western parcels of Liberty Ridge stretch over the hills toward the sea. The picnic basket sits at her feet. She wears a big black straw hat that sweeps up in front to form a white rose-studded wave that tapers dramatically back to a flow of white ribbon and a spray of red gladiola that dangle over the back of the rim. Her dress is loose and sleeveless, white, with lace around the neck and a wide shiny black belt. John suspects it is out-of-date. He suspects she wears sleeveless dresses to complement her smooth brown arms. Beneath the hat, her hair is free and falls over her shoulders. She is barefoot and her ankles cross as she turns and looks back at the dogs. To John she is a riddle of the known and the unknowable, familiar as a sister but exotic as an orc
hid.

  “Where’s your six-gun?”

  “Hanging on my bed post. Like my dress?”

  “It’s nice.”

  “It’s the one my mother wore the day you saw her. It took a while, but I found it.”

  “Why would she keep it?”

  “She’s always been sentimental about things she wore when she was happy. Has closets full of clothes. A couple of months ago she cut her wedding dress up the back with pinking shears and put it on for dinner. Anyway, I thought you might like to see this one again.”

  “It’s becoming.”

  The blush again. The smile. “It’s becoming difficult to take my eyes off of you, John Menden.”

  “Then it’s good I’m the one rowing. What’s for breakfast?”

  “A surprise.”

  “Do you use the computer in your room much?”

  She looks at him quizzically, her brown eyes seeming to take in, then release him. “Not since I graduated. I talk to Dad or the Ops guys, if I’m doing work for him. I did my vet school applications on it. Why?”

  “I’ve been getting some odd mail. Little taunts and jabs. Things to let me know I’m being watched. No sender, of course.”

  “Dad’s a prankster, believe it or not.”

  “Doesn’t sound like him.”

  “Lane would pester you because that’s his job and his character. Could be Snakey or Partch—one of Lane’s goons. Snakey’s supposed to be MIA but I don’t believe it.”

  “What about Sexton?”

  “Well, he’s linked up. Works from home, mostly. It’s not me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  John feels the sand sliding up under the hull, then the abrupt stop. The stern drifts as he climbs out, pulls the rowboat in a little farther and helps Valerie unload the basket, then herself. With one hand she bunches her dress up over her knees and with the other she reaches to John. He leads her through the ankle-deep water to the beach.

  “Let’s walk around the island,” she says. “Work up an appetite. Find a good spot to eat.”

  She hangs onto his hand—and he hangs onto hers—as they set out around this inner shore. Emerging from the shade of the giant Norfolk Island pine, John feels the thin warm sunlight on his back and smells the rare Orange County aroma of sagebrush and fresh water. John has the basket. The rim of Valerie’s hat touches John’s neck when they get close, so she takes it off and carries it. She walks closer to him and he can feel the heat and softness of her bare arm as it presses against his own.

  “You seem tired.”

  “Your dad kept me up late.”

  “How did it go?”

  “We cuffed six home invaders in about thirty seconds. Your father blew a kid’s hand off, then one of the Men blasted the rest of them with twelve-gauge beach sand. When the lights went on, the Bolsa Cobras looked like gophers caught above ground.”

  “Do you find that impressive?”

  “The kid with no hand did. How involved are you?”

  “Well . . . Dad’s been trying to get me on board for about a year now. He supported my college, but he’s less enthused about me practicing veterinary than helping him run the Ops. He’s made no secret of it—he’d like me to run the business when he’s too old.”

  When the final bills come due, John thinks. Sooner than she knows?

  “You’re not tempted?”

  “Tempted, maybe. I’d like to please him. But I can’t say that security and privatized law enforcement really turn this girl on. It would be years before he really needed me. I could practice veterinary, think about it. More to the point is, I don’t approve of blowing off people’s hands.”

  “There’s that.”

  “And that’s why I’m taking my time.”

  “He must make lots of money.”

  “It’s unbelievable. The Ops is international, you know. We just inked a deal with the Ugandan Development Ministry. What they’re developing is a SWAT team to kick tribal butt fast and hard. It’s a three-million dollar deal over time. But the foreign stuff is just kind of glamorous. The high-tech industrial accounts we have in Irvine alone account for a million a year. That’s not including personal security and investigations.”

  “He told me that the Ops does vengeance. For money.”

  Valerie shrugged. John could feel her fingers tighten against his own. “That’s not really true. Dad exaggerates.”

  “He sounded serious.”

  “There were a couple of creeps let go on legal technicalities. Real flagrant miscarriages. One was a stalker with a former for forcible rape. The other one a thug hired by an ex-hubby. They walked before trial. Both of their victims had contracts with us. Well, the pay-per-mug just plain disappeared. The stalker got squashed in a hit-and-run. I won’t say anything more about them because that’s all I know. I’ve heard a few things spoken, but nothing really said, if you get the drift.”

  They round the western shore. With the Big House and all its subordinate buildings now invisible behind the island, John feels the expansive privacy of a world of nature without men.

  “God, it’s nice out here,” says Valerie. “So, dad sees me as the front-woman for Liberty Ops, and Lane wants to head up day-to-day stuff. I’m not sure if Dad wants Lane in that position. I know he’s trying to vett Sexton’s worth. Adam’s great with people but he doesn’t know much about the day-to-day things. Does he want to put you to work, too?”

  “I sense that. I, uh . . . participated last night. Tangentially. He gave me a little task for today.”

  “What?”

  “Contact Susan Baum of the Journal and set up a meeting with her.”

  John feels Valerie’s hand go stiff now, and the sudden tension in her arm. For a long while she says nothing, but John still feels the strong energy inside her.

  “What?” he finally asks.

  “I hate that self-righteous cunt. Dad does, too. She crucified Pat for no reason, then went after Dad. Dragged up a bunch of crap that wasn’t true, published it to a million-and-a-half Orange Countians. No apologies when Teresa Descanso finally couldn’t positively identify Patrick. Patrick, with the ‘innocent certitude of a Mormon zealot.’ Baum never even met my brother. Hardly a mention in the journal when Liberty Ops turned over the real rapist to the cops a year later. Not hot. Not news. I can’t imagine one reason on earth why he’d want you to contact her now, except maybe to . . .”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I was going to say put a bullet between her eyes, but I’m a little peeved. I wouldn’t have really meant it.”

  “Someone already tried that.”

  “That skinhead dweeb from Alamo West, according to the FBI and the Journal.”

  She looks at him, the smooth skin of her face flushed pink and her dark brown eyes aglitter. The tensile strength of her grip recedes and she squeezes his hand gently.

  “I know. I have a bad temper sometimes. When it comes to the people I love—or hate.”

  “Do you think he’d really want her dead?”

  Valerie looks up at him again as they walk. “No. Not any more.”

  “He did, once?”

  “Sure. I did, too. It’s over now. Pat’s gone and the rage abates.”

  “He said he wants to talk to her.”

  “That might be hard, given that she’s paranoid now. Paralyzed by fear that someone will try her again. By her own profitable, unparalyzed confession, that is.”

  “I think that’s where I’d come in.”

  Valerie looks at him, then out at the water, then to the little stand of toyon trees ahead of them. “Here,” she says, pulling him along. “Here’s where we should eat.”

  They find a clearing. They each hold two corners of a soft white acrylic blanket and set it on the ground amidst the toyon trees. A little cluster of the red berries falls to the blanket, tiny red apples in ultraminiature.

  Valerie reaches into the basket and pulls out a gas lantern.

  “For later,” she says, setting it aside.<
br />
  Out come two perfect oranges, a bottle of Zinfandel, a loaf of bread wrapped in foil, a triangle of cheese and a large plastic bag filled with chunks of white meat.

  “No wonder that thing was so heavy,” says John.

  His first long sip of the wine is a communion with Rebecca that ends in a shudder as he pictures her image from the night before. To you. His second drink is to the woman beside him.

  “Cold?”

  “No.”

  “You shivered.”

  “The wine.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  She moves close to him, one arm against his. “Eat your lunch.”

  He pulls out a fine-ribbed segment and tries it. It tastes of garlic, mesquite smoke and faintly of flesh. He has never had a firmer, subtler meat. “Catfish from the lake?”

  “Not fish at all.”

  He examines the piece in his fingers, the thick spine and close ribs curved in unison. In his mouth it has the feel of abalone. “Oh. Now that’s funny.”

  She giggles. “Going to be sick?”

  “No. It’s good.”

  “Freshness counts.”

  “You retrieve it after our walk?”

  “Straight into the marinade. Ten minutes on a side in the Weber. Not in the little cookbook they give you.”

  “Well,” he says, swallowing and lifting his wine glass. “Here’s to shooting the devil before he speaks.”

  “To the new improved Eve.”

  “To aspiring vets.”

  “To safe puppies,” she says.

  “To wasting not.”

  “To wanting not.”

  “Young lady, you seem to have it all,” he says.

  “I would like to.”

  Suddenly her eyes are point blank and her nose is against his cheek and her lips are on his. Her breath smells, illogically, of milk. Her fingers on his face feel cool. When she pushes him back her hair falls forward to make a shade that smells like apples. She cradles the back of his head as she might an infant’s as he settles onto the blanket and her tongue comes past his teeth. He feels its changing girth, the slickness of its bottom. John places his hands on her face, then her neck and shoulders, then runs them down her arms. She is tense as a bulldog, he thinks, and just as strong. She’s trembling. Over him, her weight shifts and he feels the loop of his belt pulled up, then a long strong yank that frees hole from shaft, then strap from buckle. But when she tries to pull it free it sticks from its own friction and she only manages to turn him half onto his side.