The Triggerman Dance

by T. Jefferson Parker

  "Good?" she presses.

  "Good."

  "Look, I gave my body to you. With it came my soul, my love, my devotion. You took all of me. And I expect all of you back. Every last cell of you. I demand love, affection, sacrifice—and I demand it forever. I demand that you love, cherish and honor me, 'til death do us part. I expect to be your new religion."

  "Sucker," he says.

  "Get down on your haunches, raise your paws up to me, and bark. Bark your adoration."

  "Woof."

  She stops and faces him, drops her hat, plants her feet and swings a big arching cross with her right fist. She opens and slows just before it hits his cheek. Her other hand shoots up and both pull his face down to hers.

  "I love you anyway. Brute. Simpleton. Oaf. Dope."

  "In that case I love you, too."

  "There. We both win. I'll be satisfied with that, temporarily."

  The opening to the cave is now covered by a massive iron gate. It is connected to an equally stout frame, hinged on one side and fastened on the other by a long chain of forbidding size and heft.

  "This wasn't here when I was a kid," he says.

  "Is now."

  "Who built it?"

  "Who do you think? Said he wanted his very own dungeon."

  "Quite the party gag."

  "Just like everything else on Liberty Ridge—doors but no locks. Dad said if he couldn't build a safe home for his family here, he'd go somewhere he could. The electric fence might have something to do with it."

  She pulls out the chain a little, then it slides of its own weight to the ground. John steps away as Valerie uses both hands to pull open the gate. It creaks unmercifully, a long, shrill protest.

  "Been a while," she says. "After you."

  The sunlight gives way to a partial darkness as John moves into the cool of the cave. He remembers the way the ceiling is low at first so you have to crouch a little, then opens up maybe twenty yards further down to the big cavern with a high ceiling, the smooth dirt floor and at the far end the opening in the rock where the spring bubbles forth in its aromatic, mineral-heavy steam. He remembers that the size of the opening is just big enough to climb into if you want to sit in the hot water, and the rock ledge around the opening is a good place to sit. He can smell the clean, fecund odor of fresh water pooling up from the earth. He remembers that once your eyes adjust in the cavern you can see just well enough to keep from banging into the walls or tripping on the rock ledges surrounding the spring.

  "Want to crank up the lantern?" he asks, turning.

  "Let's wait until we're in, okay?" Valerie has her hat on. In this minor half-light—just as in the glare of the sun—he finds her absolutely beautiful.

  He senses the ceiling rising as he steps into the big cavern. He can't see the top but the echoes of their footsteps have extended resonance. He can make out the pale draft of steam rising from the pool at the far end of the vault. He feels Valerie's body press up against his side, the brim of her hat nudging his neck.

  "Let there be light," she whispers.

  John sets down the basket. He steps to the other side of it kneels, lifts the lid. He looks up at her from across the basket beholding her form in the faint light that has followed her in from the cave mouth behind her. He looks up at her face but he can't see much except for the shine of her eyes. He gets out the lantern and turns the electronic ignition switch, hearing the click-click of the spark and the quiet hiss of the gas coming into the mantles.

  "Thank you," he says. "For what you gave me back there.'

  "You're really very welcome."

  "I feel more than welcome. I feel honored and blessed."

  "So do I, John."

  He smiles.

  In the growing light he sees that she is smiling, too. She has knelt to face him across the picnic basket, her expression revealed by the whitening glow from the lantern that rests on top of it.

  "You're beautiful," he says.

  "You're just flattering me now."

  She turns her back to him and John unbuttons the dress. She drops the top and steps out of it in a motion of pure femininity then walks to the bubbling pool in the rock. He watches her kneel and work the water into the material.

  "I knew you'd come here," she says.

  "How could you know, when I didn't?"

  "From a dream."

  "Tell me about it."

  "No," she says quietly, looking over her shoulder at him. "We're only as interesting as our secrets."

  When they leave the cave the Santa Ana winds have just begun to blow again. They move greatly against John's face as he leads Valerie into the formidable sunlight. John notes the high desert smell, the dryness of the breeze, the clean outlines of the hillsides against the sky. He has Valerie by the hand. Time passing by, he thinks, the future marching backwards to meet us.

  Back at the cottage, John has an e-mail asking him to call Adam Sexton. He e-mails back that he can't—no phone handy. A few moments later, Sexton's reply appears on his screen:

  SENSE CHANGES IN VANN. PURELY A HUNCH . IF YOUR NOSE IS TO THE WIND, PICKING THINGS UP, WOULD MUCH LIKE TO COMPARE NOTES. ANY LITTLE BIT HELPS. VAL LIKES YOU. LUCKY GUY-

  A. SEX

  That night, late, Holt summons John to the Big House. John crosses the meadow in the building wind, his dogs bouncing out ahead of him, hunting birds in the moonlight.

  He waits for his host in the living room, looking into the red-orange glow of the fire. When Holt finally comes down he has got a tumbler full of ice and Scotch in each hand. He gives one to John but says nothing, simply motions with his head and leads John down into the basement, the Trophy Room.

  When the lights go on, John acts surprised by the wildlife dioramas around him. Even this, his second viewing, fills him with awe, almost a child's sense of wonder. Animals from all over the world—the biggest, the best and the most beautiful. Animals he could never even identify.

  "I've never seen anything like this, Mr. Holt."

  "You won't. Half of them are illegal to take anymore."

  Holt guides him. He tells him about the hunts, the circumstances, the weather, the guides, the shots. He seems most proud of the Kodiak bear. It towers above them, ten feet tall, at least, with a gleam in its eyes that is utterly convincing.

  "Biggest flesh eater on land," Holt says. "Fifteen hundred forty-seven pounds. Took me three weeks on the island to find this one. Another three days to get a shot at him. Thought I was going to lose some toes to frostbite. Didn't care. One shot knocked him ass-over-teakettle. Broke the backbone, clean. Should have heard him. Kind of sound that stays in your dreams for years."

  Holt leads the tour. Asia. India. North America. Africa. Central America.

  "Talked to Baum?"

  "She said Sunday noon would be her best time. Day after tomorrow. Does that fit your schedule?"

  Holt ignores John's question, as he often does. Instead of answering he takes a slow drink of his Scotch and continues his tour through the exhibits.

  "Where will she meet you?" he asks.

  "Newport Harbor Art Museum. She's going to a fundraiser that starts at one o'clock. She said she'd fit me in before."

  "Can you get her here with minimal drama?"

  "I thought I'd meet her in the parking lot, when she's heading in. It's a good-sized lot, off to the side of the building. I've been there."

  Holt nods, perhaps pleased that John has given this errand some forethought. He looks up at the bull elephant, then moves toward Australia. John remains beside him. He notes that Holt's brow furrows briefly then relaxes, as if some problem has been raised and solved.

  "Good, John. When you come back in with her, the guard at the gate will wave you through. You won't have to stop. Don't stop at the Big House, either. Just head up past the groves into the hills. Bring her to Top of the World. I'll be there."

  "Why Top of the World?"

  They arrive back on Kodiak Island. Holt looks up at the bear. "We'll have lunch the
re, Baum and I. Plan on joining us Great view of everything. Nice place to talk. Don't you think?"

  What John thinks is: a nice place to off someone. No one around to see or hear.

  "It's perfect for that."

  Holt finishes his drink, still examining the towering bear "Lane took off the right inside handle of your truck door. If she gets antsy once you two are on the road, too bad."

  "Thank you. I gave some thought to her appointment calendar, though. I mean, she probably wrote me in somewhere. It's possible she'll tell her husband or her bosses she's meeting me before the function."

  "Don't worry about that—you didn't get to the museum after all. Truck crapped out, starter. You've got me for an alibi. Lane, too. And Val. Getting her here is the important thing. Nobody's going to look for you here because nobody knows where you are."

  "That's what I came up with."

  Will he kill me when he's done with Baum?, John thinks. Half of him feels gratitude that he and Baum will be miles away from Top of the World when Joshua and his Federales take down Holt. The other half of him wishes he could be there to see it, to see this animal face his hunter.

  "So, do I tell her we're coming to see you?"

  "I wouldn't. But tell her anything you want. Just get her here."

  "Consider it done."

  Holt turns and stares at John with his cool gray eyes. A little smile creeps to his mouth. "You're a good man."

  John says nothing, returning the stare, hoping he really looks as stupid as he's trying to seem.

  "I want you to see something now," Holt says. "I want you to look at it. I don't want you to say a word. I want you to think about it after we leave here. Tomorrow night, if you've changed your mind about this arrangement, you'll have a chance to tell me. Agreed?"

  "Agreed."

  Holt presses a button on the railing in front of the diorama and the scene in Kodiak gives way to a parking lot. No animals. No rocks. Just asphalt, and one eucalyptus tree with a thick white trunk that rises from a planter filled with Iceland poppies. A new Lincoln Town Car is parked in a space marked "Baum." The backdrop is a blown-up photograph of the Journal building.

  John feels his breath catch, hears it catch. He stares at the tableau. The way it feels to see it now takes him back to the way it felt to be there. He brings in a deep breath and exhales. John wonders if his knees might buckle. And he knows for sure that whatever information his face reveals is being easily recorded by the man in front of him. Holt's expression is so ordinary that John can't infer the tiniest meaning from it.

  "We'll talk tomorrow night, John. If you feel the need Big dinner. Lots of big doings. Got to have everybody whistle the same tune."

  "Okay. Sure. All right."

  chapter 35

  As John Menden watched a young woman wash a stained dress in a spring, Joshua Weinstein stared briefly at Sharon Dumars in the muted light of the County Crime Lab Audio-Visual room. He silently shook his head and resumed his pacing. He could not stop the pacing, only interrupt it for brief, anguished moments of worry. He worried that the Sheriff-Coroner's deputy who had lost Snakey in the county's paperwork would change his mind and blow Joshua's operation to smithereens. He worried that Walker Frazee had found out about Snakey, and was ready to fire him. He worried that everyone knew he had slept with Sharon Dumars. No image of her tanned, strong, beautiful body was enough to dispel the fear that he was about to be exposed as a traitor to Rebecca. It is hell being me, he thought, looking at his watch and shaking his head again, his big Adam's apple traveling up and down his throat like an elevator as he swallowed.

  Kenwick, the Bureau's crack AV man, sat stooped beside Sharon, looking into a Fuji editing machine through which was running the VHS format tape of Rebecca Harris meeting her end in the Journal parking lot. He was running the frames one-by- one and Joshua had heard nothing but Kenwick's steady, deep breathing for the last five minutes. Kenwick wore headphones to listen to the soundtrack. Cute, thought Joshua, considering there was no goddamned soundtrack. Kenwick had been flown in from Washington, accompanied by Walker Frazee. Joshua had felt nothing but disaster brewing since the two got off the Bureau jet.

  Why analyze my precious videotape, Joshua thought: what was there to say? If there was ever a case of content over form this was it. They'd already run it through the infrared scanner for prints. Four thumbs, all perfectly delineated, all John Menden's Did they enjoy watching Rebecca die over and over again? Only Walker Frazee and his captious lab men could ruin a free lunch. If this wasn't enough to earn a search warrant, what was? Owl had performed, and they had won.

  Kenwick finally straightened and removed the padded head phones. He was a big man with the features—Joshua; thought—of a bison, right down to the curly brown hair that began just above his forehead as abruptly as a piece of carper and crept around the expanded bottoms of his heavy earlobes. Watching him come down the jet ramp with Walker Frazee beside him was like watching a vaudeville act. His voice had the resonance of an opera baritone.

  "It's not complete," he announced, fastening two black eye on Joshua. "It's not intact."

  "What do you mean, not complete? He didn't shoot the whole tape, if—"

  "—That isn't what I mean. I mean, we have the image here. But the soundtrack has not been transferred."

  "What happened?"

  "No accident. It was recreated this way."

  "This isn't the original?"

  The big bison head shook a shaggy negative. "This is a dub, Sans soundtrack. Second, perhaps third, generation. Listen. Watch."

  Joshua sat down, Kenwick handed him the headset the started the tape in motion. Rain. Oranges. The Journal. Then, Rebecca.

  .Josh watched her pick her way through the parked cars, trying for all she was worth only to make life a little easier on Susan Baum. It amazed Joshua that he could watch this now. It took all the self-control he could muster to watch this tape as dispassionately as he might an evening news clip of college basketball. Rebecca as evidence. Rebecca as a clue. Rebecca as forensic date But surely as there was no soundtrack to the tape, there was soundtrack in Joshua's mind and it said: You loved her, she betrayed you, she died. And as Joshua listened to that voice inside him, he wished again that he had something more to give Rebecca than the bitterness of his rejection and the fury of his revenge. I can only give you what I have, he thought. I can only give you back what you left me.

  He snapped the headset off. "If there's no sound, what am I listening for?"

  "The hiss. The hiss tells us that the original sound strip received input. The copy was run with a soundtrack of its own— silence. Or near silence, except for the hiss."

  "You're positive this is not an original tape?"

  "Absolutely."

  Kenwick looked at Joshua with his big lugubrious bison eyes. "The sound strip must have contained something that someone was not supposed to hear."

  Joshua sat back and stared at the now-blank editing screen. "So it exists?"

  "What exists?"

  "The original movie soundtrack."

  "Well, it certainly did at one point. What happened to it would be purely speculation right now. I'd also speculate why the filmmaker would let the images remain for posterity, so to speak, but erase the audio."

  Joshua nodded, but didn't look at Kenwick. There would be no looking into this gift horse's mouth, either, until Wayfarer's carcass was deep in Federal lockup.

  He stood. "Thanks, Wick."

  "Good luck, Joshua."

  Frazee greeted them at the door of the Bureau conference room. He seemed even smaller than the last time Joshua had seen him, though Joshua could not imagine why. He wore his eternal blue suit and his usual open-faced, boyish expression. He stood aside to let them in, then appeared seated on the other side of the conference table without seeming to have actually walked there, as only a small man can do. Down the table sat Norton, red-faced and inflated as always, as if he had just gotten off the canvas after a knockdown.

&
nbsp; Frazee cleared his throat and leaned forward, which made Joshua wonder, as always, whether or not Walker's feet were touching the floor. Joshua was amazed that he could wonder such a thing while the climax of his operation was being planned. Frazee's eyes looked dead now, not a glimmer in them Joshua could not remember anything so akin to sympathy on the little man's face. His stomach dropped.

  "The warrant petition has been denied," Frazee said.

  Joshua felt the earth shift underneath him and was hit by a sudden decompression he could not fight. His spirit seemed to pour out from his heart, right onto the floor. He felt a darkness closing in and the walls sliding in to surround him. His own voice, when he finally found it, embarrassed him.