The Triggerman Dance (29 page)

To get a confidence, give a confidence.
"Mr. Holt, I've never thought that way. I've always believed in taking a day at a time, trying to improve a little at the thing you do. I started writing when I was a kid and I enjoy it. I'd like to keep at it. But I've developed the unsettling notion that a lo of life is waiting things out between disasters."

"Christ, that's pathetic. It sure can be, if you choose to se it that way. What disaster?"

"A woman I was going to marry."

"So, what happened to her?"

"She was coming over to my place one night and a drunk ran the light. She died and he broke his nose."

Holt nodded slowly, gravely. "What was her name?"

"Jillian."

Jillian is your torch. You can use her to light a path to Wayfarer. She is your Carolyn—the catalyst of your self-pity, the see of your hate. She is Rebecca.

"Vietnamese?"

"Sir?"

"Was the driver Vietnamese? They can't drive and they can drink."

"Well, actually, he was."

"And if he'd stayed back in his rice field, you'd be married to Jillian."

"That's correct."

"That's what I mean. Guy should have worked his own dirt. What did you do?"

"Do?"

"Do about the driver."

"He went to prison. I forgave him. I told myself early on that I wouldn't take vengeance. It was a luxury I didn't feel could afford."

"Regret that?"

"He suffered enough. And no amount of suffering would have brought her back."

"Noble sentiment. I guess. But he's walking around now living his life while she's dead. He laughs and eats and makes love. She never even moves. That sit comfortably in an alert so such as your own?"

John looked at Holt then, neither blinking nor wavering h fix on the older man. He thought of Rebecca, of the way she looked sitting at her
Journal
desk, with the phone crooked into her right ear and her hands flying over the keyboard and the big glass of iced tea sweating onto a coaster beside her. The way she had this little smile all the time, as if she was somehow outside herself and amused by herself, as if Rebecca Harris was an interesting animal to observe. The way she looked at him when he'd stop by her desk for a brief hello, the depth of interest, visible to John, at least, beyond the shining convex surface of her eyes.

"I wanted to kill him. I admit that."

"Of course you did. It's natural, and honest. How far did you take your plan?"

John smiled and looked away. "I kept up with his release date. I got the address of his family. I actually sat outside their house one night before he came home, thinking about it."

"And?"

"I scared myself. I quit."

Holt laughed now, a low, understanding chuckle. "A true sense of follow-through is tough to come by. It all comes down to what your heart says. If yours wouldn't let you take him, then you did the right thing not to."

"There's the law, too."

" Always. But it wasn't written for criminals to hide behind. Don't forget it. See an awful lot of that these days. It's the mark of a weak society when pity replaces justice. Everybody gets away with everything."

"That much is true, Mr. Holt."

Holt seemed satisfied that his points had been made. He said nothing for a long while, staring down toward the Big House.

"Well, I wandered again. But back to my original question. What do you want?"

"It would sound kind of silly, compared to all the things you just said."

"Forget what I just said. I love to pontificate. My great-great-uncle was a tent revivalist. Jealous husband shot him. Anyway. I understand his need to preach. Go ahead."

John thought a moment.

"Oh, you know, just a regular life, sir. I'd like to find a love and marry her and make a family someday. I don't aspire to this kind of . . . grandeur, Mr. Holt. I don't need it, although I can sure appreciate its beauties. What I want is to be left alone to do my work and take care of the people I love. Pretty simple stuff, really."

"Not the less meaningful for being simple. I respect your desires. I wish you prosperity."

"Thank you."

"Ever think of trying something different?"

"What do you mean?"

"Willing to approach the quarry from an unexpected direction?"

"That's kind of vague, sir."

Holt smiled. "Yes, it is. Hypothetically, now—would you be willing to try something other than what you've done before, in order to get what you want? Change of venue. Say that you had a chance to try different work—work you didn't know you could do, but turned out to be good at? Say this new work would enable you to find the love that Jillian once was to you. Make you able to begin that family. All by following a path that you didn't know was there."

"I'd have to know where the path ended, where the twist and turns were."

"You would be deliberate, not impulsive."

"Yes, sir. I would."

"Until you lost your temper. Like down on that dirt road looking for the men who burned you out."

"Well, yes. My patience has its limits."

"It certainly should."

"Do you have something in mind?"

"Yes, I do. It's got to do with a gang of Vietnamese home invaders. I'm going to be waiting where I know they'll be. It's Liberty Ops job in its purest form. Good guys. Bad guys. Good money. Interested?"

"Interested. Why me?"

Holt studied him again with a formidable concentration. "I want you to meet someone."

John stood outside the bedroom after Holt had gone in and shut the door. He could hear voices, a man's and a woman's. The bedroom was on the second floor of the Big House, and the sunlight poured onto the stairway landing. A moment later a nurse came out, introduced herself as Staci and told John that Mr. Holt said it was okay to go in.

The room was spacious and bathed in light diffused through the window blinds. It smelled faintly of roses. Holt sat on a stool beside a hospital bed at the far end, motioning John toward an empty stool beside him. John sat down.

"John, I'd like you to meet my wife, Carolyn. Honey, this is the young man I've been telling you about."

"Why, how do you do?" she asked.

"Very well, Mrs. Holt."

She regarded John with a dazed, unselfconscious stare. She seemed both present and absent at the same time. John smiled, returning her gaze, noting her plump pink cheeks, the silver-blond hair cut short around her face, the way the left side of her mouth didn't move as well as the right, the way her left eyelid drooped, just slightly.

Then her deep brown eyes widened and tears welled up into them, spilling onto her cheeks. "Oh dear God," she whispered, still staring at John.

"Honey, John is going to be staying—“

"—Oh dear God—"

"—For a few days anyway, maybe—

"—It's been so long since—"

"—Just to regroup a little after all the—"

"—I didn't know if I'd ever—"

"—Honey, don't get too—"

But it was too late because Carolyn Holt had pushed her bed control button and the head of the bed was rising and her eyes were still devoted solely to John's face and she reached out with both her arms for him, dropping the control to her lap and leaning forward from her waist.

John glanced at Holt and saw nothing but uncertainty. With little to guide him but his own sense of decency, he stood and leaned forward, so her hands could wrap around his neck, and she pulled him down to her. She was strong. He could smell the rose perfume and fresh bedding and the under-current of sweat that comes from a straining, human body.

"Don't strangle the poor boy, Honey. Remember, he's the one who saved Valerie from—"

"—Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
I've missed you so much, Patrick. Thank you for coming home to me! Oh, Patrick."

"John," said John. "John Menden, Mrs. Holt."

"Oh, Pat. Patty-cake, Pat-man, Pat Hand, Pat-a-tat-tat!"

John unwrapped her clenching hands from behind his neck and eased her back to the pillows.

"Look at me, Mrs. Holt. I'm not Patrick. I'm John. I'm the one who—"

"—You little dickens, you."

She smiled at him, a beaming, consuming smile from which her eyes sparkled as they moved up and down John's body. Then she clenched her fists up under her chin like a little girl, and wiggled.

"We have a lot of catching up to do, Pat. Now you sit back down and start catching me up, all right? First, how are your grades, for heaven's sake? And that cheerleader you were dating; Those priests haven't been rapping your knuckles, have they? I think the best lunch box you ever had was the Disneyland one with the submarine ride on it, but of course the thermos was always—"

"—Carolyn," commanded Holt, "be quiet and listen to me. This man is not your—"

"—You're distracting us, Vanny. Could you maybe get us some root beer? And get your glasses fixed, too. Look who's returned from the college of the dead!"

John looked again to Holt, who had risen from his stool to run his hand over Carolyn's hair and face. In Holt's eyes, John could see the exasperation, the surprise, and the anger. Holt motioned him away.

"Wait for me outside," he said.