The Triggerman Dance (57 page)

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?

He walked outside and stood on the deck. Boomer, Bonnie and Belle looked up from sleep but showed him little interest, their tails knocking slowly on the wood. He looked out at the profile of Fargo's darkened packing plant of a home.

That's all I can leave you with, he thought: the name of the serpent in your paradise.

To this end he wrote her a short letter on his notepad, folded the sheet neatly and wrote her name on it. He set it on the bar that separated the kitchen from the living room, under the salt and pepper shakers, so it wouldn't blow off. There was little in it about himself or what he had done or why he had done it. Just what he had learned about Fargo since coming to Liberty Ridge.