The Triggerman Dance (21 page)

Then she looked at her father with an expression he had come to both love and fear. He loved the way it came so directly from Carolyn and himself, passed on like a gift, the way her pupils dilated and her wide lips formed a slight frown and the vertical lines between her eyebrows furrowed—all of her conviction gathering force, being brought to bear. He feared it because Valerie was intractable when she looked like this, ferociously stubborn. And he knew how that ungovernable determination had led to the best things in his life, and the worst. It was the Holt energy, passed from generation to generation, powerful as a runaway big-rig, and as difficult to stop.

So he simply waited for his daughter to speak.

"We're taking him home," she said.

Holt's heart sank a little. "That's not a good idea for anyone," he said. "But maybe he could spend a few weeks here at the lake house—time to get a new trailer."

Valerie continued to look at him, disbelief mounting in her dark brown eyes. Holt wondered how a twenty-two-year old woman could turn his logic to mush, make him feel idiotic.

"So they can find him, and burn up our house, too?" she asked. "No. He needs a home, a base to operate from. He needs safety and time to regroup. He saved my life. He's coming to Liberty Ridge, Dad."

"Maybe he doesn't want to come to Liberty Ridge."

"He does. Look, Dad, what did you say about thirty seconds ago?"

"I said righteous anger—"

"—You
said 'we'll make it up to him.' So, this is how we make it up to him. Simple!"

She reached across the truck with both hands, grabbed her father's face and kissed him once on each cheek, then once on his forehead.

Then, with all assumptions made but not another word, she got out of the truck and walked toward John, the man who had, at great price, saved her life. Vann Holt watched her approach him, his heart pounding not only from the punishment of the chase, but from colliding emotions of gratitude, impotence, jealousy and shame. He watched her place her hand on John's arm.

"Not like that, we won't," he said. "Not like that, girl of mine."

Josh Weinstein and Sharon Dumars watched the scene unfold from the privacy of a 1986 Dodge van parked across the highway at a feed and tack store. The van featured one-way windows, an antenna tuned to the transmission frequency of a beeper-cum- radio attached to John's belt, a parabolic microphone mounted on top, a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and large magnetic signs on each side that said "Empire Cable Services." Anyone calling that number would find it disconnected and no longer in use.

They sat on two stools in the oven-like heat, peering through the windows with binoculars.

When Rusty met his double-barreled end, Sharon gasped and tightened, and though Weinstein found himself profoundly shaken by the sight of a perfectly good Bureau dog blown to smithereens by Bureau part-timers, he told himself that Rusty did not die in vain.

The stunt-packs of blood had gone off perfectly, assuaging Weinstein's second-biggest worry. They'd worked hard on the choreography, but he knew that a lucky, unanticipated move from Valerie could dislodge the wiring duct-taped to Sam's shoulder beneath the t-shirt and denim vest. They'd been thorough enough to use a half pint of Sam's own blood, on the off chance that a suspicious Holt, or, more likely, Lane Fargo, might try to run some lab work on what would surely splatter all over Valerie's body and clothes. Weinstein's greatest fear, though—that some genuine innocent bystander would come by and skew the whole delicate charade—never materialized. The Riverside County Sheriff was a worry, too. So Weinstein, Dumars and all four of their teammates had flooded the Indio Sheriff's Substation with calls just before noon. Posing as property owners, they reported hunters trespassing onto posted property many miles from Anza Valley—a common enough occurrence in many parts of the desert on any October Not a deputy was seen.

Watching through the binoculars while the sweat ran down his back, hearing the soundtrack projected wonderfully by John's transmitter, Weinstein had been anguished at how slowly the whole thing seemed to take place. But later when he checked the time it was almost exactly as they'd planned: one minute and thirty-three seconds from the bikers' surprise encore to their final departure. Josh had taken a deep breath as he watched the war party roar away, and noticed the high-pitched, anxious smell of his own body.

Weinstein could only hope that Mickey—the giant—and Sam would make it to John's trailer undelayed, open the propane valves and toss in the flare without interference from Tim, the groundskeeper at the High Desert Rod and Gun Club. If necessary, Mickey would engage the groundskeeper. But twenty minutes after he'd set the fire, Mickey called on the cellular phone—stashed in the toolbox of his Harley—to say that all had gone well. He reported that Tim had looked on from a few hundred yards away as the two bikers did their biker thing on John Menden's helpless domicile. The four men and three bikes had zoomed up the lowered ramp and into the back of a "State-to- State" moving trailer waiting at a turnout on Highway 371, which is where Mickey had placed the call.

Of course, the best laid plans didn't amount to much without luck, and luck was what Weinstein had been praying for ever since Norton had green-lighted him after lunch that afternoon in Santa Ana. They could lead Wayfarer to water, but they couldn't make him drink. And all John could do was save the day, be polite and a little recalcitrant, and use his native likeability to sway Wayfarer toward meaningful gestures. Josh had told John to "aw-shucks the sonofabitch to death."

An invitation to stay at the Lake Riverside Estates home would be the best they could reasonably hope for. If Holt went even this far, however, there was at least a small chance that John's generous refusal ("They'd find me here pretty easy, Mr. Holt—then we'd both be out of a home.") could lead to the ultimate goal: Liberty Ridge. It was the kind of common sense pessimism that would appeal to Vann Holt.

The backup plan, if Holt offered John no sanctuary whatsoever, was to let John appeal directly to Wayfarer—at some point—for work, shelter, perhaps a little start-up loan to get a new trailer. Burning down the trailer was John's idea, and Weinstein was impressed by his informant's sense of follow-through. Weinstein also saw that John was profoundly moved by the thought of losing the trailer, nasty little piece of aluminum that it was.

Things were out of Joshua's hands now, and luck was what he needed. He had always been a lucky man, except with Rebecca Harris, and, by extension, John Menden. Guiding the van from the feed and tack parking lot after the pickup and Land Rovers had caravanned away, Josh Weinstein could not deny the faint nausea he felt at so brazenly tempting the Fates.

But one hour later, after John's mock chase of his tormentors through the Anza Valley desert, Josh's nausea was banished by pure elation. Josh parked the van two houses away from Holt's Riverside Estates home, assuming that, after the fire, this would be the logical place for Holt and his party to take John. He watched as the two Land Rovers pulled into the wide, semi-circle of a driveway, and John's Ford lumbered up behind them. Weinstein's ears roared with blood.

"God, I'm good, he whispered to Sharon.

"Yes, I am."

"We're good. We're just too damn good, Sharon. We get done with this, they'll want us to run the whole country."

"You're really not worried about that radio on his belt?"

"He's a newspaper editor, and the only full-time reporter. He's always on call. If Wayfarer has an allergic reaction to a beeper at this point, we're sunk. But we're not sunk. What we are is damned good."

The transmission came through clearly, even when John and his benefactors disappeared into the large ranch-style home.

holt
: Get comfortable everybody, make calls if you want. There's bathrooms all over this damned place.

titisi
: Not what I expected for a hunting lodge.

valerie
: We've got everything to drink. John?

john
: Not for me, thanks.
valerie
: Some cold water at least?
john
: That might hit the spot.

"Listen to him," said Weinstein, actually rubbing his long-fingered hands together in a parody of enthusiasm. "My Joe. My man. My secret agent. My handsome little goy-boy nobody can resist."

"I think he's scared," said Sharon.

"I hope so."

The transmitted conversation followed John, of course, and for ten minutes amounted to little more than polite mundanities. At one point Titisi said that he could use a few hundred men like John in Uganda. The reel-to-reel took it all. Then the moment of revelation that Weinstein had been careful not to expect, was thrown at him like a firecracker:

Holt
: I was thinking we could put you up at my home in Orange County for the night. It's comfortable. I realize it would be a long commute out here to work, but I don't see any sense in stranding you here with those scum on the prowl.

John
: That's really nice of you to offer, but it wouldn't sit well with me.

Holt
: Relatives around here? Friends?
John
: Well, not exactly. I've only been in Anza Valley for a few months.

Valerie
: Then what doesn't sit well?
John:
Well, it's an imposition for one thing.
valerie
: You ought to see Dad's house. He's got enough room for Juma's army, then some. Really, it could work out jus fine. It would give you a chance to let the trouble blow over, then set up a new trailer. If you plan on staying out here, that is.

Holt
: He saved your life, Valerie, that doesn't mean you can run his.

John
: (laughter) You know, that's really a generous offer but I don't know. It's—

Holt
: It's our way of saying thank you. A small way. Please let us be generous. What you did today was beyond generosity It still hasn't really sunk in.

valerie
: Please?

John:
Well, I really would be grateful for a place to stay tonight.

Holt
: Then it's settled. You'll be comfortable with us for a night, John. We've got plenty of comfort on Liberty Ridge.
John
: Liberty Bridge?

Valerie:
Ridge.
Dad names everything. Can't even have a house without making it a proper noun. You'll like it, though— and of course your dog is welcome. I've got fourteen springers and Dad's got another six, so there's plenty of kennel run.

John
: Well, there might be a problem there, because I've got two more out on the property. I left them with the groundskeeper when I went hunting this morning.

Valerie
: Are you kidding? Three more dogs won't even be noticed.