The Triggerman Dance (39 page)

"Who are you?"

He reeled behind him, toward the voice. A dark-skinned boy stood exactly where John had walked just a moment before. John was impressed that anyone could move that quietly. He was more impressed with the long, slender-bladed knife in the boy's left hand. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and a pair of sandals He was probably a teenager.

"John."

"That's my boat."

"Okay."

"You stealing it?"

"I want to go to the island."

"That's my island, too."

"Okay."

"I live here. My whole family works for the Holts."

"I rode my bike."

"Then where is it?"

"In the bushes. Way back that way."

"I'm Carlos and this is my lake. I could skin you with this knife and take your bike."

John was trembling and he knew his legs wouldn't get him far. He tried to imagine what his father would say.

"Carlos," he said. "What do you say we go over to the island and bullshit a little?"

The dark boy glared at him, then bent his knife in half and slipped it into his pocket. "I'm gonna row."

It didn't take long to get to the other shore. John helped Carlos drag the boat into the cattails that lined the south edge of the island. The air filled with blue dragonflies and every few seconds he could hear a frog plop into the water.

"Ever seen the cave?" Carlos asked.

"I slept in it."

"Find my magazines?"

"Just bugs and the spring."

"Those are my magazines with the naked pictures."

'"My dad has
Playboy."

"I got
Playboy
too. You wouldn't believe this one where the girl's in a hammock eating an apple. It's Miss December."

They walked through the brush and into trees growing close together near the center of the island. They went into the cave. It was a big cave, with a mouth wide enough to drive a car through, thought John. As soon as he went in he could hear the warm water gushing up from the earth and echoing off the walls and he remembered how easy it was to sleep with that sound next to you. Carlos lit a lantern.

John set his things on the damp rock cave bottom. He walked to the deepest part and looked down between the rocks at the water coming up. It looked black. It was warm when he touched it and had a soft, silky feel. Carlos showed him the fold out of the girl in the hammock eating the apple. The seam between the pages was soft and broken in places. John felt that sweet little tickle in his stomach, the same feeling he got once ii an elevator with his mother and used to get all the time in the station wagon when his dad drove fast. Stan didn't drive fast enough to make it feel that way.

He and Carlos walked through the woods to the other side of the island. There was a small beach of dark sand just beyond a thick stand of California lilac. They crouched down in the bushes and looked toward the big mission house.

"Don't let 'em see us," said Carlos. "I'm not supposed to be here."

John peered over the bush tops like a spy. He could feel the dampness of the ground seeping into the knees of his jeans. He felt a sudden affection for Carlos.

Then he saw some people walking along the lake on the far shore. At first they weren't there, and then they were. It was man and a woman and a small boy. When they reached the point opposite him, John could see that the man and woman were about his parents' age. The boy trailed a little behind his mother holding her hand. The woman trailed a little behind the mar holding his hand. The man had the same stout bearing and erect posture as his father. The woman had bright blond hair and she wore a loose white dress from which her stomach protruded roundly.

"That's the owner's son," said Carlos. "He's in the FBI an he's got a gun. Mrs. Holt looks like Miss March when she isn't pregnant. They come here sometimes, but not very much."

John watched the man and his wife and son walk along the shore. The boy got tired and the man picked him up and carried him.

"That's a good family," said John.

"How do you know?"

"They're like mine."

"What makes yours good?"

John looked at Carlos, then back to the shore. "Just is. We do lots of things together."

"Then why'd you run away?"

"They took a trip for awhile. They're coming back. I'll see if Dad might want to live here someday."

"The rancho isn't yours."

"He could buy it. He bought an airplane."

Back at the cave they sat just outside and ate the cookies and fruit cocktail John had packed. While Carlos looked at his magazines, John lay down in the late afternoon warmth and looked at the sun through his eyelids.

For a brief moment he felt that the sun out there was his sun. He felt that the cool earth under him was his earth. He felt self-sufficient, contained and welcome. He was certain he belonged here in a way he no longer belonged in the old house, or in Stan and Dorrie's. It was the best feeling he knew, this attachment to a place, because a place never went away. But the feeling was over quickly, like the one in his stomach when he looked at Carlos's picture.

Look down on that county, son. It's yours. That's a nice thought, isn't it?

It's not really mine, dad.

No, it is. It belongs to whoever puts down his roots there. Your mother and I have. You will. . .

"I want to live here someday," he said out loud. "Right here on this island. Right in this cave."

"It's not yours."

"It belongs to whoever puts down roots here, Carlos."

"Here's the one that Mrs. Holt looks like."

Carlos brought over the magazine. John steadied the fold-out page in the afternoon breeze. It was Miss March and she was up on her knees, on a bed, wearing a tattered old workshirt that cast her middle in shadow but parted conveniently around her big tan breasts. She had a pretty face and she was smiling. She looked like John's mother, and his stomach dropped and tickled sweetly. She looked like the woman on the shore, too.

That's just exactly what a lady is supposed to look like, he thought. Just like the one that's going to belong to me someday.

CHAPTER
26

Joshua Weinstein sat in the Quantico conference room and looked out at the sere Virginia landscape. The trees were naked and the ground was tan. It's like Wyeth painted the whole damn world, he thought. A light breeze swayed the branches and moved the leaves in pointless patterns. The central heat huffed on and he looked at Dumars. "How's your room?" he asked flatly, his red-eye voice.

"The same as yours."

And right next door, he thought—anything to relieve himself of the worry and fear. What could they possible want with him? Did they know about Snakey by now? Impossible, but their jot was to discover the impossible.

Right after the call from John, he had ordered Dumars to abort their airport run and speed to the perimeter of Liberty Ridge. There, he had grimly overseen the claiming of Snakey and the package. He heatedly swore his people to secrecy, and arranged for them to book the body at county as a John Doe. He now had two weeks of grace from a deputy, calling in an old favor.

He had flown out John's prizes by courier jet, which landed them in Norton's lap approximately five hours later. Then, making a mock rush for the airport, he had ordered Dumars to stop their car on the shoulder, gotten out, lifted the hood and asked her to locate the fuel line. Joshua couldn't tell the fuel line from a battery cable but Sharon could. He yanked it from the pump then called Bureau Tech Services to come fix his car.

The next flight out was at eleven.

Now he was here, half a day late, quite literally on the carpet. He looked down at the unearthly shade of green, suitable for a camouflage pattern at best, exactly what you'd expect from the federal government.

Norton entered the room and shook hands. He reeked of after-shave and anxiety. His cheeks were bright pink, marked with the capillary exuberance of forty years of Scotch. His smile looked too jolly; his handshake felt too warm; his tie was too tightly knotted.

All the best appearances, thought Joshua. We're fucked. Even Norton knows it. Did they tell him about Snakey? Norton sat and they made unbearable small talk for five eternal minutes.
What do they want?

Walker Frazee finally popped in, his bouncing stride enough to send a familiar buzz of horror up Joshua's spine. They all shook hands. Frazee was a short man with a boyish face and a smile so disarming you wanted to hug him. His suit was dark, cheap and years out of fashion, exactly the same color and cut that Joshua had always seen him in. His shoes were polished to absurdity. His hair was an effulgent white, cut with just a little touching the top of his ears. He looked to Joshua like a funeral home counselor, which Josh knew was a wholly inappropriate impression. Because, when the boyishness left Walker Frazee's face and he dropped his ingratiating smile, what was left was the zealous gleam of the true believer. Josh could see it in his eyes, as clear as the beam from a lighthouse on a black sea. It said:
I am the vessel. I carry the word.
Righteousness, and its sad obligation to the sword, was certified by the gleam. He never swore, never drank alcohol or caffeine, never smoked, never missed church, invested shrewdly and—it was rumored—tithed abundantly. His wife was breathtakingly ugly, as portrayed by the photographs in his office. His eight grown children were pillars of Mormon, spread out across the republic like the footings of a foundation. Frazee never stopped talking about his children. Crazy Frazee, went the gossip: One God, one suit, eight wives.

"Good morning," he said, pulling out a chair at the head of the table. "How was your flight?"

"Fine, sir," said Dumars.

"Long," said Joshua.

Frazee held his boyish smile. "Looks like you survived it well."

"The movie was about a plane crash in the Andes," Joshua noted. "I couldn't figure out if it was a bad joke or a good one.'

"Oh, I saw that thing," said Norton. "Where they end up eating each other?"

"That's the one."

"Not for the queasy flyer," said Frazee. "Agent Dumars, you're looking very well these days."