The Triggerman Dance (62 page)

"I don't—" But John didn't finish the sentence. Instead he watched a shadow move way up on the stairway landing of the second floor, just a little motion between the bannister slats reflected on the wall from the fire. Then nothing moved at all. "I don't ... I know you can't forgive me, ever. But I want to say a few things. Will you listen to me, for just a while?"

She shrugged beneath the blanket, but didn't look at him.

"First, I want you to know it wasn't supposed to happen the way it did. If I'd have known how it would end, I wouldn't have done it."

Valerie half-nodded, her chin lifting just a little, but never coming back down. "Not even for Rebecca?"

"No."

"Why. She was your reason."

"I never set out to get anybody killed.
I...
I worked awfully hard to make sure that wouldn't happen. I worked hard to make sure we had the right man and that they could arrest him. And I never set out to fall in love with you. "Then came the other half of Valerie's nod, a little downturn of her chin. She shivered and pulled the blanket tighter.

"It doesn't change anything," he said. "But I want you t know it."

No response.

"And I have to say this, hopeless as it is—I love you now and I'll do anything on earth for you. I want you whole again I'm yours. I know you won't have me but that doesn't change the way I feel. I want you to know that before I go."

She looked at him again for a long while. He could see the fire reflected in her eyes. "There's no room left for you, John."

"I realize that."

"All I feel is hate."

John looked at her until she turned her face away again back to the dying fire. He got up and threw on two more log. While the wood caught he glanced up to the second story landing where the bannister shadows sharpened on the plaster wall.

"There's something you should know too, about your future here. When I was looking for evidence to arrest your father someone on Liberty Ridge was helping me get it. Some of the help was subtle. Some of it was obvious. I thought Sexton, then didn't."

"No," Valerie said dreamily. "Lane. So he could run Liberty Operations."

"Yeah." John looked up to the landing. He almost said something about who shot the video tape of Rebecca, then he told himself again that he'd never have to tell anyone that. "Fargo, you want to add anything?"

A faint shadow moved within the sharper ones of the railing posts and Lane Fargo looked around the edge of the wall again: which he was sitting.

"Come down, Lane," said Valerie. "It doesn't matter. I'll shut down the Ops anyway. Never liked it."

Lane moved quietly down the stairs, easing into the living room like a ghost.

"Leave us alone," Valerie said. "Will you, please?"

"He's not telling you the truth, Valerie Anne. I can prove it if you give me a chance."

"Later, maybe," she said.

Fargo's face was tightened to a smirk as he looked at John and headed out.

"Anything else, John?"

"One thing."

"You're sorry. You love me. Watch out for Lane. What else?"

"Just that I know your father was a good man. The world turned him and he went bad. He lost a lot for no reason and then he lost himself. I wouldn't have done any better in his place. What happened up there on Top of the World proves it. And I was trying to do the same thing he was. I was trying to get back something I'd lost. But I didn't get back anything at all. I just lost you. And your dad never came any closer to Pat. He just got what was coming to him for killing an innocent woman. He'd be the first to admit that. And I'll get what's coming to me, too. That's the way it should be. I'm not real smart. But I know now that hatred isn't enough to live on. It'll kill you and everybody around you. Don't live that way, Valerie. If you're lucky enough to find it, love can fill the emptiness. You've got every bit of mine if you ever need it. Ever."

She turned her head toward him again and John could see nothing in her face but the emptiness of infinite loss.

"Come here," she said.

He rose and walked over to her and put his hands very gently on either side of her head. Something hard clacked to the tile and John could see Val's revolver spinning to a stop. A big teardrop landed beside it. Then the storm hit and all she could do was cry. He held her. He had never thought a person could cry so hard for so long. It was much later when he finally left her asleep on the sofa. He made sure the blanket was snug around her and set three more logs in the fire before he walked out.

Fargo was standing in the driveway, leaning against the red Jeep. His arms were crossed, his right hand snugged under his armpit, inches away from the handle of his automatic.

"Clever guy," said Fargo.

"You're the clever one, Lane. You smelled me out from day one."

"Couldn't believe Mr. Holt didn't."

"That's what he got for trusting you."

"It bothers me that you know."

"It doesn't really matter that I know."

"Does, now that you squawked to Val."

"She's closing the Ops. Or didn't you hear?"

"She's emotional right now. She needs time to think."

"Then give her some. Anything unpleasant happens to her up here on Liberty Ridge, I might tell the man to have a talk with you."

"That won't be possible because you'll be dead."

John shook his head and looked out to the sunset gathering in the west. The sun was smearing a lot of red in the clear autumn sky, the same bright color as the Jeep behind Fargo, the same color as Holt's blood on the stone table.

"I'm not playing that one, Lane. I don't ever want to see a gun pointed at a man again. It just isn't right and there's no damned end to it. Haven't you learned a thing?"

"You've got to understand the situation. I got no boss now. I got no money out of my time building the Ops. I got no job. All I got is a dead master, a bad conscience and a lot of frustration built up. Something's gotta give."

"Well, do what you have to, but I'm walking down to the cottage to get my stuff. I'm packing that stuff in the truck. Then I'm getting in and driving away forever. Shoot me in the back if you want. It's all the satisfaction I can offer."

John started off down the drive. He could hear Fargo's boot pivoting behind him, and he could hear the quick whip of steel leaving leather.

"Turn
around
, mother
fuck!"

John didn't break stride. He lifted a hand and waved, trotting down the embankment and into the meadow with his heart up in his throat.

The dogs charged as he got close to the cottage. Boomer crashed into him while Belle and Bonnie snarled at each other and wagged their tails. They were wet and dirty from the lake oblivious to the bloodshed of the day. He let them into the cottage anyway and they sniffed around the floor as he picked his clothes off the kitchen counter. He looked through the window toward his truck, and set the clothes back where they were.

Through the meadow, constant as the northern star, Fargo marched toward him. John studied the wide-legged gait, the purposeful swing of the arms, the odd cant of the dark man's head and the automatic in his right hand. John's heart fell and rose again as a cold sheen of sweat broke out on his face. He clicked off the safety on the birdgun, which was enough, as always, to send his dogs into a frenzy. They careened into the kitchen, sliding on the hardwood floor, yapping. No
bird
, John muttered, double-checking the safety and leaving the gun on the counter, pointed at the open doorway.

"No bird."

The dogs took off into the living room, noses down.

He stood where he was, behind the little chest-high bar, resting his finger on the trigger of the shotgun, not moving. He thought of Fargo shooting the video of Rebecca Harris while she took bullets in the winter rain.

Fargo hopped up the steps and into the cabin. It took him a second to find his target—going from sunlight to the shade. Maybe he was distracted by the dogs. But when he saw John standing there motionless in the kitchen he raised his gun quickly and John blew him back out the door, over the railing and onto the bed of sycamore leaves piled high by the wind. The dogs raced outside. They leapt off the deck and charged past Fargo's body, looking for the quail. Then Boomer circled back and sniffed the dead man's face, twice, before backing away and looking up at John with a puzzled expression.

CHAPTER 42

It is a quiet restaurant off the tourist path in Laguna Beach, given to candlelight, mismatched flatware and locals. John, the nominal guest of honor, lifts his tequila glass to Joshua and Sharon, who face him from across the booth. Their proximity to each other surprises him.

It is five days after Liberty Ridge. Boomer, Bonnie and Belle are snug in the Laguna Canyon home, a place where John has spent many solitary hours in the last five days, trying to decide if he belongs there or not. He has been looking into rooms a lot, as if someone he cares about might be there, as if anyone ever really was. It feels good to return to a place that is, in some small way, his own.

"To the three of us," says Joshua.

They drink.

It is the second toast of the night, though dinner hasn't arrived yet. The first was to the three of them also, and John can see that Joshua's rum and coke has gone straight to his non-drinker's head.

"What was the worst of it?" asks Sharon.

"Snakey."

Snakey, of course, has been vigorously forgotten by everyone but John. Joshua revealed to Frazee what had happened to Snakey—one Peter Boardman, originally of Trenton, New Jersey—the day after the shooting of Holt, and Frazee managed to insert the official paperwork regarding his death after the fact.

The questionable circumstances of Snakey's arrival at the morgue have been tucked into the larger folds of Federal procedure, vagueness and clout. Snakey, it seems, had lived his life as a criminal, and his memory has been treated like one, too.

The food comes and they eat, but John cannot find his way into a celebratory mood. In fact, the dinner seems more an obligation than anything, a business meal with people you have spent too much of your life with as it is. Still, he describes his days on Liberty Ridge to a surprisingly curious Sharon and Josh. Tonight, the tequila offers an anaesthetic touch to his brain. He looks out the window to Coast Highway, slick with the first rain of the fall. Through the cracked window beside him he can smell the sweet aroma of rainwater and asphalt.

". . . So we're hiking across Liberty Ridge in the dark, on our way to the tombs, and Josh jumps every ten feet because of snakes. He made
me
crawl under the table to attach the microphones, because of bugs."