T. Parker - The Triggerman Dance

So he runs. He shoots. He runs. He fights.

But none of this is really new. In fact, John began his training nearly three months ago, when he moved out to the club property. At the time he had not known what it might be for, only that he must do it, he must be ready, he must prepare himself for… something. It was an article of faith that he be fit for the task, whatever the task might entail.

So, by the time Weinstein and Dumars begin to drill him with a pistol he has already shot so many rounds through his own. 357 Smith and Wesson that he is fast, accurate and comfortable. He has developed callouses where his hands-he shoots using both-touch the grip and stainless steel frame. By the time they start him on roadwork, he is already running six miles each morning. The three miles a day they start him with is, for John, a gesture. He had even been practicing on a heavy bag and a speed bag up near the clubhouse. For hours on the weekends he had exhausted himself against the canvas and leather, his hands protected by gloves, literally pounding the anger and sadness out of his body. Tim, the silent groundskeeper of the High Desert Rod and Gun Club, had shuffled by occasionally, trying to act uninterested.

With Rebecca's death, John has lost almost all that is valuable inside. He is like a home gutted by fire. Ashes have covered his interior, while his outside remains, to most observers, unharmed.

There was no one he can talk to about her, because he had only been her secret lover. He could not explain to his friends or family why his spirit for living drained away, why he felt a tremendous weight upon him, why the former joys of earning a living, having a drink with friends, making little improvements on his old Laguna Canyon house became unbearable. He was not invited to the private funeral or memorial service. No one offered him condolence.

A man who feels invisible will in fact become invisible. So John simply vanished, one heartbeat at a time, to reappear here, in this vast unforgiving desert, faced with the job of putting himself right. Here, he was free to sort amidst the rubble. Here, he had begun preparing himself for the task of rebuilding. An occasional flicker of hope was the only mortar he had to use.

But the hope became larger when Joshua Weinstein and Sharon Dumars not-so-casually sidled into his life one afternoon in Olie's Saloon. Since that day, John has felt all his evasive, mystifying dreams beginning to come true.

He runs. He shoots. He runs. He fights.

On the third Saturday of his training, John was to meet Evan. Evan was critical to their purpose, Weinstein said, and Evan had to be reassured by what he saw. This was all that Weinstein said, but John easily gathered that Evan was a superior, perhaps one of those difficult Washington bureaucrats that Joshua had had to convince in order to get a green light for what they were doing. For three days before the meeting with Evan, Joshua was even more humorless than usual, rigidly focused, withdrawn. Dumars was, too.

They drove up to Orange County early that Saturday morning in Dumars' Bureau Ford. It was the first time in three months that John had been in the place where he was born and raised. To enter the county from neighboring Riverside was no great transition-just an older freeway guardrail and the gradual disappearance of the car pool lane. But even this undramatic border was loaded with meaning for John. The second they passed the Orange County sign he saw Rebecca again and heard, quite clearly, her voice and his own:

"I want to tell him. I need to tell him. It's a sin not to tell him. John, I'm having trouble telling him."

"It will happen in time."

"There's been time. I feel like I'm torturing the poor man. He's so… so… he understands. I know he knows. But he won't make the first move. He's leaving it to me."

"He's hoping you'll change your mind."

"Any fool can change her mind. But I can't change my heart. This hurts me, too, John. Oh, hold me for a minute, just hold me."

And he holds her, there in the kitchen of his Laguna Canyon home, with the blinds drawn and the stew heating on the stove. He strokes her golden, wavy hair. He runs his open hand down the length of her back, then up again to the bunched and shuddering shoulders. Her tears smell like rain and John feels the dampness on his shirt.

Sitting in the cramped rear seat of the Bureau sedan, John looked at the profile of the man Rebecca needed to tell, the man to whom she had engaged herself, the man who knew but out of pride, or perhaps consideration, would not speak first. John studied Joshua Weinstein's features, the tight mouth and proud nose, the slightly large ears, the black wavy hair and the acute understanding in his dark eyes. Yes, John thought, Joshua would have known. Joshua knew. Joshua knows.

They took the freeway down to Irvine Boulevard in Tustin and made a right. John assumed they were heading to downtown Santa Ana and the FBI office again, but Sharon turned left onto a side street, then made another left. They were in a forties suburban tract, notable for its lack of notability. The neighborhood was neat and quiet, and the street was lined with liquidambar trees riotous with dying red leaves. Four doors down, an older gentleman pushed a lawn mower on a wavering course.

"You'll have to wear this for just a minute," said Joshua. He had been rummaging in his briefcase, but now turned and handed John a small cloth item.

Menden unfolded it. It was a hood made of heavy material, with a loose drawstring around the open end.

"Put it on and lie down on the seat. Procedure."

"Up yours," said John.

"Put it on," said Joshua.

John lay on the warm upholstery and felt the car making more turns. To the best of his figuring they had backtracked, and Sharon Dumars was now setting a fresh course from the boulevard. A few minutes was all it took. Then he felt the bump of the car passing into a driveway, followed by a coolness. The garage, he thought. After the car engine was shut off, he heard the garage door clunking into place behind him.

"Rise and shine," said Joshua.

Evan was large and heavy, but when he rose from the table to shake hands, John noted he was not fat. His hand was fleshy and strong. He looked sixty. His hair was straight, gray and cut short. His complexion was gray also, as was his suit. His blue eyes had a mirthless patina, echoed by deep frown lines that ran down from the sides of his mouth and joined those creasing upward from the knot of his chin. A forty-year, two-pack a day cigarette eater, John guessed. But the dour face contradicted itself with a wide and reassuring smile featuring two rows of stunningly white false teeth. He looked to John Menden like a veteran of quiet, unrecorded wars.

They sat around an oval oak table with a dull finish, vintage 1970. There were six plastic placemats depicting floral arrangements, and dust on the surface of the table between them. Four of the places were set with flatware and paper napkins. Beside Evan's fork was a green plastic ashtray, used. The dining room was wallpapered light brown, and a rococo chandelier hung over the center of the table. In the connecting kitchen a young Latino woman poured the contents of a large saucepan into a steaming skillet and regarded John with a profoundly uninterested expression. The house smelled of cilantro and meat.

"What kind of trailer do you have?" Evan asked. His voice was rough and had a very slight Texas drawl.

"It's a Holiday Rambler twenty-nine," said John. "Built in seventy-three."

"Got the power jacks?"

"Yeah. Dual propane tanks and an air conditioner that still works."

Evan's throat rumbled a little and his big smile flashed. "Had a coach myself-a little Airstream-back when I was young. Hunted all over Texas with it-quail, dove, turkey, deer. You name it. I hear you hunt."