T. Parker - The Triggerman Dance

"Yes. She's got a better sense of humor than you give her credit for."

"There you go again, saying what they want to hear, even when they're not around to hear it. You're a smoothie, Menden."

"Yeah, yeah-you've covered that already, Josh."

"There was a time, and I'm not sure if it's passed, when I wanted to challenge you. On any and every thing a man is supposed to be. I knew I couldn't beat you at being tall. But at everything else, I believed I'd kick your ass. I still believe I would. I'm a better man than you, by almost any standard of measure. If ever you want to contest that, just name your game and I'll there. I've speculated on the most satisfying way of trouncing you. Really smashing the living shit out of you."

"And?"

"It changes."

"Well, I hope dangling me in front of Wayfarer then dropping me in hasn't entered your mind."

Weinstein stared at John for a long moment, then shook his head. "That's business. You couldn't find a more conscientious master than me. What I'm talking now is strictly pleasure. And don't forget-I hate Wayfarer more than I hate you."

"That's comforting, Joshua."

Weinstein finished half his drink in one gulp, set down the glass and pulled the automatic from his shoulder holster. I looked at it for a long moment, as if searching for some new feature he'd overlooked. It was a 9mm Smith with a blued finish and dark walnut grips. He flipped the safety off, then on again

"Could be an old-fashioned gunfight," he said.

"Could," said John.

Joshua set the gun on the deck, then picked up his drink again. "That scare you-a drunk man with a gun?"

"It sure does. Aren't you breaking some FBI rule?"

"You sound like a faggot, whining about rules. Rebecca liked it on the top with me. You, too?"

"How do you like your chicken?"

"That's a dumb question. When's the last time someone told you they like their chicken rare?"

Weinstein picked up the gun again, aimed it at John, flipping the safety off, then on.

John studied him through the smoke. The idea crossed his mind to kick the barbecue over at Joshua's feet and watch him scramble to keep his wingtips from blistering. John knew that Weinstein wouldn't shoot him on purpose, but he was worried that his "master" was revealing himself to be a genuine hazard.

Booze and guns were an even worse combination than booze and cars.

Joshua holstered the pistol, sighed, and drank again. "I'm just blowing off a little steam," he said.

"Good to know," said John. "Just that light little trigger between three highballs and a bullet in my heart."

And that was all it took-one mention of a bullet and a heart-to send them both plummeting back down to earth, back down to the tree-shaded deck on which their dinner was cooking, back down to the house which had heard the laughter of the woman they had both loved.

"I'm a lot more sober than I look. And there's one thing I want to get straight, John. It doesn't have to do with competition. It's just a simple fact that you're going to have to accept. It's a fact that I need to remember. This is the fact-I loved Rebecca more than you did. I loved her more than you ever could."

John watched Weinstein as he said this, noting the blood rushing into Josh's ears, the bob of his big Adam's apple, the insatiable glow of his eyes behind the lenses. This whole thing, he thought, is a crying shame. Every second of every day since Rebecca died in the cold March rain, just a crying fucking shame.

"Yes, you did," he said, looking down through the smoke, his eyes burning with more than the smoke.

"Thank you."

After dinner they turned off the houselights, sat on the patio chairs and watched the stars come out. The night was clear and the moon rose full and white over the hilltop. It was so bright John could read his watch face without pushing on the light. He looked out into the canyon and thought of the nights he'd slept back there, nights just like this with the moon radiant and the ground warm enough for a lightweight sleeping bag. He remembered the puma he'd seen out here, in the first light of a summer morning, lying on a rock outcropping only a hundred feet away, calmly eyeing him. Puma, he thought. Wayfarer.

John wondered if Joshua was reading his thoughts.

"Wayfarer," said Joshua. "You know, we still get to make the code names. Most Fed agencies went computer a long time ago. Wayfarer. I chose it. I'm glad we weren't stuck with barnyard, or crackerjack or evergreen or something. He's fared way beyond the limits, way up river."

"He's our Kurtz," said Dumars. "And you, John, are our Marlow."

Joshua looked at her in the darkness, then out to the hills "There's luck in this business, like in anything else," he said "Luck was what brought me to you, John. I spent five month' after Rebecca's death, putting together my file on Wayfarer. A first, it seemed a distant possibility, but then it became not distant at all. I weighed the circumstantial evidence against what I knew of him, and I saw how it could happen. All of this, and still nothing solid, still nothing that could convict. Sure, I could have questioned him anytime. One shot. One time. And if he was lucky which he is, and smart, which he also is-we'd have come away with less than nothing. Less, because he would be alerted- impossible to surprise."

Joshua had by now graduated from highballs to black coffee. He sipped it, then poured more from the thermos he'd brought up to the deck. "Yes, I looked at you. My curiosity was not connected to Wayfarer at all. It was a way of understanding what had happened to me and Rebecca. I just wanted to see what she had chosen. What I lacked. Your name on the envelope helped quite a bit, so far as ID went. I tracked your grief, your resignation from the Journal, your little sailing trip down in the South Pacific, your purchase of the trailer and your move out to Anza Valley. I observed you at Olie's more than once before our meeting, as you pointed out. So what did I have, except a suspect I couldn't arrest, and a mourning suitor who was disengaging himself from the world? Nothing. Nothing until the luck came in. Then, I had something to work with."

"What was the luck?"

"Oh, it was you, John. But that wasn't apparent at first. I wasn't apparent until I was poring over some Wayfarer intelligence late one night, nothing hot, just the usual kinds of thing! we collect about people who might prove dangerous. And there saw the connection. The luck hit. My ears got warm and my lip: quivered and I began to see the design of things. There is a design of things, John-it is up to us to discern it."

"And you discerned."

"Oh, did I ever. There it was, right in front of me, finally. A little window. I'm reading about Wayfarer. His habits and hobbies. His patterns. Wayfarer sails the Newport to Ensenada yacht race every year. Wayfarer spends every New Year's Eve at a party in Washington, D.C. Wayfarer makes a trophy hunting expedition every spring with two of his friends from the Boone and Crockett record book. Wayfarer flyfishes the Metolius River in Oregon every summer. Then, this oddment: Wayfarer hunts the quail opener every year down in the desert with his friends and daughter. He used to take his wife and son, of course, but no longer. They fly the company helicopter into the Lake Riverside airstrip. He brings his dogs. Dog, dogs, dogs-made me think of you and yours-dogs everywhere I looked. He's got a little home there in Lake Riverside Estates-thirty-five hundred square feet, right on the water. They spend the night, then set out in his Land Rover just after sunup. They hunt the morning, head into town for lunch and a beer at two, then go back out for the afternoon shoot. Every year for ten straight seasons. No variation. Like a clock. On goes my little light. What town do they go to? Anza Valley. John Menden's ground. Oh my, I think-oh my! Is John my luck? Is John my man? My miracle?"