T. Parker - The Triggerman Dance

"Awww. Have I hurt your feelings? Need mommy?" The smile again, all the latent cruelty showing through.

"Let's go outside and fight."

"You're getting kind of personal now."

John stood, wavered a little, then felt two heavy hands on his shoulders, pressing him back into the chair.

"I'm just trying to do my job, John. Anyone who spends time around Mr. Holt has to be cleared. I'm in the process of clearing you. Lighten up. It's a nice day out. You and Mr. Holt can talk. You can make your mysterious little eyes at Valerie again. The world is good. So just stay the fuck put and give me reasons for Mr. Holt to keep you on Liberty Ridge."

"I don't want to stay on Liberty Ridge."

"What you want isn't up to you. It's up to Mr. Holt. Besides, the keys to your truck are in my safe, along with your wallet, pistol, shotgun ammunition, knife and telephone pager. You can't walk far-there's a gate house on the road with my men in it, and a charged fence around the perimeter of the land."

"Why?"

"Liberty Ridge is kind of a cross between Club Med and Tombstone, Arizona. You check your guns with the Sheriff and you don't need any money because all the fun is free. It's for security. Liberty Ridge is security. The name Liberty Operations means security. And I'm not about to risk it on some clown driving around with a truckful of guns, now am I?"

"So, why did you quit the Journal job?"

"I was burned out and sick of people."

"Run out of story ideas?"

"Just about."

"Why didn't you rent out the Laguna house?"

"I thought I might go back someday."

"Not avoiding memories there, were you? Memories of a love gone bad? Or maybe a love gone dead, like Ms. Harris?"

He imagined the tall gray blank wall again, curved and surrounding him, the inside of the deep well where nothing ever happened between him and Rebecca.

"Will you please tell me why I'm supposed to have been in love with her?"

"Ever meet Joshua Weinstein?"

John's pulse jumped and he felt his scalp tighten. Joshua had figured very long odds that Holt had linked Rebecca to himself, using the Bureau's influence with the Journal to keep his name out of the paper. "No. I never met Joshua Weinstein."

"Heard of him?"

"No."

"Lying to me, Johnny boy?"

"Just the truth for you, Fargo."

"He was Rebecca's fiance."

"It's beginning to sound to me like you were the one in love with her."

Fargo smiled. "Impossible, John. I never even met her. I didn't spend eight hours a day in an office just down a hallway from her. I never was very cute, John-Boy, in that gay kind of way you are. Ever suck dick?"

"Not your business."

"I'm just curious."

"No."

"Ever want to?"

John stood up again, and again a heavy hand pushed him back into the chair.

"Anyway," Fargo continued, "Weinstein's a feebie-Orange County office."

"I never met any of the feebies. I wrote about fishing and hiking."

"Oh, that's right," said Fargo. "That's right. That clears up a lot of things. Know something? The waitress at Olie's said Weinstein looked familiar. I showed her a picture."

"Then maybe he was a regular."

"She said she was pretty sure she saw you talking with him one afternoon. Him and a woman."

"I've talked with plenty of people in there. Joshua Weinstein is definitely not one of them."

"If you'd never met him how would you know?"

"People have things called names."

"Maybe he used someone else's?"

"Why?"

"She couldn't swear, the waitress at Olie's, that is, if it was the guy in the picture or not."

"That's because she never saw me with him."

"Coincidence, I guess. Speaking of pictures, I like this one."

Fargo picked a sheet out of his file and set it, facing John, on the desktop. It was a blown-up version of the photograph taken by the Journal photographer in the parking lot: Rebecca by the planter in the rain, with the five newspaper employees approaching in varying attitudes of horror. John was in the center, stepping toward her as if all things could be remedied. The rain spills off his fedora and his leather duster is blown by the wind. He looked at the picture but he saw only the gray wall of The Lie.

"That's you there, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Look pretty rattled."

"You would have been, too."

"How'd you get there so fast?"

"I was heading for my car. End of the work day."

"You two have a little rendezvous set up that evening?"

John said nothing for a moment. He just looked at Fargo and thought how satisfying it would be to slam a shotgun butt into his face.

"You're boring me," said John.

"What about Susan Baum? Know her?"

"Not well. Didn't have the hots for her, either, Fargo. She's more your type."

Fargo leaned back and offered his rotting smile. "Keep in touch with her, Baum?"

"No."

"Like her?"

John hesitated. "Not really."

"Too political? Too liberal? Too pushy and self-centered?"

"We finally agree."

"Ever argue with her at work?"

"Nobody at the Journal argued with Susan Baum."

"She must have hated your outdoor articles."

"In fact, she did."

"You two never had a big blowout, then one of those reconciliation’s where you're both so happy you suddenly love each other forever? You know-fight on the playground Monday, best friends Tuesday?"

"We weren't on a playground."

"Haven't kept in touch with her since you left?"

"I don't keep in touch with any of the Journal people."

"Well, why not? You worked with some of them for almost three years."

John was silent for a moment. He turned around to look at Snakey and Partch. He could see himself mixing it up with Fargo, but not with either of these two. He wondered if they'd graduated cum laude from the Liberty Ops martial arts program.

"People move on, Fargo. You've sure got a rudimentary mind."

"I'm just curious, John-Boy. See, you've been gone six months but you haven't so much as called one of your old drinking buddies? Not one of the butts you chased around on Friday evenings after work when you'd all get boozed up? Seems you just dumped them all for no good reason."

"I'm slow to make friends."

"I can see why, John-Boy! What, do you mumble and blush every time someone tries to like you? Or do you act like you're acting now, all defensive?"

"Um-hm."

"Just gave them all up, moved away to tumbleweed city to live in an aluminium box. Just found a trained attack dog that saved little Val's life. Just happened to wander by Olie's that day, like you did in the Journal parking lot. Just happened to be packing your piece. Just happened to shoot up a couple of bikers. Funny none of them got a shot off at you. So you go from the skids all the way to Liberty Ridge in one fell swoop, never even losing your hat. You've got good fortune, don't you John-Boy?"

"It seemed better about twenty minutes ago."

"Funny that biker you shot didn't require any medical attention. Looked to me like you blew his ball and socket in half. No gunshot wounds treated that day in Riverside County-no shoulder wounds, that is. Your victim must have guzzled whiskey, bit a bullet and had a redhead named Kitty or Cora Lee pull out that slug with her teeth."

"If I were him, I'd have dodged the doctors, too."

Fargo put the photograph and legal pad back in the folder and closed the cover. He looked at John a little gloomily now, his smile suspended somewhere back in his dark and hostile face.

"Oh, it's all innocent enough, John-I know it is. No, it's really truly heroic. It all fits. A place for everything and everything in its place. I just worry too much. I imagine things. I always wonder why people arrive and depart, why they do what they do. Hey, I'm head of security for the head of a security company. So I'm secure. I'm so secure I see a plot every time the sun comes up. It's just my nature. With Mr. Holt due to leave tomorrow, I thought it would be prudent to get a fix on you. No good having a person of low moral character lurking around here, what with young Valerie so fresh and trusting. Yeah, conspiracies everywhere-that's what I'm paid to see. And to be truthful, it's really kind of a fun way to live."