T. Parker - The Triggerman Dance

John remembers that Joshua had warned him this might happen. That there might come a time when all their planning is not enough, when all their caution is insufficient.

If you're blown, run. If you can't run, deny. When you can't deny, confess. It will either get you out, get you turned or get you killed.

Fargo's voice darkens his mind like a cloud over the sun:

He went somewhere with Snakey and Snakey came back.

He looks out toward the hills, in the direction of his box and his telephone. One hour.

Patience, he tells himself.

Calm.

He takes the sketch and photograph into the bathroom, pulls the penlight from his pocket and shoots three exposures of each document. He uses tissue to handle them. When he's put them inside the bag he wipes down the bag and puts it back where he found it.

He sets out with his dogs again, around the lake, drawn by the cellular umbilical cord to Joshua, sure that every eye in heaven and on earth is watching.

Joshua is silent for a long while, as he digests John's story. He asks John to repeat it all, twice. When he finally speaks his voice is deep and hushed and oddly formal.

"You have been baited. The question is by whom, and what with. Put the penlight in the box now, and get a fresh one. You were thoughtful to leave the package in the vegetable cooler, but I need it by six tomorrow morning, safe in our box of toys with your film. We have two days to analyze it, determine if it's counterfeit, and return it if it is. We know that someone deeply suspects your motives. We don't know who. If it's Holt, you are being tested in his absence. The handwriting will not be his and the photograph will be somehow fraudulent. He'll expect you to take them to him."

"You can tell it's Holt's writing."

"No, Owl, you cannot. Forgery is an acquired skill, and plenty of people have it."

"What if it wasn't Holt?"

"If it wasn't, and the material is genuine, then there's another spy on Liberty Ridge."

"Am I going to get killed?"

"Not if you listen, and do everything I say. Continue. "John told him about his trip to Top of the World, Holt's proposal of "work" with Liberty Ops, the Holt family vaults and statues, the golden doors stamped with birds shining in the sun "They were unforgettably beautiful," he said.

"And the girl, Valerie. Is she beautiful, also?"

"I don't think you need an answer to that question, Joshua.'

"I think I have one."

They meet up again just at sunset, loading the picnic basket that Valerie has made into a little skiff and motoring out to the island in the middle of Liberty Lake. She wears a long loose summer dress of pale gray, with birds of paradise on it, and a pair of rubber thongs. John can smell the lotion she put on after the shower.

The beach on the island is clean and sandy. Valerie points out that her father dumped eighty tons of beach sand to create such a place. The beach is shaded by an immense Norfolk Islam pine tree airlifted by helicopter five years ago when Holt began to refurbish the property. They sit on a large bedsheet with the corners held down by rocks. From the sheet John can see the meadow, the top story of the Big House, the backsides of a few of the Liberty Operations buildings, then the expanse of Valencia groves.

They drink wine and eat the cold barbecued quail that Valerie shot on the opener.

"Have you ever been in love?" she asks.

Not this, he thinks. Not now. "Yes," he answers curtly.

She looks nervous, avoiding his eyes. "What happened?"

And because it is his duty, he tells her the story of Jillian. Ii his heart, he tells her the story of Rebecca. John is more than little amazed that a lie can contain so much truth. When he i finished all he can hear is the breeze hissing through the needle of the pine tree above, and the buzz in his ears, starting to get louder.

"When did it happen?"

"Twelve years ago."

Valerie says nothing for a long while.

Then, "Never felt the same way again?"

"No."

"Try to?"

"It's not something you create, or even search out. It just happens."

"It arrives."

"Or, it doesn't."

"Things are always in the last place you look for them."

"That's not exactly profound."

"No."

"What about you?"

She looks at him then quickly away.

"Oh, you know, I've had crushes. One time, it was more than that, but he… well, didn't fit in very well. That was my first year at UCI. Dad detested him. So for most of college I just read a lot, rode horses and played tennis, but didn't have much luck, boy-wise. I always thought you should feel something special about someone. But I never did. I really wanted to. Nice enough boys, I guess, but not special. I didn't experiment with things-men, women, drugs. I'm not the experimenting kind. I'm the kind who waits for the right thing then takes it. Found myself kind of outside things, the Mormon prude, the Federal dweeb. Had a sharp tongue so I got the rep as a ballbusters, even though I wasn't. The guys, they seemed so… tiny. Made a few good friends, though. Outsiders, too, I guess."

John nods but says nothing, as if confirming the importance of friends. The smell of Valerie and her lotion sends his stomach into a sweet freefall, the kind he used to get in the family car, going fast over dips in a highway.

He thinks: there she is, talking about college boys while I'm trying to find a way to send her father to prison for the rest of his life.

She knocks over her glass of wine, trying to lift it from the sheet.

"Oh, damn."

"There's more. Here…"

He refills her glass and their eyes meet just briefly, before she looks away.

"What are you thinking about?" she asks.

That I will hurt you, he thinks. I hurt Rebecca, and I hurt Joshua, and I am here to hurt your father, and if you touch me I will hurt you too. It's contagious. It's inevitable. It's assured.

"Rusty."

They are sitting cross-legged and side-by-side, but she turns to look at him. She has a plate of food on her lap, her feet buried under the summer dress. Her golden hair is loose, and the breeze lifts a strand onto her forehead. He reaches out to set it back, but hesitates. John knows that to touch her would betray the truth of his desire and the falsehood of his intentions.

"Do it," she says. "Go ahead. Please."

He touches her forehead with his fingertips. It is warm and moist. He moves the lock of hair back into place, and it promptly blows onto her face again. He moves it back once more. His fingers move slowly over her skin because it is damp and no matter how lightly he tries to touch it the tips slow against its soft resistance.

"Just a damned hair," he says.

They finish the wine, then row back to shore by moonlight. Valerie is slow and unsteady as she walks, arm-in-arm with John, up to the door of the big house.

"Like to come in?"

"Sure."

"You can see my room."

Inside, they leave off the lights because the moonlight comes through the high windows and turns everything ice blue. John stands in the semi-darkness of the kitchen and opens another bottle of wine.

"I'm a little tipsy," she says.

"I'll pour you a glass. You can take or leave it."

She takes it and they climb the stairs. Valerie's room is a suite, actually-a huge, high-ceilinged living room, a kitchen with a bar and stools that opens up to a dining area, a bath, and a bedroom into which she leads him. The bedroom has French doors leading to a deck. She still has not turned on the lights sc things are both visible and mysterious-sixty percent present.

They drink in the half-light of the bedroom. Valerie's eyes are little pools of light hidden behind her hair. They sit close together on the bed, leaning against each other, her pillows piled against the headboard.