T. Parker - The Triggerman Dance

Snakey was quiet for a long moment.

"I'd a shot the cunt, too, for writing that."

"Jesus Christ, Snakey, he shot the wrong one! He killed a twenty-four year old woman who'd never written a thing about him. Left her in a parking lot with her heart blown to pieces. She could have been your girl."

"She wasn't."

"I know. She was mine."

Again, Snakey was quiet for a moment.

"Mr. Holt isn't that stupid. And neither am I. You're just piling on the bullshit now, thinking I'm dumb enough to buy it. Nice try, faggot."

"I'm telling the truth now, Snakey. I swear to God, I am. Work with me. Help us take down Holt."

"Can you beat two grand a week?"

"I can't pay you a dime."

"I'm supposed to sell out Mr. Holt for not even a dime?"

"He killed her. If that isn't enough for you, then you better look after yourself. Because when we take him, you're going down with him. And Fargo. And Partch. Remember that supervisor who took a trip with you and didn't come back? They'll nail you on that, too, unless you help. You've got a chance to save our own ass here, and to nail a sick old bastard who killed a girl he didn't even know. You're getting a good deal, man. Think about it for about five seconds if you got brains enough."

"Okay."

Snakey was silent for about five seconds.

"I'm done thinking. You're lying. If you weren't lying, I wouldn't help you anyway. I'm takin' you and all your shit back to show Mr. Holt and Lane. They can figure out what to do with you."

"Listen, Snakey. I'm going to tell you something now. If you help us, you live. If you don't, you die young. It's that simple."

"Pretty funny statement from a guy fuckin' a tree with a Mac pointed at him."

"I'm telling you, Snakey. Let me go. It's the right thing to do. And it's the only chance you've got. I'm begging you, man. I'm begging you."

"Shut up. I hate beggars. Beat one dead back in Jersey one night, just because he smelled so bad. Used gloves on him. Hate those fuckin' stinky homeless bums. Felt his face bones breaking. I was drunk."

John could hear Snakey moving the wooden cover back over the tunnel. He would be kneeling, with one hand on the cover and the other on his gun. John inched his left hand toward his right.

God help me, he thinks.

God forgive me.

"Help me, Snakey."

"Help your fuckin' self, man."

John closed his hand around the automatic then turned and jacked in the shell. He was falling to a crouch while he lined up the front sight with the chest of the still kneeling Snakey.

Snakey had set the Mac beside him to slide back the cover.

He looked at John, then at the gun, then at John again.

John saw a look of determination cross Snakey's face, a look of pure arrogance.

"Don't do it," he said. But Snakey already was going for his gun.

The two shots from the Colt were through him before his hand touched the gun. John saw the little puffs of dirt kick up on the other side of the fence. Snakey hit the ground like a dropped bag of sand, like a bird shot from the sky, like Rebecca after the second shot, a once-living thing now wholly, immediately and forever emptied of life.

John was on his knees, too, his burning eyes still locked on Snakey, whose funny flat-top waved stiffly in the warm morning breeze.

When John reached him, Josh was on his way to the airport to catch a flight to Washington, so the reception was spotty. He and Dumars had been summoned by Evan, post haste. John imagined them in the Bureau Ford, Dumars driving and Joshua fretting, as usual. He longed to be with them. He told him what had happened, and for a long moment, Joshua was silent. Then:

"Talk to me, John. Please talk to me now."

"I've just murdered an innocent man. I got pictures and drawings and notes. I'm coming out, Josh. I've had enough."

"You did what you had to, John. It was not your decision to make. It was Snakey's. He made it."

"I want out. I'm done."

"John, listen to me. I told you this would happen. I told you there would come a time when you would want nothing but out. And I told you where you would be when you felt this way. Tell me now what I said. Tell me where I said you would be."

Dizziness.

Sickness.

Swirling images of blood and bones, teeth and hair. The death waltz. The killing ball.

He puked.

"John," Weinstein commanded, "respond to me now. Where did I say that you would be?"

"In the the darkest hour."

"Was I right?"

"You were right."

Joshua's voice faded, then came back strong.

"But what did I tell you next-when is the darkest hour?"

"Some shit about right before the dawn." He was blubbering now.

"Correct. It was not shit and that is why you are not coming out. You are staying in. If you come out now, you'll always be in that dark hour, John. It will follow you the rest of your life. Right now, you belong to it. But for it to ever go away, it must belong to you."

"I can't do any more."

"Quiet, John. Listen. I'll bring you out the second you're finished. But I can't do it before you're finished, can I? Reason with me now. I need time to analyze the documents you found in your cottage. I need time to get a search warrant, if we can get one at all. We will need more."

"I don't want more."

"Oh, yes you do. You want Holt. That's the agreement, John. Holt. Not Snakey. Holt"

John tried to gather himself, choke back the ugly sobs that kept breaking into his throat. "That poor dumb Snakey. Jesus. Bring me out."

"I need you now, John."

"I don't know what to do."

"You will stay in, John. You will wait until I can vet the documents. If it's good stuff, we'll be close to Wayfarer. Remember, Wayfarer is the only one left on earth who can reassemble your soul. He is the missing part of you. You own him when we take him."

John heard himself breathing, then a blast of static.

Josh's voice again:

"Let me ask you something, John. When your parents were recovered from the airplane, you were asked to identify them, right? You told me so. I've thought about that since then. It's a very tragic thing for a nine-year old to be asked to do, and I am impressed that you could do it. But John, what if you hadn't entered that building? What if you had stayed out, never gone into that cool, disinfected room and had the courage to confront what life had so cruelly dealt to you? I can answer that. If you hadn't, John, you would still be there, still a boy, still terrified and confused and angry. If you had never opened that door, you could never have closed it. But you did, didn't you? And that's why you are the man you are."

John said nothing. His thoughts were underwater. Black, deep water. No up. No down.

"Listen to me, John. Months ago, when Rebecca was alive, I went to her house late one night, after work. She was in the pool. It was cold and there was steam coming off the water. She had been swimming for a long time because her breathing was fast and deep and her strokes were slow, and she wasn't staying in the lane. She was a strong swimmer. I sat down in the dark and watched. Back and forth. Back and forth. Ten more minutes. Twenty. Finally she stopped. She flipped up her goggles and stood in the shallow end a while. Then she climbed out and wrapped herself up in her towel-the red one, you remember, the one with the tropical fish on it. She still didn't know I was there. She hadn't looked my way. She sat on the deck and dangled her feet into the water. She was hunched inside that big towel, just the top of her head showing. And she said something to herself. She said, You've got to do something. You've got to do something. You've got to do something, and you don't know what it is."

John waited through Joshua's silence.

Then:

"She couldn't see a way out, John. She was paralyzed by you. Paralyzed by me. It's the worst feeling on earth, needing to act but not understanding how to act. She never knew what to do, until she wrote those letters. But by then it was too late. She didn't live long enough to send them. You, John, have the path. You are halfway down it. You know what to do. Now, you must wait. Learn from what Rebecca didn't do. Let her teach you."