T. Parker - The Triggerman Dance

In a far corner sat four gangsters, blue bandanas and chinos, dark flannels and black work boots. Holt stared at them for a long beat, guessing their ages: fourteen or fifteen, maybe. He saw three of them conferring-over his presence, likely-while one returned his gaze.

"This way, John."

He walked to the table and stood over it, sliding his right hand in his coat pocket. It was always good to let these people wonder, he thought. By the time he stopped walking, he had entered the Red Zone, where everybody he looked at was outline in a visible aura of warm infared. He could actually see it. It w pink more than red, really, and it wasn't bright and solid like rod of neon but muted and wavering, like a pink mirage surrounding each human shape.

Then he felt the very faint, first inkling of Clarity, an ic intelligent spot way back in his thoughts. He knew it was still long distance away. He knew it would come eventually, though piercing through the Red Zone like a beam of light through fog. He craved Clarity and disliked the anger of the Red Zone. He didn't trust it. Anger was red and it made his heart race and h hands shake, and made him want to do rash things. It made hi feel the cells that were reproducing without control inside him. But Clarity brought steadfastness to his vision and his limb Clarity allowed his eyes to see and his mind to work. You could ride Clarity, like a good machine, through thickets of confusion and rage, until you came out on the other side, and then you could see-really see -what you had to do.

"Look at these things," he said to John, nodding down; the boys.

When Holt looked at him, John's hands were folded before him like a pastor beginning a sermon. His back was straight an his clear gray eyes-so much like Holt's own used to be-beheld unblinkingly the four boys sitting in the booth before them. Job was outlined in a warm pink aura.

So were the four young men in the booth. It felt strange to Holt to confront people so powerless yet so harmful. As a boy, he had killed rattlesnakes by cracking them by the tail like whip He was smart enough to do this only in early spring or late fall when the reptiles were chilled and slow. It fascinated him that; something could be deadly, yet helpless. Later, at the Bureau, the same wonderment came to him when he made his first arrest With very few exceptions, the crooks were afraid, confused and overmatched. But they could kill you, too. That was what kept your blood warm, your eyes keen and your hand steady. Any one of those nervous little men might be the one to shoot you dead with a cheap little gun. Many years later, when Holt began to lose respect for his quarry, he knew he had become vulnerable This was what led him to the more sophisticated game-the subversives, the assassins, the terrorists-because they were manifestly dangerous and they engaged his fear. As he gazed down at this tiny gang unit before him, at the clench-jawed little thing they called a leader, Holt thought: this is deadly vermin. Don't forget it.

Deadly, pathetic and outlined in red. One option, he thought again, is just to kill them all and let God sort them out.

Into Holt's mind now flashed the image of his wife laboring four steps across the patio. He blinked slowly, leaving his eyes closed for just a moment so that he could see Carolyn without a red halo on her. And his memory took another leap back, but a much deeper one this time, and it landed Vann Holt in a darkened bedroom many years ago with his wife up close beside him and their mouths locked together. He could smell her breath.

Then he opened his eyes and turned to John. "She was perfect for a while."

Holt shook the vision from his head, then focused on the boys in the booth. There they were, little lapsed Catholics wearing red halos. Truculent bastards, he thought, what do they have, maybe twenty-five mustache hairs each? Boys.

"Behold," he said. "Uneducated, barely literate. Lazy for the most part, due to the Indian blood. Given to binge drinking to replicate the old rites of peyote and mescaline. But a sixer of malt liquor doesn't give you interesting visions. Just gives you a bad mood. No future to speak of for these guys. They've never seen anybody from their streets really make it. What do they have to go on? Television? Isn't that right, boys?"

"We make it out if we want, man," said the leader. "We got roots and we got family here. We take care of each other. We die for each other, if we have to. What're you anyway, whitebread gringo shitface, a fuckin' philosopher?"

Holt looked at John. Still in a red halo. A little more red in it, maybe. But he was pleased to see the impassive expression on John's face, and the alertness of his eyes. He might be getting this, Holt thought: it actually might get through to him. He's capable of understanding.

"And that right there, what he just said, is the shame of it all," continued Holt. "See, John, these guys have the warrior's spirit inside of them. Most boys do-twelve to twenty-five or so. They're full of testosterone, bravery, idealism and anger. Perfect warrior material. He's not kidding-they'll die for each other. Do it all the time. Parties. Weddings. Funerals. Any event you can drive past in a car and pop some rounds at. But there's the rub. Parties aren't wars and drive-bys are for cowards. No war, no warrior. What you've got is a mean little creep with a flannel shirt. A goddamned blue rag wrapped around his puny head. It's a waste. And it's a shame and it killed my boy and wrecked my wife."

With this, Holt looked down at the boys again. "You remember shooting my wife and boy?"

"We didn't shoot nobody, man. That was Ruiz and Ruiz disappear."

"But there's some Ruiz in all of you. That's the part I'm talking to. I'm in your face right now because that kid was my son and that woman was my woman. Because I don't want you to forget what I look like. I want you to understand something, boys. I'm watching you. My men are watching you. We know you. We're here, even when you don't see us. We would have killed you all a long time ago if I thought it would do any good. But I haven't. It's not because I've forgiven you, or ever will. Not because you don't deserve to die. It's because there are too many of you and I'd have to kill you all. Don't have the time or the bullets for that. If I did, well, you'd be bleeding on that floor right now, like Patrick did after you shot him. Like my wife did. So don't ever think you got away with it. You didn't get away with anything. I've got your numbers. I'll call them in on the day I choose to. I'm all over you. Each and every one of you. I'm in the air, man. I'm the badass gringo ghost and you can't get rid of me. I'm everywhere. This is my turf. My blood is on it."

Holt raised his right hand and aimed his forefinger into the face of one of the boys. The kid had paled.

"Whose turf is this, son?"

"It's yours."

With Holt's finger-barrel aimed between their eyes, the next two agreed.

Holt saved the leader until last. "Whose turf are you on, homie?"

"This here is my fuckin' turf, pendejo."

Holt hooked the leader in the nose with two fingers. The boy yelped, then struggled upward out of his seat, scrambled across the table through the junk food and the ketchup, spilling drinks with his heavy shoes, walking on air it seemed as Holt forked his head up high and started across the room. Holt looked like a ventriloquist with his dummy. The boy dangled after him, shoes just barely touching the ground. The kid's piece clattered to the floor as he clawed at Holt's upraised hand, to no effect whatsoever. The blood ran down Holt's arm and dripped off his elbow. At the door Holt let him down, blocked the kid's wild roundhouse with one hand, then snapped a kick to the chest that sent the leader reeling backwards faster than his heels could go, finally sprawling him over an unoccupied table. Holt kicked away the gun, walked over, yanked off the kid's bandana and wiped his bloody hand and forearm with it.