T. Parker: The Triggerman Dance

"There will be doubt in the days ahead, Dad."

Holt felt that great choke of emotion taking hold of his throat, that big lump that seemed to catch just under his voice box and made his eyes grow tears. He reached out and they hugged again, but Valerie broke it off and backed away with an attempted smile.

"I hear John's running an errand for you later."

"Just bringing the client up for lunch. Rich lady from Newport, thinks her husband is fooling around. Not with his secretary, with her money. Of course."

"Glad to miss that one."

"I thought you would be. When you're alone with your thoughts on the island today, send a pleasant one my way. I'll snag it, and send one back."

"You got it," she said, turning to leave.

"Honey? Send Lane down here, will you?"

Fargo appeared five minutes later, just like Fargo would, Holt thought, not there and no entrance, then suddenly sitting one seat away from you in the theater. Over the years he had become used to Fargo's invisible arrivals and departures. He could see that the dark man's hair was mussed from the steady wind outside and that Lane had hung his sunglasses over the neck of his black t-shirt.

"Sunday morning cartoons, boss?"

"How's everybody seem to be taking it?"

"Pretty good, Mr. Holt. Val was disappointed you didn't tell her first."

"Scott?"

"Can't read a guy like him. He's probably still talking to his God about it. Got them to the airport an hour ago. How are you feeling?"

"Strong."

"How come you're looking at a blank screen?"

But Holt plowed through Fargo's questions, as he did John's and everyone else's. "Val's going to start taking over the Ops. She'll need all the help and support you can give her."

Fargo said nothing for a moment, then: "She'll get it."

"And when I go, she'll be the one in charge."

"I figured it like that."

"Disappointed?"

"Yeah. You and me built the Ops, not her."

"I don't blame you. I've drawn up an agreement with the bank that will put two million in your pocket after I go. It's separate from the estate plan and company by-laws, which I still haven't gotten around to changing. Haven't executed that bank arrangement yet. Obviously, I wanted to hear you out."

Holt could see in Fargo's eyes the ill-concealed disappointment and the flicker of menace. "You always did right by me. Mr. Holt. When it comes down to it, I'd rather run the Ops than cash out, even for that much. I'm firm, there. I think you know that's what I'm about. But if it's Val's show it's Val's show. Maybe I'll take the money and split. I gotta little time to think, don't I?"

Holt studied his factotum and felt stymied-not for the first time-by Lane Fargo's odd amalgam of subservience and ambition.

"I'll need you more than ever these next months, Lane."

"You got me, boss. I don't have to say it, but I will anyway-I didn't just stay here for the money. I stayed here for honest work with a guy who didn't take any shit from the world. I stayed here to build something good with my life-Liberty Ops. Something that lets the little guy stand up to creeps and the government. I've always been proud to stand by you."

Holt reached across the empty theater seat and laid his hand on Fargo's shoulder. He could feel the cool leather of the shoulder strap over the cotton.

"Follow Menden this morning."

"I figured you'd want that."

"Let him know you're there. Don't want him to start thinking for himself."

"He's not capable of it."

"Anyway, when you come back past the Big House, let him bring her up to Top of the World. You park here. Stay around. Keep your eyes open. Stay mobile. I need to know you're out there, watching my back."

"That's what I do best, boss."

Fargo stood to go, then sat back down.

"I gotta favor to ask you, Mr. Holt. If you can arrange it. I'd like to take care of Menden when it's time. I hate that cute face of his and I know what he's doing with Valerie. It'd be good for me, if it's all the same to you."

Holt nodded and Fargo rose again.

"If it works out that way."

"I'd be grateful, sir."

"Let me ask you something, Fargo. You get the feeling something's about to go down? Besides this thing with Baum?"

Fargo actually raised his face to the air, like a bird-dog might, then crossed his arms over his chest. Holt had seen Fargo do this dozens of times: Lane's way of assessing the moment, of judging the invisible physics of threat.

"No. I'm not getting that."

"Good. Something just seems a little off to me."

"Damned wind gets on my nerves. But you should always listen to your instincts, Mr. Holt."

Holt did in fact sit in the theater after Fargo had gone, staring at the blank big-screen, listening to many things. He heard the wind moaning outside. He heard the cells replicating inside him. He heard Baum's voice-the self-righteous tone of outrage she used on TV-but now she was pleading for her life instead of a full-scale investigation into Patrick Holt's treatment of women. He heard Valerie's and Fargo's words. And he heard the quiet voice that always counseled him in times of engagement, now telling him that when he was gone, Fargo would do anything he had to get the Ops for himself.

John awoke at five a.m. after a dream in which Joshua, a six-gun in each hand, simultaneously blew away Vann Holt and John Menden. He was drenched in sweat. He listened to the sound of the wind rattling the windowpanes of his cottage. Valerie was huddled to the far end of the bed so he reached out and set his hand on her shoulder-so warm, so smooth. And now, he thought, it's time to betray you. In his state of half-consciousness he tried to let his mind find a way to take down Holt without breaking Valerie's heart. But the more he tried to find one, the more he awakened and the more impossible it became to even imagine such a way. It was the deal I made for you, dear woman, he thought, right from the beginning. Now comes the follow through.

So again his thoughts returned to Joshua, and the perilous course the agent had chosen. He had long understood that Joshua would risk everything he had to avenge Rebecca-this was the motor behind all that had happened in the last months. But not until last night had he realized that Joshua was willing to risk Baum, John himself, and even Sharon, in his unilateral charge of revenge. Everyone else would come second. John realized that on a primal level, Joshua needed to see him dead. John's death would be the purest retribution for what John had done with Rebecca, the purest defeat of a rival. Why not? Love and hate are always beyond control, and Joshua was clearly consumed. It was a gut-tightening idea, and John tried to purge it. But it was there just the same, along with the image of Joshua's face on the deck of his Laguna Canyon house last summer, when the agent pulled his gun and told him that he'd been looking for a way to contest John for Rebecca's long-cold heart.

With everything on the line at noon, John thought, Joshua's loyalties will finally lie with himself.

I'll be there.

But when? How? And to accomplish what?

John thought of Holt, and the possibility that Holt would dispose of him along with Baum, if he should fail in this assignment. What would Holt really like to give him, the keys to his kingdom or a bullet in the head?

With these realities in mind, John rose quietly from the bed, dressed and slipped out the door with his dogs. From the oak tree by the electric fence he retrieved the. 45, and stashed it in the center console of his truck. When he got back into bed forty minutes later, Valerie hadn't moved.

John guides his truck up the last steep incline at Top of the World. He's glad to be rid of Fargo, who frisked him twice before letting him through the main gate, then blatantly followed him all the way to Newport Beach and back. Baum sits beside him, dressed in a flowing bright green silk ensemble with a loose vest and oversized cuffs, huge sunglasses, heavy faux-emerald earrings and white high-top athletic shoes. At first, she took John's change of plan-we're going to Liberty Ridge-with a giddy acceptance. She'd silently evaluated the long, palm-lined drive up from the frontage road, the magnificent house and grounds, the windswept hills and Valencia groves. But now, as they climb the last few yards toward the vaults, John can feel her fingers digging into the flesh of his arm.