The Triggerman Dance

He found room in the parking lot—easy, this late—and planted the Hughes on the ground. Looking through the cockpit glass and seeing the familiar walkway leading to the entrance, the red handrail, the planter alongside it filled with daisies, the cheery yellows and reds of the building, the dancing burger of the logo, the windows filled with posters of discounted combos, Holt felt all the familiar hatred come rushing back into his soul. Easy now.

He told John to come with him.

He walked up the ramp, pushed open the door and stepped inside. He looked first to his left at the scattered faces in the dining area, the sea of bright yellow tables with swiveling red chairs, and the immense trash cans paired in each corner. He stared directly into the face of anyone who looked at him, but almost no one did. Inside his face, his eyes felt warm—almost hot—and he could feel the heat in them touch every face they settled on. He saw mostly Latinos. The usual.

"Look around you, John. This is our republic. View it."

"Yes."

"The place was full of people that day—the same kind of people you see here right now. Carolyn and Patrick sat there, by the window."

When Holt pointed, the two girls sitting there looked at him, then down, then back at each other. Holt, through his building fury, was pleased. His eyeballs felt extra warm.

He motioned John to come stand beside him. He spoke with clarity and force.

"The shooter was just a kid, born here. He actually had a brain. Did a year at a local JC, worked on the school paper. Wrote some articles with lots of exclamation points about soft flabby white people occupying a California that rightfully belongs to his people. La Raza—The Race. He built a little following. Of losers mostly, as those who follow tend to be. The reason he gunned down my wife and son was because his aunt claimed that Patrick had raped her. That was a preposterous lie, fed and fattened by the media. The murder also lent some credibility to his politics. Politics and hatred, John—bad mix. They were just finishing their lunch. Patrick saw it coming and tried to get between the bullets and his mother. He was successful. The bullet that stopped in Carolyn's brain went through Pat's neck first. It was a mortal bullet, but the other three he took were, too. A .32 slug glances around a little before it goes through. They have a relatively low velocity."

With every sentence of his history, Holt felt his anger heating up, approaching boil. And the anger brought him a little closer to Clarity. But before he felt Clarity, Holt knew he would have to go through the Red Zone.

He watched the few faces that had been confronting him now turn away. A group of girls twittered. Mothers tried to hush their babies, tried to keep their toddlers from eating the wrappers on their food. The girls started putting on makeup.

At times like this he just wanted to take out a good submachine gun and kill them all, but Holt knew the rage would pass into something more rational, and more effective.

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.