The Triggerman Dance

"Be quiet now, honey. There's just a couple of more things I want to say. You all know that Liberty Ridge was built up over the decades. It rose and fell with the times. It was cattle once, then horses, then nothing. Now citrus and security. Tomorrow, who knows? Things will change. We live in an ailing republic. Too many people. Too few values. Too much fear. Too many lies. All the spirit pounded down to mediocrity. My last years have been given over to work and hatred—you all know that. I'm good at those things. I learned to hate everything around me that wasn't you. I hated the people who took Pat. I hated the people who took away his good name. I hated the God that let it happen. We'll still find the kid who pulled the trigger. I'm honor-bound to finish that. I'll still have my day with the woman who smeared him in front of the world. John here is helping me see to her. I can't forgive the unforgivable. I'll see to the final justice for them. I said some things I shouldn't have. Thought some things. Did some things. But, quite frankly, I'm tired of it now. I've got a few months to be here with you people. I've got another winter and another spring. Summer's a maybe. If I could get one more fall to chase those quail and work those dogs, that would be a real good thing. If nothing else I've got you all pinned down here right now, with the Santa Anas blowing the ridge clean and that ocean out there heaving away. So, drink with me again tonight. To here and now. To all of us. Cheers. Boys—haul in the dessert."

The conversation continued—muted, fretful and forced. Valerie was almost silent, but she moved to be as close to her father as she could. She kept drinking. John could see the emptiness in her eyes, and the pain the alcohol couldn't dull. Only Holt was expansive, and soon everyone else was quiet and listening. He was lost to tales of meeting Carolyn, his good days at the Bureau, his first Grand Slam, his best quail shots down in Anza. He drank four Scotch and waters, his voice and delivery unaffected so far as John could see, his big leonine head scanning the guests to let them know he was still here, still alive and powerful, still Holt. The wind blew harder and the canopy shivered. The guests huddled into themselves and still Holt held forth, his voice and the wind taking turns until they seemed to become one force, together breathing life and sound into the tiny universe of Liberty Ridge.

The canopy lifted off and somersaulted across the lawn toward the ocean. Holt stood with his drink in hand, raising it to the sky. Valerie stood with hers; John with his. Then all of them were standing, even Carolyn locked to John's free arm, holding their glasses high while the wind snatched the tablecloth off the table and sent it skidding into the night.

"To vengeance completed and the restoration of soul!"

Then, all:

"To vengeance completed and the restoration of soul!"

They drank.

Then Holt looked at John with all the consuming focus oi his character. His gray eyes looked hungry and hard. The wind bent his hair in one direction and lifted one lapel to the side ol his neck.

John looked back, feeling reduced to the meager essentials of his falsehood.

"Are you with me?" demanded Holt.

"Yes, sir."

At this, Valerie straightened and lifted her glass. "Dad, I'll run the Ops better than it's ever been run before. I'll make you proud. I promise."

John glanced at the stony face of Lane Fargo while the applause lifted around him.

Then Valerie sat heavily in her chair, her face gone the sudden pale of too much drink, and her eyes focusing on the surface of the table.

"Oh," she whispered.

"John," said Holt. "Take her to your cottage. Tend to her tonight."

"I'll help," said Fargo.

"She won't need you, Lane," said Holt.

John thought: Fargo's future in a nutshell. And that's why he's been funneling the evidence to me. John suddenly understood, too, why the soundtrack to Rebecca's slaughter had been removed before he was led to the tape—because Holt's wasn't the only voice on it.

Holt had shot Rebecca while Fargo shot the video.

CHAPTER 38

They walked across the lawn then through the trees and hedges until they came to the meadow. Valerie leaned hard into John as they started across. The wind gusted from behind and John could feel it pushing them forward. The grass lay flat in the moonlight He heard his dogs barking and saw them sitting three abreast in the cone of brightness from the porch light. Boomer lunged into the dark and the others followed. Against his outstretched arm Valerie's back was warm, and beneath his palm the curve of her hip rose and fell with each step she took. He thought: you are beautiful and I could love you and I would give almost anything on earth not to betray you.