The Triggerman Dance

"Well, Joshua, you can decide she left you for a better ape, or that she left you for an ass. The truth is probably somewhere in between. If you want me to take a convenient role and play it out, forget it. I'd just mess up my lines and the whole thing would be a waste of breath."

Dumars entered then, bearing a pitcher of what Weinstein was drinking. She moved through the silence and filled his out-reached glass. She glanced at John with a look of concerned inquisition.

"God, you'd need a blowtorch to cut the vibes up here," she noted. "Remember, boys, we're supposed to be celebrating, sort of?" Then she retreated from the deck without another look at either of them.

"Sharon is aware that she needs a man, and the awareness embarrasses her," said Weinstein. "She's of our generation, the first in this republic to be raised with the notion that love can be found with a housecat, and that men are just enemies waiting to screw women over. Even women younger than Sharon have realized how unworkable that is. But there she remains, on the cutting edge of the ridiculous. Do you find her attractive?"

"Yes. She's got a better sense of humor than you give her credit for."

"There you go again, saying what they want to hear, even when they're not around to hear it. You're a smoothie, Menden."

"Yeah, yeah—you've covered that already, Josh."

"There was a time, and I'm not sure if it's passed, when I wanted to challenge you. On any and every thing a man is supposed to be. I knew I couldn't beat you at being tall. But at everything else, I believed I'd kick your ass. I still believe I would. I'm a better man than you, by almost any standard of measure. If ever you want to contest that, just name your game and I'll there. I've speculated on the most satisfying way of trouncing you. Really smashing the living shit out of you."

"And?"

"It changes."

"Well, I hope dangling me in front of Wayfarer then dropping me in hasn't entered your mind."

Weinstein stared at John for a long moment, then shook his head. "That's business. You couldn't find a more conscientious master than me. What I'm talking now is strictly pleasure. And don't forget—I hate Wayfarer more than I hate you."

"That's comforting, Joshua."

Weinstein finished half his drink in one gulp, set down the glass and pulled the automatic from his shoulder holster. I looked at it for a long moment, as if searching for some new feature he'd overlooked. It was a 9mm Smith with a blued finish and dark walnut grips. He flipped the safety off, then on again

"Could be an old-fashioned gunfight," he said.

"Could," said John.

Joshua set the gun on the deck, then picked up his drink again. "That scare you—a drunk man with a gun?"

"It sure does. Aren't you breaking some FBI rule?"

"You sound like a faggot, whining about rules. Rebecca liked it on the top with me. You, too?"

"How do you like your chicken?"

"That's a dumb question. When's the last time someone told you they like their chicken rare?"

Weinstein picked up the gun again, aimed it at John, flipping the safety off, then on.

John studied him through the smoke. The idea crossed his mind to kick the barbecue over at Joshua's feet and watch him scramble to keep his wingtips from blistering. John knew that Weinstein wouldn't shoot him on purpose, but he was worried that his "master" was revealing himself to be a genuine hazard.

Booze and guns were an even worse combination than booze and cars.

Joshua holstered the pistol, sighed, and drank again. "I'm just blowing off a little steam," he said.

"Good to know," said John. "Just that light little trigger between three highballs and a bullet in my heart."

And that was all it took—one mention of a bullet and a heart—to send them both plummeting back down to earth, back down to the tree-shaded deck on which their dinner was cooking, back down to the house which had heard the laughter of the woman they had both loved.

"I'm a lot more sober than I look. And there's one thing I want to get straight, John. It doesn't have to do with competition. It's just a simple fact that you're going to have to accept. It's a fact that I need to remember. This is the fact—I loved Rebecca more than you did. I loved her more than you ever could."

John watched Weinstein as he said this, noting the blood rushing into Josh's ears, the bob of his big Adam's apple, the insatiable glow of his eyes behind the lenses. This whole thing, he thought, is a crying shame. Every second of every day since Rebecca died in the cold March rain, just a crying fucking shame.

"Yes, you did," he said, looking down through the smoke, his eyes burning with more than the smoke.

"Thank you."