The Triggerman Dance

"Quiet, John. Listen. I'll bring you out the second you're finished. But I can't do it before you're finished, can I? Reason with me now. I need time to analyze the documents you found in your cottage. I need time to get a search warrant, if we can get one at all. We will need more."

"I don't want more."

"Oh, yes you do. You want Holt. That's the agreement, John. Holt. Not Snakey. Holt"

John tried to gather himself, choke back the ugly sobs that kept breaking into his throat. "That poor dumb Snakey. Jesus. Bring me out."

"I need you now, John."

"I don't know what to do."

"You will stay in, John. You will wait until I can vet the documents. If it's good stuff, we'll be close to Wayfarer. Remember, Wayfarer is the only one left on earth who can reassemble your soul. He is the missing part of you. You own him when we take him."

John heard himself breathing, then a blast of static.

Josh's voice again:

"Let me ask you something, John. When your parents were recovered from the airplane, you were asked to identify them, right? You told me so. I've thought about that since then. It's a very tragic thing for a nine-year old to be asked to do, and I am impressed that you could do it. But John, what if you hadn't entered that building? What if you had stayed out, never gone into that cool, disinfected room and had the courage to confront what life had so cruelly dealt to you? I can answer that. If you hadn't, John, you would still be there, still a boy, still terrified and confused and angry. If you had never opened that door, you could never have closed it. But you did, didn't you? And that's why you are the man you are."

John said nothing. His thoughts were underwater. Black, deep water. No up. No down.

"Listen to me, John. Months ago, when Rebecca was alive, I went to her house late one night, after work. She was in the pool. It was cold and there was steam coming off the water. She had been swimming for a long time because her breathing was fast and deep and her strokes were slow, and she wasn't staying in the lane. She was a strong swimmer. I sat down in the dark and watched. Back and forth. Back and forth. Ten more minutes. Twenty. Finally she stopped. She flipped up her goggles and stood in the shallow end a while. Then she climbed out and wrapped herself up in her towel—the red one, you remember, the one with the tropical fish on it. She still didn't know I was there. She hadn't looked my way. She sat on the deck and dangled her feet into the water. She was hunched inside that big towel, just the top of her head showing. And she said something to herself. She said, You've got to do something. You've got to do something. You've got to do something, and you don't know what it is."

John waited through Joshua's silence.

Then:

"She couldn't see a way out, John. She was paralyzed by you. Paralyzed by me. It's the worst feeling on earth, needing to act but not understanding how to act. She never knew what to do, until she wrote those letters. But by then it was too late. She didn't live long enough to send them. You, John, have the path. You are halfway down it. You know what to do. Now, you must wait. Learn from what Rebecca didn't do. Let her teach you."

John looked again at Snakey's inert form, the two bloody holes in the back of his shirt.

"For Rebecca," said Joshua.

"For Rebecca," said John.

He could feel his heart begin to steady, and exhaustion settling over him. "Think Snakey left the computer message and the bag in my freezer?"

"No. I don't believe it was Snakey. I believe it was Holt, and that is why I had you bring me the photograph and the sketch, and the notes. We'll have them analyzed in twenty-four hours, God and the Crime Lab willing. They will prove to be a counterfeit of his handwriting and an altered photo. You will present them to him as a token of your trust and loyalty."

John said nothing. He felt like lying down in the dirt and sleeping for a week.

"Leave the bag in the box with your tools. Leave Snakey where he is, God rest him. Get a fresh camera and go back. Repair. Wayfarer is due back day after tomorrow. Let yourself come together again. You are scattered. You are losing focus. Show me that you're the man Rebecca thought you were. Show me she did the right thing by leaving me for you."

The risen sun was a disc of orange now, throwing heat and light into John's face. He imagined floating through the sky with the winds, like he'd tried to do at age ten from his uncle's roof.

"I can't bring her back to you, Joshua. I would if I could."

"I told you to never apologize for that. Never."

"It's not an apology. It's the truth."

A deep, icy chuckle issued from Joshua Weinstein. "I know you wouldn't bring her back to me even if you could, John. You would bring her back and keep her for yourself, now, wouldn't you?"

CHAPTER 25