Authors: T. JEFFERSON PARKER

The Triggerman Dance (43 page)

He notes something shiny on the path before he even sees it. He feels his body draw up tight as he registers the shape, a shape familiar to the deep part of the human mind—a very large rattlesnake stretched out in the dirt ahead. Reflexively he reaches for Valerie but she has already stepped forward, holding her revolver with both hands, glancing quickly back at the dogs. The sound of the gun slams into John's ears, the barrel jumps and the sand explodes red around the snake's head. The serpent retracts into tight coil, rattle buzzing off, then on, then off again. The dogs blunder toward it and John tries to grab Boomer's collar.

"Don't worry, it's out of commission," says Valerie.

"I'm not so sure."

"I am."

The springers try to converge but Valerie yells them off. John's dogs obey her firm command to sit. Boomer eyes John with the pride of finding an item of such vast importance. Valerie touches the snake with her boot and it strikes, knocking its heat less stump of a neck against her ankle. It rattles again. She slide her toe under it and flips in into the bushes. It twists white in the air, then vanishes out of sight, still buzzing.

"I don't like to do that," she says. "But I lost two pups to rattlers. One died and the other one couldn't move his legs, so we had to put him down. Rattlesnakes aren't welcome on Liberty Ridge anymore."

John looks at her and sees a darkness of mood has pushed the softness from her face. It is a wholly new countenance, or that speaks of regretful obligation, of acts finished only to the soul's remorse. She looks more like her father than herself.

"Well, nice shot," he says.

"Pretty easy, if you graduate from the Liberty Ops pistol school at the age of seventeen."

"Top of the class?"

"Yes. Dogs are family to me. And I'll do anything to protect family."

Back at the cottage, John showered and dressed for dinner. He fed the dogs and had a cigarette on the porch. Just before he left, he saw the message indicator on the computer screen and keyed into his mailbox with nervous fingers:

THIRD DRAWER DOWN. RIGHT OF REFRIGERATOR, BIG HOUSE. LIKE YOUR CARROTS, SWEETIE? COULDN'T FIND THEM ANYWHERE. SEND THEM TO THE FOOD TASTERS?

CHAPTER 28

Holt looked more like a man after a Caribbean cruise than on who had just logged several thousand air miles for the purpose as he put it to John, of "killing rattlesnakes and putting out fires." He was tanned, trim, expansive. He was sitting with Fargo and Adam Sexton on the porch off the Big House kitchen when John joined them. It was shady under the slat redwood canopy that faced the expanse of lawn and trees. Beyond the lawn John could see the distant haze of the slough and the bright silver plate of the Pacific. The evening breeze was cool and clean and smelled of ocean and sage.

Holt finished a story about Fargo's duel with the Uganda turista, a story told at the expense of Fargo, who looked pale and miserable as he reclined on a chaise lounge in the shade. Fargo glanced back at Holt after the punchline—something about Fargo's bottled water and Holt having eaten everything native he could get his hands on—and cast his boss a doleful look. The look wandered to John, where it turned both bored and hostile. John looked at Adam Sexton, who sipped his drink an shrugged.

"Glad I missed it," he said. "I hate foreign countries. I like right here where I am. Domestic accounts—I'm made for it."

"You wouldn't last a day on the dark continent," said Fargo. Roughly, my point," said Sexton. He favored John with conspiratorial look.

"Also my point that ninety percent of the Liberty Ops profit is generated by me, right here in Southern Cal.

So go get sick on an international scale, Fargo. I'll stay here and make dough."

Holt chuckled. "Don't squabble, kids. Let's all just admit it's a good feeling to carry home several hundred grand for a few days' work." He studied John over his tumbler of Scotch and ice. "Does that kind of money interest you?"

"Depends what I'd do for it, Mr. Holt."

"What's the most you ever made in a week?"

"Fifteen hundred."

"And what did you do for that?"

"Wrote some pieces for the
Journal.
And did a freelance job for Western Outdoor
News."

"Forty hours' worth?"

"Forty-five, I'd guess. Plus the morning of bass fishing for the
News
article. I wrote off the gas and lures."

Sexton chortled. "That's big money."

Holt shot him a glance. "After taxes that left you what, nine hundred and change?"

"I'd say."

Holt drank from the tumbler, the long slow sip of a man who has all the time in the world. "Here's the thing about money, John. A man needs to work. It's what keeps his feet on the ground. Work opens the soul to the idea of heaven. The harder a man works the stronger he gets. I think some of the best moments of my life have been work. I spent eight years tracking down the men who bombed Odeh. You remember, the Arab activist? Those years flew by. Seemed to last about five minutes. By the time I got close to them, I was just getting warmed up. I could have followed those murderous bastards for decades. Never would have gotten tired."

"Then the Jews let 'em go," said Fargo.

"They were detained by Israeli Mossad, but not charged," corrected Holt. "Been watched ever since."

"Some justice for blowing an Arab to bits."

"No shit," added Sexton.

Holt waved his hand. "Beside the point. Outside my purview. I completed my work. Now, the whole point is this, if you're going to work anyway—because it builds the soul—why not get a lot of money for it? You spend the same hours. Burn the same energy. Stay up the same nights. Sacrifice. So why not go for more return? Simple arithmetic." "Well, the arithmetic is simple, Mr. Holt, but finding work that pays a few hundred grand a week isn't."

Holt shrugged and grinned. "Got to work your way up to that kind of thing. How does two thousand a week sound? That' over a hundred a year."

"It sounds like triple what I'm making now."

"Would that appeal to you?"

"For what I'm doing at the
Anza Valley News
? Sure."

"No, for something different than what you're doing at the paper. For something more . . . actual. More tactile. More . . hands on."

"That could be embalming. No thanks."

"Embalming," echoed Fargo from his lounge.

Sexton laughed and crossed his ankles: loafers, no socks.

"Embalming," said Holt. "No. No embalming required."

Fargo sat up. "He's not exactly quick on the uptake, boss. Why not ask him what happened to Snakey?"

Holt twirled the ice and liquid. "See Snakey while we were gone, John?"

"No."

"Not even once?"

"Not once. I didn't know he was here."

"See Val?"

"We spent a lot of time together."

"Oh, good. Doing what?"

"Talking. Eating. Working the dogs. We rowed out to the island and had a picnic."

"Killed at least one snake," said Fargo. "That's what Val said."

"Couple hours ago."

"But you never saw Snakey?"

"No, Mr. Holt. What happened to him?"

"He disappeared."

John nodded, looked down at his Scotch. "Well, maybe he found something that pays a few hundred grand a week."

"Real fuckin' funny," said Fargo.

But Holt and Sexton were both grinning. Holt turned to look back at Fargo, then returned his amused gray eyes to John "Lane isn't—"

"—I
heard a couple of gunshots yesterday morning. Maybe John shot him and dumped him in the lake."

With this, Valerie Holt sat down on a lawn chair next to her father. She held a tall glass half full of something clear that edged toward the lip of the glass before she righted it. The most graceful klutz I've seen, John thought.

Fargo, about to speak, let his mouth hang open and stared at John.

Valerie swung around to look at Fargo, her honey blond hair lifting out, then bouncing against the skin of her back. "A joke, Lane. Tee-hee. You look cadaverous. Hi, Sexy."

"Hello, your highness," said Sexton.

"What time were the shots, Val?" Fargo asked.

"I just told you it was a joke, Lane. That means I didn't hear any shots. I didn't see Snakey either, thank Goodness. Dad, give Lane a raise and see if it improves his sense of humor. Or make him work for Adam a few weeks."

"You're spicy this evening, daughter."

"Sugar and spice, Daddy-o."

"Mainly spice. Tabasco, maybe."

"Hello, John," she said, turning to face him. She was scrubbed clean as a new coin, her skin aglow, hair shining, trailing a scent that was dark and unambiguous and slid into John's head like an opiate. She was wearing jeans and a green silk blouse.