The Triggerman Dance Page 12

  The covey disappeared, almost as quickly as it had risen. Holt watched them put down mid-meadow, happy that they were still naive enough to allow a second jump. By noon, he knew, they'd be skittish, and in one week so spooked you'd have to get them the first time because there would be no second. That was when the hunting was a true challenge.

  To his left, Titisi cursed and examined a handful of shells as if they were responsible for the fact that he had missed. Randell found his bird on the outskirts of a cactus patch. Lewis and Clark managed to come up with Valerie's first quail, but proceeded to fight over it, which brought Valerie bounding forth to land a boot squarely on the butt of each dog. Lane Fargo just stood there and watched, having already collected his kill. Sally, methodical as always, followed Holt's hand signals and easily found all four of his other quail. Holt picked up each one as she dropped it on his boots, felt their warmth and heft, admired the handsome plumage of the cocks and the more subtle beauty of the hens, then slipped them one at a time into the game pouch on his vest. Five birds in the first jump, he thought: it's going to be a good day.

  After Holt pocketed his last bird he reached down and gave Sally a hearty "attagirl," rubbing behind her ears with his hand. She sat and looked up at him, her little stump of tail vibrating in the dirt. Before he even straightened, Sally was off again, nose down, zigging and zagging her way thirty yards ahead of him— never more—looking back every few seconds to make sure her master was paying attention. Holt shot a single that had stayed behind only to burst into the air almost at his feet. Lane Fargo did likewise, out to Holt's far left. Randell and Titisi unloaded on a pair of stragglers, hitting nothing but air. Lewis and Clark started to sprint after the flying birds, but responded nicely when Valerie called them back with her whistle. Tough to call a young dog off a bird, Holt thought, that's why a good shooter makes a good trainer. With pride he watched Valerie praise her dogs as they returned; she slipped a little something to each of them from her pocket. Holt never used food reinforcement for his dogs, but Valerie always did, and her results, he thought, were superb. He looked out to the rising sun, and breathed deeply the fine clean air of the desert. The birds in his vest were warm and heavy against his back. Sally, he thought, is probably the best dog I've ever had. Fleetingly, he remembered Patrick—how beautiful he was out here with his own dog, how gentle he was with her, and how he didn't really care if he shot ten birds or none. But he let Patrick's image flutter on past, like a quail, going out of sight. Sometimes, he reminded himself, you have to remember to forget.

  By 9:30, Holt had his limit of ten quail. Valerie had nine an Lane Fargo had thirteen. They all hunted until almost eleven, giving Titisi and Randell a chance to knock a few down—which they did.

  By 11:30 they had cleaned the birds, put them on ice, and loaded into the two Land Rovers for the drive into town. Holt was hungry now, and he could almost smell those burgers on the grill. Best in the desert, he thought.

  "My treat at Olie's," he said, happy for the moment, glad to be thinking about nothing but birds and burgers and Valerie who sat in the passenger seat beside him, holding his hand on her lap.

  CHAPTER 14

  Olie's is dark and cool and quiet when they walk in from the parking lot. It is a few minutes after noon and the last of the lunch rush—a young couple with a two-year old—comes through the swinging saloon door while Titisi holds it open. They young mother thanks him, but looks at him askance.

  Holt takes a look at the long, picnic-style table near the jukebox, the same one he's used for the last thirty years. He is the kind of man who likes to do things the same way, time and time again, if that way works. But as he looks at the table—certainly no different than it was a year ago—a little voice begins to stir inside him. Vann Holt is also a man who listens to his voices. The voice says nothing, just a little infant-like whine, a protest or complaint of some minor nature.

  "Let's sit over there," he says, motioning to a table on the other side of the room. "That looks good."

  "We always sit here, Dad."

  "Now we're sitting there, Valerie."

  So they sit there. Holt takes a seat with his back to the wall, which is festooned with an ancient promotional beer sign that features an ersatz running waterfall with bears playing in it. Valerie sits to his left, and Lane Fargo to his right. Across from them are Titisi and Randell, and Holt is pleased to see they are now talking about the security consultants Titisi wants to employ in Kampala.

  "Number of ways to go about it," says Randell, nodding.

  "Competent, responsible men," says the Ugandan, somewhat obligingly, as he looks at Holt, then back to Randell. "The kind of men who can organize, train, lead. Men like you."

  Holt hands out the plastic-covered menus, feigning disinterest in the business. Consultants, he thinks: young armed men willing to take risks for money, willing to kill for it. Mercenarie or the trainers of mercenaries—what was the difference?

  Of course, Randell knows this, and Titisi knows he know it, but there is a certain latitude regarding definitions that must be offered at this stage. It is a courtesy. There is always the chance—very remote here, but possible just the same—that Titisi has been spun by the Federals, and his real mission is to offer Liberty Operations an opportunity to hang itself. Holt has had those opportunities before, and he is expert at keeping his company on the legitimate side of international law as it applies to security, investigations and military consultation. But gray areas do exist. Holt knows he can smell a rat from about ten miles away, though Titisi has thus far emitted a reassuring air of greed and menace, good indicators of honest intentions and trustworthiness. It always amazes Holt how cruel governments can be to their own people, in the name of helping them. On the other hand, Holt knows that Titisi can be thinking the same thing: that Vann Holt, ex-Federal, may have finally been manipulated into blowing the whistle on certain clients. It is little comfort to Titisi that he and his nation are the smallest of potatoes. At this stage, the Holy Trinity is vagueness, optimism, courtesy.

  The burgers arrive and are great. Valerie, who does not like red meat, gets a grilled fish sandwich and a big salad loaded with thousand island. Lunch goes along perfectly.

  Until, from outside, comes the rumble of motorcycle engines, the deep, throaty, unmistakable rasp of America's fine; the Harley-Davidson. Dust rises up in the sunlight beyond the swinging doors. The engines are gunned, then killed. To Holt it sounds like a half-dozen of them. When the doors blast open and the boots hit the wooden floor and the men barge into the quiet of Olie's Saloon, Holt sees that he is off by two. There are four men, two of them large, one skinny and tall, one simply gigantic. These are not the kind of people Vann Holt prefers as lunch guests. He looks briefly at them, then turns to his daughter and asks about Lewis and Clark.

  The bikers are still taking a table when a voice carries through the disturbed atmosphere of the saloon.

  "That one looks good enough to eat."

  Holt ignores it, though his pulse has risen and he feels a coolness crawl across his scalp. Valerie glances at the men, then quickly back to her father. She's trying to explain how Lewis and—

  "I said, hey cupcake, you look good enough to eat!”

  It is impossible to ignore him now. Holt sees that it's the tall skinny one, sitting already, while his huge minions shuffle and bang around the table. Skinny has red hair, a darker red beard and a blue bandana wrapped around his head. His eyes are bulging and blue, and look ready to burst from their sockets. His arms are taut as wires, coming through the holes of the stained denim vest. They are covered with tattoos. He looks at Valerie with the dullest of smiles. His cohorts all look at Valerie, too.

  She stares back at them. "Try it, and I'll blow your fucking lungs out," she says in a voice so cold it completely startles Holt.

  All four of the bikers break into serious laughter, a guttural roar not unlike the sound of their machines.

  Then Holt has to laugh too—does my little girl rea
lly talk like that? —and Titisi and Lane Fargo, and finally even dour Rich Randell are laughing along, though Fargo's hand slides inside his jacket to certify the readiness of whatever he is carrying in there.

  After the laughter trails off, the sounds of the talking bikers fill the room and the incident appears to be forgotten, just another colorful little postcard in the lives of minor outlaws.

  Holt's stomach relaxes some and he continues to eat. The pressure he feels in his head when angry, abates. He glances over at the bikers to find them deep in beer and roaring talk, blatantly insulting the waitress, arguing over what should go on the pizzas. With a little discipline and a little education, he thinks, those pigs might amount to something. Big. Strong. They might even make good Liberty Men someday. Perfect for Titisi. Maybe not so dumb as they act. Degeneration of the race, pure and simple.

  Titisi finishes his second cheeseburger and focuses his attention on the double order of fries. He leans to Randell, whispers something, and they both chuckle knowingly. Lane Fargo, upright and attentive as always, has that glazed look that Holt recognizes: it means Fargo's attention is everywhere at once. Valerie has gone quiet. Holt understands that her heated little outburst embarrassed her, and now she's trying to regain composure. He knows from raising her from infancy that Valerie not a natural combatant, but rather thrives on harmony, accomplishment and love. Patrick was the same way. Yes, Carolyn clear-eyed, even temperament dominates Valerie over Holt's own reactive and heated disposition.

  Suddenly the bikers stand and the giant yells back tow the kitchen: "Stuff your fuckin' pizza."

  This brings another roar of moronic laughter from the rest of them, who bang through the flimsy wooden chairs and cram through the swinging doors back out into the parking lot. Skinny is last out, after tossing some bills on the table and looking Valerie again. In a gesture of purest vulgarity, he smiles at her, runs his wet red tongue over his sharp, widely spaced yell teeth, then sticks it straight out—it's astonishingly long—and wiggles the tip at her.

  Valerie blushes and looks away.

  Holt is about to speak, but Skinny is on his way now, barging past the doors with a phlegm chuckle.

  "Let's get out of here," says Valerie.

  "Sit tight," says Lane Fargo, his eyes trained on the swing doors. "Let them go."

  The motorcycle engines boom to life with that slapping mechanical flatulence of the Harley. One, two . . . three. Holt can see the exhaust rising from the lot outside. The last bike kicks over and joins the chorus; the engines are gunned to a deafen pitch. Then the clutches release and the bikes scream out of parking lot, headed south on Highway 371. Holt follows their diminishing sound.

  He counts some money onto the table, then slides back chair. "Well? Shall we try to find some more birds? Something other than vultures? Lane, have a look out there, will you?"

  "Love to."

  Fargo eases across the floor—he's a big man, six-three, two twenty but his gait is even and quiet. He slips outside. Holt can see his boots and the bottom of his pants beneath the door.

  Then he's back. "They're swarming down the road, at hoagie place. We may as well just head out, Boss. "They spill into the fierce afternoon sunshine of Anza Valley. Holt looks across the lot to the two Land Rovers parked in shade, windows down halfway for the dogs. Sally eyes him from the rear kennel of the white one. He has just put his arm around his daughter's shoulder when the low grumble of the bikes suddenly rises in pitch again, and he is only a few steps toward the trucks when the four machines—popping and farting chaotically—roll back into the lot and stop between Holt and his vehicles. Fargo is closest to the Land Rovers, so the Giant jumps his Harley between Lane and the others. Skinny makes a wide, dust-throwing semi-circle and comes to rest closest to Holt and Valerie. One of the others pops his clutch and runs his huge bike toward the group, sending Titisi and Randell one way; Holt and Valerie the other. Skinny guns his hog straight at them, laughing loudly, and Holt can see no alternative but to push her out of his path. He does this, wishing he could get to his shotgun, but he's clearly too far from the truck. Skinny is off his bike in a flash, flipping down the kickstand in a quick, fluid motion. He smiles as he approaches Valerie, who squares off and kicks at him. His own long leg shoots out and Valerie goes down in the dust of the lot, then quickly jumps back up again. She is wobbling; her hat has fallen and her cornsilk hair is firmly wadded in Skinny's left hand, while his right snugs a monstrous Bowie knife against her throat.

  "Feel good, smart cunt? You fight me and I'll cut you a new windpipe. Let's go back inside the diner, smart cunt—right like this."

  Holt takes a step forward, then stops. Past Skinny's bike he sees Lane Fargo backed against the red Land Rover, his hands up, Giant looming over him with what looks like a toy pistol aimed at Lane's head. The two other bikers are blocking his path anyway, one of them leveling a sawed-off shotgun at him. He looks quickly to his right, only to see Titisi and Randell backing up at the approach of Biker #4 who is whipping a short chain round and round in a blurring circle.

  Holt hasn't felt so helpless since he got the call from the Sheriff's Department those five long years ago, telling him that his son was dead and his wife critically wounded. The rage just covers him like a hot blanket, and he has trouble seeing now— everything seems to be taking place in a fractured, sped-up version of reality, like film with hunks of action edited out. Skinny begins dragging Valerie toward the front doors of Olie's Saloon. Lane Fargo is frozen against the red Land Rover, hands still up as if they might be forever. Titisi bellows and charges into a whip of the chain that thuds into his belly and sends him, jackknifed, to the ground. Valerie draws a pained breath and whimpers. Then, motion catches Vann Holt's disbelieving eyes, a motion not part of this film, an intrusion, a disruption. Into the parking lot lumbers a pickup truck, which moves past Fargo and the Giant before the driver can sense that something is very wrong here. It stops right in the middle of the lot, tires angled toward a parking space, unable to move forward past the Shotgun Biker, who still holds his weapon aimed at Holt but turns now with a prodigious scowl to confront this pain-in-the-ass innocent bystander in the pickup. Holt looks at the truck driver—just a regular guy wearing a gray hat tilted back on his head and a rather calm—perhaps uncomprehending—expression on his face. There are a couple of big dogs in the cab with him, Holt turns to his daughter and Skinny, as if his vision might pull along the truck driver's vision with it, and reveal to him the immediate danger unfolding here. For some reason, Holt believes that now is the time to speak.

  "Let her go, young man. This isn't worth it. Somebody going to get killed."

  "Fuck off, old fart. Lenny, keep that prick's hands up over there. Keep it cool out here for a minute—that's all I need with this bitch."

  "Let her go," says Holt again. "Just let her go and ride away and we'll ride away, too. No reports, no cops, no nothing. Just a little misunderstanding between men. You want money, I've got enough to make it worth your while. There's a thousand easy right here in my wallet."

  "Ah, shutup you old woman," snaps Skinny.

  Titisi vomits. Randell has taken a knee beside him and has hand on the big man's shoulder, but he stands back up and hops away a step as the puke jets into the gravel.

  The man in the truck seems frozen.

  Holt takes another desperate look toward Lane Fargo, who doesn't seem to have moved one inch. He hears Valerie whimper again, and turns to see her struggling with Skinny, then Skinny yanking her to face Holt, the wide shining blade of the knife up high now, where the throat meets the chin. Then Holt realizes that Valerie's tormentor isn't brandishing her for him at all, but for the stupefied young man in the pickup. "Drive the fuck out of here! This is just a little family dispute. Get out, faggot!" yells Skinny. To Holt's absolute astonishment, the truck driver nods agreeably, shifts his truck into reverse and looks over his shoulder to back out. An irrational surge of hatred fills Holt as his last potential savior—Valerie's last pote
ntial savior—begins to ease his truck backward. In fact, the driver is so shaken he pops the clutch and stalls the engine.