The Triggerman Dance

John watches Baum lift the cover of her plate and set it aside.

"What is it?" she asks with a diminished self-assurance.

"Your articles, shredded and topped with fifty cc's of Carolyn's blood and a dash of Pat's ashes. It might need salt and pepper.

"She looks at Holt with a glazed expression. John sees the panic building, the tic in her cheek.

Holt lifts the cover on his plate to reveal a snub-nosed revolver, polished and gleaming on the white china. In an act of humor, a sprig of parsley sits beside the cylinder.

"John, see if you like your entree," he says.

John looks at Holt and tries to assess the intentions in the pale ocher eyes. The eyes seem to hold only conviction, nothing more—no humor, no pity, no latitude. As he looks into those eyes John passes the point where he is sure how to act, sure what is expected and planned. In his mind he sees Joshua and Sharon parachuting down from the heavens but this is only a mirage of hope.

Where are they?

Then, like a prayer answered, he really does see something that makes his pulse race—yes, he's sure it's actual, far out over the Pacific—a small dark object in the sky. Inwardly, he smiles.

The wind howls across the Ridge and John lifts his silver dome to find an identical revolver on his plate. It is pointed toward the tombs, mid-way between Baum on his left and Holt on his right. A similar sprig of parsley shivers in the wind.

Baum looks at John's plate, then at John.

"I'm finished," she says. "I can't do this anymore."

"Too bad," says Holt. "Take a bite. John, when Susan's finished, either one of us can serve the dessert."

We're ready, John thinks. He looks out to the airborne miracle moving in over the ocean now, a helicopter etching an achingly slow line toward them. It is descending.

Holt follows John's gaze. "That chopper coming our way, John?"

"Looks like it, Mr. Holt."

"Well, I wonder who it could be."

"I've got no idea."

"Maybe it's the air cav, come to rescue Susan from having to eat her words."

Baum's head is turned toward the helicopter.

"Eat your lunch, Susan," orders Holt. "There's nobody on earth who can relieve you of your obligations now."

Baum looks at John again, and he can see her panic. He tries to express reassurance with his eyes. Hang in here, he thinks.

"Do what he says, Susan.

"She takes this as evidence of John's duplicity. Her gaze hardens against his. She looks quickly at Holt, then back at Partch then up at the chopper lowering toward Top of the World.

"Oh, shit," she says.

John watches too as the black-and-orange machine hover above them, tilting one way with the wind, then the other. The tail pivots out and the nose drops and the pilot waves down a them. John is aware of Holt waving back. Then the Liberty Op patrol chopper rises as if strings are cinching it back into the blue

"Good soldiers," says Holt. "Always looking out for the old man."

John notes the satisfied smile on Holt's face. The sound of the helicopter's engine vanishes in the wind and the mute craft tilts back toward the Pacific.

In the wake of its departure John feels a sickening emptiness in his stomach. He knows that what Baum is feeling is worse. He understands that all roads have led him here, that all moment have converged here, though this understanding leaves him with little but a sense of profound foolishness.

Where are they?

Baum looks at him, crestfallen: "John—I'm finished."

Holt looks hard at him. John can see the gears turning now in Holt's mind, the questions ratcheting by, the answers rotating up to engage them. He knows it will only take another second o two for it all to mesh. Time, he thinks, anything now for time.

So he picks the revolver off his plate with his left hand and holds the barrel out, inches from Baum's head. He slips his right hand into his coat pocket and locks his palm around the butt of the automatic, slipping his finger through the trigger guard. He tries to tilt the muzzle toward Holt, but the hammer is caught ii the soft material of the pocket and he can't free it.

His own voice sounds tight and unconvincing: "Shut up and eat, Susan. Trust me now. It's good for all of us. Believe me."

Holt: "Eat your words, you wretched swine."

John sees nothing but terror in Baum's green eyes. Her pupils look like black dimes.

She looks down at her plate, lifts her fork, and picks at the pile of shredded newsprint with the tines.

"Drink some water, Susan," John says. And as he says this he glances past Baum to Partch, gauging the distance he'll have to swing the revolver in order to shoot past her head and hit the big man. Four inches? Five?

"This gun loaded, Mr. Holt?" he asks, staring down the barrel at Baum.

"What do you think?"

"I think you'd like me to use it."

"It would reveal your weight. Conviction. Follow-through."

"Question is, do you trust me enough to load it?"

"That is the question, John. Million dollar one. What if you lost your nerve? Tried to use it on me? I had to consider that."

"There's Partch."