The Triggerman Dance

To get a confidence, give a confidence. "Mr. Holt, I've never thought that way. I've always believed in taking a day at a time, trying to improve a little at the thing you do. I started writing when I was a kid and I enjoy it. I'd like to keep at it. But I've developed the unsettling notion that a lo of life is waiting things out between disasters."

"Christ, that's pathetic. It sure can be, if you choose to se it that way. What disaster?"

"A woman I was going to marry."

"So, what happened to her?"

"She was coming over to my place one night and a drunk ran the light. She died and he broke his nose."

Holt nodded slowly, gravely. "What was her name?"

"Jillian."

Jillian is your torch. You can use her to light a path to Wayfarer. She is your Carolyn—the catalyst of your self-pity, the see of your hate. She is Rebecca.

"Vietnamese?"

"Sir?"

"Was the driver Vietnamese? They can't drive and they can drink."

"Well, actually, he was."

"And if he'd stayed back in his rice field, you'd be married to Jillian."

"That's correct."

"That's what I mean. Guy should have worked his own dirt. What did you do?"

"Do?"

"Do about the driver."

"He went to prison. I forgave him. I told myself early on that I wouldn't take vengeance. It was a luxury I didn't feel could afford."

"Regret that?"

"He suffered enough. And no amount of suffering would have brought her back."

"Noble sentiment. I guess. But he's walking around now living his life while she's dead. He laughs and eats and makes love. She never even moves. That sit comfortably in an alert so such as your own?"

John looked at Holt then, neither blinking nor wavering h fix on the older man. He thought of Rebecca, of the way she looked sitting at her Journal desk, with the phone crooked into her right ear and her hands flying over the keyboard and the big glass of iced tea sweating onto a coaster beside her. The way she had this little smile all the time, as if she was somehow outside herself and amused by herself, as if Rebecca Harris was an interesting animal to observe. The way she looked at him when he'd stop by her desk for a brief hello, the depth of interest, visible to John, at least, beyond the shining convex surface of her eyes.

"I wanted to kill him. I admit that."

"Of course you did. It's natural, and honest. How far did you take your plan?"

John smiled and looked away. "I kept up with his release date. I got the address of his family. I actually sat outside their house one night before he came home, thinking about it."

"And?"

"I scared myself. I quit."

Holt laughed now, a low, understanding chuckle. "A true sense of follow-through is tough to come by. It all comes down to what your heart says. If yours wouldn't let you take him, then you did the right thing not to."

"There's the law, too."

" Always. But it wasn't written for criminals to hide behind. Don't forget it. See an awful lot of that these days. It's the mark of a weak society when pity replaces justice. Everybody gets away with everything."

"That much is true, Mr. Holt."

Holt seemed satisfied that his points had been made. He said nothing for a long while, staring down toward the Big House.

"Well, I wandered again. But back to my original question. What do you want?"

"It would sound kind of silly, compared to all the things you just said."

"Forget what I just said. I love to pontificate. My great-great-uncle was a tent revivalist. Jealous husband shot him. Anyway. I understand his need to preach. Go ahead."

John thought a moment.

"Oh, you know, just a regular life, sir. I'd like to find a love and marry her and make a family someday. I don't aspire to this kind of . . . grandeur, Mr. Holt. I don't need it, although I can sure appreciate its beauties. What I want is to be left alone to do my work and take care of the people I love. Pretty simple stuff, really."

"Not the less meaningful for being simple. I respect your desires. I wish you prosperity."

"Thank you."

"Ever think of trying something different?"

"What do you mean?"

"Willing to approach the quarry from an unexpected direction?"

"That's kind of vague, sir."

Holt smiled. "Yes, it is. Hypothetically, now—would you be willing to try something other than what you've done before, in order to get what you want? Change of venue. Say that you had a chance to try different work—work you didn't know you could do, but turned out to be good at? Say this new work would enable you to find the love that Jillian once was to you. Make you able to begin that family. All by following a path that you didn't know was there."

"I'd have to know where the path ended, where the twist and turns were."

"You would be deliberate, not impulsive."

"Yes, sir. I would."

"Until you lost your temper. Like down on that dirt road looking for the men who burned you out."

"Well, yes. My patience has its limits."

"It certainly should."