The Triggerman Dance

"Do you have something in mind?"

"Yes, I do. It's got to do with a gang of Vietnamese home invaders. I'm going to be waiting where I know they'll be. It's Liberty Ops job in its purest form. Good guys. Bad guys. Good money. Interested?"

"Interested. Why me?"

Holt studied him again with a formidable concentration. "I want you to meet someone."

John stood outside the bedroom after Holt had gone in and shut the door. He could hear voices, a man's and a woman's. The bedroom was on the second floor of the Big House, and the sunlight poured onto the stairway landing. A moment later a nurse came out, introduced herself as Staci and told John that Mr. Holt said it was okay to go in.

The room was spacious and bathed in light diffused through the window blinds. It smelled faintly of roses. Holt sat on a stool beside a hospital bed at the far end, motioning John toward an empty stool beside him. John sat down.

"John, I'd like you to meet my wife, Carolyn. Honey, this is the young man I've been telling you about."

"Why, how do you do?" she asked.

"Very well, Mrs. Holt."

She regarded John with a dazed, unselfconscious stare. She seemed both present and absent at the same time. John smiled, returning her gaze, noting her plump pink cheeks, the silver-blond hair cut short around her face, the way the left side of her mouth didn't move as well as the right, the way her left eyelid drooped, just slightly.

Then her deep brown eyes widened and tears welled up into them, spilling onto her cheeks. "Oh dear God," she whispered, still staring at John.

"Honey, John is going to be staying—“

"—Oh dear God—"

"—For a few days anyway, maybe—

"—It's been so long since—"

"—Just to regroup a little after all the—"

"—I didn't know if I'd ever—"

"—Honey, don't get too—"

But it was too late because Carolyn Holt had pushed her bed control button and the head of the bed was rising and her eyes were still devoted solely to John's face and she reached out with both her arms for him, dropping the control to her lap and leaning forward from her waist.

John glanced at Holt and saw nothing but uncertainty. With little to guide him but his own sense of decency, he stood and leaned forward, so her hands could wrap around his neck, and she pulled him down to her. She was strong. He could smell the rose perfume and fresh bedding and the under-current of sweat that comes from a straining, human body.

"Don't strangle the poor boy, Honey. Remember, he's the one who saved Valerie from—"

"—Oh, thank you. Thank you. I've missed you so much, Patrick. Thank you for coming home to me! Oh, Patrick."

"John," said John. "John Menden, Mrs. Holt."

"Oh, Pat. Patty-cake, Pat-man, Pat Hand, Pat-a-tat-tat!"

John unwrapped her clenching hands from behind his neck and eased her back to the pillows.

"Look at me, Mrs. Holt. I'm not Patrick. I'm John. I'm the one who—"

"—You little dickens, you."

She smiled at him, a beaming, consuming smile from which her eyes sparkled as they moved up and down John's body. Then she clenched her fists up under her chin like a little girl, and wiggled.

"We have a lot of catching up to do, Pat. Now you sit back down and start catching me up, all right? First, how are your grades, for heaven's sake? And that cheerleader you were dating; Those priests haven't been rapping your knuckles, have they? I think the best lunch box you ever had was the Disneyland one with the submarine ride on it, but of course the thermos was always—"

"—Carolyn," commanded Holt, "be quiet and listen to me. This man is not your—"

"—You're distracting us, Vanny. Could you maybe get us some root beer? And get your glasses fixed, too. Look who's returned from the college of the dead!"

John looked again to Holt, who had risen from his stool to run his hand over Carolyn's hair and face. In Holt's eyes, John could see the exasperation, the surprise, and the anger. Holt motioned him away.

"Wait for me outside," he said.

"Patrick!"

"He has classes to attend, Honey. Let him go. He'll be back Don't worry now, Carolyn. He'll be back."

"This is the happiest day of my life."

"It's certainly a . . . happy day, Honey."

John mustered a smile for her, then turned and crossed the expanse of cream-colored carpet. Staci opened the door for him and gave him a pitying look. Carolyn Holt looked past her husband at John, smiling to him as he waved and shut the door.

Holt came out five minutes later. His face was flushed red and the flesh of it looked loose. His hair was mussed. He looked at John with an expression of shame, desperation and seeming! uncontrollable rage. John followed him down the curving marble stairway.

"Fuckin' Mexicans shot her in a fast food place up in Santa Ana. Fuckin' punks. Killed Patrick because his hair was blond or some such shit. Left a bullet in Carolyn's brain."