intelligence and doubt. Her forehead was high and round, suggesting a youth belied by her twenty-two years. It was the kind of head, John mused, that would still look good when Valerie Holt was eighty years old Her hair at this point was still pulled away from her face in a wind-blown tail of gold and light copper. Valerie was by any standards a beautiful young woman, a woman still growing and still unfinished.
She can be a useful tool, an unwitting voice, a conduit. You can know her only to use her.
'Well,' she asked, glancing up from the breeze-bent menu 'Did I pass my physical?'
'Sorry. Yes.'
'You're forgiven. You are a writer, after all.'
'Always studying.'
'Like what you see?'
He looked down at his own menu, shrugging. 'The chicken sandwich sounds good.'
She laughed. 'You big oaf. That's what you are-a big sweet oaf. An accidental hero. A mystery man with a quick gun and long coat and a shy streak. What am I?'
He looked at her, summoning distance. 'A beautiful young woman with a whole life in front of her.'
'Not just a girl with a brain the size of a table grape and way more money than she needs?'
'Naw.'
'Good, because you'll be sitting next to me tonight at the grad dinner. It's going to be quite the affair, and you have to b there because you are a guest of honor.'
'Grad dinner?'
'Dad gives a bash for his new Holt Men every six month when they finish training.'
'He calls them Holt Men?'
'That's what they are,' she said cheerfully. 'They're just glorified security guards, even though Dad educates the hell out of them. But you're the guest everyone's dying to meet.'
'Hmmm.'
'Hmmm nothing. It's a perfect time to wear your new suit.'
'Okay, mom.'
Valerie smiled then, a wide-mouthed, honest, forthright smile. It was just a little more open on one side, which revealed some back teeth and gave it a shade of mischief. She looked down at her menu again, with an odd expression of satisfaction on her face. The wind blew a strand of golden brown hair over her round girlish forehead and she caught it without looking up then fingered it back behind her ear.
John felt an odd shifting inside, and a very slight, very clear ringing in his ears.
He spent the rest of the afternoon writing his account of the incident at Olie's Saloon for the Anza Valley News. He used the computer on the dining room table. It ran a brief fifty-five lines. John concentrated on dispelling rumors: the woman was not raped or even hurt; his trailer was the only one burned out; he had in fact shot only once, giving the woman's assailant a minor flesh wound that made her escape possible. He refused to give any names because they had asked him not to. He hoped the whole incident would be forgotten soon and that the citizens of Anza Valley would not worry about a vengeful motorcycle gang overrunning their town. He asked anyone with information about the bikers to call the Sheriff's substation in Indio. He also admitted that the single worst thing about the whole affair was the loss of Rusty-the day's true hero. That evening he walked along the lake with his dogs. He stopped to look at the marina and boathouse, the lovely Hatteras, Carolyn, docked there, the little covey of Boston Whalers tarped against the sun. He could see the beach on the island in the center of the lake and the dark oaks and conifers beyond. On the far shore he made out a row of small cabanas and scaffolding of what looked like a sporting clays tower. He thought back twenty-odd years to the summer days he and his friends would sneak past the 'No Trespassing' signs, hike to the lake and spend the day swimming, fishing, hiking and looking for animals. They had outlegged the sheriffs more than once. He had even spent the night in the cave on the island, for which he was thoroughly thrashed by his father upon returning home late the next afternoon. John was struck that the place was more beautiful now than then-the foliage thicker and the trees more mature and the water level of the lake higher-no doubt due to Vann Holt's attentions. A flock of mallards veed out across the blue water in no hurry whatsoever, a chevron of ripples widening behind them He wished Rebecca could have seen this. He thought about the dream he'd had early that morning, the way she had seemed so present and actual. And tonight, he thought, I'll be having dinner with the man who blew her heart out of her chest.
The foyer of the big house is as brightly lit as a movie set when John walks in, led by a ravishingly beautiful brunette who ha introduced herself as Laura Messinger. John has already recognized her. She takes him by the arm, saying she always wanted to touch a hero. She leads him into the expansive kitchen, at the far end of which is a bar. A waiter approaches and she dismisses him. She asks John his pleasure and gives the bow-tied barman the order. He can smell venison and elk on the stove-top grill, and wild, cilantro-based aroma coming from four huge saucepans.
'Are you a friend of Mr. Holt?' he asks.
'His attorney and techno-weenie, actually. A friend, toe Cheers.'
She hands him the scotch-and-soda and raises her own cocktail glass very sightly, not touching his, then brings it to her thick bright red lips. Her eyes are an astonishing blue that John decide can only be realized by colored lenses. Her breasts are large and tastefully displayed. She could be thirty, but John knows from Weinstein that she is forty-two.
Laura and husband Thurmond are the high-end foreign team for Liberty Operations. You need a hundred capable men to settle unrest on the diamond coast in Namibia? Talk to Laura. Need some small arms know-how in Sierra Leone? Thurmon can help. He's a lapsed Northrup veep who never got his peace dividend and she was third in her law class at Harvard. They aren't salaried-nobody at the Ops is salaried except for Lane Fargo. Last year their take was a little over four-hundred thousand, counting bonuses.
With her arm again on John's, Laura Messinger leads him into the living room. 'Oyez, oyez,' she calls in a mellifluous voice, 'John Menden. 'Heads turn: two dozen of them, men in dinner jackets an women in dresses, tanned healthy faces, mostly middle-aged bi some old and some young, expressions of polite assessment, mild approval, curiosity. The newly minted Holt Men stand out conspicuously, clustered together a little nervously near the fireplace. They are late twenties to late thirties, fit, alert and dressed alike in black slacks and white dinner jackets. They have the bearing of West Point cadets. John regards the guests with his native taciturnity, feeling embarrassed and underdressed. He scans the room quickly for Valerie, resting his glance occasionally on a still- beholding guest. They are clapping.
'Don't embarrass the poor boy too much,' says Laura, smiling at John. 'We don't want to spoil his appetite.'
Then she takes John to the first little group of people, releases his arm and is gone. He can feel the warm spot where her hand was, cooling through the fabric of his linen coat.
'Hey, I've missed your articles in the Journal,' says the first man to shake his hand.
John recognizes him from one of Joshua's endless briefings-Adam Sexton-young, ambitious, married into one of the county's largest landholding families and currently Vice President of Domestic Development for Liberty Operations.
'Thanks. Nice to be back in the county. ' Sexton brings in the genuine dollars for Liberty Ops. Domestic takes in triple what foreign does, prosaic as the work might sound. Home security. Plant Security. Store security. Personal security. Private Investigations. Sexton married straight into the Orange County movers and shakers, waved a vague Manhattan pedigree in front of them, convinced them he was one up on them. Easy to do to Californians, of course. His timing was perfect. When crime started grabbing the headlines a few years back, everybody was worried. Everybody was scared. Nobody could remember it being this bad. Afraid to leave the mansion. Who do we trust? Who do we hire? The cops can't help us. Who can really blast away on our behalf when the gook home invaders from Little Saigon show up, or the gangbangers from Santa Ana come scaling our gated-community walls? Sexton was ready with his sophistication-and-a-touch-of-streetsmarts routine, New York style. Thanks to him they all prefer to use Holt Men-excuse me, Liberty Men now. It's as much a status symbol to have Liberty Ops patrolling your bay front house in Newport as it is to drive the right car or wear the right clothes. Even more so. You own more than just a home or a private plane-you own a man. A Liberty Man. There was a joke going around last year Question: Why is a Holt Man better than a dildo? Answer: dildo can't show itself to the door. You know you've entered a profitable vernacular when rich women joke about the penis size of your employees. Well, thank Sexton for the entree. span›
