'-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.'
Holt stopped halfway down the stairs, turned, and drove a very strong finger into John's chest. 'That's what happens when people don't stay where they belong and take care of their own ground. That's what happens when they sneak into this country, breed like fleas and try to steal away what they haven't worked for and don't understand. That's what happens when two innocent people go out for lunch one afternoon in this fucked up melting pot of a republic we've got. And that's why you stay and fight it out. That's why you make a stand on the ground that raised you. That's why you give a fuck. Right, Lane?'
'Right, Mr. Holt.'
Fargo was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, a briefcase on the floor beside him. He stared as John descended.
Behind him stood two young men, one with short blond hair, the other with a 1950's flat-top grown long on the sides. They were wedge-shaped and huge. The blond wore a tennis shirt and slacks; Flat-top wore a loose fitting suit. Flat-top had a sharply triangular face, giving him the look of a mantis. They stood with legs apart and hands behind their backs, unmoving. Their eyes were hidden behind identical pairs of dark sunglasses.
'Ready?' asked Holt.
'Ready, sir.'
Holt walked across the floor without looking back.
'John, go with Fargo,' he ordered into the echoing caverns of the house. 'He's got some questions you'll need to answer if I'm going to hire that gun of yours.'
CHAPTER 21
Fargo walked him along the row of Liberty Ops cottages, the two big men behind them. John felt the heat of the sun on his face as he glanced at the closed doors. In the parking spaces were three Liberty Operations patrol cars and two orange-and-black command vans. There were blinds on the windows of the building drawn against the fierce sunshine, but through the slats of the martial arts room John saw a man mid-air, heading for the ma In the library were the shapes of bodies bent over tables. In the classroom he saw Thurmond Messinger lecturing to a group of cadets.
John's nerves were brittle and his heart felt flighty and anxious. Fargo will be the Grand Inquisitor so Holt can be the generous king. But remember, Fargo is Holt's ears and eyes, his fist Fargo is Holt, and Holt is Fargo.
'Here, John,' said Fargo. 'Up the steps, okay?'
John climbed to the wooden deck surrounding the last Liberty Operations cottage. Fargo pushed open the door and let John in first. He could hear the footfalls of the big boys as he stepped into the air-conditioned cool of the room.
The light was dim because the shades were drawn. The floor was hardwood and there was an industrial desk along one wall a chair behind and in front of it, and a couch opposite, along the front windows. The desktop was completely empty. John noted water cooler, two worktables pushed to one wall, and a hallway leading back to what he assumed were restrooms. A surveillance camera hung in one corner. The air conditioner hummed away, though the room was cold.
'Have a seat here in front of the desk, John,' said Fargo. 'Partch, Snakey, sit on the couch. Oh, John, this is Partch and that's Snakey. Friends.'
John turned and nodded. Partch, the blond in the tennis shirt, nodded back; Snakey simply stared at him through his black glasses, his mantis-like head unmoving. When they sat on the couch it seemed to shrink.
Fargo settled behind the desk, unlocked a drawer and removed a manila file folder, which he set before him and opened. Out came a yellow note pad. John could see some writing on the first two pages, which Fargo perused, then flipped behind the backing. Under the notepad lay some loose papers.
Fargo seemed to have a rather sunny glow about him, for Fargo. His black hair was mussed from the wind and his face looked tanned. The mustache was freshly trimmed, though it still drooped. He was back in his standard uniform: black t-shirt and jeans, black boots, black shoulder holster and automatic. A gasket of black hair sprouted up from his lower neck, rimming the collar of his shirt. He smiled, collapsing the humanity of his face into a pointy- toothed mask that suggested to John a deep and abiding sickness of soul.
'Enjoying yourself on Liberty Ridge?' Fargo asked.
'Yeah, it's nice.'
'Nice,' said Lane. 'That's very nice. When Mr. Holt told me you'd be staying a few days, I did my usual- checked you out.'
'Hope I passed,' said John.
'Mr. Holt has a way of taking people in sometimes. Every once in a while, we get a bad one.'
'You can count the silverware out at the cottage.'
'We're not talking about silverware.'
'What are we talking about?'
'For starters, Rebecca Harris. How close were you with her?'
'Not very,' John answered, before he had fully assimilated the question. He now imagined The Lie-that he had scarcely even talked to her. He and Josh had perfected The Lie. To imagine The Lie was to see in his mind a black gray wall, round and tall, like the inside of a well, perhaps, and himself at the bottom of it, staring up. The wall was Rebecca.
'But how close is not very? Elaborate for me here, John-Boy-it sets the right tone and gets this little interview over quicker. If I get the feeling you're holding out, I'll just send you packing.'
