but her chin quivered.
'We'll get there, Dad.'
'I know we will, dear child. Hey, I'm entertaining some not-very-interesting people for lunch today, around noon. Laura and Thur said they'd like to have you over to their place. I told them you'd be there.'
Valerie breathed in deeply, then let it out. Holt hadn't seen such sadness in her eyes since Pat and Mom.
'I was planning to take my lunch over to the island. Just me. I've got some thoughts I'd like to be alone with.'
'Then I'll tell them you had a previous engagement.'
'Thanks, Dad.'
She stepped forward and kissed him. 'I want to say just one thing. I want you to know that I never did anything to you, or for you, that wasn't done out of love.'
Holt smiled. 'I'm trying to remember a time when I doubted that.'
'There will be doubt in the days ahead, Dad.'
Holt felt that great choke of emotion taking hold of his throat, that big lump that seemed to catch just under his voice box and made his eyes grow tears. He reached out and they hugged again, but Valerie broke it off and backed away with an attempted smile.
'I hear John's running an errand for you later.'
'Just bringing the client up for lunch. Rich lady from Newport, thinks her husband is fooling around. Not with his secretary, with her money. Of course.'
'Glad to miss that one.'
'I thought you would be. When you're alone with your thoughts on the island today, send a pleasant one my way. I'll snag it, and send one back.'
'You got it,' she said, turning to leave.
'Honey? Send Lane down here, will you?'
Fargo appeared five minutes later, just like Fargo would, Holt thought, not there and no entrance, then suddenly sitting one seat away from you in the theater. Over the years he had become used to Fargo's invisible arrivals and departures. He could see that the dark man's hair was mussed from the steady wind outside and that Lane had hung his sunglasses over the neck of his black t-shirt.
'Sunday morning cartoons, boss?'
'How's everybody seem to be taking it?'
'Pretty good, Mr. Holt. Val was disappointed you didn't tell her first.'
'Scott?'
'Can't read a guy like him. He's probably still talking to his God about it. Got them to the airport an hour ago. How are you feeling?'
'Strong.'
'How come you're looking at a blank screen?'
But Holt plowed through Fargo's questions, as he did John's and everyone else's. 'Val's going to start taking over the Ops. She'll need all the help and support you can give her.'
Fargo said nothing for a moment, then: 'She'll get it.'
'And when I go, she'll be the one in charge.'
'I figured it like that.'
'Disappointed?'
'Yeah. You and me built the Ops, not her.'
'I don't blame you. I've drawn up an agreement with the bank that will put two million in your pocket after I go. It's separate from the estate plan and company by-laws, which I still haven't gotten around to changing. Haven't executed that bank arrangement yet. Obviously, I wanted to hear you out.'
Holt could see in Fargo's eyes the ill-concealed disappointment and the flicker of menace. 'You always did right by me. Mr. Holt. When it comes down to it, I'd rather run the Ops than cash out, even for that much. I'm firm, there. I think you know that's what I'm about. But if it's Val's show it's Val's show. Maybe I'll take the money and split. I gotta little time to think, don't I?'
Holt studied his factotum and felt stymied-not for the first time-by Lane Fargo's odd amalgam of subservience and ambition.
'I'll need you more than ever these next months, Lane.'
'You got me, boss. I don't have to say it, but I will anyway-I didn't just stay here for the money. I stayed here for honest work with a guy who didn't take any shit from the world. I stayed here to build something good with my life-Liberty Ops. Something that lets the little guy stand up to creeps and the government. I've always been proud to stand by you.'
Holt reached across the empty theater seat and laid his hand on Fargo's shoulder. He could feel the cool leather of the shoulder strap over the cotton.
'Follow Menden this morning.'
'I figured you'd want that.'
'Let him know you're there. Don't want him to start thinking for himself.'
'He's not capable of it.'
'Anyway, when you come back past the Big House, let him bring her up to Top of the World. You park here. Stay around. Keep your eyes open. Stay mobile. I need to know you're out there, watching my back.'
'That's what I do best, boss.'
Fargo stood to go, then sat back down.
'I gotta favor to ask you, Mr. Holt. If you can arrange it. I'd like to take care of Menden when it's time. I hate that cute face of his and I know what he's doing with Valerie. It'd be good for me, if it's all the same to you.'
Holt nodded and Fargo rose again.
'If it works out that way.'
'I'd be grateful, sir.'
'Let me ask you something, Fargo. You get the feeling something's about to go down? Besides this thing with Baum?'
Fargo actually raised his face to the air, like a bird-dog might, then crossed his arms over his chest. Holt had seen Fargo do this dozens of times: Lane's way of assessing the moment, of judging the invisible physics of threat.
'No. I'm not getting that.'
'Good. Something just seems a little off to me.'
'Damned wind gets on my nerves. But you should always listen to your instincts, Mr. Holt.'
Holt did in fact sit in the theater after Fargo had gone, staring at the blank big-screen, listening to many things. He heard the wind moaning outside. He heard the cells replicating inside him. He heard Baum's voice-the self-righteous tone of outrage she used on TV-but now she was pleading for her life instead of a full-scale investigation into Patrick Holt's treatment of women. He heard Valerie's and Fargo's words. And he heard the quiet voice that always counseled him in times of engagement, now telling him that when he was gone, Fargo would do anything he had to get the Ops for himself.
John awoke at five a.m. after a dream in which Joshua, a six-gun in each hand, simultaneously blew away Vann Holt and John Menden. He was drenched in sweat. He listened to the sound of the wind rattling the windowpanes of his cottage. Valerie was huddled to the far end of the bed so he reached out and set his hand on her shoulder-so warm, so smooth. And now, he thought, it's time to betray you. In his state of half-consciousness he tried to let his mind find a way to take down Holt without breaking Valerie's heart. But the more he tried to find one, the more he awakened and the more impossible it became to even imagine such a way. It was the deal I made for you, dear woman, he thought, right from the beginning. Now comes the follow through.
So again his thoughts returned to Joshua, and the perilous course the agent had chosen. He had long understood that Joshua would risk everything he had to avenge Rebecca-this was the motor behind all that had happened in the last months. But not until last night had he realized that Joshua was willing to risk Baum, John himself, and even Sharon, in his unilateral charge of revenge. Everyone else would come second. John realized that on a primal level, Joshua needed to see him dead. John's death would be the purest retribution for what John had
