The dare was not taken.
“Well, it’s a tough world out here,” True continued. “We all know that. We use whatever skills we have, don’t we? And there’s so much competition for jobs, and people having to take whatever they can get. And maybe, if you were Jeremy Pett, you’d had plans set out for your entire life, that you were going to work harder than anyone else—I mean bone-hurting, back-breaking hard—and earn yourself and your family a home in the Corps. But you know, plans sometimes just don’t work out. Little things go wrong, here and there. Oops, sorry. Here’s your certificate, and this fine medal for you to look at and remember the day you were somebody. But now, you need to go out in that world of civilians and find yourself a job, you with your training to be the best of the best and to kill people at over eight hundred yards.”
True leaned forward in his chair. “And maybe in time…after you keep hitting a wall that will not move…and after you realize you live in a world that can’t ever measure up to what you once knew…you start trying to find a new enemy, because only a battlefield makes you feel worth living.” True nodded. “I think that’s his story, and I won’t be another bastard who’s kicked him to the curb. If it’s within my power, I’m going to save his life.”
True stood up, with the shotglass in his hand. “Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Fisk. I’m going to bed now.” The couch in the den, he meant. “I’ll set my alarm.” There was no need to set his alarm, he woke up at whatever time he decided to awaken the night before, but he wanted them to have confidence that he would not oversleep. He never overslept. He headed for the kitchen, to place the shotglass in the sink, and Ariel retreated to give him room.
Before True entered the den and closed the door, Nomad said, “One question, man. What if Jeremy Pett aims the rifle at you first? Still figuring to save his life if that happens?”
True didn’t answer. The door closed at his back.
Near six in the morning, True’s cellphone buzzed. He was on it at once, his eyes bleary and his mouth tasting like wood shavings from a barroom floor but his senses already sharpening.
< >
“Good morning, Truitt,” said the familiar voice. “I’m sending you an email attachment. It’s something you need to see post haste.”
“What is it?”
“Connor Addison started talking around midnight. It’s all on the video.”
“Okay.” True rubbed his eyes with one hand. “Send it over.”
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve got a few dozen Pett sightings to go through, but there were two yesterday in Nogales. Made within hours of each other. One by a local policeman. We’ve got some people asking questions down there, strictly unofficial and very low-key.”
“Alright. Good.”
“He could’ve made it over,” said the man at the office in Tucson. “You know, we might need to talk here pretty soon about cutting back. This is taking a lot of resources.”
“Yeah, I’m aware of that.”
“A lot of manpower. I’ve got other things going on.”
“Sure, I know,” True said. He had slept in his clothes. Every part of him felt wrinkled.
The question came, as he’d known it was going to: “Can you make do with one team?”
True sighed. Heavily, so it could be heard.
“Just asking. Would you consider it and get back to me?”
“Yeah,” True said. He worked a tight muscle in his left shoulder. “I’ll get back.”
When the caller had finished, True put his laptop on the desk and turned it on. He checked that all the lights were where they were supposed to be on the den’s wireless cable modem, and then he yawned so wide his jaw muscles cracked and he went to work.
TWENTY-FIVE.
True didn’t like their two rooms at the Days Inn Motel on West Sunset. He thought the windows were too open to a parking lot on the east side of the building, and though the teams in the Yukons would be sitting out there taking turns on shift with their day binoculars and night goggles he just didn’t feel good about it. He had their rooms changed to the west side, where the windows were blocked by another structure. Then he went to his own room down the hall, unpacked his gear, splashed some cold water in his face from the bathroom tap, and lay on his back on the bed while he called his wife and asked her how her day was going.
Everything’s good here, he told her. California sunshine. Traffic wasn’t so bad. The band’s doing a remote interview from the Cobra Club—yeah, that’s the name of it—with Nancy Grace this afternoon, you might want to watch that show tonight. You remember the talent agency guy I was telling you about? Roger Chester? He set it up. Greta van Susteren’s people are supposed to call me. We’re doing a couple of radio interviews before the gig. Do you like that word? So, anyway, it’s shaping up to be another mad minute like yesterday.
Her phrase: mad minute. A period of chaotic activity where you just put your head down and held on like a cat in the curtains.
He told her everything was under control. He had what he needed. Yes, he knew he’d forgotten his fish oil supplements, he’d left them on the vitamin shelf. His clothes steamer wasn’t working like it should, he thought they’d gotten a bum one from that whole stack of them at Target. But he had what he needed. He told her there were palm trees lining the boulevard outside just like in the movies, and she would go crazy to see the huge Off Broadway shoe warehouse that was almost right across the street. He said for her not to worry, he was going to find a place with a good salad bar.
He didn’t tell her about the IHOP across the way, because she knew how he liked to mix syrupy pancakes, crumbled-up bacon and yellow-drippy eggs into a scrumpdiliumptous feast that laughed a hearty big fat man’s laugh at Omega-3 pills, but he didn’t have that very often. Only when there was an IHOP within range.
Love you, she told him.
Love you, he answered. I’ll call tomorrow.
Needless to say. He called her every day he was out of town.
Be careful, she said.
Always, he answered.
Their ritual, their touching of hands over distance.
He put the phone down and lay back on the bed, and he stared at the cottage-cheese ceiling and wondered if and when he should do it.
Before their sound check? After the gig?
Should he do it at all?
Would he want to know, if he were one of them?
This was one of the decisions they paid him to make. It was his call. Those young people up the hall were adults. It wasn’t right, keeping this from them, but then again…what good did it do, to show them?
He asked himself another question: if he was the father to any one of them, would he want his son or daughter to know?
He lay there a while longer, turning his decision this way and that to give himself an out if he wanted it. Then he got up, took his laptop and left the room.
“Mr. True,” said Nomad when he answered the knock. “How do you do?” The air had been a little tight today, a little frosty on that drive up from San Diego, but True had survived tighter and colder climates.