Infamous (15 page)

She looked at A.J. and he saw on her face everything that he was feeling. Confusion, desire, embarrassment—and wonder. A whole hell of a lot of wonder.
Like, Did that actually just happen and could it really have been that incredible …?

“Getting ready to go,” A.J. finished for her. “Dr. Carter has a meeting and I, uh, have to, um, let her go to that meeting. As much as I’d rather … not.”

He took his hat from where he’d set it on the kitchen table, and nodded to Alison as he stepped around Hugh and opened the door. “Have a nice evening. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” A.J. heard Hugh say as he went down the steps and out into the dusty street.
“Now
I know why he was in such a screaming hurry to find you. Damn, girlfriend …”

A.J. didn’t hear what Alison said in reply, but then he heard Hugh, loud and clear.
“A rattlesnake
was inside your
house?”

I had had a bitch of a day.

Even though spirits didn’t feel exhaustion, I was frustrated by the fruitlessness of my afternoon-long search for the tall, ponytailed killer-of-Wayne. When I’d found neither him nor his mysterious murder-mate, Gene, in the various lowlife bars and pool halls of Tucson, I changed tack and returned to Jubilation. Where I searched for FBI Rob and his partner, Agent Lombardi.

They should have been easier to find—I knew what their car looked like. But I found neither it nor them.

I did find Alison, sitting in on a meeting in the production trailer. She was arguing with the baseball-cap-clad director about the logistics of the shoot-out in the saloon.

“Silas Quinn doesn’t mention reloading,” she was saying stubbornly. “Come on, Henry, I know
Red Rock
and all the other movies made it seem as if the gunfight went on for hours, but it didn’t. These things happened fast. The Kellys all had six-guns—revolvers with six bullets—as did Quinn. Think about it. He had to have been a remarkable shot to kill as many of them as he did.”

“He was atrociously bad,” I said, but of course, she didn’t hear me.

“If he weren’t an amazing marksman, if he hadn’t immediately taken most of the Kellys out, he would have been hit by
a virtual wall of bullets,” she continued. “Seven gang members, seven guns. Some had one on each hip.”

“What if Quinn had a shotgun?” one of the production assistants suggested. “He could have just walked up and boom, one barrel takes out half of ’em, boom, the next finishes the rest of ’em off.…”

Henry laughed. “I kind of like that image.”

“But he doesn’t say he had a shotgun,” Alison argued. “It wouldn’t be historically accurate.”

“The way the story’s currently told, it’s completely fiction,” I said, “so it doesn’t much matter.”

“He doesn’t say he used his revolver during the shootout, either,” Henry pointed out. “Maybe he left that detail out on purpose.”

“But he always had his revolver,” Alison said. “Always. That’s why he didn’t mention it. If he were suddenly carrying a shotgun? That would be different. He would have mentioned it.”

If a blue orangutan had been sitting at the bar at the Red Rock that evening, Quinn wouldn’t have mentioned it, because none of his account was even remotely true. But I wasn’t able to appear to these people and set them straight. A.J. was going to have to do that.

“Maybe,” Henry said. “Maybe not. It certainly provides a new twist on the legend—the shotgun idea. And it answers the question about how he could have killed so many of them so quickly, while being barely wounded himself.”

Alison was shaking her head. “The way I see it,” she said, “and a far more fascinating aspect to the legend, is that it’s all about the randomness. Where was Kid Gallagher standing, that he wasn’t one of the gang members immediately killed by Quinn? Did he get up, I don’t know, to go to the bathroom or to get another drink? Why, with so many of the Kellys dead, did
he
survive? What did he do differently? Quinn doesn’t go into detail of who was sitting or standing where.”

“What we should do,” the redheaded kid sat forward to say, “is find some sharpshooters and stage a reenactment, like with paintballs.”

“No way are we using paintballs in the actual Red Rock Saloon,” Alison said. “But … We could maybe use some kind of, I don’t know, laser system …?”

“Do it,” Henry ordered. “Set it up.”

“Me?” Alison asked.

“A.J. will help you,” I told her, and then I realized that since she was here, in this meeting, then she wasn’t still with Age, which was kind of a shame.

I’d been hesitating to jump to him, for fear—well, no, more like for
hope
that I’d pop in on something private. And by that I don’t mean that I
hoped
I’d pop in when they were … You know what I mean. My hope was that they were getting to know each other, not that I’d witness it.

So I jumped to A.J. now, thinking maybe I’d be rerouted to Tucson, but instead, I ended up waking him from a nap as he sat in his truck with his AC blasting.

The sun hadn’t yet set, and until the night cooled the desert down, crawling into that little tent he’d pitched on the outskirts of town would be like crawling into an Easy-Bake Oven.

Having made camp myself, plenty of times, in the Arizona desert, I knew that he was wishing rather desperately that the motel hadn’t been sold out. Or that he’d accepted the production staff’s offer to rent him a trailer, before they’d run out. But it was what it was, and he wasn’t going to complain. At least not near as loudly as I would’ve.

And I have to confess, I was a little snotty to him after I asked, “Sorry, are you sleeping?” and he said, “Not anymore.”

“Well, if I’m not real,” I said, “then I couldn’t’ve just woken you up, could I have?”

“That’s right,” he agreed with his eyes closed again. “And that’s nothing new. I wake myself up all the time.”

“You didn’t used to,” I said. “Back when you were a boy, you slept like a baby.”

He sighed. And turned to look at me. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Alison needs a sharpshooter or seven,” I told him.

“What for?” he asked and I explained what I’d overheard.

“You still handy with a gun?” I asked.

“It’s been awhile,” he said. “A long time.”

Back when he was a tyke, I’d taught him how to shoot and how to properly handle a deadly weapon. He was good at hitting stationary targets—a natural, you know?

Of course, I’d shown him my fast draw, too, although at ninety-plus, I’d slowed way down. He’d gotten the hang of that, too, rather quickly, which is why I’d teasingly called him “Kid.”

“It’s important that we help Alison find someone who can do this,” I told A.J. “When she sees how ridiculously implausible Quinn’s version of the shoot-out is, well, that’s going to make her wonder what else he lied about.”

“What if she doesn’t want our help?” he asked.

I laughed. “Kid, I saw her kissing you. Trust me, she wants your help.” I glanced at him. “Any innuendo in that statement is purely unintentional.”

“Have you ever done anything unintentional?” he asked me wryly.

“Sure,” I said. “Plenty of times. I just can’t think of any right now. So come on. Wake it on up. Let’s get your full amount of synapses firing. When are you seeing her again?”

“Alison?” A.J. asked.

“No,” I said. “The
other
girl you were soul-kissing in her kitchen. Yes, Alison.”

He sighed. “Look, I’m not sure yet what that was, but …”

“It was the engraved invitation you were looking for,” I said, “but all right. You don’t know what it is when a woman all but throws herself into your arms. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she slipped. You can ask her. You
are
going to see her again, aren’t you? Some time tonight?”

A.J. shook his head no. “She had plans.”

“Well, son,” I said. “This is your lucky day. I took a look at her schedule. She’s meeting what’s her name, Summer or Autumn—the actress playing Mel—at that roadhouse, that honky-tonk. What’s it called? I guess it doesn’t need a name, it’s the only watering hole in town that’s not an exorbitantly
priced museum. You know the place. It’s on the corner of Main Street and Mexicali. She’ll be there at eight.”

A.J. opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.

“Now, I know you don’t want to go in there,” I told him. “I get that. I respect that. I agree with that decision. But you
can
run into her on the sidewalk out front, am I right or am I right?”

He didn’t look as thrilled as I was at my plan. “It’s been a long time since I’ve handled a firearm,” he said, harking back to that. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to help her.”

“But you know someone who can,” I pointed out. “Your friend. What’s his name. The one your mother keeps trying to get you to call. Greg.”

“Craig Lutz?” A.J. was surprised. He laughed. “You agree with my mother, and think I should call Lutz.
That’s
a twist I didn’t expect.”

Before we’d left Alaska, the kid’s mother, Rose, had tried to convince him to call this friend of his, Craig Lutz. Craig had served with A.J. over in Iraq, and had been through some of the same things A.J. had. The idea being that a man might not want to talk about the horrors of war with his family, and he might not even want to talk about it with those very friends he’d served with, but that he
would
get some relief by spending time with them—knowing that they’d been there, that they
knew
.

This Craig was apparently some kind of fancy commando-type—special forces or special operations—I never could get them straight. And I never did quite understand how A.J., who was regular army, got to know the man in the first place. But war isn’t always neatly organized and tidily set up, so somehow they’d ended up in the same village, working for the same goal.

And in the time they’d spent together, they’d become close friends.

“You know why my mother wanted me to call Lutz, don’t you?” A.J. asked me now.

I did know. She’d mentioned her reasons in that prior conversation. Something about the importance of A.J. having
friends who weren’t invisible. But I went beneath that immediate and superficial reason, and dug down to the good woman’s true, loving-mother’s motivation. “Because she’s watched you become more and more isolated over the years. It takes one to know one—she’s done it herself. And she doesn’t want you ending up as alone and lonely as she is.”

A.J. brushed that away. “She thinks if I have a real friend to talk to, then I won’t need you. She thinks you’ll just vanish. Problem gone. Mental illness cured.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“Except,” A.J. pointed out, “when she says to call Lutz.”

“It is possible for a person to be partly right. You know, she lost a lot when your father died,” I reminded him. “She’s learned to view the world through a much harsher lens.”

“I lost a lot, too,” A.J. countered, but then he turned to look at me. “Those stories you used to tell me—about my father. Were they true?”

“They were,” I said. There was never a need for embellishment, at least as far as Ryan Austin Gallagher had been concerned.

Ryan was a one. You know the type. Straight A’s in school, but damned if a week never went by when he didn’t cut classes at least once. He was always in trouble of some kind, and always using his smile to get himself out of it. And, often as not, succeeding.

Rose Hawkes was the smartest girl in the school. She also happened to be the prettiest, but no one could see past her spectacles and the hand-me-downs she used to wear. No one but Ryan.

I’m not sure exactly how and where they met, but they did meet. I remember the first time he brought her home for dinner. She was the first and only girl to whom he’d ever offered that invitation. I was over that night, and I remember it well.

She told me she was studying to be a doctor. She had this way of looking at you that was real direct, real honest. I liked her right away.

I knew she’d be able to handle Ryan’s bullcrap, and I also
knew that ol’ lightning bolt had struck him full force, despite the fact that he was just a kid.

Damn, what was he? Seventeen. He was just seventeen years old, just a baby. But like I said, he was a smart kid, and once he decided that he wanted Rose Hawkes, he was gonna have Rose Hawkes.

The only problem was, Rose had Plans. She was going to medical school, and there was no medical school in Heaven. Hell, at the time, there wasn’t even a medical school in Fairbanks.

She’d been accepted at a school back east, in Boston. Pre-med. She’d received a full scholarship. She was leaving a few weeks after graduation, in the middle of July.

Ryan was heartbroken. He asked her to stay. He bought her an engagement ring, asked her to change her mind. He wept, he railed, he begged, he pleaded, and he prayed.

And when mid-July rolled around, we weren’t throwing Rose a farewell party, we were throwing Rose and Ryan a wedding feast.

I didn’t quite get it, but Rose seemed happy. She loved Ryan, that much was clear. And he adored her.

A year after they were married, Beverly was born. A few years later, A.J. arrived. He was also a one, just like his dad. I could see it, right from the start. But I’m not telling his story right now, I’m talking about Rose.

Rose didn’t have her college education or her medical degree, but she had two of the sweetest, healthiest babies in all of Heaven, and she had Ryan, who loved her deeply. Life was great.

And then Ryan got drafted. He got called up to serve in a faraway place called Vietnam.

So Ryan kissed Rose and Bev and A.J. good-bye, and he got on a ship and went to Vietnam, where he died.

When the telegram arrived, Rose went into shock. She was like some kind of zombie, just going through the motions of taking care of her children. It went on like that literally for years.

It was as if a part of her had died with Ryan.

Hell, I knew what that felt like. Part of me had died with Mel back in 1944.

It took me awhile—and a case of a mysterious “flu,” which kept me bound to a bed for a few weeks and made Rose and the kids move in, to take care of me. But I finally cajoled and insulted the girl into taking college courses by mail. Don’t be a ninny, I used to say when she talked about getting a job down at the grocery store. You don’t want to be a grocer, you want to be a doctor. And slowly but surely, and then faster and faster, she started to work toward her degree. Because life goes on.