Stone Junction (59 page)

Shamus’s face contorted. ‘
Never!
’ he screamed. ‘
No!
’

Volta said softly, ‘The truth.’

‘It’s a trick, a trick, a trick, a trick,’ the hand yammered in Shamus’s ear.

‘I
know it is
, goddammit!’ Shamus yelled at his hand. Shamus began to pace tightly back and forth, keeping the gun trained on Volta. Shamus and his hand were muttering, but both were so low and garbled Volta couldn’t make out a single word. He looked for a lapse in Shamus’s awareness, a point of escape, a move to make. Failing that, he could try to strike one clean, shattering blow to Shamus’s psyche that would make him accept the truth. The longer Shamus paced, growing more careless with the gun, the more Volta liked his chances.

He liked them a whole lot less when Shamus quit pacing and slowly raised the gun until the front bead locked solidly on Volta’s forehead. Sneering, Shamus said, ‘You
cold
bastard. You
heartless
piece of shit. Do you think I’m stupid? I
know
Daniel was the traitor. He tipped you, you tipped the Feds – keep it tidy that way – and now, out of your legendary sense of honor, you are protecting Daniel. It’s an excellent ploy, really. You admit you snitched us to the CIA, but claim it was at the request of a fine, brave woman who is – fortunately for you, heartbreakingly for me – dead. Dead by the treachery of her own son, and the corrupt accomplice of his future mentor who foresaw great possibilities for such a poisoned soul. If I’m interpreting the few whispers I’ve heard correctly, your prize graduate of the black arts has now betrayed you. I always sensed that in Daniel – a feeling that he would only find forgiveness in oblivion.’

‘He has,’ Volta said. ‘But he wasn’t seeking forgiveness. He was seeking beyond sin and forgiveness, and he didn’t return.’

‘Oh my,’ Shamus said derisively, ‘how convenient. Now the only two people who could have told you are––’

Volta cut in sharply, ‘Shamus, think clearly. Daniel is dead. Why wouldn’t I tell you what you need to believe, that it was Daniel who betrayed you? Why?’

Shamus’s hand babbled wildly in his ear, ‘Don’t fall for it he’s fucking your head he has moves and outs and smarts don’t match him don’t let him…’

Shamus, his puzzled gaze locked on Volta’s face, said, ‘Why?’

Volta said, ‘Because the only way you’ll heal is through the truth. And because I respect you, and because I’m now free to help. Annalee betrayed you. That’s the truth.’

Shamus held the bead on Volta’s forehead. ‘You cruel son of a bitch. You know you’re going to die, and even though it makes no difference anymore, you won’t leave what I have left of her undefiled.’

‘I have proof,’ Volta said.

‘
Blow the fucking scum away!
’ the scarred hand squealed. ‘
Do it now!
Don’t listen. Don’t. Don’t
.’

Volta continued, his voice calm, precise: ‘Annalee called me an hour after she’d left your apartment on the day of the planned attempt. Her call came in on a gold-access number, and every gold-access call is automatically taped. The tape is in this room, in a narrow vault behind the mirror to your right. There’s a tape deck on the table behind me.’ He paused, then added, ‘If you want the truth. If you have the spirit to bear it, as I have, for years.’

‘Okay,’ Shamus said with confidence, ‘I’m going to call that bluff.’ He seemed oblivious to his hand’s frenzied drone-chant in his ear, ‘
Nonowdoitnownonowdoitnownonowdoitnownonowdoitnow…
’

‘My compliments,’ Volta said, ‘on an intelligent choice. Your only hope, Shamus, is to accept the truth.’

‘Hey,’ Shamus spit, ‘I’m calling your bluff, remember? And if I’ve caught you, you lose. One piece of your body at a time, or five clips – whichever comes first. So where is this tape?’

‘In a vault behind that mirror. Lift off the mirror and press the nail it hangs on – three long, four short. The vault door will open. The tape is coded AGAPE. I’ll get it myself if you prefer.’

‘Very slowly,’ Shamus murmured, indicating the mirror with a slight movement of the gun barrel.

Breathing deeply, Volta opened the vault as Shamus covered him from ten feet away, his disfigured hand still hovering at his ear, but silent now, as if it too were watching. As soon as the vault door sprang open, Shamus ordered, ‘Now step away from the vault, move ten feet to your right along the wall, and then I want you to assume the position against the wall. You die if you twitch.’

Volta calmly spread his legs and stretched his hands over his head, supporting the weight of his leaning body.

He heard Shamus run the gun barrel down the boxed and stacked cassettes, scanning the codes. There was a sudden silence when he found it.

‘I’d be glad to put it on the deck,’ Volta offered. He felt helpless leaning against the wall.

‘Don’t move,’ Shamus warned. ‘Don’t even jiggle.’

Volta listened as Shamus crossed to the desk and inserted the cassette.

‘Don’t do it, you stupid fucking sentimental fool. You weak-willed, self-
pitying failure. Yellow, spineless whipping-boy idiot of such heroic, soaring
dreams. Give me that gun. You make the decision; I’ll execute it.’

Shamus handed the gun to his ravaged hand and then punched the
play
button on the deck. He moved ten feet from Volta, his back inches from the open vault.

On the tape, a phone rang seven times before Volta answered, ‘Yes?’

ANNALEE:
A woman will plant a bomb at an alley between
Livermore warehouses at Las Postas Avenue this evening. She must be
stopped. She will have a child with her. The child must not be harmed.
If the woman is arrested, the child must be cared for. No one––

VOLTA:
[cutting in] Annalee, I can’t pretend this is an anonymous call.

ANNALEE:
Then I want you to promise me with all your soul
that you’ll never tell anyone who made it. Never. Even if you
have to die.

VOLTA:
Annalee, I can admire what you’re trying to do, even if
it’s too late for safety; I admire your love for him that you would
risk yourself to preserve its possibility; but it’s nonetheless a betrayal
of his trust, a necessity that might have been forestalled if you’d
called when he first returned. I’ll honor your secret as completely as
I can, but I will not die for it.

ANNALEE:
Fine, yes, as far as you can. But stop me from planting
that bomb.

VOLTA:
I assume it’s diversionary. Livermore? Plutonium?

ANNALEE:
Just stop me. And if anything happens, take care
of Daniel.

VOLTA:
I’ll try, Annalee. That’s all I can do.

ANNALEE:
Do it.

The tape clicked off.

Volta, face to the wall, couldn’t see Shamus’s reaction, so he said what he felt: ‘I’m sorry you had to hear it, Shamus. I know it’s painful.’

‘
Painful?
’ Shamus laughed wildly. ‘That
fake?
That cruel, cowardly, chickenshit
fake?
Who was it, one of the legendary AMO mimics? Maybe even this Jean Bluer I’ve been hearing about? Fuck, you can
hear
the splices! It isn’t even
close
to her voice. I remember her voice. I remember her laughter and skin! Proof?
Bullshit!
Truth? Here, Volta, turn around here, I’ll show you the fucking
truth
.’

Volta turned to face Shamus. When he saw the gun in Shamus’s scarred hand, Volta knew he was about to die.

Shamus wailed, ‘You want the truth, huh, the
whole truth
and
nothing
but
, and not any of your
bullshit
lies?’ He grabbed the mirror leaning against the wall and thrust it toward Volta, holding it up for him to see his face. ‘There! That’s
your
truth. Look at it! Look! Look at yourself!
Look at what you are!
’

Volta met himself on the surface of the mirror. He looked into his own eyes. No escape. He lifted his head and met Shamus’s gaze. ‘I know who I am,’ Volta said.

The bullet hit Volta above the left eye, the impact snapping his head back as it blew away the back of his skull. He staggered for an instant, took a stumbling step forward, swayed as he gathered his last living breath, and then, just as Shamus lifted the mirror to shield himself, Volta drove his fist through it, shattering the glass. A splintered shard sliced the carotid artery an inch below Shamus’s left ear, and another nearly severed his scarred hand at the wrist.

Volta wanted to stay on his feet, to walk outside and watch the moon and stars as he died, but Shamus – howling, blinded by glass slivers – shoved him backward. Volta collapsed against the table, sending the goldfish bowl smashing to the floor.

Shamus, his spurting wrist pressed against his shirt, his other hand clamped against his neck, staggered along the wall until he found the door, fumbled the knob open with his blood-slick hand, and lurched outside.

Volta lay dead face down alongside the table, his arms stretched out slightly above his head, the spreading pool of blood just touching his fingertips.

Spilled free of its shattered bowl, the tiny goldfish flopped on the oak floor, trying to fling itself back into the lake, the spherical river. A last wild leap carried it to the edge of the pooling blood. The goldfish thrashed itself upright, then, its back shining above the shallow pool, half squirmed, half swam through Volta’s blood, splashed up the shallows like a golden salmon battling upriver to spawning grounds, its movement mirrored in the sinuous waves spreading in its wake, fought on across the surface, to shimmy at last up the star-flecked, moon-spangled sleeve of Volta’s magician robe.

Still naked, the silk comforter pulled snugly around her, Jenny stared into the Diamond. She hadn’t seen him actually enter it – in fact, she’d been drowsing when she’d realized he had left – but she knew that’s where he’d gone. She wasn’t sad she’d helped him on his way. No difference between dream lovers and real lovers like Longshot or the mangled love of Clyde. Love was what you made, then what you could make of it. Abandoned on her wedding night. Widowed at consummation. She looked into the centerless, sourceless light of the Diamond and decided she’d wait for Daniel till dawn. If he’d rather vanish than settle down with a crazy woman and an imaginary daughter – fine and farewell. The love they’d made was real even if he wasn’t. Any man who kissed her scar was always free to go. And so was she.

When the first sunlight touched the Diamond, Jenny slipped it carefully back in the possibles sack, slung the comforter around her, and walked back to the Porsche. She decided to believe Daniel’s information: Jim Bridger’s grave was in Saint Louis. Perfect. She could try Longshot’s sludge-reaming cure, continue on to Saint Lou, fall in love with the faithful, fascinating DJ she hoped was real, and then, if Daniel hadn’t showed up, get rid of the Diamond. After looking at it most of the night, Jenny decided she didn’t like the Diamond. Too perfect. Lifeless. As she opened the car door, Jenny felt a strong suspicion that the Diamond wasn’t real, another illusion, a mirror to hide behind.

When she opened the Porsche’s door she immediately sensed what her eyes confirmed: Mia was gone. ‘That rotten son of a bitch!’ Jenny said. ‘Fuck you and burn you and leave you alone in the Big Alone.’ Daniel had taken Mia with him, wherever the hell they’d gone.

Rage vented, Jenny considered two other possibilities: perhaps Mia had followed him freely; or maybe Mia had been his guide. Mia could have imagined him in her trance. Made him bring the Diamond. Get her mother lost in rapture and slip her mind for a different life.
Her
own imaginary daughter running off with her dream lover!

She laughed. She wished them happiness and good fortune.

When Smiling Jack’s third straight-access call to Volta went unanswered, he caught a plane for the Coast. He could have asked a number of Alliance members closer to Laurel Creek to check on Volta, but he felt he should do it himself. Volta had never failed to return a straight-access call. If Volta was dead, Jack would know which secrets to protect.

As Smiling Jack stepped out of his rented Ford at Laurel Creek Hollow, he smelled amid the light fragrance of the blossoming apple and plums in the orchard the stench of rotting flesh drifting through the house’s open door. Jack tried to steady himself, clearing his mind so he could discern what had happened and what needed to be done.

Despite the sprayed splatters of blood on the porch, he checked the house first. He had tried to prepare himself but was still shocked to see Volta’s body face down in the gelatinous pool of blood, a whining swarm of flies clustered in the ragged cavity the bullet had blown in the back of his skull. He wanted to drag Volta from the coagulated mire of his blood to spare him the indignity of being seen like that. But Smiling Jack left him lying and methodically began to examine the room. The open wall-vault. The smashed mirror. The tape box next to the player. The heavy trail of blood leading out the door.

Jack wanted to hear the tape, but instead he followed the blood trail out to the porch, across the yard, then downhill toward the river. Smiling Jack would have bet his customized Kenworth against a sheet of one-ply toilet paper that he’d find Shamus Malloy dead within a quarter mile. He would have won by a hundred yards. Shamus’s body, the slashed wrist of his deformed hand clamped to his sliced neck as if the blood could pass between the wounds, was curled at the base on a majestic Douglas fir. Jack carried Shamus’s body up the hill, leaving it at the edge of the trees.

Jack listened to the tape three times before he erased it, then looked at Volta’s body. To Jack’s mind, once Volta had agreed to help her stop the theft, he had drawn his line in exactly the right place: He would honor her secret, but he wouldn’t die to protect treachery, no matter how lofty its cause. Volta had drawn his line precisely, honored his promise to the point of exposing himself, then honored himself at the threat of death by giving Shamus the truth. And died for it. There are no lines you can draw against an unbearable truth.