Dietrich nods. No need to openly question orders. Because accidents happen. Crossfire, and such. “Got it. The boy. And the sheriff.”
Rigo walks back to the front door, then stops with his hand on the knob. He takes one more moment to indulge himself and contemplate how exactly he’ll put Dietrich down when the moment comes. Quick headshot, like a beloved dog, or something in the body, something low and painful, that leaves you to bleed out like a bitch? I’ll just go with the flow, he thinks. Do what feels right in the moment.
Rigo picks the toothpick from his mouth and tosses it casually on the plush carpet, then says, “Twenty minutes. Not before. I need time to thank the good sheriff for all he’s done for us.”
29.
IT’S A SUNNY DAY and the late afternoon’s bright, but Fran’s got the curtains drawn tight, as she waits on the sofa in her living room under the light of a single lamp. Isaac’s curled up and reading his library novel beside her, his unearthed treasure box nestled on his lap. She’s so lost in the wreckage of her recollected memories that she doesn’t hear the knocking at first. Isaac prods her. “Mom, there’s someone at the door. Mom—”
She listens. Sure enough. Fucking finally, she thinks, and jumps up from the sofa. Cooper’s here. She knew he would come. Lord knows, they’ve had their history. But that’s one thing she’s learned about him. He knows when he’s needed.
“All right, Isaac, grab your things and let’s go,” she says. He grabs his backpack, all packed up. As for her, she didn’t pack anything. There’s nothing here she cares to take with her, except the book from the library. She’ll keep that.
Another knock. More insistent.
Okay, Cooper, we’re coming, she thinks.
She motions Isaac over toward her, then gathers herself, and opens the door—ready to crack a joke to Cooper about how he certainly took his precious fucking time riding over on his big white horse.
But it’s not Cooper. It’s that woman. The one in the black pantsuit. The agent. She’s got two other agents behind her, the redheaded one and the big one. Immediately Fran knows something terrible is about to happen.
“Fran Adams?” says Santayana.
“That’s right,” Fran says.
“I have someone who wants to speak with you.” The agent holds out a flat electronic tablet. She swipes the screen, once, twice, before it pops brightly to life.
“We’re good, sir,” Santayana says to someone, not Fran.
Fran looks at the agent, then back at the screen. There’s a man sitting at a desk. He’s looking straight into the camera. Straight at her. Friendly face. He clears his throat. She knows this man. It’s the man from the TV in the Laundromat. The man from the article.
Mark Vincent.
The American Miracle.
“Hi, Carla,” he says. “Long time no see.”
“Calvin Cooper.”
Cooper sits in a plastic chair. Rigo sits opposite him. The rest of the intake trailer is empty. The other agents are elsewhere, so it’s just the two of them, under the bright, buzzing fluorescents. Rigo’s sunglasses have been removed, folded, pocketed, so Cooper is free now to contemplate the strange and icy blankness of Rigo’s eyes. Rigo smiles, cordially, though his smile is lacking something, Cooper can’t place it, but whatever it is that’s missing is the very thing that usually animates a smile.
Cooper asks: “So what do you want with me, Rigo?”
“Nothing.”
“Really? So why did you call me here?”
“For your own protection.” Rigo crosses his legs, placing one ankle on the opposite knee. His limbs give him the angular aspect of a mantis. He checks his watch, then crosses his arms, as though to indicate that he’s said all he has to say.
“That’s it?” says Cooper.
“That’s it.”
Cooper stands. “I appreciate the sentiment, but if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.”
“Be my guest. I just can’t vouch for your safety if you leave.”
Cooper pauses. “What does that mean?”
Rigo looks him over. “Tell me, Cooper, what are you planning to do with all that money?”
“What money?”
Rigo laughs. He wags a long finger at Cooper, like Rigo’s a pit boss dealing with a card shark who’s already been caught but is still trying to wriggle free. “Two hundred thousand dollars. That’s a hell of a retirement package.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Cooper.
“Don’t worry, I don’t care about the shootings,” Rigo says. He checks his watch again. “I mean, I care about them a little bit. I paid for them, after all.”
30.
FRAN WILL NEVER REMEMBER what he said after he said hello to her, and for the rest of her life, she’ll always wonder. That face, those eyes, that smile, and then he spoke, for what seemed like forever, but she doesn’t remember a word of it.
Because in that moment, when he called her Carla, it came back to her. All of it.
She was a student, a scholar. Imagine that. A poet. She loved books. Ideas. Criticism. Sontag, in particular. Young and mired for what seemed like an eternity in the weeds of a PhD. He had an air about him. There was the money, sure. But what the money also affords. A chance to look beyond the next moment. That was the luxury he represented.
Great things awaited him, too, everyone could feel it. She felt it, like an electric charge. He was a natural politician. He courted her, like an electorate. He won her, like an election.
They were inseparable at first. She was at his side, always. Her devotion to him became its own kind of endorsement as he sought to launch his political career. He had money, plenty of that, which, for many voters, was qualification enough. They were happy to lift him up onto their shoulders in hopes that a shimmer of his pixie dust might shower down on them.
They married. In the hour before the ceremony, doing her makeup, alone, she had her first tremor of doubt. There was a part of him that was not accessible to her, she knew that, she couldn’t deny it. Maybe that’s what it is to be such a success, she thought. Everyone wants all of you, all the time, so you can never truly give everything to anyone. But he definitely had his own sequestered life. His own sequestered self. Kept his own hours. A locked office at home. She didn’t pry. She understood she wasn’t privy to those activities, nor should she be. She wondered about affairs, of course, but that didn’t seem at all like the man she knew. If anything, he seemed uninterested in those kinds of pursuits, in the bedroom, except when it came to talk of family.
They would definitely have a family.
They kept a gun in the house. For protection. You must. A public figure like that? She liked to practice with it at the firing range while he was away on business. Bang, bang. Blow off steam. When they fought, which became more and more frequent after the marriage but not so common as to become truly alarming, the firing range became her retreat. At the range, she discovered, you can imagine whomever you want to superimposed over that paper target. You wear earmuffs. No one bothers you. They just give you some bullets and leave you to your business.