T. Parker: The Triggerman Dance

"-Sharon, don't-"

"-Josh, let me continue… I agree completely with Baum's conclusions. But what I feel doesn't matter. So, back to our line of logic, is it coincidence again, that Susan Baum was the intended target? Okay, we can call it coincidence again."

Sharon made another run on the water machine, filling up her third cup. Then she pulled out one of the chairs and sat. John watched her coat-close back over the gun.

"When Puma went into his new business after Patrick's death, someone had to file a fictitious business statement, like any lawful company. We took a look at it. The statement ran in a little weekly paper down in San Juan Capistrano, which isn't far from Liberty Ridge. Everything was fine, done by the book, no problem. Trouble is, the original name chosen for his new company, we assume by Puma, was The Freedom Ring. They filed it on statements two consecutive weeks, but on the third week, no DBA was filed at all. Instead, a new name for what we can only assume was the same company-with the fictitious name of Liberty Operations. Some simple research of the newspaper's classified files showed us that The Freedom Ring and Liberty Operations DBA costs were covered by checks from the same account. That account belongs to one of Puma's inner circle- his head of security, if you will. Coincidence? No. Hell no. When enough coincidence piles up, it isn't coincidence anymore. The Freedom Ring claimed responsibility for Rebecca. Puma believed the name The Freedom Ring never really existed on record anywhere, and he was right-except for in the dusty files of a little mom and pop paper down in San Juan."

"Have you questioned him?" John asked.

Weinstein stood now and glanced at Dumars. "Thank you, Sharon. No, we've chosen not to. All we would really do is tip him that we're on. He'd have an alibi, and there sure wouldn't be any evidence of a crime left in plain sight around at Liberty Ridge. We're better off letting him believe we're not even looking his way, until we've got enough to justify a search. Questioning him now would be like…'

"-Scaring up the bird while it's still out of range," said Dumars.

"Exactly," said Weinstein. He smiled again-that smile so unmirthful, so produced. "John, there's a final element you should know about. Come."

Dumars stayed behind as John followed Joshua out of the room and back down the hallway, then around a corner and into another office. The room was small, lined with bookshelves and bathed by the same chilling, fluorescent light as the conference room. On the wall behind the desk was the Bureau's seal. A chair sat squared to the desk, empty. Joshua shut the door.

"We used to give school children tours of the building," said Weinstein. "Back before we had to check them for weapons They always wanted to see a real agent. See a real agent's gun. Sit in a real agent's chair. So, have a seat right there, John."

"I'll stand."

Joshua studied him, then walked around the desk and tool the chair himself. "I've got a cubicle. If I advance to Senior Special Agent, I'll get an office like this. Maybe this exact one.. who knows?"

Weinstein was quiet for a long while and John could feel the agent's black, rapacious eyes on him. Always measuring, John thought, always taking, always judging.

"I came here ten years ago. It was a good assignment but I grew up in New York and I thought, California, God, land of fruits and nuts, the self-worshipping and the self-ignorant. Even worse, Orange County. I thought the place would bore me to death in a month. But it didn't bore me at all. It had everything from slick investment hustles up in Newport Center to serial killers running up double digit stats. Orange County had a nice, eclectic criminal menu, and superb weather."

Weinstein offered his dismal little smile again. John leaned against a wall and considered the FBI seal behind the agent. "For instance," Weinstein went on, "there was a publisher in Little Saigon who got set on fire for suggesting we open relations with Hanoi, same time as Fluor Corporation out in Irvine was jockeying to be the first American behemoth into Vietnam, when Clinton opened it up. Then, there was this bright barrio kid who went to Harvard on scholarship and robbed banks here during his semester breaks-said you can't take the barrio out of the boy. There were hookers marching the stretch down Harbor, bikers and gangs and cutthroats and junkies. Everything. Everything."

Weinstein chuckled. To John, the agent actually looked relaxed now, leaning back in the chair behind the desk. An odd tone of reverie had come into his voice.

"But what made Orange County most interesting was Vann Holt. This was his office. He was a legend here-he'd gotten almost every commendation, award, citation and pay raise the Bureau has to offer-and he was still fairly young. I was very young then-twenty-six-I never really spent much time around him. I can't even tell you if he knew I was here. But I admired him because this guy-I'm telling you, John, this guy was absolutely possessed with the idea of crushing bad guys. He breathed it. He took a bombing case all the way from Santa Ana to the Gaza strip and back-and he identified the three bombers who took out an Arab gentleman right here in Santa Ana. Vann gutted a white supremacist cell that had serious plans to murder Coretta King. He just mashed the local operations of the Aryan Brotherhood, Kahane, the White Alliance-anybody with a race or holy war to wage. He found something here at the Bureau that very few people ever find-autonomy. Somehow, he rose above the sheer bureaucracy we operate under. He didn't break the rules so much as just, well, levitate above them. His results justified it, and his sense of personal honor enabled it. He was a mystery to everyone-and that is one very difficult thing to maintain in a Federal world. Vann Holt did it by holding the Bureau up to his standards. Back in eighty-six, he got the highest award the Bureau can bestow-the Director's Distinguished Service medal. It didn't seem to mean much to him."

Weinstein went quiet and looked away, allowing himself a pause for introspection.

John wondered if Weinstein had learned his intensity and his humorlessness from Vann Holt. He looked at Weinstein's profile and noted the clench of jaw, the hungry eyes, and the morose lines around his mouth.

And suddenly, John understood.

It appeared to him all at once, seemingly from nothing, like an oncoming vehicle through rain. The names, the stories and the setting all coalesced, and he knew.

"Puma," he said.

Joshua didn't react. He just swallowed and continued t stare at the wall. Finally, he looked back at John.

"I thought you might appreciate Holt's situation. You both lost someone very close to you to violence. A murdered son, murdered lover. You holed up in the desert and tried to forget, he holed up in Liberty Ridge. You two have a lot in common. What you don't have in common is this: Puma did something He tried to kill an enemy. You've done nothing but withdraw."

"And what have you done?"

Joshua raised his hands expansively. "Why, this, John. This, My work. I've spent a thousand hours trying to solve Rebecca murder. It practically took a papal dispensation to get assigned to it. But I prevailed. After all, I was not married to the victim. After all, they saw I wouldn't stop, no matter what they did. So they gave me a charge number and cut me loose."

"Why am I here?"

Joshua ignored the question. He leaned forward in the chair now, rested his forearms on the desk before him, and again aimed his unforgiving gaze at John. "You've begun to understand the power of loss, haven't you?"

"I believe so."

"And the hatred that fills a heart when love is removed?"

"That, too."

"Loss and hatred don't just go away, you know. They fester and curdle and grow and they will eat you alive if you let them. The cure is the act. You must do something about them."