T. Parker - The Triggerman Dance

"Lots of quail out where I live."

"But you don't use pointers?"

"Flushing dogs, three labs."

"The bobwhite in Texas lock down pretty hard. Need a pointer to show you the way."

"The ones out here like to run. They won't hold for a point except for opening day, maybe."

Evan nodded. He looked at John, then at Sharon, then at the cook in the kitchen. "I miss those days. Young and carefree and the whole of Texas to play in. Me and my brother. You have a brother?"

"No family."

Evan seemed to think about this, nodding absently. "You all grew up right here, didn't you?"

"With my uncle. Just a few miles away."

"How come you've never been married?"

"Never met the right woman."

Evan said nothing, but locked a long evaluating stare onto John Menden's face. "Ever knock one up? Send her to the clinic?"

"Once. High school."

"How'd you feel about that?"

"Sick."

"Not as sick as she felt, though."

"It was bad."

"You a carnivore?"

"Yes, I am."

"Good. We've got some carnitas here for lunch."

The cook emerged with three plates balanced on her left arm and one in her right hand. She served Evan first, then Sharon. While she set out the plates, Evan stared at the dusty table top. She returned a moment later with a small plastic tortilla warmer for each of them.

"Bless this food, amen," Evan mumbled, then stuffed the paper napkin into his shirt collar. "Believe in God, John?"

"Yes." John thought a moment. "But I don't claim that He believes in me."

Evan liked this. He laughed from deep down in his chest, and the dead patina over his eyes turned moist and vibrant. "That's good. Last time I checked, He wasn't convinced of my being, either. Busy old bastard, I would think. Spends most of his time worrying about babies and the devil."

Mild laughter.

"To Wayfarer," said Weinstein, holding out his freshly filled glass of iced tea. "Since you mentioned the devil."

John and Dumars clicked glasses with him. Evan rattled the ice in his, but didn't extend it. He set it down without drinking, then plucked a tortilla from his warmer and spooned some pork into it.

"I like to serve pork to Joshua," said Evan. "He won't eat it unless I order him to. Of course, he loves the stuff."

Weinstein smiled rather sourly, but loaded some of the steaming carnitas into a tortilla. "Evan loves to find a sore spot, then heal it," he said. "Then rip it open again, then heal it. He's a sadist with a Christ complex, or a Christ with a sadistic side-I haven't figured out which. One of the comforts of my life is that he lives and works on the other side of the continent."

Dumars laughed. "You'd join him in a heartbeat in Washington, if you could."

"No," said Weinstein with his customary gravity. "Wayfarer first. Everything else can wait."

Dumars did one of those downspiraling little chuckles meant to clear the stage.

"You a drinking man, John?" asked Evan.

"When I feel like it."

"Feel like it often?"

"Pretty much so."

"I do, too. Skipped all our wars, didn't you?"

"I was too young for Vietnam."

"Ever feel like you missed out?"

"I had a friend in Grenada. One in the Gulf. They wrote and we talked. I felt like I'd missed little wars and wasn't the worse for it. They did a good enough job without me."

"Would you have gone, in a draft?"

"Sure. They did."

"How come you never registered?"

"I actually forgot. No action when I was eighteen. No draft. No point in it."

"You committed a felony by not seeing the point in it."

"You could arrest me," said John.

"No. That helps us. That's okay. When this is all over and it's become a fiasco, you-an alcoholic, draft-dodging, abortion-happy, meat-hunting woman stealer-will be lots easier to discredit."

"The hood I wore will help, too."

Weinstein almost choked on his tea. "Why do you talk like that, Evan?"

"I'm paid to talk like that. I'm the tire-kicker, John, the guy with fingers in the carb. You're lucky, though, because you don't have to deal with me. Young Joshua here does. The Bureau is annealing him in my still strong but fading flame. My task here is to make sure we aren't going into an operation with a complete idiot-I'm speaking now of you. My task is to make sure the Bureau gets what it wants and that you don't get dead. We're dealing with assassins. Anybody who'd shoot a woman from three hundred yards would shoot you in the face from two. So if I'm a little blunt, consider it a thorough check under the hood."

"Check away."

"Why do you want to do this?" Evan asked.

John didn't answer immediately. Joshua had told him that this question would come, and that his answer must be right. The right answer, Joshua had said, was to avenge the death of Rebecca Harris. John could not indicate that the arrest of Wayfarer would complete some personal cycle for him, could not imply great personal hatred of Wayfarer, could not suggest that he, John, was after any form of redemption. His desire was to be nothing other than a temporary tool for the execution of justice. You are just doing your duty-like voting. But John had never cottoned to Joshua's instruction on this point.

"Because I hate the bastard who shot Rebecca, and I'd like to see him rot in jail. It would make me feel better."

Weinstein's face reddened, so he directed it down toward his plate. Dumars just looked at John, then at Evan.

Evan blinked, then smiled. "Tugging at the collar a little early, aren't you? Joshua will make you pay for that little outburst. That kind of heated honesty might, under the coming circumstances, get you killed."

"You need to know," said John. "You already know. If you didn't, I wouldn't be here. Wayfarer doesn't."

"Christ in heaven let's hope not.",

Weinstein was shaking his head toward his plate, as if the carnitas had misbehaved.

"But seriously, John, we have no proof at all that Wayfarer even knows who Rebecca Harris was. He's an innocent man. And God knows, he's lethal. That, my friend, is a dangerous combination."

"I take one step at a time. That's all. One little step at a time. I trust these two people."

Weinstein sighed and finally looked up.

Evan took a long moment to study John, then commenced building another pork taco. "I'm curious," he said finally. "I'm curious about how it felt to be poking Rebecca Harris while she made plans to marry someone else. Can you help me out a little here?"

"No, I can't. That's none of your business."

"Oh, it's most definitely my business."

"Then use your imagination, or go to a library, or call a radio shrink and ask. I won't talk to you about her. She's not a part of this. If that means the whole thing is over, then the whole thing is absolutely over. Don't say her name again. I don't like the way it comes out of your mouth."

Evan stared at John. His eyes were dry, unblinking. "I'll tell you this, Mr. Menden-if you worked for me and said that, I'd slap the living shit out of your head and get you assigned to Alaska."

John shrugged. "Guess I wasn't cut out for Bureau work."

"No. You're the kind of smart guy who likes to stay solo, make his own mistakes, achieve martyrdom. I don't. Joshua doesn't. Sharon doesn't. We're team players. We're real Feds. What we like to do is win."

"I can stand winning."

"You better be ready to. I'll do almost anything to win."

They finished the meal. When it was over and the cook had cleared the dishes, Evan dropped his briefcase onto the table, opened it and removed a stack of paper.

"Loosen up your trigger finger, John," he. said. "You've got about a hundred forms to sign. They remove us from any liability for you. They protect us from just about anything you might say to a court of inquiry. They prevent you from going public with anything you do or learn while working with us, whether for private profit, or the catharsis of a guilty conscience, or simply getting back at the bastards who used you. The forms are all standard. I wouldn't even bother trying to read them if I were you. Basically, you're giving away the ranch, and that's the way we like it."