T. Parker - The Triggerman Dance

"Look, Sharon, I'm willing to get off on any foot you want here. I'm the supplicant. I'm the one in the dark. I'm the one who almost got my guts shot out."

"Maybe you should just go ahead and ask your question: then."

Let her shoot her wad, Joshua had said.

"Good idea. Would you go with the ravioli or penne?"

"The ravioli."

They ordered, gave the waiter their menus and simultaneously reached for their glasses of tea.

Baum looked at her unabashedly. "It's been six months. No arrest. No suspect. Precious little communication with me for the last five. What gives?"

"What gives?"

"Bluntly, what have you found out?"

"I can tell you that the investigation is ongoing. That we're interviewing, reviewing and collecting information. You should know that it's never been Bureau policy to go public with thing until we really think it will yield results."

"Well, with all respect, your flak could have told me the same thing. In fact, he has-several times."

"Every word of it is true."

"So, after half-a-year, you have no suspect?"

"I'm not prepared to say that."

"Then you do have a suspect?"

"I'm not prepared to say that, either."

Baum leaned back. "You people. You government people Honestly. And you say the media is leading this country down the suckhole. You're not prepared to say anything about any thing. Fine. Then let me tell you what I've found out, just so we have something to talk about while we eat. Okay?"

Sharon waited, picking through the seafood in her bowl of pasta.

Baum's expression seemed to lose some of its vigor then, and a fretful grayness replaced the rosiness of her cheeks. She looked back at the door again. For a moment she looked very old. "The first two months were terrible for us. I felt afraid, anxious, furious, helpless, idiotic. Poor Rob-that's my husband-he was even worse. The Journal provided twenty-four hour security, but only for a month. After that, I took a two-month leave of absence in New York. When I came back it was just escorts to and from my car, which I pull right up to the lobby entrance now anyway. Not the same car, of course-I could never touch the old Town Car after what happened. Now, I get a different one every week. Anyway. By then I wasn't really scared any more-I was numb. I was angry. At the people who killed Rebecca, at you people for freezing me out of the loop, at the world. Still, we went through two home security systems that made us feel like prisoners, car alarms that screamed at all hours when they weren't supposed to, even a couple of Doberman pinschers that bit Rob. We've got two apartments now, plus our home, and we shuttle between them like roaches. Not once in that time, Sharon, not once in six months have you called me and said 'look out, Baum-we think he'll try it again,' or 'don't worry, Susan, he's not going to try it twice,' or anything at all." She glanced back at the door again. "On the contrary, you barely returned my calls until last month. I'm sitting out at the edge of your investigation like a half-used target. It doesn't seem beyond reason for me to wonder what you've found out-if anything."

Dumars felt a little ashamed but, as with any bureaucrat, procedure was God and procedure was on her side. "Well, Susan, we told you back in March to stay aware, vary your routine, not expose yourself unnecessarily. We told you to be cautious and alert."

"That was sure a lot of help. Is varying my routine leaving at a different time every morning, or is it moving to Chicago? Is being aware the same as not sleeping for three straight days? Is it necessary to actually leave my home? Cautious? Well, is going out to dinner cautious or is it not? It took me months to arrange this simple meeting with you. A lunch. I sit here in public. I'm exposed, aren't I?"

Sharon straightened in her chair and inhaled audibly.

"No, really, Sharon. Please answer me. I'm just as expose* right here as I was that afternoon in the parking lot, aren't I? “I mean, I'm no less… obvious."

"Yes, yes, Susan," Dumars answered quietly. "You are ex posed here. And I see your point-if someone is determined to kill you, you're exposed almost everywhere you turn."

"It's a cliche but it's true, Sharon, that if they can shoot the President, nobody else is safe. Just ask Rebecca Harris."

Dumars ate slowly, letting a long silence fall over the table.

"So anyway," continued Baum. "I got mad. And when I get mad I go to work. And when I work I find things out. I'm really good at finding things out. I do the same thing you do, Special Agent, but I make stories and you make arrests. It will come a no shock at this point, I suppose, but I've got a suspect."

"Oh, the-"

Co-opt her. Contain her. Anticipate her. Remember, we have been ahead, not behind.

"-Holt idea, Ms. Baum. I've heard it."

"News travels fast."

"You can hardly make inquiries about someone like Vann Holt to the Costa Mesa Police, the Orange County Sheriff am the FBI in Washington without word getting around law enforcement."

"So, you're not interested in that idea either?"

"Like Joshua told you on the phone. Like our public relation agent told you-we took your idea very seriously. And we've looked at Mr. Holt very hard and at some length. We came up empty. Although your theory has a certain logic to it, we couldn't find one piece of substantive evidence that incriminated him."

"Not even the articles I wrote about his son? About him?"

"With all due respect, Ms. Baum, those articles only incriminated you."

"Oh, my. One bureaucrat standing up for another. I'm not in much shock."

Dumars set down her iced tea and locked her gaze onto Susan Baum's green eyes. Sharon could feel the heat rising into her cheeks. Her calves felt tight.

"Ms. Baum, if you're implying some kind of kinship between your suspect and the agency he used to work for, you are being overly suspicious and naive."

The columnist stared back.

"Do you honestly believe we wouldn't investigate him because of his former employment with us?"

Baum touched her napkin to her lips, then spread it onto her lap. "I don't know what to believe."

"Then I'll tell you. Believe in us."

Baum leaned forward, her voice a hiss and her eyes luminous with the inward light of emotion. " Then talk to me/"

Sharon sat back and again stared hard into Susan Baum's eyes. She tried to look pitying, respectful and admiring all at once.

She'll do anything to get inside. She'll lap up our truth like one of John's dogs.

"We have something," Sharon said finally. "That's one of the reasons it took some time to meet with you. We had to make some connections, gather some more facts. We're sorry for what must seem like an incredible delay. But we've been busy, I can assure you. In fact, Susan, right now you could safely say that we're hot."

Baum said nothing, but kept her brilliant green eyes on Dumars.

"We have a suspect. And we're ready to go public with it."

Baum's face turned an excited pink and her eyes seemed to grow even brighter. " Who?"

"I think we should talk about this somewhere else. Let's finish up and take a walk. Okay?"

"Oh, I'm finished."

They strolled down the boardwalk at Laguna's Main Beach, but Sharon knew Baum could not go far. It was Josh's idea to "pre-fatigue" her, loosen her up for gullibility as a picador would loosen up a bull for the sword. The poor columnist was sweating hard and limping badly before they'd gone a hundred yards She'd pulled a hat from her bag and jammed it down over her hair, and slipped on a big white windbreaker. She kept looking behind them.

"I don't like looking the same for more than about one hour," Baum stated. "But it's hard on the wardrobe."

"It's okay, Susan. You're okay here with me."