T. Parker: The Triggerman Dance

Menden's uncorrected eyesight was 20/15, impressive for anyone, especially a thirty-four-year old who made a living reading and writing. Yes, Weinstein had decided, John Menden's physical nonchalance was good camouflage for his greedy, gathering eyes. Weinstein was pleased to see the interest in Sharon Dumars's expression as she watched Menden sit down. He had expected no less.

The waitress approached John with a hearty, "Hello, handsome."

"Hi, gorgeous," John said back, again as usual.

If anyone ever wanted to do a number on John Menden, it would sure be easy, Weinstein thought for the hundredth time. He's reliable as cement. Weinstein glanced through the smudged window to Menden's pickup truck outside in the shade and the brown Labrador retriever standing in the bed. The big dog was diligently regarding the saloon doors through which he had watched his master disappear. Menden called him Boomer. Beside Boomer was a yellow Labrador, smaller and female. Weinstein, not a dog man, was pretty sure this one was Bonnie. Not visible, but surely laying in the truck bed somewhere, would be the old black lab that John called Belle. Weinstein had yet to see Menden go anywhere without this herd. Yes, thought Weinstein, Menden is predictable as a country song. We would have to change that.

And this was certainly not the biggest of Weinstein's worries about John Menden. What disturbed him most was his belief that Menden's easy charm and rough good looks-so adroitly used on women, no doubt-were the tools of a man who could take no pressure. A coward. And his drinking. God, the fellow could put the stuff away. But again, like so many times in the last six months, Joshua was way ahead of himself.

During the time it took Weinstein and Dumars to drink one cola each, the waitress brought John Menden two beers and a shot of something. Weinstein and Dumars talked shop for a while.

Then, abruptly, Weinstein got up and made his way across the room to the window where John Menden sat.

Weinstein had been imagining this moment for almost two months now. As he approached he could feel the slight speed-up of his heartbeat, and the warmth that always came to his ears when something was important, or dangerous, or much desired.

When he had been around Rebecca Harris, for example, his damned ears had been on fire all the time. But Weinstein was now better at divorcing himself from his own symptoms. He saw himself standing beside the stool with the hat on it, viewing up close for the first time the man he hoped might someday help accomplish the greatest mission of his-Joshua Weinstein's-life.

"I want to talk to you," he said.

Menden looked him straight in the face, then starting down at Joshua's black wingtips, gave him a longish assessment that ended with his eyes again on Weinstein's own.

"Then I guess you better get started. This is your fifth time in here if I'm counting right, which I am."

"I'm with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My name is Weinstein, and I want to talk to you about Rebecca Harris."

"Good enough."

The tone rang false to Weinstein, and he wondered again what Rebecca had told John Menden, and what she had not. For his purposes now, it didn't matter.

"I've got a table over there, and someone I'd like you to meet. Please."

Menden took his hat and his half-full beer glass and followed Weinstein to the booth. Joshua introduced him to Sharon Dumars, who stood and offered her hand. He watched carefully as their eyes met, because how a man comes off first-at that very first moment of encounter-can set the stage for everything that will follow. Menden's light gray eyes betrayed little.

When the waitress came, Weinstein ordered another round of drinks for his guest, and beers for himself and Dumars. He disliked alcohol, but he was also aware of the irrational distrust that drinking people often reserve for those who aren't. After the waitress had delivered the drinks, he picked up his glass, touched its bottom lightly to the rim of Menden's, then Sharon's, and took a sip of the cold, bitter brew.

"That's good," he muttered without conviction.

John Menden sipped and nodded.

Joshua took off his glasses, pressed the two dents they had long ago engraved on either side of his nose, then set them on the table beside his glass. He looked again out to Menden's pickup truck, but it was just a blur with a bunch of dogs in it.

"I'd like to talk for a while, and for you to listen. Do you have, say, a couple of hours to give us?"

"I'll give you a minute at a time."

"That's how the hours pass, Mr. Menden."

Later, when Sharon Dumars thought about it and had finally realized the scope of Josh Weinstein's plans, she admitted that she had never seen him so impassioned about anything in his life. Focused, yes, Weinstein was always focused, his large dark eyes drinking you in from behind those glasses. Serious, certainly: the man actually seemed to possess no sense of humor whatsoever, and if possible, even less than that for the last six months. Convincing, totally, because no matter what Joshua Weinstein said it was difficult to believe it was anything other than the truth. But the passion was new to him, or at least to her. She wondered later that night, alone in her bed in her suburban Irvine condo, her big tabby Natalie purring on her chest, if passion was even the right word for it. She tried out other nouns: conviction, emotion, desire, hope. But none of these was what Joshua had offered up that late afternoon to her and John Menden. She had turned out the light and scrunched down under the comforter before it came to her, in that brief span of lucidity that leads us into sleep. It was not really passion, she realized with a deep sigh. It was the flip side of passion. What Josh had shown her today was a deep and resounding hatred.

And what she had said to Joshua was, "he's perfect."

"As you know, Mr. Menden, on March 22, a little over half a year ago, Rebecca Harris was killed in the Journal parking lot. She was shot at long range by an assassin. The bullets were intended for her boss, Susan Baum. Whoever fired the shots either didn't know exactly what Susan looks like-unlikely-or couldn't distinguish her at three hundred and fourteen yards from Rebecca. After all, she was wearing a heavy raincoat and hat, and their general coloring, shape and hair color were similar. After all, she was getting into Susan's car. After all, an assassin's heart must be beating awfully hard at that time, wouldn't you guess?"

"I would guess that."

"So, as he let the air out of his lungs to steady his trigger finger, the last thing on his mind was that the woman in his crosshairs might not be the right one. Rebecca died; Susan didn't. It was one of those things that qualify as tragedy, because Rebecca had a tragic flaw that allowed her to die. Her flaw was that she was kind, considerate and attentive. She'd agreed to bring around Ms. Baum's car, and it cost her her life. The fact that Susan Baum suffers from gout and is no triathlete must have made Rebecca's decision easy. None of this, I expect, is news to you."

Menden looked at Weinstein, then sipped again from his beer. "I was a reporter once, but news is always news."

"I couldn't agree more. Now, what I'm about to tell you is what we, the Bureau, have learned in the six months since

Rebecca Harris's death. Some of it you may have read in the papers, but most of it I guarantee you have not. Right now, I need a promise from you, or we can't continue. You're editing the newspaper down here, the Anza Valley Lamp. Correct?"

"That's my career."

"I need your word that nothing I'm about to tell you will come out on those pages, or any other, or from your mouth, ever. No matter how many shots and beers you've downed on a Friday night. No matter how dull the Indian you're talking to here on some quiet Sunday afternoon seems to be. No matter how close a lover may come to you."