The Triggerman Dance

"So I start thinking of you two together, in a way I never had before. You and Wayfarer on the same ground at the same time. Synergy. Lots of synergy. I know by then that you're, well ... at loose ends. I wonder if you might need some vengeance for Rebecca. I wonder if he might like you, might have a use for you if you earned it. You two have very similar backgrounds, you know. You two are frighteningly alike, in some ways. So I see that if I could just get you two together—you and Wayfarer—it might be the start of a beautiful friendship. And here he is, scheduled to invade your desert on October fifteenth. That is when I came to you, John. To see if you were cut from the material I needed. You are. So here we sit, approved from on high, waiting to move. October fifteenth is less than two weeks away."

Joshua drank again from his coffee cup, then set it on the ground beside him. He stretched his legs and looked up into the night sky.

"You are going to be Wayfarer's hero," he said. "But you are going to be my Trojan Horse. My eyes, my ears. I'll get you close enough to Holt for you to smell him." John took another long drink of the Herradura. It was beginning to make him feel that all things were possible, which he knew by experience was a dangerous way to feel. He had begun to feel that way with Rebecca, just before she died. He had fell that way before his mother and father lifted off in their little Piper for the last time.

He felt the deep rumble of satisfaction moving inside himself. He sensed the action that he had so longed for, becoming clear. Looking ahead of him, he saw the challenge of justice for Rebecca, the one thing he could offer her.

Looking backward, though, he had the sense that something terrible was gaining on him.

"Wayfarer will be ours," said Joshua.

"And I'll be his," said John.

"I'd like the ring back now."

John brought it from his pocket, the modest diamond that Rebecca had worn in honor of her pledge to Joshua.

CHAPTER 10

The next day, Sharon Dumars met Susan Baum for lunch at Romeo's Cucina in Laguna Beach. Baum had been calling the Bureau office for almost four months now, trying to corner someone into a meeting. Sharon had politely dodged her at first, not wanting to destroy a possibly friendly media contact. Then suddenly, Norton's green light pending, Josh realized how much they needed her. He gave her back to Sharon.

Baum was much harder to reel in than Dumars expected. The columnist agreed to meet with her, although Dumars was not technically the agent-in-charge. Baum refused to settle on a place for the meeting until half-an-hour before it was to take place. She ran Dumars through three changes of venue before settling on Romeo's. On the phone, Baum's voice was terse and hushed, as if she was being listened to.

The restaurant was large and very bright, with windows that focused the October sunlight onto oil paintings that Dumars found pleasant because of all the yellows. The interior woodwork was curvaceous and smooth—not one hard angle—and Dumars found this pleasant too, though she wondered how they made the sweeping, dramatic cuts. The lamps were fashioned from paper stitched together with thick string, which Dumars didn't like because they made her think of skin. So much pretty in the world, she thought, and so much ugly. Amazing that people did not know the difference. She slid her briefcase under the table.

The waiter was tall, dark and ponytailed, and eyed her with a tip-upping mix of respect and desire. She wanted to find him annoying but she could not. "May I offer you the Chardonnay today?"

"Iced tea, thank you."

The columnist entered. She marched across the floor toward the table with her signature limp, which did nothing to diminish the sense of pure determination she exuded. She was dressed in long, flowing, dark blue and green geometrically patterned dress that appeared to be made from complex layers of silk. It was gathered at the waist by a gold lame sash, and as Baum cut across the floor her oversize cuffs billowed. She wore round, costume earrings bedecked by what had to be faux jewels, and which looked to Sharon like something from the Arabian Nights. Her shoes were bright white athletic high-tops with a fancy black zigzag across the ankle; her hair a salon-tortured halo of dry gold. Susan Baum, Sharon decided, was her own entourage.

"Thanks for coming," she said breathlessly, dropping a large and apparently heavy leather bag onto the chair beside Sharon and sitting across from her. She cast a look back toward the doorway. "God, I had to park eighty blocks away. Iced tea, please."

"Special Agent Sharon Dumars—I'm happy to finally meet you, Ms. Baum."

"Call me Susan, Special Agent. But please, could we possibly change places?" Her voice was brittle and she looked again at the door. "I've got a full-blown phobia of doors now. I need to be able to see them."

"Of course."