The Triggerman Dance

They traded seats. A palpable air of reassurance radiated from Baum now, but her voice was still reedy and tight. "Food here any good?"

"I've never eaten here. It was your pick."

"I pick for safety."

"You'll be safe here, Ms. Baum."

Baum removed her immense white-framed sunglasses and looked into the menu. "Trendy, I hear. Strange how all these new Italian places refuse to make spaghetti and meatballs. What you bet it isn't on the menu?"

Sharon, who had perused the menu, confirmed.

"I lived on canned spaghetti and meatballs when I was a cub reporter. I wasn't much of a home economist. Still am not. First time I heated up Chef Boyardee in college I spooned some noodles, sauce and all, onto the kitchen wall because I'd heard that's how you tell if it's ready. My mother never let me forget that one."

Sharon laughed, looked into Baum's green eyes, then away again. "Maybe they'll make some up for you."

"I suppose. This is on me, by the way. On the Journal, actually."

"It's a little easier for me if we just pay separately. You know how gifts to the government are looked at these days."

"Well, then you tell that ponytailed hunk of a boy you want separate checks. He thinks you're pretty, you know."

Dumars wondered how such a distracted, frightened whirlwind of a woman could notice so much without seeming to notice anything. "It's his stock expression."

Baum studied the man, who was leaning over a nearby table. "I'm really so glad I'm not young again. I've been married for thirty years, and I can't say it's been all beer and skittles, but to be put out in the world again, looking for a date, or a mate? Gosh. You're single, I take it."

"Yes."

"What's it like?"

"Like being single."

"Never been married?"

"No. You're not profiling Special Agent Single Sharon for the Journal, are you?"

"No, not at all, though I'd love to someday. I apologize. I'm just so overwhelmingly nosey. And I know so many young, eligible, very attractive men. Jewish mother, Jewish mother—I know."

Sharon couldn't help but laugh again, half from Baum's self-deprecation, half from the relief at being let off the hook. "Then what are you doing, Ms. Baum?"

"Susan."

Baum smiled. Sharon noted the nice whiteness of her teeth and the overall pleasantness of her face.

"I've come for an explanation."

Involuntarily, Sharon blinked. "Of what?"

"Of what you've found out, of course."

"You cut right to the chase, don't you?"

"I detest bullshit. Always have."

"Then lose the Special Agent stuff. Sharon's fine."

"Sharon. I've always loved that name."

Dumars looked directly into Baum's face, riled at being flattered, baited and probed. One of the things that had drawn her to the Bureau was that you could comfortingly vanish into the correct side of the law. She had worked too hard for privacy and dignity to put up with this kind of crude intrusion. She was not paid to be on display. She gratefully noted the din of the lunch hour in this restaurant, thankful that no one around could possibly follow their conversation.

"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.