The Triggerman Dance (40 page)

"Thank you, sir."

"And you, Joshua?"

"I'm thinking of buying a surfboard."

"Really?"

"No, not really. But the Orange County office is a beehive I'll say that. There's always too much to do."

"Nice job on the kidnapper buying the Ferrari."

"Dumb shit—oh, I beg your pardon, sir—dumb clod just walked in with the cash. We had people standing around acting like salesmen. I mean, he'd done it before."

"Astonishing, he'd grab a casino owner's daughter."

"Won't last long in the prison population," said Norton "Dumb sh . . . muck."

"Well, I can't say I'm not a little envious of you two, when I wake up to an October morning and the mercury is right a thirty."

"We don't have weather in California, sir," said Weinstein "We have nuance."

"I see." Frazee's boyish smile faded as he settled in his chair and looked at Joshua. "And you have Wayfarer?"

"We certainly do," said Norton. "Joshua and Sharon have procured for us documents relating to Baum's home and work.'

"I've seen them. Interesting. But no evidence to establish that Wayfarer was at the scene. They're undergoing analysis right now—nothing is certain."

Joshua's heart fell.

"What?" asked Dumars.

"The photograph is of Baum's property," said Norton. "We can establish that. Plus the sketch of the
Journal
grounds."

"Which proves nothing," answered Frazee.

"Then we'll close the loop," said Norton.

"How?"

Joshua thought that he moved in rather nicely. "Owl is digging much better than we thought he might. We've got Liberty Operations docs, and a safe that looks more than promising. We expect a .30/06 caliber hunting rifle next, to work the engraved shells against. Getting the rifle out could be tough. But he's working Liberty Ridge like a gopher."

Frazee's brow furrowed. "I thought we established that the bullets fired at the victim didn't come from the engraved shells."

"Correct, sir," said Joshua. "We're hoping to find that they came from another gun in Wayfarer's arsenal."

Frazee nodded with undisguised irritation. "If Owl hopes to get inside that safe I'd like to know how. Can he bend steel in his bare hands?"

"He's been in just over a week, sir," said Dumars.

"How often do you talk?" he asked Joshua, ignoring Sharon.

"Every other day, sir. It depends on John—Owl—getting to the phone. It's out on the perimeter of the property."

"Why not closer?"

"We assumed Wayfarer would find it."

"I'd say that was a good assumption. Does Wayfarer suspect him, yet?"

The "yet" struck Joshua as condescending and fated, but he held his tongue. "Wayfarer's security man has jumped him through some hoops. He cleared them all, so far as we can tell."

"Fargo?"

"Yes."

"Hmmm," mumbled Frazee. He sat back and looked briefly at Norton, then Joshua. "Hmmm. You know, this Hate Crimes money doesn't come to us for free."

Joshua waited. He had no idea where Frazee was going or why he was going there. An abrupt one-eighty like this was why they called him Crazy. Besides, Joshua believed the Hate Crimes money
did
come for free, more or less, taxed out of a dazed populace and spent by bureaucrats like any other federal funds. It was beyond Joshua's belief that Frazee would have called them back to Washington to talk about money.

"Appropriations feeds us, as you know. As it does Commerce, State Department, etc."

Shit, thought Joshua. My joe kills an innocent thug in the southern California hills, and Frazee's doing Economics 101.The little dandy droned on.

"We're Justice, of course, so we see our precious dollar shared with such critical programs as the Weed and Seed Fund ii General Administration, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Trust Fund, and of course our friends, the Drug Enforcemen Administration. The House Committee cut us again this year, as you know. As you also know, the President bailed us out— partially—with the Federal Hate Crimes funding. We were asked by the Attorney General to streamline and cooperate between agencies. The idea was that we could be cost effective. They actually used the phrase 'more bang for the buck.' Well, we've bee: asked to liase with the other agencies, in order to stretch the Hat Crimes windfall."

"We've been
liasing
all along," said Norton. "What a word. We get our piece of pie, everybody else gets theirs. We always cooperate until everybody gets out of our way."

"That just changed. We're barely past one quarter of the fiscal year, and we—that's not just the Bureau, but all of us inside Justice—have eaten up the Hate Crimes funding like it was candy. C-SPAN aired our foibles before the nation, just last week Certain Representatives heard from their constituents, and the Inspector-In-Charge heard from the Congressmen. We've decide to joint task some of the operations where we overlap. There's Joint Task Committee and I am on it."

"Congratulations," muttered Dumars.

"So what are we supposed to do?" asked Weinstein. "Help INS run down aliens?"

Frazee aimed a crisp stare at Joshua. "You are supposed to arrest an assassin."

"We're working effectively toward that end," said Norton.

"Hmmm," Frazee grunted. He sighed and shook his head "You know, Norton—this isn't the kind of thing I'd have approved, if it had come across my desk to begin with. It's too risk too time-consuming, too expensive. Joshua, you don't necessarily need to know that, but now you do. Of course, it's beside the point. But the fact that I'm our man on the Joint Task Committee isn't beside he point at all. Are your fingers to the wind now?"

Joshua nodded. "We're wasting money."

"In the eyes of the House, yes. And let's face it, twelve million for Hate Crimes, even divided up by Justice, isn't just change. Would you say?"

"Not at all, sir." said Joshua. "But our total outlay for Owl is less than eighty-five thousand."

"Counting salaries it isn't."

"We're always working on
something,
sir. You can hardly figure that into overhead for Wayfarer." Joshua mustered his best expression of agreeability, but he could feel his Adam's apple bobbing and his ears growing hot.

Though it was hardly the point here, Joshua wanted to ask why the California Feebies always got shortchanged by the Bureau budgeteers. He thought of the Los Angeles office, so strapped for money that the agents actually shared rides on stakeouts. One of them was caught selling Amway products from the trunk of his Bureau Ford, then later busted wide open for selling Government information to his Russian girlfriend. But Josh knew the truth, sad or not: Washington thought California was unworthy of federal dollars the same way New York thought California unworthy of intellectual respect. It was a nasty little prejudice he'd noticed from day one.

"We're playing it as tight as we can," Joshua said.

"You know that and I know that. But Appropriations sees twelve million going out and nothing coming back. If we can't make a cost-effective go of it this year, we'll get nothing from Hate Crimes next time around. I don't have to tell you that. Unfortunately, there's no neat way out of this. That's why I've called you here. You now have a deadline. A short one."

Joshua actually felt his stomach turn. It rotated, then settled back down into a new, less comfortable position. He had tried to isolate his own tiny operation in this labyrinth of finance and politics but that was hopeless. It was just a speck in the federal wind.

There was silence in the room now, all hands aware that Captain Frazee was about to make a major course correction. Joshua's stomach squeezed out a gurgling surge of gas, which he held in with great discomfort.

"And if we can't make a clean arrest of Wayfarer I'm going to have to turn him over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Let them finish it."

"No,"
said Joshua.

"Shut up, Weinstein," said Norton. He stood now, sighing histrionically. Josh saw the fresh rush of blood to his already heated cheeks. He circled the conference room once, like a lion pacing the confines of a cage. "Walker, we can't sit still for that.'

"You will if I tell you to."

"Why?
We've put in the time. We got the money from the Hate Crimes bill. We've worked Wayfarer up one side and down the other, we've got a man inside, just
inches
from pay dirt, am you want the Bat Boys to finish it? On what possible grounds?"

"All grounds," said Frazee, offering his smile, his clear am guileless eyes, his Gleam, his righteousness. "ATF takes Wayfare off our books, but the dollars stay. We are seen to be Joint Tasking effectively. We use what's left of our Hate Crimes windfall for more achievable goals. We still get our man. Moreover, the nation sees that our fellows in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are not the bumbling murderous fools last spotted in Waco, Texas."

"Oh, God," said Joshua, his stomach churning like a washing machine now, his tongue all but frozen by anger.

"Don't 'oh God' me, Mr. Weinstein," snapped Frazee. "You can sit back in your Bureau seat and call ATF anything you warn You can laugh, scorn, micturate or moan. But that won't change the fact that they're looking for redemption. They're not just looking for it—they're frothing after it. I had lunch with the Attorney General yesterday, and I can tell you that she is absolutely resolute on this point—ATF needs another chance. And, hint, hint: Hate Crimes largesse is much in question for next year. So, if we don't have Wayfarer's head on a platter soon, ATF gel their chance. I've got to give them
something."

Norton was still standing, his mouth open, a look of incomprehension in his wet, blue eyes. He'd taken a cigarette from his pack but hadn't lit it—federal regulations, of course. For just moment Joshua saw Norton as ridiculous, a Scotch-soaked old triceratops wandering heavily in a world of smokeless bureaucracies, smug, soulless zealots like Walker Frazee and muscle-headed storm troopers like the Bat Boys. He wondered if Norton would start to fossilize, right before his eyes.

"How soon is soon?" managed Weinstein. His own voice sounded like something released from under pressure. He could hardly form words around his jumping larynx. He saw Share Dumars staring at him, which encouraged a fresh jolt of anxiety;