The Triggerman Dance Read Free Page B

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,