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.'
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?'
