every time. I didn’t blow you people off and say I’m writing my story. I went long-term. I went for the larger story.”
“Oh, very noble, coming from somebody who extorted his way into the investigation.”
She was smiling and so was I.
“Hey,” I protested.
“Can we talk about something else? I’m tired of all of this. God, I’d love to just be able to lie back and forget about it for a while.”
There it was again. Her choice of words, the way she looked at me as she said them. Was I reading it correctly or only reading what I wanted to read?
“Okay, forget about the Poet,” I said. “Let’s talk about you.”
“Me? What about me?”
“This stuff going on with Thorson is like a TV sitcom.”
“That’s private.”
“Not when you guys are staring daggers across the room all the time and you’re trying to get Backus to take him off the case.”
“I don’t want him off the case. I just want him off my back and I don’t want him out here. He always finds a way to sneak in and try to take over. You watch.”
“How long were you married?”
“Fifteen glorious months.”
“When did it end?”
“Long time ago, three years.”
“That’s a long time for hostilities to linger.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
But I sensed she did. I let a little time go by. The waiter came and refilled our coffee cups.
“What happened?” I asked softly. “You don’t deserve to be unhappy like that.”
She reached up and tugged gently on my beard, the first time she had touched me since ramming my face into the bed back in Washington.
“You’re sweet.” She shook her head. “It was just the wrong thing for both of us. Sometimes, I don’t even know what we saw in each other. It just didn’t work.”
“How come?”
“Just because. It was a just-because type of thing. Like I said, we both had a lot of baggage. His was heavier. He’d worn a mask and I didn’t see all the rage behind it until it was too late. I got out as soon as I could.”
“What was he angry about?”
“A lot of things. He carries a lot of anger. From other women, relationships. I was his second failed marriage. The job. Sometimes it came out like a blowtorch.”
“Did he ever hurt you?”
“No. I didn’t stay long enough for him to try. Of course, all men deny the woman’s intuition, but I think if I stayed it would have come to that. It was the natural course of things. I still try to stay away from him.”
“And he still has something for you.”
“You’re crazy if you think that.”
“There’s something there.”
“The only thing he has for me is a desire to see me unhappy. He wants to get back at me for being the cause of his bad marriage, his bad life, everything.”
“How’s a guy like that keep his job?”
“Like I said, he’s got a mask. He’s good at hiding it. You saw him at the meeting. He was contained. You also have to understand something about the FBI. They don’t go looking to bust their agents. As long as he did the work, it didn’t matter what I felt or said.”
“You complained about him?”
“Not directly. That would’ve been cutting my own throat. I’ve got an enviable position in the BSS but make no mistake, the bureau’s a man’s world. And you don’t go to the boss to complain about things you think your ex-husband might do. I’d probably end up on the bank squad in Salt Lake City if I tried that.”
“So what can you do?”
“Not much. Indirectly, I’ve dropped enough hints on Backus for him to know what’s going on. As you can tell by what you heard today, he’s not going to do anything about it. I have to assume that Gordon’s dropping hints in his other ear. If I were Bob, I’d just sit back like he’s doing and wait for one of us to fuck up. The first one to do it gets shipped out.”
“And what would constitute a fuck-up?”
“I don’t know. With the bureau you never know. But he’s got to be more careful with me than him. Prevailing factors, you know. He’s got to have his shit together if he’s going to try to move a woman out of the unit. So, that’s my edge.”
I nodded. We had come to a natural end to that branch of the conversation. But I didn’t want her to go back to her room. I wanted to be with her.
“You’re a