Page 60

CHAPTER 58

JOE MOLINARI AND FBI agent Bao Wong were having lunch at the House of Dim Sum in San Francisco’s Chinatown, a casual eatery that was filled with conversation, laughter, and the pungent aroma of hot, flash-cooked Chinese food.

They were expected back at the FBI field office by noon, but Joe sensed that there was something weighing on Bao’s mind, so he was using the downtime for some personal talk. Although they hadn’t known each other very long, Joe knew he was her closest friend in San Francisco. He poured water into her glass and looked around, making sure no one was watching or listening to them.

Joe had secured one of the small square tables with two barstools in the back of the room. Four men and women, who looked like office coworkers celebrating a birthday, were at the table closest to them and making enough raucous conversation to give them a cover of privacy.

“You all right, Bao?” he asked.

Bao said, “I sure am. And you?”

“Uh-huh.”

She cracked a quick grin and said, “I’ve done nothing but talk about myself. Got any burrs under your saddle?”

“Bao, I’ll talk about the burrs under your saddle for as long as you want. If you want to. All that’s bothering me is what we don’t know.”

“Like.”

“Like why Steinmetz wants to see us in”—he looked at his phone—“an hour.” He snagged the server’s attention, and she told him, “It’s coming right up.”

Joe’s educated guess after thirty years psyching out suspects for and with the FBI was that Bao had been spending so much time working as a fill-in with Chief Steinmetz in San Francisco, she had incensed her son and husband back home in DC, who had drawn a line in the sand. Bao was multilingual and experienced in the methods of drug cartels. But she’d likely never expected to juggle a family life on one coast and a working life on another. He guessed that Bao’s husband, Brian, was threatening divorce.

Without knowing the guy, Joe considered what Brian might be feeling. And then he turned that thought inward. What if Lindsay wanted to transfer to, say, New York? Even temporarily, like for a year with breaks to travel home? He couldn’t leave his job in San Francisco. Their daughter, Julie, was almost six. Would Lindsay even consider disrupting their lives?

Joe turned back to Bao. “Want me to fly to DC and have a talk with Brian?”

Bao laughed. “You’re kidding.”

“Maybe …”

“I can just imagine how that would go.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

Bao said, “Joe, I appreciate your support. But I have to handle this …”

Joe could also imagine things from Bao’s point of view. She was at a make-or-break stage in her career. Despite being a pro with a couple of decades in grade, she’d been consigned to the background in DC. But the SF office was smaller than the one in DC, less populated with senior agents, and she was needed here.

All of this was what Joe had gathered from things Bao didn’t say.

The waitress came to their table and set down a tray of bamboo baskets, each filled with the specialty of the house: tasty, steaming little buns stuffed with meats, exotic seafood, spiced vegetables, and other five-star delicacies. In that moment, it was all about the food.

She and Joe unwrapped their chopsticks. Joe had lifted one dim sum halfway to his mouth when Bao’s phone rang.

“It’s Steinmetz,” she said, stabbing the talk button. “Chief? Yes, we’ll be there in forty-five … Oh. Okay. Twenty is possible. Yes. He’s here. We’ll see you soon.”