Charm City

Whitney didn't smile. 'Know where I was this morning? A soup kitchen on Twenty-Fifth Street. They start serving breakfast at seven-thirty A.M. and don't finish until almost eleven most mornings. And today was a slow day, only two hundred people served. By month's end, it'll be three hundred. Some women stop by every morning with their kids, in order to stretch out their food stamps.'

'Well, I'm encouraged to hear the Blight is taking an interest. You usually only write about hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa.'

'Forgive me, Tess, but I hate doing all this bleeding heart social services crap. I've covered city politics, I'm fluent in Japanese, I had a fellowship in economics down at College Park. But I don't get to write editorials about those things. You know why? It's because I don't stand up when I go to the bathroom!'

Whitney's outburst, while not particularly loud, filled one of those odd silences endemic to hectic public places. The men in line stirred uneasily. They might have wanted to envision Whitney in the bedroom, standing or sitting, but not in the bathroom. Tess had to admit the image didn't do much for her appetite, either.

' Turkey sub, extra hots,' the counterman called. Tess took the greasy brown paper bag, plucked a bag of Utz cheese curls off the metal rack, and turned back to Whitney, who was focused on her grilled cheese's progress with bird dog intensity.

'Call me, hon.' She had started using the local endearment ironically, only to find it a natural fit over time, Baltimore being an irony-free zone. Even its synthetic nickname, Charm City, had begun to take on a life of its own. 'Crow doesn't take up all my time. In fact, he's so busy being a local rock hero, I have plenty of free week-ends and evenings.'

Whitney nodded absently. But as Tess began working her way out of the crowded carryout, Whitney reached out and caught the sleeve of her coat.

'Tesser?'

'What?'

'How's your job? The investigator thing? Tyner keeping you busy?'

'In spurts.'

'Spurts.' Whitney laughed. Even her laugh seemed better than most people's-rarer, richer, deeper. 'I thought that was how Crow kept you busy. Are you licensed? Have you bought a gun? You know, if you want to go to a range with me sometimes-'

'I don't have a gun yet. You know how I feel about them.' Whitney, who had hunted ducks and doves with her father most of her life, and always kept her rifle handy, had tried to interest Tess in the sport during their Washington College days, to no avail.

'I know, I know. But you should get a license to carry, since you're entitled to one by law. If you had been carrying a gun last fall-'

'I probably would have shot myself in the foot by accident.' And everyone who was dead would still be dead, she reminded herself, as she did whenever someone alluded to that malevolent September, to what might have been, and who might still be among the living. The little movie, the one that seemed to have been booked into her dreams for eternity, rolled again in her head, a trailer for that evening's coming nightmares.

'If you say so.' Whitney gave her a kiss on the cheek, not one of those fake, airy ones preferred by her class, but an exuberant smacker of a smooch that left a pink smear of lipstick on Tess's cheek. The crowd loved it. Quicksilver Whitney had already turned her attention back to her sandwich.

'It's getting too brown. Turn it, turn it, turn it!' she implored the short, swarthy man at the grill, who grinned goofily, as if her imperious orders were a declaration of undying love. 'And would you be so kind as to cut off the crusts?'

Chapter 5

Never a cheery place, The Point was particularly bleak at twilight. Even the dusk's faint light illuminated too much, accentuating the bar's distinct charmlessness. Tess could see dust on the tables, the smeared glass in the jukebox, an odd assortment of stains on the floor. She couldn't blame this on Spike's absence. The truth was, the place looked marginally better under Tommy's care.

'So, Tommy,' Tess tried again, fixing herself a watery Coke from the bar nozzle. 'How did Spike end up with a greyhound?'

'That blond girl sure is pretty,' he said, eyes fixed on the early news, on the television set bolted above the bar. 'But I don't like the black guy. How come it's always a blond girl and a black guy? How come it's never a blond guy and a black girl? You ever think about that? And who do you think makes the more exuberant salary, the girl or the guy?'

'Exorbitant salary, Tommy. And I'm more interested in greyhounds right now. What was Spike's interest in dog racing?'

'We don't have no dog races in Maryland?' he protested.

'We don't have world champion prizefights, either, but Spike has been known to take a few bets on those. Look, did he buy an interest in Esskay? Is he a partner with some out-of-state trainer? Or is he mixed up in betting on greyhounds?'

'He didn't want nothing to do with greyhounds,' Tommy insisted. 'He said they were spooky looking? It bothered him to look at them?'

'Look at them where? Where he got Esskay?'

Tommy turned back to the television. Reporters were camped out in front of Wink Wynkowski's mansion, a new house built in a pseudo-Tudor style out of place in a treeless subdivision. Apparently, Wink had not emerged all day, nor had he provided any response to the Beacon-Light's allegations. The TV reporters' only hope to advance the story was to get a reaction. They couldn't duplicate the kind of reporting Feeney had done over the last several weeks. Besides, why look at some boring old court documents or chat up sources when you can chase someone across his own front lawn, screaming, 'How do you feel?'

'Be too bad to lose the basketball team because of the newspaper,' Tommy said to the TV screen. 'Woulda helped our business?'

'You seem awfully proprietary about things around here, Tommy. Someone might think you didn't care if Spike never woke up.'

Tommy plucked nervously at his lower lip. 'You're treading on thin ground, Tess. I don't see where you get off, talking to me like that. I'm around more'n the rest of the fambly. More'n you.'

'Where did the dog come from? Why was Spike beaten? How are the two things connected?'

He turned away and began fiddling with the beer tap. The regulars were drifting in, providing Tommy with enough distractions to ignore her for hours. Slowly, with great ceremony, he shook miniature pretzels into wooden bowls along the bar, then slapped down coasters, which no one in the history of The Point had ever used. Behind the bar, Tommy looked as fresh as the coasters, in his bright yellow shirt and black pants. He even looked taller. Tess peeked over the Formica top and saw he was sporting a pair of high-heeled caramel-colored ankle boots with side zippers, circa 1976.

'Spiffy shoes,' Tess said.

'Oh, yeah, well, you know I can't wear loafers. Thin ankles.'

'Don't those heels hurt after a day on your feet?'

'You know what they say-a hard man's day is never done.' Tommy looked bewildered when everyone laughed, but Tess suspected he was playing to the crowd. It wasn't the first time she had heard this particular Tommyism.

Esskay had also put in a hard day, shredding paper towels and toilet paper, gnawing on the pieces, then spitting up clumps behind furniture and in corners. Tess found a particularly large, soggy chunk in the center of her pillow. Her pillow, not the one Crow used, which was actually closer to the door. Did Esskay know which side of the bed Tess preferred? And if so, was this fealty, or a veiled threat?