Charm City

source, someone who-well, let's just say he was a former business associate whose creative accounting tricks for Wink could have resulted in jail time. Now he's born-again, the father of three little girls, soccer coach, PTA president. I was so careful to protect his identity I never even wrote his name in my notebook. He was just U.C.- the Unknown Citizen.'

In her memory, Tess tasted gin, heard the congenial buzz of the Brass Elephant, saw Feeney's red face as he slurringly declaimed a few lines of poetry.

'That's what you recited to me in the bar, the allusion I couldn't place. Auden's ‘The Unknown Citizen.' ‘Am I happy? Am I free?''

'Did I?' Feeney asked unhappily. 'I don't remember.'

'It was your exit line,' Tess reminded him. 'When you stormed out at eight o'clock and left me alone with your tab.' He squirmed a little, as she had expected he would, as she wanted him to. Good: now they had acknowledged the lie between them, the way he had used her.

'Well, obviously he was on my mind,' Feeney offered. 'I'm surprised I didn't blurt out his name, in the state I was in.'

'Go ahead and blurt it out now. I'm an old friend, you can trust me.' Tess's mind was racing ahead: if Rosita had conducted any of the interviews with the Unknown Citizen, perhaps she had twisted his words the way she'd twisted Linda's. It was worth checking out.

Feeney's face was pensive, the way he sometimes looked before a poetry jag, although he was obviously stone-cold sober now.

'Tess, as long as you work for management, you're not my friend and I don't trust you. And if you want to continue this conversation, I suggest we find my union rep.'

He turned and began walking quickly toward the Shrine of St. Jude. Tess stood on the corner, as breathless as if he had just punched her in the stomach. How had Feeney gotten things so twisted? She was here because of his deceit, because he had used her as his alibi, and if she didn't make the case that Rosita had sneaked the story into the paper out of unalloyed ambition, Feeney might take the fall. Typical Feeney, going on the offensive when he should be offering profuse apologies.

'Fuck you, Kevin Feeney,' she called after him, although he was already too far away to hear her. 'You can take care of yourself from now on.'

The sleet had finally stopped, but the wind had picked up, stinging and bitter. That's the only reason my eyes are tearing, Tess told herself as she walked back inside. Because of the wind.

Chapter 19

A dispirited Tess left the Beacon-Light at 4:30, sick of the media, only to arrive home in time for the tail-end of a press conference at Women and Children First. All four local television stations were crowded into Kitty's bookstore, along with the reporter from the East Baltimore Guide, a neighborhood paper, and someone from the city's alternative weekly. The object of their attention was a quivering Esskay, whom Kitty had brushed to a high shine and beautified by intertwining a green velvet ribbon through her collar. It was a toss-up who was going to lose control of her bladder first-Esskay, or Tess, who couldn't believe Kitty was pulling a stunt like this.

'Yes, this dog was an outstanding racer,' Kitty was saying, in response to someone's question. 'The top earner at her track in Juarez last year. But her owner decided to let her retire at the top of her game and become the official mascot of Women and Children First. Esskay-that's her nickname, her full name is Sylvia Querida-will also serve as a model for a children's book I plan to write and illustrate about the greyhound rescue movement.'

Illustrate a book? News to Tess. Kitty couldn't draw a stick figure with a ruler.

'How's a high-energy dog like that going to get all the exercise it needs when you don't have a real yard?' asked one reporter, a hard-nosed skeptic by television's standards.

'As some of you know, residents near Patterson Park take their dogs on patrol every night, in an attempt to discourage prostitution and drug-related crimes. We'll walk Esskay as part of the patrol at night. As for her morning walks, some old friends of mine have volunteered to take her out.'

Kitty waggled her fingers at two muscular men in Spandex leggings and tight T-shirts. 'These police officers plan to jog with Esskay as part of their conditioning program. But if this wintry weather doesn't go away, we'll have to get Esskay a sweater-she doesn't have any body fat to protect her. Then again, neither do the officers.'

The reporters laughed as the officers blushed a bright, happy red. Kitty then fished a dog biscuit out of a box propped next to the cash register, climbed to the top of the counter, and held the treat straight out from her shoulder, about eight feet above the floor. In one graceful movement, Esskay leaped up and snatched the bone from Kitty's hand.

'Beautiful visual,' Tess muttered to herself. 'That's going to be on every channel tonight.'

So it was. But the stations cut away from the next shot: Esskay, crouched over her treat, looking up to see four television cameras approaching her. The overwhelmed dog made a strange yodeling noise deep in her throat, lost control just as Tess had thought she might and, profoundly humiliated, bolted from the room at top speed.

'That which you cannot hide, proclaim,' Kitty expounded to Tess and Crow that night, after a dinner designed to chase away the winter blues while it packed on pounds: corn chowder with sherry, a chicken-and-rice casserole, Crow's home-made rolls, and gingerbread with a heated caramel sauce and fresh-whipped cream. Stuffed and contented, they sat in Kitty's kitchen, listening to the wind whipping around the building as if looking for someone it had a long-standing grudge against. Kitty and Tess sipped coffee with healthy slugs of Kahlua, while Crow settled for straight-up caffeine. He still had to take Esskay out for her first jaunt with the Patterson Park patrol.

'Okay, so we've proclaimed Esskay,' Tess said. 'But we've also taken out an advertisement for our friends in the shit-and-salmon car. Hey guys! Come and get her. The dog you're looking for is at the corner of Bond and Shakespeare Street.'

'They would have found you eventually, if they haven't already,' Kitty said. 'Now that Esskay is famous, those men who have been dogging you-if you'll pardon the expression-will have to be much more careful. They won't go after two police officers jogging with a dog. And they're not going to wade into that pack of dogs who roam Patterson Park with their civic-minded owners.'

'What about the stuff you made up, like her racing record?' Crow asked. 'What if the reporters check?'

'Even if they do think to call a dog track in Juarez, I think there's going to be a slight language problem.'

Crow laughed, but Tess sighed. 'Still, I wish you hadn't brought the cops into it. Remember, we don't know how Spike came to have this dog, or what he has to do with her altered tattoo. The less the cops know, the better.'

'I thought of that, too,' Kitty said, her voice a smug purr. 'The ‘officers' are actually bartender friends of Steve's. The reporters think they're police officers because I told them they were. Perception is more important than reality.'

'My, you're just full of aphorisms tonight. When do we get to hear the one about the penny saved? Or how about the early bird, Aunt Kitty? Will you tell us that one, pretty please?'

Kitty bounced a leftover roll off Tess's head, which Esskay caught neatly on the rebound and devoured. 'I was thinking more of gift horses and the bodily cavities you're not supposed to inspect, a train of thought that leads me directly to your uncanny impersonation of another part of the horse's anatomy.'

'Ladies, ladies.' Crow still didn't know what to make of the way Tess and Kitty bickered with one another, even if it was all in good fun. His parents, onetime Bostonians who had fled the winters and settled in Charlottesville, Virginia, were almost painfully civilized in their affection for one another. Esskay, however, liked the mock yelling and rushed to the fray, eager to see if more food bits might fly.

Crow snapped a leash to the excited dog's collar. 'I hate to leave this warm kitchen, but we might as well get