Charm City

'Really, Mr. Gray, she's been here all along,' volunteered Alison. A preppy beauty, as overbred as a golden retriever, Alison was a good egg. She couldn't lie to save her life, though.

'I heard you on the stairs,' he called back to Tess. 'You have a very heavy tread. I never remember-do you pronate or supinate?'

'Pronate,' she said, following him into his office, a spare, uncluttered room. In a wheelchair for almost forty years, Tyner hadn't waited for anyone to make the world accessible to him. Although his office was in a nineteenth-century town house better suited to antiques, he had chosen sleek, modern furnishings, which took up less floor space. His desk was a large, flat table, custom made so he could roll right up to it. The chairs facing it were tall and slender, expensive maple pieces with narrow strips of leather for seats. They also were wretchedly uncomfortable, and, not incidentally, reminiscent of the sliding seats in a racing shell. Rowing was Tyner's true passion, even if his years as a rower had ended up being only a fraction of his life.

'My uncle got robbed last night,' Tess told him, perching on one of the chairs. 'Someone worked him over pretty bad.'

'Jesus. Which one? Which side?' Unavoidable questions, and difficult ones, for Tess had nine other uncles-her father's five younger brothers, her mother's four older ones. Spike was actually a cousin, and to complicate things further, no one had ever agreed to which side of the family he belonged. His last name was Orrick. Changed from O'Rourke, Tess's mother always said. Could be one of those Eastern European Jew names, her father inevitably countered, screwed up the immigration officials.

'The one who owns The Point, that bar on Franklintown Road. It was a robbery, and they were pissed because he didn't have anything.'

'This city is becoming unlivable.'

'You say that every other day. You're just looking for a reason to buy that house in Ruxton.' This green, sheltered suburb, no more than five miles outside the city limits, was a kind of code between them, symbolizing the ultimate surrender.

Tyner smiled ruefully. 'The city doesn't make it easy for a taxpayer to stay here, Tess. Especially after this winter. My street wasn't plowed or salted even once. Every time it snowed, I was stranded.'

'You don't have to tell me. Remember, I was the one who drove out there five times, using cross-country skis to get up your street. You always acted as if it were a terrible imposition, having me show up with groceries.'

'I wanted brandy, not food. You'll never make it as a St. Bernard, Tess.'

St. Bernard. Tess's mind jumped from the past to the present, free-associating. Dog. She should call that greyhound rescue group Steve had been blathering about.

Leaving Tyner to his usual grumpy funk, she went back to her desk and flipped through the phone book until she found a listing for Greyhound Pets of Maryland.

'Greyhound Pets.' The breathless person on the other end was a woman with a sweet, throaty voice. Dogs barked frantically in the background. Tess had an instant image of someone in blue jeans, covered in dog hair. Yech.

'Hi. I seem to have inherited a greyhound from my uncle and I'm trying to find out what I need to do for it. Food, exercise, routine, that stuff.'

'How long has your uncle had the dog? I mean, is he a recent adoptee, or has he had him some time? How's he doing?'

Tess became confused, thinking 'he' must be her uncle. Then she realized the woman was referring to the dog. 'Um, pretty recent, I guess. She didn't know how to go up stairs.'

'Is he from here?'

'The dog? I don't know.'

'Your uncle. What's his name?'

'Spike Orrick.'

'That name doesn't ring a bell, and we do most of the placements in the Baltimore area.' The woman's voice suddenly sounded much less pleasant. 'Are you sure he adopted this dog through proper channels? Has he gotten her fixed? You have to get them spayed or neutered, you know. It's part of the agreement. Is the dog with you now? We do have an identification system, and if you'll just…'

Tess placed the receiver back in its cradle. Who was she kidding? Spike had never gone through proper channels for anything. If only Esskay could talk. If only Spike could talk.

But a call to St. Agnes dashed those hopes: Spike was in a coma now, prognosis uncertain.

'What is so rare as a day in spring? What is so rare as a Baltimore day in March when the sun actually shines?' Tess muttered to herself, climbing the stairs to the Brass Elephant bar that evening, her mood a strange muddle of anxiety and anticipation-worry over Spike, delight at spending time in her favorite bar, with one of her favorite drinking companions.

The Brass Elephant bar was a well-kept secret and the regulars conspired to keep it that way. An inexpensive hide-away above an expensive restaurant, it had been an essential place to Tess when she was unemployed, a refuge where she could feel civilized, pampered, and well fed for as little as fifteen dollars. The lights were low, as was the volume on the stereo, with Chet Baker, Johnny Hartman, and Antonio Carlos Jobim murmuring their songs of love so quietly that one caught only an occasional rhyming whisper of love/above, art/heart, or sky/thigh. There had been an ugly scare a few years back, when a new bartender had begun playing a jazz version of the hit ballad from the latest Disney cartoon musical, but someone had quickly set her straight. The Brass Elephant survived good and bad fortune, from Maryland 's peripatetic economy to those best-of-Baltimore ratings that stumbled on its martinis, creating a brief flurry of interest among people who didn't necessarily like martinis, but liked to say they had tried the best.

Good, her favorite bartender was here. So was Feeney, settled deep in the corner banquette, fingers pinching the stem of his martini glass, a telltale mound of toothpick-skewered olives on the white tablecloth in front of him. Tess pointed to Feeney's glass, signaling she wanted the same, and slipped into the chair across the table from Feeney's slumped body. But he didn't acknowledge her, unless one considered a few muttered lines of Auden a suitable greeting.

'I sit in one of the dives / On Fifty-Second Street / Uncertain and afraid / As the clever hopes expire / Of a low dishonest decade.'

Tess sighed. Richard Burton couldn't have done it much better, or much drunker. Auden was a particularly ominous sign, reserved for all-time lows. Only Yeats or Housman was worse.

'You're on Charles Street and the Brass Elephant is hardly a dive, although I won't debate you on the merits of this particular decade.'

'All I have is a voice,' Feeney countered, his voice slipping into a singsong cadence as he notched up the volume. 'To undo the folded lie, / The romantic lie in the brain / Of the sensual man-in-the- street…'

'Is that what they did to you today? A man in the streets?' A minor complaint, one Feeney could be jollied out of. Tess knew the real folded lie was the media's never-flagging belief that ordinary people knew anything about current events. Whenever anything big happened far away, the editors sent reporters into the street to sample the common sense of the common man.

The bartender appeared at the table with her drink. The ritual was part of the pleasure-his wrist action with the shaker, the way he poured the martini with a nice bit of showmanship. Tess took a sip and immediately felt better, stronger, smarter, ready for Feeney in extremis.

'So what was today's question? Something about NATO? NATO is always good for a man-in-the-street. I remember back in my Star days, when someone in Pigtown thought NATO was an indoor swimming pool the mayor wanted to build in Patterson Park.'

'You disappoint me, Tess,' Feeney said balefully, gnawing on one of the toothpicks from the pile in front of him. 'You're as literal minded as my dumb-fuck editors.'

Tess took a second, more generous sip from her glass, relishing its chill and the tiny tongue of heat behind it. Truly a lovely drink.

'It's nice to see you, too, Feeney.'

'Nice to see me? You can't even bear to look at me.'