Charm City

'I closed for Kitty tonight, so I figured I'd let myself in and make some dinner. Worst case scenario, you'd come home from your drinking date all giggly and fun, I'd tuck you in, then eat lamb stew and apple pie for lunch tomorrow.'

'Trust me, Feeney was neither giggly nor fun tonight.'

Crow wasn't really listening. He was kissing her brow and her ears, patting her all over, always a little surprised to see her again, even in her own apartment.

'Your face is cold, Tesser,' he said, using the childhood nickname she had given herself, a blending of her two names, Theresa Esther. A name reserved for family and very old friends. Crow was neither of those things, not in five months' time. He was twenty-three to her twenty-nine, a happy, careless twenty-three, with glossy black hair almost as long as hers, although usually with a green or red stripe, and a bounce in his walk. It still surprised her that she had to look up to see his thin, angular face, as if their age difference meant he must be shorter, too.

'What do you think of the new addition?' she asked, pointing with her chin toward Esskay, who was staring at Tess as if trying to place her.

'She's cool. Kitty and I took her out for a walk earlier, then made her some rice and steamed vegetables. She's a very old soul, our new dog.'

Tess frowned. 'Our' was a word to be avoided at all costs. Their rules of engagement-more precisely, their rules of disengagement-said no shared books or CDs, dutch treat for all meals out, and no joint purchases of any kind.

But all she said was: 'I don't know why you made it rice and vegetables. I have a twenty-pound bag of kibble.'

'I like to cook for my women,' he said, pulling out her chair at the mission table that did double duty as a dining room table and Tess's desk. 'Hey, did I tell you Poe White Trash has a gig Saturday?'

'Where?'

'The Floating Opera.'

'I guess this means I can't request any Rodgers and Hart,' she said, trying not to make a face. The Floating Opera was an ongoing rave with no fixed location, hop-scotching across the city-or, at least, its more fashionably decadent neighborhoods-according to a pattern understood only by its denizens. As a result, the F.O. had none of the amenities of a real club, such as alcohol, food, or bathrooms, and all the drawbacks: cigarette smoke, too-loud music, too-young crowd.

'Rodgers and Hart,' Crow groaned. 'We don't go in for that retro crap.'

'Elvis Costello sang ‘My Funny Valentine.''

'Tesser, Elvis Costello is old enough to be my father.'

'But not old enough to be mine, right?'

He smiled, disarming her. 'Was Feeney's mood contagious? Or are you itching for a fight tonight?'

'A little of both,' she confessed, and, embarrassed by her crankiness, scooped up her stew meekly and quietly.

With dinner done, she put the bowls in the sink, only to have Crow snatch them back for Esskay, who made quick work of their leftovers. Crow patted the dog and thumped her sides. For a skinny dog, she had a lot of muscle tone: Crow's affectionate smacks sounded solid, drumlike.

'Is stew good for her, after all that rice and vegetables?' Tess asked, remembering Steve's dire predictions from the morning.

'Kitty had this book, in the ‘Women and Hobbies' section, on greyhounds,' Crow said, rubbing Esskay's belly. The dog had a glazed look in her eyes, as if she might faint from pleasure. 'It said they usually need to gain weight after they leave the track, so I don't think a little stew will hurt, although the woman who wrote the book recommended making your own dog food, from rice and vegetables. She also said you're suppose to put ointment on these raw patches, like for diaper rash.'

The dog shoved her nose under Crow's armpit and began rooting around as if there might be truffles hidden in the crevices of his fraying thrift shop sweater. Crow laughed and gave the dog another round of smacks, then sang, in a wordless falsetto, 'Rou-rou-rou.'

Esskay answered back, in a higher key, the vowel sounds slightly more compact, 'Ru-ru- ru.'

'I'm not really a Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy fan,' Tess said, turning on the stereo. Sarah Vaughan's voice filled the room, drowning out the Crow-and-canine duet. 'And I'm beginning to feel like three's a crowd. Would you two like to be alone?'

Crow walked over to her and gave Tess's backside the same affectionate thump he had given the greyhound. Tess was solid, too, but meatier, so her tone was deeper, mellower.

'I'd put ointment on your raw patches if you had any,' he whispered. 'Do you have anything that burns, Tesser?'

Through her clothes, his hands sought out the places where bones could be felt-the ribs below the heavy breasts, the pelvis bones sharp in her round hips, the knobby elbows. He pulled her blouse out of her long, straight skirt and stuck one hand under the waistband, rubbing her belly as he had rubbed Esskay's. With the other hand, he traced the lines of her jawbone and her mouth, then moved to her throat and the base of her neck, where he freed the strands of her long braid.

'Do you like this, Tess?' She could only nod.

Sarah was running through the list of the things she didn't need for romance: Spanish castles, haunting dances, full moons, blue lagoons. The greyhound moaned to herself, softly now, almost in tune. 'Ru- ru-ru.' Tess's breath caught and she reached for Crow's face. Sex would seem almost less intimate than this, and therefore much safer.

'Tesser?' Crow held her wrists, forcing her to meet his gaze.

She waited, apprehensive about what he might say next. Afraid he would start lobbying to move in again. Afraid he would say he loved her. Afraid he would say he didn't.

Sarah sang that her heart stood still. Tess's was beating faster and faster.

'Let's go to bed,' Crow said.

Chapter 4

The Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, like most bureaucracies, ran inefficiently. Unless, of course, one was trying to stay away from work. Then it was suddenly a model of speed and productivity. On Wednesday morning, Tess, desperate for five minutes to herself, didn't even have a chance to take her Beacon-Light out of the plastic yellow wrapper before a cheerful clerk brought out the batch of driving records Tyner had requested. Oh well, there was no law against lingering here on a bright blue bench, drinking scorched take-out coffee and watching the frustrated drivers and driving aspirants. They, unlike her, were in a hurry and therefore must be thwarted at every turn. It was MVA policy.

'I'll pay you ten bucks if you've got a number lower than mine,' a harried businessman whispered to Tess. She knew the type, someone who was Much Too Important, who rushed through every chore as if he were the Secretary of State and needed to jump ahead of you at the dry cleaners, or cut you off in traffic, because he was en route to board Air Force One for some summit in the Middle East.

'I don't have a number at all,' she said complacently, smiling at the way he edged away from her. Yes, only a real sicko would hang out at the MVA on her recognizance, as Tommy would say. But Tess had been on the run all morning, since the alarm failed to go off, putting her thirty minutes behind. She had lost another thirty minutes when Esskay had decided to throw up on the living room rug. Tyner, to punish her for her tardiness, had sent Tess on his version of a scavenger hunt, with a list of documents that required visiting five government offices in two jurisdictions. Now it was almost eleven, her first chance to sip a cup of coffee instead of dumping it on her lap in the car. It was also the only time she had to call the hospital for an update on Spike.

'Still stable,' said a cheerful nurse, whose uncle presumably was not lying in a coma.

'Still stable. Isn't that a redundancy?' Tess snapped, banging the pay phone down. She gulped her coffee, hot and strong enough to provide a stinging pain behind the breastbone, then skimmed the