Butchers Hill

'I don't know. What you're asking is pretty hard. Truthfully, I wouldn't even know where to begin.'

'There's this Adoption Rights group that meets in Columbia every other week. We could go there first, learn some strategies.'

'It's not just the ‘how' part that bothers me. After all, I could give it my best shot, earn some money without worrying I was bleeding you dry. I'm still not sure I want to work for you.'

'Why?'

'Because you tricked me, you jerked me around. Okay, you got burned by some other detectives. But there were other ways to figure out I'm legitimate. I can't shake the feeling you liked that whole elaborate game, that you really got off on your Mary Browne disguise. I feel like a little mouse, batted back and forth in some cat's paws. Besides, you're bright, you must have connections if you worked for politicians. You can probably find out as much as I can, even more.'

'It's true, I'm successful-more successful than you, for a fact.'

'Why, thanks for pointing that out,' Tess said dryly.

'But when it comes to dealing with people who have power over me-especially white people who have power over me-I lose it. I either get all bashful and tongue-tied, or I start screaming lawsuit. Neither approach is particularly effective.'

Tess had a strange sense of deja vu, as if she knew exactly what Jackie meant. The principal at Gwynn's Falls Middle School, taciturn Keisha, Beale's uncooperative neighbors, even the Nelsons. They had thwarted her, been less helpful than they might have been, and all because of her race.

'Okay, quid pro quo,' she said.

'What do you mean?'

'I'll take your case, but I want more than money from you. I want your help, talking to people who won't talk to me, on another case I'm working.'

Jackie's look was contemptuous. 'You mean poor black folks, don't you? What, do you think there's some secret language I speak that will get me by? That some poor black kid is going to talk to a sister, who happens to be driving a Lexus and wearing the kind of clothes I wear?'

'Maybe. I am willing to bet you can convince a middle school principal that you're a particular kid's next of kin, which is something I can't pull off. That's a start. We'll see how it goes from there.'

Their entrees arrived and Jackie attacked her pompano en croute with a ferocity Tess found admirable, even familiar. She was bent over her meal with the same intensity. But Jackie could concentrate on her food without losing her train of thought.

'So, if I help you on this other case, do I get a discount?'

'Nope,' Tess said cheerfully. 'The wages of sin, for not being straight with me from the beginning. Consider it a fraud surcharge.'

Finally, Jackie smiled, but it was a cool smile, even a little supercilious. 'Good for you. You've already learned one of the cardinal rules for the small businesswoman. Don't give it away-unless you have to.'

'Did you ever give it away?'

'No. But then I was good from the very beginning.'

Chapter 9

They drove into the city together, although it would mean a long trip back for Tess, who had left her car at Jackie's apartment. But she needed to brief Jackie on the names of the children she was looking for, the block where they had once lived, the questions to ask. She also liked the unaccustomed luxury of Jackie's car, the pampered feeling of being chauffered, although she didn't mention this to Jackie.

It was the hottest part of the day and Tess took a perverse pleasure in sending Jackie off to work Fairmount Avenue in her high-heeled shoes. 'I'd go with you, but it would defeat the purpose,' she said. 'If they see you with me, you'll automatically be less trustworthy.'

'I guess so,' Jackie said. 'What will you do while I'm out?' Apparently Jackie had not achieved her early success by tolerating, much less welcoming, down time.

'I'll think about how we're going to handle our next fact-finding mission,' Tess assured her.

She then spent the next hour trying to teach Esskay to fetch, tossing pencils into the corner opposite her sofa. By the time Jackie returned, favoring her left foot as if she might have the beginnings of a blister, Tess had enough pencils stacked in the corner to make a small bonfire.

'I'd forgotten how hot those rowhouses get in the summer,' Jackie said, taking the can of Coke Tess offered and holding it against her neck and brow before she opened it. 'And how nasty some of them are. People who can't believe the way folks live in Third World countries ought to try a tour of East Baltimore some time.'

'Did you find any leads on the kids?'

'In fact, I did. Not much, but something.' Jackie smiled, pleased with herself. Why not? She had succeeded so quickly where Tess had failed. That's why Tess had recruited her, yet it still needled, this sense of barriers, of places she could not go, people to whom she could never really speak. She turned on her computer and opened up Luther Beale's file. There wasn't much there, just the notes from their initial interview, and a record of yesterday's futile interviews with Keisha, et al.

'Tell me what you've got.'

Jackie recited her findings as she might have outlined a fund-raising plan for one of her clients: quickly, efficiently, with few wasted words. 'Two of the kids were dead-ends. Salamon Hawkings and Eldon Kane. The neighbors don't recall seeing them around here since the shooting, no one knows what happened to them. But the twins, Treasure and Destiny, never really got away. Officially, they're in the care of an aunt somewhere over on Biddle Street, but the neighbors see them around here all the time. The supposition is that they're actually living here.'

'Their own place? Who rents an apartment to two teenagers?'

Jackie looked at Tess as if she were too stupid to be believed. It was the same smug expression she had worn when Tess showed up on her doorstep in Columbia that morning.

'They don't pay rent,' Jackie said. 'They're squatting in a vacant house. Their aunt shows up from time to time and makes them go home. Sooner or later, they're hanging out here again. Treasure has a taste for crack. He's on the circuit.'

'The circuit?'

Another look. 'He gets his meals at the soup kitchens in the area. Beans and Bread; Bea Gaddy's on the days that Beans and Bread is closed. Destiny doesn't go for that, though. She's a car girl.'

'What's that?' Maybe if she admitted her ignorance of things, Jackie wouldn't be so quick to condescend.

'Sort of an apprentice prostitute. A guy comes along, offers her a ride. It's understood that he's asking for sex and she'll get something out of it, but she's not really a pro. Destiny has a taste for Versace, the neighborhood ladies tell me, and fancy leather pocketbooks. But she's got some come-and-go steady boyfriend who provides her with the big-ticket items. The car dates are more for walking-around money. And drugs for Treasure, I'd bet.'

'Versace? How does her boyfriend afford Versace?'

'Why, I believe he's what we call a pharmaceutical entrepreneur,' Jackie said, raising one eyebrow. 'No one seemed to know his name, but they wouldn't tell me even if they did. I don't care who you are, people around here aren't going to go naming names when it comes to the local dealers. People die for that.'

'How did you get the neighbors to open up as much as they did?' Maybe Tess could learn something from Jackie.

'I didn't bullshit them. I told them I was trying to find the kids who used to live in the group home, the one where the little boy was shot all those years back. It's funny-people get shot and killed around here every week, but everyone remembers the night Donnie died. I'll tell you this much, they really hate the old man who shot him.'