Butchers Hill

legendary fights over parking, as the workout-bound folks jockeyed for the spaces closest to the door, determined not to walk one more inch than necessary. The pickup scene that made the men's locker room strictly NC-17 on the weekends. Then there was the apocryphal story about the man who suffered a heart attack during the peak evening hours. While some people had rushed to his aid, other impatient exercisers had used the confusion to sneak ahead in the StairMaster line.

'Oh, c'mon, Mr. Gray,' protested the young trainer who was bumping Tyner's wheelchair up the short flight of steps to the main floor as Tyner repeated all these stories to Tess, his stentorian voice jouncing with each stair. 'You know no such thing ever happened here.'

'If it isn't true, it should be,' Tyner insisted. With the attendant's help, he hoisted himself into the Nautilus butterfly machine, pulling on his weight-lifting gloves once he was settled. 'What do you have today, Tess? Weights or aerobics?'

'I rowed this morning, a good long one, so all I have are weights. But I'll start with lower body.'

'Don't slack. I'll be watching you.'

'Watch yourself.' Tess reached out and caught Tyner's arm as he attempted to return the weight to its resting position. 'C'mon, fight me a little, old man. Press harder. Harder. You can do it.'

He could, quite easily. Tyner had taken good care of himself. Above the waist, he was as lean and strong as he had been in his early twenties, when he was on the Olympic rowing team. Below-well, below, he was what he had been for more than forty years, since a speeding car had crumpled his legs and ended his Olympic pursuits.

'I've still got much more upper-body strength than you,' he taunted her good-naturedly.

The DAC was quiet on a Saturday afternoon. Although school wasn't out, people with weekend shares had already started heading to the shore, or moved their athletic pursuits outdoors while the weather was so fine. Tess would have preferred to be outside herself, but there was no outdoor substitute for weight-lifting.

A stringy, pale man in his forties was on the quad machine. 'May I work in?' she asked.

'Only two more,' he said, holding up two fingers helpfully. But he just sat there, as comfortable as a man on a barstool, in no hurry to move. Tess decided to work on the leg press instead of waiting, and took the machine next to him.

'What do you think of that?' he asked, still stalling, not anxious to start his next set.

'Think of what?' she gritted out as she released on the final rep, the weight bouncing a little as it hit. She hoped Tyner hadn't heard it, he'd been on her back for such sloppy work.

'The guy in the wheelchair. What's that about?'

'I'm not sure what you mean.'

'He's an old guy in a wheelchair, for Christ's sake. What's the point? I do this because I got divorced last year and I'm, you know, out there. Gotta keep the old bod in shape. I hate it, but that's the price you pay. What's he doing it for?'

'You finished on there yet?' Her tone was light, but as sure as Clark Kent slipping into a phone booth, she could feel her secret alter ego emerging. She counted to thirty, but not to control her temper. She was just marking the time of her rest periods, trying to keep them as short as possible.

'Almost.' He huffed and puffed through another set much too quickly, his motions fast and jerky, his legs swinging as loose as a little kid. He held up a single finger. 'One more set. What's your name, anyway?'

'I'm Tess.' But others know me as the Emasculator.

She bided her time, patient now, letting him natter on through a long rest period and then his final set, all the while dropping little hints about the things that made him such a great catch. Oh, he was clever enough to weave it into a narrative, an unnecessarily complicated story about how he hated taking his Range Rover to the ballpark, but it wasn't so bad when you parked in the season ticket holders lot, loved them O's, but didn't eat ballpark food, unless it was at the Camden Club, usually went Dalesio's afterwards. None of this was offered as an invitation-Tess could tell he hadn't decided if she was worthy-but she would have the essential information if he decided he didn't have a better prospect for tonight's game.

Finally done, he wiped his nonexistent sweat from the seat in a show of courtliness, then pulled the pin out from the seventy-pound mark.

'Where you want this? I know you gals don't like to bulk up too much.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Tess said carelessly. 'I'm not feeling at my peak today…how about 120?'

He laughed, as if this were a wonderful joke, and put the pin where she had asked. With an impassive, bored expression, Tess hopped into the seat and ripped off a set, swiftly, but with good form. Her new friend, now perched on the leg press, paused when he saw where Tess had left the pin. She could tell he was loathe to choose a lighter weight, yet didn't want to get on and find he couldn't lift what she had lifted.

'I guess I'm done, anyway,' he said.

Not quite. 'The man in the wheelchair?' Tess said as he started to walk away.

'Yeah?'

'That's my boyfriend.'

Now he was done.

Tess told Tyner most of the story over lunch, editing out the parts about him. Although Tyner claimed indifference to the idiots of the world, she couldn't imagine that the other man's careless statements wouldn't hurt.

They were at the Point, the run-down tavern owned by her Uncle Spike. It was never clear whether the tavern was simply a front for Spike's bookie operation, or whether this was what kept body and soul together when gambling was slow. June was a slow time for both businesses-basketball and Pimlico winding down, football far away and baseball a sucker bet. To entice people into the bar, Spike had started offering free peanuts in large, shallow-bottomed barrels. But his assistant, Tommy, refused to sweep the floor every night and it was now impossible to walk through the Point without making a constant, crunching sound and raising little clouds of peanut dust around your ankles.

'I'm sure your secret life as the Emasculator keeps you quite busy,' Tyner said, 'but I'm more interested in how your real work is going.'

'It was going fine until someone pried my door open with a crowbar last night. They didn't take anything, but I have a feeling break-ins are going to be a constant worry in my location.' 'So it was a junkie?'

'You want some more peanuts?' Tess walked over to the nearest barrel, grabbed two fistfuls, and brought them back to the table, dropping them with a great clattering noise.

'Have you ever noticed how, in every batch of peanuts you eat, there's one that's almost perfect?' she asked, opening a triple pod. 'It's roasted a little darker than the rest, has an almost piquant flavor. So you eat dozens more, looking for one that has that same strong, roasted flavor and instead, you find one that's acrid and shriveled, which cancels out the perfect one, so you eat dozens more, trying to regain your equilibrium, and next thing you know you have peanut belly, all swollen and bloated, and you still haven't found that elusive, perfect peanut.'

Tyner wasn't the type to be distracted by a monologue on peanuts.

'It wasn't junkies, was it?'

'No,' Tess admitted, sighing out loud. 'I think someone went into my computer and made a copy of a file. There was paper in the tray, and I never leave it out. I feed it into the printer as I need it.'

'Which file was copied?'

'Can't tell, but I assume it was Beale's. He was sitting there when I arrived, said he happened on the scene. Suspicious, I know, but why would he steal his own file? He's entitled to what's in it. Then again, it can't be Jackie. The only person who knows I'm working for Jackie is Jackie.'

'As far as you know.'

'Yeah, but why would she lie?'

'I haven't a clue, but the one thing we know is that she lied before, right? I mean, even if she had a reason for her elaborate Mary Browne charade, she does lie, and she lies well.' Tyner brushed the peanut shells and meal to the floor. 'What do you know about the baby's father?'

'Long gone and long forgotten, some guy from the neighborhood. Didn't want to be a father and signed away