you were supposed to be, um, in command?”
“Would you have noticed if a girl just disappeared one day and never came back?”
“It happens. It happens all the time. It’s not the kind of job where people give two weeks notice and ask for references, you know what I mean? Do you have a photo?”
Tess didn’t want to show him the photo of Jane Doe’s corpse. It wasn’t only that it seemed less than helpful- she couldn’t imagine anyone making an ID from the battered, bulging face. But the photo seemed pornographic to her, degrading.
She showed him the police sketch instead, although she doubted it was a good likeness. The drawing was a little flat, but it had the particulars-the shape of the face, the high cheekbones, the large eyes beneath the winged brows, the archer’s bow of a mouth, with its plump lower lip.
“Pretty,” Hurst said. “But it doesn’t ring any bells.”
Tess noticed his pupils were pinpricks set in amber, that his hands kept returning to his lank blond locks. A man with his own problems. Bo’s clientele probably came for the speed and stayed for the decor. She wondered how long Hurst had been helping himself to the house wares.
“I never knew this place existed before I checked the liquor licenses this morning, but I know there are bars that try to draw as little scrutiny as possible, for their clientele’s sake. Does Bo’s have a nickname? A kind of code name used by the people who come here, or work here?”
Hurst looked mystified. “Why would a place named Bo’s need something like that? We have tourists wander in who think we’re a crab house as it is.” He giggled. “And I guess we are, sometimes. Not everyone is as clean as he should be, you know.”
“Does anyone ever call this the Sugar House?”
“I should hope not.” He made a face. “That reminds me of that hideous song. Besides, whatever this place is, it isn’t sweet.”
Tess looked around. It was so perfect for her purposes-an S-and-M bar that trafficked in crystal meth, which had once been called Dom’s. But if Bo’s wasn’t sweet, neither did it seem particularly threatening.
“Who comes here?” she asked Hurst. “I’m not asking for names, I’m just curious. Is there really a demand for this kind of place in Baltimore?”
His bony shoulders popped up and down in what might have been a shrug on a person moving at normal speeds. “Kids come for the music and…side benefits. But we get a lot of fat, middle-aged guys from Linthicum. Go figure.”
Tess felt like saying: “Well, I’m tracking down a lead that came from a pathological liar. Go figure.” But it was only noon. She might as well check out the last place on her list, Domenick’s in Southwest Baltimore. Her mind was already skipping ahead to lunch, trying to remember if there was a decent place left to eat in Sowebo since Mencken’s Cultured Pearl shut down.
Southwest Baltimore was an object lesson in what can happen when a neighborhood’s ballyhooed renaissance falls short of the mark. Dingy and defeated, it reminded Tess of someone who jumps from one rooftop to the next, only to dangle by his fingernails from the downspout. Most of the restaurants that had cropped up in the neighborhood’s hour of hope had moved on, as had their bohemian clientele, artists attracted by the low rents. Hampden, up north, was the happening neighborhood now. No more Mencken’s Cultured Pearl, or Telltale Hearth, or Gypsy Cafe. At one point, the city had even put H. L. Mencken’s house on the block. Officials backed off, claiming it was a misunderstanding, but Tess never doubted they would have sold the place if they could have. The sad fact was that the biggest tourist site in the area was “The Corner,” an open-air drug market immortalized in a book by the same name. Politicians held press conferences there and the city routinely swept it clean, as if it were the only place in Baltimore to buy crack cocaine. When Hollywood came to town to film
But even in the most depressed areas, people need a place to throw back a drink or two. Domenick’s, housed in an end-of-group rowhouse, provided a clean, quiet place to do just that. The sign out front said only Bar, as if it were a generic place to drink. Inside, it proved to be just that. A place for regulars, this was clear to Tess when every pair of eyes in the quiet bar fixed on her. It was one o’clock, a little early to begin drinking, but not so early as to be ashamed of it. Besides, these were men and women whose days started earlier than most, if they started at all.
She took a seat at the bar and asked for a beer.
“What kind?” asked the bartender. He was a thin man in his middle forties, with a stoop and a very bad toupee. Hard to imagine telling your troubles to him.
Tess recognized the question for the test that it was.
“Not Natty Boh,” she said, “not after they left town. And I guess I can’t have a Carling Black Label either. What do you have on tap?”
“Michelob.”
“Michelob’s fine.”
“Not light beer, you understand. Just Michelob.”
“I never opt for the ‘light’ version of anything,” Tess said. “Do you serve any food?”
He tossed her a stained paper menu, which featured the usual bar delicacies and a few local specialties. Tess, who had been skimping on vegetables of late, soothed her conscience with an order of green pepper rings dipped in powdered sugar. Then she sat back and studied her surroundings, trying not to be obvious, given that the other customers continued to steal looks at her.
It was a plain, no-nonsense bar. One television set, tuned to ESPN and muted. The lower part of the walls was paneled, while the upper portion was covered with gold-flecked mirrors, which may have been intended to make the bar seem wider than it was, but the mirrors were now so smeary with age that they had a funhouse quality. A minimum of neon signage, a cigarette machine, two video poker machines, with the usual disclaimers about being for recreation only. Right. The booths along the wall were filled, mostly with men. One woman, maybe in her sixties, with dark hair and a doughy face creased by a lifetime of Luckies. No one was speaking, and no one else was eating. The only sounds were the bells and whistles of an old-fashioned pinball machine, over which two stringy young blond men were practically davening.
Perhaps no one ever ate here, for the young waitress who brought out her green pepper rings was clearly overwhelmed by the task. She held the tray out in front of her, arms locked, eyes almost crossed in concentration. She traversed the short distance from the kitchen door to Tess’s barstool as if walking across ice. No wonder-she wore ridiculous shoes for a waitress, lace-up platforms with four-inch heels. Tess had waited tables off and on during college, and she knew you had to sacrifice style for comfort. This girl would learn.
“Green pepper rings?” she asked in a sweet, high voice. Well, it was clear why she was hired. She was extraordinarily pretty in a fresh, wholesome way that made Tess feel craggy, old, and tough as leather. Pink cheeks, shiny brown hair, big blue eyes, and an almost comically perfect figure, an hourglass perched on long, coltish legs.
“Just put ’em down, Terry,” the bartender said, obviously unimpressed with her skills.
She placed the plate in front of Tess with a hard clatter, so the pepper rings jumped, and she did, too. Then she scurried back into the kitchen.
“You the owner?” Tess asked the bartender, fairly sure of the answer.
“Manager.”
“How long you worked here?”
“Off and on since it opened.”
She pulled her wallet from the knapsack she carried in place of a purse-a wallet thick with bills, she let the bartender’s eyes take that in-and showed him her license, then the sketch. Even before she could explain what she wanted, he was shaking his head. “No one I ever knew.”
“What about the other folks here?”
He held up the sketch. “Anyone know her?”
A few customers squinted at the sketch, but no one got up to take a closer look.
“Sorry.”
“Is the owner around?” she asked.
