Baltimore Blues

for his instructions, not to do anything without checking with him first. Whitney had called her a coward and a wimp. Whitney was right. Tess had become tentative and timid, and not just in the past three days. Ever since the Star folded, her life had been on hold. She wasn't much different than her father, with his patronage job as a city liquor inspector, or her mother, reporting to her glorified secretarial job at the National Security Agency every day for almost thirty years now. Except Tess didn't have a do-nothing job to go to, or a pension to look forward to. According to the severance papers she had received when the Star shut down, she could look forward to about $4,200 from the pension fund in thirty- five years or so.

As she sat there, imagining the tiny pile her own life would make, the phone rang. She let the machine pick it up.

'Tess, it's Tyner.' His voice rattled teacups in her cupboard. For one paranoid moment she imagined he had read her thoughts and was calling to rebuke her. 'We need your expertise tomorrow. Damage control. I'm going before a judge to get permission for Rock to row in out-of-town races, and we want to keep the local jackals at bay. We need you, Tess. Call me.'

She let the machine record it all. After Tyner hung up she played the message over. 'We need you, Tess.' She rewound, played it again. 'We need you.' It seemed such a long time since anyone-a boss, a lover, a friend- had said those words to her. 'We need you.'

She pulled a page out of her notebook and began, from memory, diagramming the Clarence Mitchell Courthouse. Stairs, elevators, entrances, and exits. Getting in was easy. Getting out undetected would be the challenge.

Chapter 11

Like most midsize cities at the millennium's edge, Baltimore had one newspaper, four television stations with evening newscasts, and an Associated Press bureau. Two radio stations also did some original reporting, rather than going the rip-and-read route with the AP broadcast wire, but most of the news came from the Beacon-Light by way of the AP. In fact news was one of Baltimore 's most successful recycling projects. The Beacon-Light reported the story and sent a copy, an electronic carbon, to the AP. Unless the paper asked for special credit-'the Beacon-Light is reporting in today's editions'-AP could rewrite it and put it out on the broadcast wire, which allowed some sonorous-voiced anchor to intone: 'Channel 9 has just learned…'

'And it's not a lie,' Tess said as she explained all this to Tyner at lunch the next day. 'Chances are, the folks at Channel 9 have just learned it at exactly the moment the story moved on the wire.'

It was noon, a hot, blue-sky day in Baltimore. In honor of Dies y Seis, Mexican Independence Day, the Hasty- Tasty, a downtown diner that worked hard to earn its reputation as a greasy spoon, was offering an enchilada plate special. Two frozen tortillas stuffed with shredded chicken, rice and canned beans on the side, and a pale green substance billed as guacamole.

Rock, the only one who had dared order it, was now sculpting tiny figures with the large avocado mound left over at meal's end, uninterested in Tess's impromptu seminar on the local media.

Tyner, however, was intent on every word. His small practice had not brought him into contact with the media, and he prided himself on never reading the local paper. Still, he was savvy enough to know he wanted to avoid the 'perp walk'-the parading of a suspect through a gauntlet of cameras. And he was astute enough to know that ruining the picture could ruin the story for the local television stations; he just had no idea how to do it. This was Tess's job.

Tess warmed to her topic. 'TV reporters, no matter how dumb, excel at the chase. They love nothing better than to follow a moving target, whether it's through the courthouse, outside police headquarters, in front of some row house. It doesn't matter if they yell inane questions and get no answers in reply-it's good video, and good video leads the news and gets more time. They will lead the newscast with footage of a fireman rescuing a kitten from a tree if they have good pictures. But bad video, or no video, and the story gets less time.'

'Is it possible the television reporters will skip the hearing, since the state of Maryland doesn't allow cameras in the courtroom?'

'Doubtful. In fact you can bet someone in the state's attorney's office or the police department will remind them to come. It's an unusual move, petitioning the court to allow a murder defendant to leave the state so he can compete in head races. If we're not careful Rock could look very unsympathetic, worrying more about his rowing than his murder trial.'

Rock looked up from his guacamole sculpture. 'I wish you wouldn't talk about me as if I weren't here. I don't care what the paper says, or the television stations. I'm innocent, and I know Tyner will be able to prove it. Why do we worry about this trivia?'

'The less publicity, the better,' Tyner said. 'That's our rule. Somewhere out there a potential juror may be watching television tonight. I'd prefer not to have an image of you, face averted as you run through the courthouse, planted subliminally in his brain.'

Rock ran the back of his spoon along the banana-shaped line of his guacamole, then stuck two toothpicks on either side perpendicular to it. He finished by placing a single pinto bean in the center of the avocado, between the toothpicks. A scull, Tess marveled. He just built a racing shell out of his lunch, and he's the pinto bean.

'You are either extremely calm or on the verge of cracking up,' she told her friend.

'Can't you be both?' he asked.

They were scheduled to go before Judge R. Robert Nicholson at 2 P.M. Avoiding the media hordes on the way into the courthouse was quite simple: They showed up an hour early and asked the clerk to let them sit in the empty courtroom. Once they were inside the cameras could not follow them. About 1:55, the TV reporters realized Rock had slipped past their stakeout along the broad steps at the courthouse's main entrance, and they began drifting in, leaving their cameras in the hall.

The courtroom was a grand, imposing space, with the touches of seediness endemic to public places in Baltimore. The wooden benches didn't match and were running to splinters in the grooves worn by generations of behinds. Delicate tulip-shaped sconces lined the walls, but three held burned-out bulbs. The gilt paint on the elaborately patterned heating vents had started flaking off. Still, the room was double height, with limestone walls leading to Palladian windows, five on each side-affording a view of blue sky and gray pigeons.

The oddest decoration in the room was a golden bas-relief eagle, perched on a verdigris half globe jutting about five feet above the judge's red leather chair. It looked like a crown in flight, but it was impossible to tell if the eagle, gripping the crown in its talons, had just absconded with it or was about to drop it on the judge's head.

Rock, who had taken the afternoon off from his job, wore his work garb of khakis, a plaid shirt, and a navy blue blazer. Tess had dressed much the same, although she had on jeans. Tyner had given her a curt look, as if to say: 'You'll do.' At least my hair is up, Tess thought, and my black Weejuns are as shiny as Rock's.

'All rise,' the clerk said. By now all the reporters were here-Tess recognized Feeney, the Beacon-Light's overworked court reporter, looking bored and irritable as he joined three women in the front row. The women had heavy, almost theatrical makeup and vacant, stunned looks. TV reporters. They seemed to shut down when their cameras weren't around, Tess noticed, as if recharging their own batteries.

'All rise.'

In profile, Judge Nicholson looked like the eagle flying over his head. Slight, with a huge nose, he held his head to the side as if daring one to try and look at anything else in the room. Given that he was so far above the courtroom, it was difficult not to stare into his nose. Tess was so entranced by his nostrils she forgot to sit down once the judge had taken his seat. Tyner had to yank her down by her blazer.

'Luckily he hated Abramowitz,' Tyner hissed, then rolled forward to present his case.

Judge Nicholson's face was unreadable as he listened to Tyner argue that Rock, who had paid a bail