Baltimore Blues

'Disguise yourself as a janitor,' he suggested. 'No-a courier. Put on bike shorts, a helmet, the whole uniform. Maybe the guard will be confused enough to let you up.'

'The guard knows me, unfortunately. Even if he didn't, a courier wouldn't necessarily get upstairs,' she said, thinking about Joey Dumbarton, the earnest security guard who never let anyone by him unless the person signed the sheet or slipped him a twenty dollar bill. Then again Joey might regard her as a quasi-official, deserving of certain privileges. If she played it right he would wave her up. Then, the gun found, she would leave it in its hiding place and call Tyner, who could get a court order to search the office. Or something-she was a little fuzzy on the legal issues here. The hardest part would be explaining her scheme to Tyner after the fact.

'You need backup,' Crow announced. 'I should come with you.'

'It's a borderline felony, and Tyner's not going to bail your ass out of jail if we get caught. I'll be lucky if he bails me out.'

'You need a lookout, someone to keep watch while you're rifling through things,' he said with the conviction of someone who had watched too many detective shows. 'Be bold. It's the only way.'

In some circumstances this might have seemed a straightforward if slightly stilted statement. But something in Crow's tone-an arch, self-mocking tone-caught Tess's ear.

'Say that again.'

He grinned. This time his treatment was even campier. 'Be bold. It's the only way.'

'Double Indemnity. Insurance salesman Walter Neff says that to Phyllis Nirdlinger when they're planning to kill her husband-'

'She wants to do it in a bathtub, but he tells her it's a bum idea. He tells her everyone thinks the bathtub is the way to go-since some insurance adjuster put out a newsletter saying most accidents happen there. Which is funny because…'

'A bathtub accident was the plan Cora and Tom first hatched in The Postman Always Rings Twice.'

'Exactly. I never thought anyone else noticed that.'

She stared at Crow. A James M. Cain fan. And not just any Cain fan, one who could quote him.

'Have you read all his books? What's your favorite?'

'Double Indemnity.'

'I have a soft spot for Mildred Pierce. The working girl trying to make something out of herself.'

'‘In Glenwood, California, a man was trimming trees,'' Crow recited.

'What did you do, learn it all by heart?'

'I have a photographic memory of sorts. After I read something twenty or thirty times, I remember it. So can I go? No one in a Cain novel ever tried to pull something by themselves.'

'No one in a Cain novel ever got away with anything, either,' she reminded him sourly. 'But I guess you know what you're getting into. Meet me back here about ten tomorrow night. We'll just have to hope even the most ambitious young lawyers take Saturday night off.'

The truth was, if Crow hadn't been so impossibly gung ho, she would have been tempted to blow it off. Perhaps it was better to do what Tyner told her to do, and nothing more. Well, this would be her last burst of initiative.

On Saturday night Tess donned her version of work clothes: Blazer, jeans, plain white shirt, loafers. Crow, however, seemed to think he was in a spy film. He had on a black turtleneck, black jeans, a black cap pulled down over his black and green hair, even black gloves. Everything but coal smudged on his face. He carried a large flashlight and looked enormously pleased with himself.

'I've been thinking,' he said. 'This is kind of like our first date.'

'Are you settling for me since Kitty is taken? I should mention I'm not partial to green highlights.'

'It wouldn't be settling,' Crow said. 'And I can make my hair whatever color you like.'

'Great, we'll get some Lady Clairol later. Let's get going and get this over with.'

They took Crow's car, which Tess had assumed, with some dread, would be on a par with his art school hair and personality. Original. Dangerous. Slightly annoying.

Instead it was a Volvo station wagon, a late model with private school decals and a state-of-the-art stereo system that almost blasted her into the back seat when he turned the key in the ignition.

'Demo tape,' Crow explained. 'I have my own band. Po ' White Trash.'

'I guess I should have seen that coming.' Then again, my perceptive powers haven't been 100 percent lately.

'I suppose you listen to opera,' Crow said. 'Cain did.'

'Crow, I like reading Cain. I don't want to be him. I'm a word person. I like old songwriters-Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern-because of the lyrics. I like Bob Dylan and those folksy, waifish bands on 'HFS. Stephen Sondheim is as close as I get to opera.'

'He writes for gay men,' Crow said matter-of-factly.

'I thought colleges today gave demerits for remarks like that. Who cares if musical theater appeals to gay men? They have the best taste of anyone; that part of the stereotype is true. And don't gay men like opera, too?'

'I have a theory about this. Gay men like things in code, and maybe that's justified, given they historically have been forced to live in hiding. They like musicals because they're camp. They like Sondheim because so much is hidden in his lyrics. So a Sondheim musical is for people who like hidden meanings and thick layers.'

'What's your point?'

'In opera, if you don't know the language, you have to listen to the music. You have to leave words and cleverness behind. Cleverness is the last refuge for smart people. That's your problem, Tess. You're too clever. You're listening to the words instead of the music.'

'Is there something wrong with cleverness?' Tess asked sharply, uncomfortable with Crow's attitude. He was suppose to be her Sancho, servile and worshipful, not a hectoring Henry Higgins. 'We're about to embark on a potential felony in which cleverness will be our only protection.'

'If you say so.'

They parked on a side street to the west of the Lambrecht Building. There was no home game tonight and, once one got past the Inner Harbor, downtown had its usual ghost town feel. There are a lot of things one can do to make a city look good, and Baltimore had done it all. But they couldn't put its heart back. Downtown was hollow at night.

Joey Dumbarton was at the guard station, beating on the desk to whatever head banger tune ran through his headphones, played at a volume loud enough to make normal ears bleed. At night, under fluorescent light, he was exceptionally pale, like one of those white catfish living deep in an Arkansas cavern. Evolution and history had passed him by. A generation ago he might have been a steelworker, making good wages with his high school education, set for life. Now he was a minimum wage rent-a-cop. At least he didn't have to worry about asbestos or environmental hazards. If he was lucky he'd get shot in the leg before he was thirty and retire on workman's comp.

Tess whipped out her driver's license, flashing it past him as if it were a badge. 'Remember me, Joey? I need to go upstairs, check out Abramowitz's office. You can let me in, right?'

'That's against regulations.'

'Honestly, Joey. You know I'm a private investigator working for a lawyer. What's the big deal? We're only looking for something the cops might have overlooked.'

'I could get in trouble,' he said, a dent appearing above his nose, a sign of deep thought.

'Hey, I'm going to sign in. So is my buddy here.' Crow gave Joey his most dazzling grin. 'And we're going to sign out. What I'm not going to do is give you a twenty dollar bill, the way some visitors do.'

Joey may have been dim, but he knew a threat when he heard one.

'I only did that a few times. And I didn't do it the night you're worried about, I can tell you that.'

She didn't say anything, just kept staring at him.

'OK, OK. I'll let you up.'