Baltimore Blues

young.

Flustered, she took on the pedantic, lecturing tone of teacher to pupil, feeling a need to create some distance between them. She was, after all, at least six years older. Maybe seven.

'Tell me how you started to read James M. Cain.'

'I saw Postman-the original one, with Lana Turner and John Garfield. I loved it, but I knew something was missing. It was like watching a movie on TV, knowing they've cut out the dirty parts. But, in this case, I figured the dirty parts were in the book. I was right.'

'Yes. Cain once lamented he had a flaw that made it impossible for him to write something that wasn't censurable.' She knew her voice sounded obnoxious and prim, but she couldn't stop herself. 'I'm not sure how he would fare today, when anything goes. I think he'd be dismayed by a world in which nothing is censurable.'

'I don't know; he lived until 1977,' Crow said. 'I bet he kept up. And there are plenty of things still censurable in this world. I don't care how cynical you are, the world will always find a way to shock and surprise you.'

Miffed, Tess took a gulp of bourbon, washing the blend of chip flavors out of her mouth. When she was in the throes of a doomed crush, she had the good sense to be agreeable, to nod her head happily, surrendering to every silly thought voiced by the object of her affections. Crow managed to hold on to himself, even when he fell. He was younger than she: Didn't he understand he was supposed to be more stupid as well, less experienced in all things?

Chapter 21

Tess asked Crow to drop her on Bond Street outside the darkened store. He would have preferred walking her to the private side entrance in the alley, but she wanted to avoid any datelike resonance. Fog had rolled in, and even though the air was warm and humid, the night was too romantic for her taste. She was worried Crow might try to kiss her. She was worried she might enjoy it.

Walking down the alley, she had an uneasy feeling. The fog obliterated the stars and the streetlights, so it seemed darker than usual. There was no moon. Maybe shooing Crow away hadn't been one of her best ideas. She stopped halfway down, thought about doubling back to the front doors, then thought better of it. The store had closed for the night, and she didn't want to cut through Kitty's private quarters, not when she was busy with Officer Friendly.

I'm being silly, she told herself. All this cloak-and-dagger nonsense at the law offices has gone to my head.

She started walking again, the soles of her loafers making a loud, flapping sound against the pavement. Her footsteps seemed to echo. Or was there another set of footsteps, shadowing hers?

Her keys were out, stuck between her fingers in the improvised brass knuckle technique her father had taught her before she went off to college. She had reached the heavy metal door that led to her staircase. But as she put the key in the lock, a man darted out of a recessed doorway on the other side of the alley and grabbed her right wrist.

Too startled to scream, she turned toward the street, ready to run, but her attacker held her firmly. She lashed out with her left arm and, although her aim was wild, it was a good, solid blow, striking hard against the man's cheekbone and nose.

'Goddammit, Tess.' Jonathan Ross dropped her arm, putting his hands up to his face. 'When did you get so skittish?'

'As a crime reporter you should know some of us city residents are a little nervous these days. A murder a day, almost.'

'I think I'm bleeding.'

'Don't be a baby.' She unlocked the door. Her hands were shaking; in fact she was quivering all over as if she had been drinking cappuccino instead of bourbon. She pulled Jonathan inside and examined him under the light at the bottom of her stairs.

She was impressed by her handiwork. The corner of his right eye was discolored and beginning to swell. Her nails, although short, had scratched two parallel lines from cheekbone to forehead. Blood beaded in the narrow grooves-actual blood.

'I think I broke your nose,' she said solemnly.

'My nose? You broke my fuckin' nose?' Jonathan had a nice straight nose, one that his father, a plastic surgeon in the Washington suburbs, liked to tell patients he had sculpted. In fact it was a gift of nature and one of Jonathan's greatest vanities.

'Just kidding. Come on upstairs. I'll give you a washrag and some brandy. You can use them in whatever way you see fit.'

In her apartment, as Jonathan examined his face in the bedroom mirror, Tess took off her blazer, slipping the diskette out of the pocket and trying to slide it unobtrusively onto the bedside table.

'What's that?'

'My work for Uncle Donald.'

'I thought you turned in hard copy. I thought your Mac wasn't compatible with the state IBM clones.'

'There's some program that translates it. The system manager does it.' Typical. Jonathan had never shown the least bit of curiosity about her work for Uncle Donald before this.

'I've never heard of anything like that,' he persisted. 'The state can't even computerize its own welfare cases, but their system manager can do stuff like that?'

'Did you come by to scare me to death or quiz me on my part-time employment?' She yanked her shirt out of the waistband of her jeans. She hated clothes that made contact with her body, that pressed in at the waist. Ideally she would have liked to wear a caftan all the time, but she didn't want to look even larger than she was. Slowly, deliberately, she began unbuttoning her shirt.

'Still got that body?'

'Why don't you come over here and find out?' Tess sat on the edge of the bed and began to take off her jeans.

His face damp and warm from the washrag he had been pressing against it, Jonathan knelt between her legs and finished the task for her. She placed the back of her left hand on his forehead, as if testing for a fever. Her right index finger traced the lines she had drawn across his face.

'If you had been a mugger,' she said tenderly, 'I would have kicked your ass.'

'Really?' He pushed her back on the bed, holding her down by the shoulders, squeezing the tight muscles that bunched up there whenever she was under stress. 'You row. You run. You lift weights. Me, I play basketball once a week if I'm lucky. Try to get up.'

She didn't try, for she knew she would fail, knew how hard it was for a woman to be as strong as a man. Strangely she heard Cecilia's voice in her head. It must be nice to be so strong. She hated being weak, hated knowing Jonathan could do just that if he wanted to.

'In the alley I wasn't on my back.'

'You might have been if you hadn't let me inside.'

The heightened adrenal rush of their earlier encounter, the bourbon buzz from Frigo's, the memory of Crow's worshipful stares, the very nature of this politically incorrect conversation-it all combined to make Tess feel wanton and powerful. Jonathan's equal. In the past year, when he had come back into her life, it had been under his terms. He came when he wanted to, he slept with her, he owed her nothing except an orgasm or a good-faith attempt at one. She had pretended-to others, to herself-this was all she wanted, too. But she had known, and Jonathan had known, it was all she could get. She had been settling.

He had straddled her. She raised her right leg slowly, her foot caressing his leg until she could press her knee against the underside of his groin.

'If I wanted to get up, all I would have to do is push this knee up a little more with all the force I can muster, and your balls would be up around your liver. Luckily for you I don't want to get up.'

'Isn't that convenient?' Yes. It was the way she had always been, pretending what she had was what she wanted.