Baltimore Blues

approached her as she fingered the lace on a nightgown, and Ava threw her right hand up, a friendly but stern warning. 'Just looking,' she pantomimed and quickly left the store. No one stopped her.

Ava the shoplifter. She might be having a breakdown, Tess thought. Ava the kleptomaniac. It could explain her strange behavior toward Rock. But was shoplifting the problem or the symptom? And if it was the problem, how did it account for the late hours and the canceled vacation? Was she part of some odd ring, or a bored lawyer, boosting to make her lunch hour fun?

Rock wouldn't care. He would be content with this bit of information, almost desperate for it. Tess wasn't. Instinctively she knew it was one piece of a puzzle, a key to a door she hadn't found yet. A single fact was like an unripe avocado, something whose time could not be rushed. You rolled it in flour and you waited.

Lost in this thought, Tess didn't notice that Ava had moved on. By the time she spotted her, she was a floor below, getting off the escalator. Tess tried to follow quickly, but the escalator was stacked with carefree tourists, the kind of people who don't stand to one side because they assume everyone is on vacation. Unless she wanted to send bodies flying, she had to wait her turn to travel the ten feet of ribbed rubber Ava had already crossed.

By the time Tess reached the first floor, Ava had disappeared. Tess thought she saw her toward the rear of the building, where the shops ended and the hotel lobby began. But there was no flash of crimson or pearly gray, no briefcase overflowing with green camisoles and burgundy panties, no dark hair.

Ava was gone.

Tess ran outside, thinking she might still catch her. Perhaps she was heading back to the office to stick death certificates in the files of asbestos victims or turn away another grieving relative. Or maybe she had stopped by the small amphitheater across the street, where jugglers and fire-eaters performed in the warm-weather months. But when Tess worked her way through the semicircle of gawking tourists, there was no performer at all, just an old man sleeping on the hot sidewalk.

'Do you think he's dead?' a woman asked no one in particular.

Disgusted, Tess yanked the Gabor wig from her head, exposing her own matted, sweat-flattened hair. Three Scandinavian students mistook this for the opening flourish of a street performer's act and threw a dollar bill at her, applauding wildly.

'What do you think this is, some G-rated version of the Block?' Tess asked. 'Or my performance-art tribute to Blaze Starr?'

The students clapped and shouted something that appeared to be 'More, more, more' in their native tongue.

Tess dangled the wig in her hand and looked at the dollar bill on the pavement. The trio of blondes, their faces red with sunburn, stared at her hopefully. She started to throw the bill back, then thought better of it. She had given her last dollar to the old woman on the bench. This, with the change in her pocket, would buy a cup of Thrasher's fries. Twirling the wig, Tess pocketed the money, blew her Scandinavian admirers a kiss, and ran to the food stands. Surveillance could wait.

It was lunchtime.

Chapter 4

For eighteen years Tess's Uncle Donald had been a moving target in the state government, jumping from do-nothing job to do-nothing job just ahead of the legislators who tried to sack him in a fit of fiscal responsibility. His latest resting place was a small office high up, literally at least, in the Department of Licensing and Regulation. His official title: director of the Office for Fraud and Waste. His unofficial deputy: Tess.

'You know, it sounds as if you commit fraud and waste,' Tess said, entering her uncle's office. It was small, but it had a window on St. Paul Place, with a nice view of a long, narrow median, overgrown and choked with weeds.

'Maybe I should,' he said amiably. 'I wouldn't mind. It would fill up the day.'

A short man with a round belly and thinning brown hair, Donald Weinstein had been handsome as a young man, but his looks had faded along with his power, leaving only a full, pouting mouth and lustrous brown eyes, incongruous in his pale, lined face. He handed his niece a slim folder, which represented a week's work for him. Tess sat in the brown plastic chair opposite his desk and sifted through notes and memos from other agencies.

'Very impressive,' she said. 'I see the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has cut its water bill by repairing a leaky faucet. The Department of Human Resources has found a cheaper doughnut shop for its monthly staff meetings. And the Department of the Environment has dropped its 800 line for tidal wetlands information, which no one ever used except employees who patched in and made long-distance calls. What will Maryland do with all this extra money?'

In Tess's hands, at her computer, these items would be transformed into press releases. Department of Health and Mental Hygiene slashes bills and does the environmentally correct thing! Or, in the case of the doughnuts: Enterprising DHR employee Linda Fair found out switching catering contracts could result in significant savings. She would type two copies-one for distribution within the state system, the other intended as a press release. She would leave the Department of the Environment off the second sheet, as it was stamped NFMU (not for media use). No reason to alert the media about those long-distance calls. For all this work Donald paid her a hundred dollars, which came out to fifty dollars an hour, although it was billed as ten dollars per on the state time sheet she filled out each week. It wasn't a bad way to make a living. She could have used seven more jobs just like it.

'You eat?'

'Yeah, down at the harbor.'

'Too bad. I thought we could go up the hill to Tio's.'

'I haven't been to Tio Pepe's for years.' Not since Jonathan Ross had treated her, flush with the success of landing a new newspaper job while he had yet to cash his severance check from the old one.

'We could drink sangria. See and be seen. Make them bring us the dessert cart and then not order anything. Well, maybe one slice of pine nut cake. I don't care what anybody says, it's still the best restaurant in Baltimore.'

'It's still expensive, too. You got an expense account now? Or did you bet some real money at the track?'

'I guess you'd call it a discretionary fund.' He winked. 'Same one I pay you out of.'

'So you do commit fraud and waste.'

Donald laughed. 'If it hadn't been for the economy, Tess, I could have found a full-time job for you. Then you'd get six hundred dollars a week and benefits for the same job you do now for a hundred dollars. And I'd have some company.'

'Thanks, Uncle D., but I don't think I would have made a very good state employee. I have a hard enough time getting the jargon down in these news releases. You know-‘accessing,' instead of just ‘getting' something. Or a ‘comprehensive service delivery' plan. I'd never be the kind of bright young thing to track down cheaper doughnuts.'

She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. He smelled like an old lady's living room. Hair oil and musty upholstery, tinged with peppermint candies. Her mother's siblings were old, much older than Judith Weinstein, an afterthought born almost twelve years after Mickey, the youngest of the four boys. Donald was in his early sixties, Tess calculated.

At the door she turned back to look at him. He had been an important man once. A bagman, sure, but an up- and-coming one. If his boss hadn't been convicted of mail fraud, Uncle Donald might be in the state house today, whispering in the governor's ear instead of killing time in this barren room. Uncle Donald had been transferred so often he no longer brought anything personal to the office with him, except the Daily Racing Form and a legal pad. Ponies on paper, Uncle Donald called his habit.

'You ahead?' Tess asked.

'For the year. Bad week, though. I don't like these California horses. I can't get a feel for 'em.'

'You're not betting any real money?'