Charm City

by Laura Lippman

  Kitty’s kitchen was an odd room for someone who needed heels to top five feet. Everything was oversized, so Kitty seemed doll-like by comparison. Tess had long ago decided the effect was not incidental, as Kitty’s latest beau usually ended up preparing all the food. The beau also tended to be at least fifteen years younger than forty-something Kitty, a clever redhead who had avoided the sun while other women of her generation were basting themselves with baby oil.

  Today’s menu was French toast, courtesy of Steve the bartender. He had a tight, hard look that Tess despised. Small men who spent so much time developing their muscles tended to neglect other vital parts. Then again, she hadn’t liked any of her aunt’s boyfriends since Thaddeus Freudenberg had left to attend the FBI academy down at Quantico. That had been in January—two months by the regular calendar, four boyfriends ago on the Kitty calendar.

  “So, did Tommy provide any more details about what happened last night?” Kitty asked, as Tess helped herself to coffee. “And how’s Spike doing?”

  “Not so good. He lost consciousness while we were there. Someone—several someones—really worked him over. Probably got all of thirty dollars for their trouble.”

  Steve, uninterested in such mundane family matters as the robbery and near-death of a relative, yanked the conversation back to a subject he could dominate.

  “So, did you get your dog from one of the local rescue groups?” he asked, serving Tess two slices of French toast, then sprinkling powdered sugar on top. Tess would have preferred something a little less sticky on a Tuesday morning, a bagel or a bowl of cereal, but she wasn’t about to complain.

  “I got her from my Uncle Spike.”

  “Well, he must’ve just got her, if she didn’t know how to do steps. Those raw patches on her butt, that’s kennel burn.”

  Esskay whimpered, as if aware of being the center of a less-than-flattering discussion. Kitty broke off a piece of toast and offered it to the dog, who wolfed it down with amazing speed.

  “You should call one of those rescue groups, get the drill,” Steve continued. “There are all sorts of things you need to know.”

  “Like what?” Kitty wouldn’t be able to put up with this one for long, Tess decided, no matter what talents he possessed in the kitchen and boudoir. She liked quiet breakfasts.

  “Diet. Exercise,” he said vaguely, waving his fork in the air. Something in the gesture told Tess he had exhausted his little storehouse of greyhound facts.

  As Steve held his fork aloft, a chunk of French toast still on its tines, Esskay leaped up and snatched the syrupy bite. The dog’s eyes were bright for the first time and she no longer hung her head in that “don’t-hurt-me” droop. Esskay looked ready for a fight to the death over the rest of the French toast, and Tess thought she had a chance of taking Steve. Esskay was hungrier.

  “I’ve got an idea,” she said, cutting the rest of her toast into small pieces. “Kitty, come out into the hall for a second.”

  At the foot of the stairs, Tess handed Kitty the plate and sent her halfway up the first flight. She then positioned herself behind the dog, arms braced on the dog’s hind legs.

  “Hold out one of the toast chunks,” she told her aunt. Kitty proffered one of the smaller pieces between forefinger and thumb, as Tess moved the dog’s legs up the steps. Foreleg, foreleg, hind leg, hind leg. Right, left, right, left. She could feel the tension in the poor beast as she craned her neck forward, trying to get closer to the morsel of French toast only inches from her mouth.

  “Back up a few steps.” Kitty retreated. Foreleg, foreleg, hind leg, hind leg. Again, the dog was almost in reach of the toast.

  “Okay, let her have that bite, then go up to the landing and hold out one of the larger pieces.”

  The small taste, drenched with syrup and powdered sugar, almost drove the dog wild. Whimpering now, Esskay strained toward Kitty, out of reach on the landing. Tess crouched behind the dog, feeling like a mother who was about to let go of her kid’s two-wheeler. A slight nudge and Esskay surged forward, taking the rest of the steps in one bound. Kitty fed her another French toast chunk, then pranced up four more steps. The dog followed on her own, Tess crawling behind her. Within seconds, they were at the top of the stairs outside Tess’s apartment and the plate looked dishwasher clean.

  Steve, who had watched this impromptu lesson from the bottom of the stairs, was not impressed.

  “You better call that greyhound rescue group,” he yelled upstairs. “I doubt French toast is going to agree with her stomach. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t have diarrhea all over your apartment.”

  Kitty scratched the dog behind the ears. The dog looked up lovingly. It was more than toast. As Crow had once told Tess, falling in love with Kitty was a rite of passage for anyone who spent time at the corner of Bond and Shakespeare streets. He should know: a clerk at Women and Children First, Crow had nursed his own impossible crush on Kitty before suddenly, unpredictably switching his affections to Tess five months ago.

  “Even dogs,” Tess marveled. “Is there anyone immune to your charms?”

  “Thousands. I just don’t waste time on those lost causes, the way most women do.” Kitty called downstairs. “Steve, you can go ahead and wash up now. I’m going to change and get ready to open the store.”

  Steve turned back to the kitchen, whistling as if it were a privilege to clean up after the meal he had prepared. Kitty floated to the landing and slipped inside her second-floor bedroom suite. Tess had to hold onto Esskay’s collar to keep the dog from trotting after her.

  Familiar with athletes and their needs, Tess poured the dog a huge bowl of water, placing it on a copy of the Beacon-Light. She then found an old blanket and arranged it into a bed on the floor of her bedroom. Puzzled, Esskay stood over it, staring at the blue plaid wool as if waiting for it to do something. When Tess came out of the shower, the dog was still standing over the blanket, growling faintly in the back of her throat.

  Once dressed and ready for work, Tess stood in the bedroom’s doorway and looked at the dog awkwardly. What was expected in a person-pet relationship? She had never understood people who talked to animals and babied them, but it seemed odd to walk away from a warm-blooded creature without some acknowledgment. Besides, this dog meant something to Spike, so she had to treat her well. Esskay was not unlike Tommy—not exactly human, but a part of Spike’s life, and therefore deserving of common courtesy.

  “I’m going out tonight,” Tess said at last, “so I won’t be home until late. I’ll tell Kitty to check on you.”

  Esskay looked up briefly, then went back to staring at the blanket. Great, Tess thought. I’m talking to a dog, and it’s not even paying attention. And she ran down the stairs, late for work. That was the one drawback of the office being only ten minutes away. You couldn’t make up lost time on the commute.

  Chapter 3

  Tyner Gray’s law office was in an old town house on Mount Vernon Square, a pretty neighborhood clustered at the feet of George Washington, who kept watch from the top of a modest monument. “But it’s older than the one in DC,” some local was always quick to point out. Tess didn’t care much about the monument, but she liked the pretty park outside her office window, the strains of classical music that drifted over from Peabody Conservatory, and the good restaurants in the neighborhood. Last fall, fate and circumstances had brought her here, in what was to be a temporary job. Tess had ended up staying on, although Tyner reminded her every day that her goal should be to obtain a private investigator’s license and open her own office.

  As she came through the heavy front door at 9:15, she could hear the whine of the old-fashioned elevator only Tyner used. Tess darted up the broad marble steps between the first and second floors, then took the narrower staircase to the third floor, confident she could beat the wheezing lift. They had timed it once with Tyner’s stopwatch, the one he used when putting novice rowers through drills. It took exactly one minute and thirty-two seconds for the elevator to make the t
rip from first to third. By the time Tyner arrived, she was at her desk in the front room, which she shared with Alison the receptionist, making notes on an interview she had conducted last week, some woman who hoped to sue her neighbor in a boundary dispute.

  “I’m not fooled, you know,” Tyner said, rolling past her in his wheelchair.

  “Really, Mr. Gray, she’s been here all along,” volunteered Alison. A preppy beauty, as overbred as a golden retriever, Alison was a good egg. She couldn’t lie to save her life, though.

  “I heard you on the stairs,” he called back to Tess. “You have a very heavy tread. I never remember—do you pronate or supinate?”

  “Pronate,” she said, following him into his office, a spare, uncluttered room. In a wheelchair for almost forty years, Tyner hadn’t waited for anyone to make the world accessible to him. Although his office was in a nineteenth-century town house better suited to antiques, he had chosen sleek, modern furnishings, which took up less floor space. His desk was a large, flat table, custom made so he could roll right up to it. The chairs facing it were tall and slender, expensive maple pieces with narrow strips of leather for seats. They also were wretchedly uncomfortable, and, not incidentally, reminiscent of the sliding seats in a racing shell. Rowing was Tyner’s true passion, even if his years as a rower had ended up being only a fraction of his life.

  “My uncle got robbed last night,” Tess told him, perching on one of the chairs. “Someone worked him over pretty bad.”

  “Jesus. Which one? Which side?” Unavoidable questions, and difficult ones, for Tess had nine other uncles—her father’s five younger brothers, her mother’s four older ones. Spike was actually a cousin, and to complicate things further, no one had ever agreed to which side of the family he belonged. His last name was Orrick. Changed from O’Rourke, Tess’s mother always said. Could be one of those Eastern European Jew names, her father inevitably countered, screwed up the immigration officials.

  “The one who owns The Point, that bar on Franklintown Road. It was a robbery, and they were pissed because he didn’t have anything.”

  “This city is becoming unlivable.”

  “You say that every other day. You’re just looking for a reason to buy that house in Ruxton.” This green, sheltered suburb, no more than five miles outside the city limits, was a kind of code between them, symbolizing the ultimate surrender.

  Tyner smiled ruefully. “The city doesn’t make it easy for a taxpayer to stay here, Tess. Especially after this winter. My street wasn’t plowed or salted even once. Every time it snowed, I was stranded.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. Remember, I was the one who drove out there five times, using cross-country skis to get up your street. You always acted as if it were a terrible imposition, having me show up with groceries.”

  “I wanted brandy, not food. You’ll never make it as a St. Bernard, Tess.”

  St. Bernard. Tess’s mind jumped from the past to the present, free-associating. Dog. She should call that greyhound rescue group Steve had been blathering about.

  Leaving Tyner to his usual grumpy funk, she went back to her desk and flipped through the phone book until she found a listing for Greyhound Pets of Maryland.

  “Greyhound Pets.” The breathless person on the other end was a woman with a sweet, throaty voice. Dogs barked frantically in the background. Tess had an instant image of someone in blue jeans, covered in dog hair. Yech.

  “Hi. I seem to have inherited a greyhound from my uncle and I’m trying to find out what I need to do for it. Food, exercise, routine, that stuff.”

  “How long has your uncle had the dog? I mean, is he a recent adoptee, or has he had him some time? How’s he doing?”

  Tess became confused, thinking “he” must be her uncle. Then she realized the woman was referring to the dog. “Um, pretty recent, I guess. She didn’t know how to go up stairs.”

  “Is he from here?”

  “The dog? I don’t know.”

  “Your uncle. What’s his name?”

  “Spike Orrick.”

  “That name doesn’t ring a bell, and we do most of the placements in the Baltimore area.” The woman’s voice suddenly sounded much less pleasant. “Are you sure he adopted this dog through proper channels? Has he gotten her fixed? You have to get them spayed or neutered, you know. It’s part of the agreement. Is the dog with you now? We do have an identification system, and if you’ll just…”

  Tess placed the receiver back in its cradle. Who was she kidding? Spike had never gone through proper channels for anything. If only Esskay could talk. If only Spike could talk.

  But a call to St. Agnes dashed those hopes: Spike was in a coma now, prognosis uncertain.

  “What is so rare as a day in spring? What is so rare as a Baltimore day in March when the sun actually shines?” Tess muttered to herself, climbing the stairs to the Brass Elephant bar that evening, her mood a strange muddle of anxiety and anticipation—worry over Spike, delight at spending time in her favorite bar, with one of her favorite drinking companions.

  The Brass Elephant bar was a well-kept secret and the regulars conspired to keep it that way. An inexpensive hide-away above an expensive restaurant, it had been an essential place to Tess when she was unemployed, a refuge where she could feel civilized, pampered, and well fed for as little as fifteen dollars. The lights were low, as was the volume on the stereo, with Chet Baker, Johnny Hartman, and Antonio Carlos Jobim murmuring their songs of love so quietly that one caught only an occasional rhyming whisper of love/above, art/heart, or sky/thigh. There had been an ugly scare a few years back, when a new bartender had begun playing a jazz version of the hit ballad from the latest Disney cartoon musical, but someone had quickly set her straight. The Brass Elephant survived good and bad fortune, from Maryland’s peripatetic economy to those best-of-Baltimore ratings that stumbled on its martinis, creating a brief flurry of interest among people who didn’t necessarily like martinis, but liked to say they had tried the best.

  Good, her favorite bartender was here. So was Feeney, settled deep in the corner banquette, fingers pinching the stem of his martini glass, a telltale mound of toothpick-skewered olives on the white tablecloth in front of him. Tess pointed to Feeney’s glass, signaling she wanted the same, and slipped into the chair across the table from Feeney’s slumped body. But he didn’t acknowledge her, unless one considered a few muttered lines of Auden a suitable greeting.

  “I sit in one of the dives / On Fifty-Second Street / Uncertain and afraid / As the clever hopes expire / Of a low dishonest decade.”

  Tess sighed. Richard Burton couldn’t have done it much better, or much drunker. Auden was a particularly ominous sign, reserved for all-time lows. Only Yeats or Housman was worse.

  “You’re on Charles Street and the Brass Elephant is hardly a dive, although I won’t debate you on the merits of this particular decade.”

  “All I have is a voice,” Feeney countered, his voice slipping into a singsong cadence as he notched up the volume. “To undo the folded lie, / The romantic lie in the brain / Of the sensual man-in-the-street…”

  “Is that what they did to you today? A man in the streets?” A minor complaint, one Feeney could be jollied out of. Tess knew the real folded lie was the media’s never-flagging belief that ordinary people knew anything about current events. Whenever anything big happened far away, the editors sent reporters into the street to sample the common sense of the common man.

  The bartender appeared at the table with her drink. The ritual was part of the pleasure—his wrist action with the shaker, the way he poured the martini with a nice bit of showmanship. Tess took a sip and immediately felt better, stronger, smarter, ready for Feeney in extremis.

  “So what was today’s question? Something about NATO? NATO is always good for a man-in-the-street. I remember back in my Star days, when someone in Pigtown thought NATO was an indoor swimming pool the mayor wanted to build in Patterson Park.”

  “You disappoint me, Tess,”
Feeney said balefully, gnawing on one of the toothpicks from the pile in front of him. “You’re as literal minded as my dumb-fuck editors.”

  Tess took a second, more generous sip from her glass, relishing its chill and the tiny tongue of heat behind it. Truly a lovely drink.

  “It’s nice to see you, too, Feeney.”

  “Nice to see me? You can’t even bear to look at me.”

  Lost in his own private pity party, Feeney had spoken an unwitting truth. Tess was avoiding his eyes, squinted tight from bitterness, and his turned-down smirk. Feeney had always been gray—gray-blue eyes, gray-blond hair, even a grayish-pink pallor, only a few shades lighter than the undercooked hot dogs he bought from the sidewalk vendors outside the courthouse. But tonight, everything looked a little ashier than usual, as if he wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Against his drained face, the broken blood vessels on his cheeks were stark blue road maps leading nowhere. Gin blossoms, the one flower you could count on finding year-round in sodden Baltimore.

  “What’s wrong, Feeney?”

  “My career is over.”

  “You make that announcement once a month.”

  “Yeah, but usually it’s only free-floating paranoia. Tonight, I got the word officially. I don’t belong. Not a team player.” The last sentence came out so slurry it sounded more like “Knotty template.”

  “They couldn’t have fired you.” The Beacon-Light was a union paper, which made it difficult for them to dismiss employees, although far from impossible. But Feeney was good, a pro. They’d have a hard time building a case against him. Unless he had done it for them, by ignoring an editor’s orders. Insubordination was grounds for immediate termination.

  “Suppose you had written the story of your life, Tess?” he asked, leaning toward her, his face so close to hers that she could smell the gin on his breath, along with the undertones of tobacco. Strange—Feeney had given up smoking years ago. “The best story you could ever imagine. Suppose it had everything you could ask for in a story, and everything had at least two sources? And suppose those goddamn rat bastard cowardly pointy-head incompetents wouldn’t publish it?”