Charm City

by Laura Lippman

  “Three editors,” she said out loud, staring out the window to the north. “Well, Hercules slew the Hydra.”

  “And it had nine heads.”

  A man had slipped into the room behind her, a man with high color in his face and shiny brown hair falling in his eyes. In blue jeans and a T-shirt, he might have passed for 25. In his gray wool trousers, red tie, and blue-and-white striped Oxford cloth shirt, he looked closer to the 45 he probably was. But a cute 45, Tess decided, checking out his muscular forearms, the wide grin, the boyish way he kept pushing his hair out of his eyes.

  “Jack Sterling,” he said, holding out his hand. “Deputy managing editor.”

  “Tess Monaghan.” Out of habit, she grasped his hand hard, the way she had pinched Rosita’s when they’d met. But Jack Sterling just squeezed back even harder. Flustered, she broke the grip, feeling something she did not want to put a name to.

  He sat on the edge of the gleaming table, openly appraising her, rotating the wrist of his right hand as he massaged it with his left.

  “Baltimore mick,” he pronounced, talking to himself as if she were on the other side of a one-way glass. “Something else blended in, though. Something solid, good peasant stock. About twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Athletic. Doesn’t like pantyhose or diet soda. How am I doing?”

  “Midwesterner,” she replied. “Corn-fed Protestant, a onetime wunderkind who is still wunder, if no longer kind. Probably plays racquetball—note how he flexes his wrist and rubs his forearm as he speaks, something an athlete might do. How am I doing?”

  Sterling laughed. Good, he had a sense of humor about himself. “Close enough. Only my game is squash, when my back isn’t out, and my wrist hurts because twenty-two years in this business have bestowed on me a chronic case of carpal tunnel.”

  He began to massage his wrist again, then dropped his hand abruptly, suddenly self-conscious about the gesture. “Midwesterner? Well, I guess Oak Park, Illinois, is about as Midwestern as it gets. How’d you figure that out? I like to think I’ve acquired some East Coast polish over the last few years.”

  Tess smiled noncommittally. Whitney had given her thumbnail sketches of everyone she would meet today, but she saw no reason to divulge her inside information. “Baltimore isn’t the best place to come if you’re looking for polish. In fact, if you’re not careful, your nice, bland accent will start adding Rs to words like water and wash.”

  Jack Sterling leaned toward her. His eyes were even bluer than the stripe in his shirt. “Then what is Baltimore the best place for?” Before she could think of a clever reply, the other editors began filing into the room. A little guiltily, as if he had been caught consorting with the enemy, Sterling took his place among them.

  They looked more alike than they knew, this quartet. All white. No one younger than 35, nor older than 60. Two suits—gray pinstripes on the shortest man, obviously the publisher, Randall Pfieffer IV, and a flashy turquoise one on the sole woman, managing editor Colleen Reganhart, who had the kind of dark hair-fair skin-light eyes combination that the Monaghan side of Tess’s family would call black Irish.

  The last man was dressed as Sterling was, but his blue-striped shirt was just a little better made, his red tie heavier and silkier.

  “Lionel C. Mabry,” he said, offering a limp hand to Tess. The hair, of course. How could she miss the hair? It was thinner than Tess had imagined, and Whitney had been uncharacteristically tactful in describing it as blond, but it was definitely a mane. Mabry’s hair was a dull gray-yellow, the color of diluted piss. Otherwise, he was well preserved, with a vaguely patrician air. But then, everything about him was vague—the mumbled greeting, the clouded brown eyes, the limp-wristed handshake.

  “Take a seat, Lionel,” Colleen Reganhart ordered. She gave his name an extra syllable and feminine lilt. Li-o-nelle. He smiled at her, as if thankful for direction, and slipped into one of the large leather chairs alongside the table, Colleen to his left and Jack to his right. That left Tess and the publisher at either end, creating a strangely lopsided table.

  Pfieffer’s chair, she noticed, was hiked up slightly higher than the others, perhaps to give him an advantage he didn’t have on dry land. Behind his back, Randall Pfieffer IV was known as Five-Four by his employees. The nickname, while not affectionate, was generous, granting the publisher two inches above what nature had given him, maybe three. But the thronelike chair was a miscalculation: his feet swung above the floor, drawing attention to his diminutive stature. Fortunately, his high, hoarse voice had no problem filling a room. He had been a cheerleader at Dartmouth, according to Whitney’s dossier. (“If it comes up, say yell leader.”)

  He began the meeting. “Miss Monaghan, we have asked you here today because we have a job that requires discretion, tact, and a certain sophistication about our business. We’ve been assured you have all these qualities.”

  Whitney had really laid it on thick. “I’d like to think so, Mr. Pfieffer.”

  “I want to stress to you that as far as we’re concerned, no crime has been committed here, no errors of fact have been made. We’re distressed because we planned to run the Wynkowski piece on Sunday. The…unscheduled publication has forced us to scramble for another page one story on that date. It concerns us our procedures have been…bypassed, creating this dilemma.”

  Thirty seconds into the discussion, and the first lie had already clocked in. “Of course,” Tess agreed, adding from sheer perversity, “Isn’t computer tampering a federal crime? If you really want to find out who did this, I think the FBI is better equipped to solve your mystery.”

  The editors exchanged glances. Jack Sterling began to speak, only to be cut off by Reganhart.

  “As Randy said, we stand by the story, although we won’t be surprised if that asshole Wynkowski files a lawsuit. Let me stress, he has no fucking grounds for a libel suit. No errors have been brought to our attention to date, and we think he meets the test for a public figure. He’d have to prove actual malice. Still, we prefer the general public not know the story ran by—ran early. It could erode readers’ confidence in our product.”

  Product. Colleen Reganhart had definitely gone over to the other side. When you were a reporter, it was a story, an article, your life’s blood on the page. The higher you went in the organization, the more it resembled canned ham.

  “Of course, if you called the FBI, or even the Baltimore police, you couldn’t control what happened to the information they uncovered,” Tess said innocently, as if thinking out loud. “If it got out the story ran by mistake—excuse me, that the story ran early—and there are any in accuracies in the story, Wink Wynkowski may be able to prove actual malice, which is essential to a public figure who wants to bring a libel suit. Certainly it would be an interesting test case, probably the first of its kind.”

  Reganhart raised her eyebrows, dark, straight lines that made her look as if she were constantly frowning. “Perhaps. Our lawyers tell us he could prove negligence in our security system. But that’s all. We stand by our story. In fact, we’re quite proud of having exposed this fucking charlatan.” With her raven black hair, bright blue suit, and salty tongue, she brought to mind the infamous mynah bird who had been removed from the Baltimore zoo for cursing out visitors.

  “So why did you hold such a hot story to begin with?” Tess asked. “I know you don’t have any real competition, but I think you would want to run this story before Wynkowski signed a letter of intent with an out-of-town basketball team. It would have been heartbreaking to report that the city was getting a team, then announce the owner was never going to survive the NBA’s scrutiny. And what if the city had gone ahead and started on the new arena, only to find out Wink was already entertaining offers for his team?”

  Mabry seemed to come into focus for a second, like an autistic child enjoying a moment of clarity. “News judgment is not a science, Miss Monaghan. Interests must be balanced. Men do outrun their pasts. It was not our role to judge Mr. Wynkowski’s fitness as an N
BA owner, or to shape the decision the league will make. We do not wish to be ‘players’ in that sense. We had to ask ourselves, what is relevant? What is fair? Is it really necessary to reveal Mr. Wynkowski’s unpleasant but largely trivial past? In the event we do so, shouldn’t he have the right to know who his accusers are? That, most of all, was the real issue here. It is still the issue that concerns me.”

  His piece said, Mabry retreated back into his private world. Pfieffer hadn’t spoken since his opening remarks, but he was paying careful attention, watching the interplay among his top editors with great interest. Colleen glared at Lionel, while Jack Sterling doodled on a legal pad before him.

  “So the story is fine and everyone lives happily after—except, obviously, Wink. What am I supposed to do?”

  Again, Colleen Reganhart and Jack Sterling began speaking at the same time. Again she cut him off.

  “Tomorrow, our assistant managing editors, Marvin Hailey and Guy Whitman, will walk you through the normal procedures here and give you a list of people to interview. We don’t expect you to find the person responsible, but we assume you can eliminate the majority of the people who were in the building at the time.”

  “Can’t your security system at least narrow down who had left for the night?”

  “Unfortunately, we put in a new security system last fall, after the old system was, um, breached. The new one breaks down all the time, and has been down for two weeks now, forcing us to prop open the doors with trash cans. But I’m sure you’ll find most of our employees were home with their families the night this happened.” Reganhart made “families” sound more profane than any of the expletives she had used. “All we ask is that you interview all relevant newsroom employees, tape the conversations, then turn the tapes and transcripts over to us. Anything you discover is the property of the Beacon-Light. Your contract also will have a confidentiality clause, forbidding you to discuss this matter with other news organizations—or anyone else. Your information belongs to us.”

  Tess wanted to ask about the movie rights, but thought better of it. “Do you want me to work out of this building, or my office in Mount Vernon?”

  “We prefer you do everything on site,” Jack Sterling said, finally beating Colleen Reganhart to the punch. “You’ll have a cubicle on the third floor, where the old presses used to be. For the duration of your contract, you’ll also have a security card and a temporary ID, so you can come and go as you please.”

  “What about the union? Won’t it keep the employees from cooperating with me?

  Colleen Reganhart stood. “Let us worry about the union.”

  Pfieffer jumped to his feet, hands on his hips as if ready to lead a cheer—make that a yell—while Sterling stretched, audibly cracking his lower back. Only Lionel Mabry continued to sit, staring out the window at a brown-breasted pigeon on the ledge. Even by a pigeon’s standards, it was a mangy thing, vicious and cruel looking.

  “What a pretty, pretty bird,” Lionel cooed with pleasure. “Spring’s first robin.”

  Chapter 7

  Sour and disoriented, Tess left the Beacon-Light feeling as if she had spent an hour trapped with a querulous family in some run-down boardwalk fun house. She made her way carefully down Saratoga Street, her usually quick stride slowed by the unfamiliar high heels.

  “S’ cuse me, miss. You know the way to the hospital?”

  An old car had pulled alongside her, a bright blue AMC Hornet that had to be at least twenty years old, one of those lumpy little seventies cars like the Pacer, which had seemed good ideas at the time. The man calling out to her was in the passenger seat. Burly and bearded, he wore dark glasses that hid most of his face, despite the overcast skies.

  “There’s more than one,” she said, taking care to make sure she wasn’t within grabbing distance, a street-smart practice drilled into her years ago by a paranoid mother. “Is it an emergency, or are you looking for a particular one?”

  The man twisted his head to confer with someone in the backseat, someone Tess couldn’t see, then turned back to her.

  “It’s a Catholic one,” he said. “That help?”

  “You must mean Mercy. Go straight and you’ll see it in about four blocks.”

  Again, a hushed conference with the backseat. “Naw, that’s not it. The one we want is named for some lady. Agatha, Annie, somethin’ like that.”

  “St. Agnes?”

  “Yeah. We got a friend there. Got beat up real bad. Word is, he might not make it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Tess said, taking a step back and casing the street quickly. There were a couple of stores along this strip and a one-way alley she could dart down. She’d kick her shoes off if she had to, make a run for it in her stocking feet.

  “Yeah, poor old Joe is at death’s door, the doctors say.” Then why was he grinning so broadly?

  “Joe?”

  “Joe Johnson. Real good guy. You know him? Small world and all, like they say.”

  “No, but I can help you find St. Agnes. It’s way out in the suburbs. Take the next right, go up about two blocks, and then make a left on Franklin, taking it out to the Beltway, then take the Beltway to I-95 South and get off at Jessup.” If they followed her directions, they’d go wildly out of their way and end up either at the State Police barracks or one of the state prisons. She had a feeling either destination would be appropriate.

  “Thanks. Hey, can we drop you off wherever you’re going?” The back door opened, but not wide enough for Tess to see anyone in the backseat.

  “No! I mean—I wouldn’t want to take you out of your way. I’m sure you’re anxious to see…Joe.”

  “Oh yeah, we’re real anxious.” The man smiled at her, and the car roared off. She watched them head north as she had instructed, then made her way to the closest pay phone. Spike was in intensive care, the nurse reminded her. No one but family was allowed to visit, and no one but Kitty and her parents had tried.

  Tess wasn’t reassured. A call to admitting told her what she suspected: no Joe Johnson had entered St. Agnes this week.

  Adrenaline pumping, she quickly thought of someone who could help her out. And best of all, she could work out while consulting him.

  Durban Knox had owned his eponymous boxing gym in East Baltimore for almost forty years. When the neighborhood had been infiltrated by the upwardly mobile in the 1980s, he had tried to cash in by adding fancy weight machines, Lifecycles, Stairmasters, and Star-Track treadmills. The club had caught on, but not because of the new equipment. Instead, doctors, lawyers, and stockbrokers came to box alongside the regulars, usually within days of some newspaper article announcing that boxing was the newest workout for doctors, lawyers, and stockbrokers. The most recent version of the boxing-is-back story had professional women taking up the sweet science. Tess was not tempted. With everyone else in the ring, she enjoyed almost exclusive title to most of the non-boxing equipment. And as Spike’s niece, she also enjoyed the almost exclusive protection of Durban, who made sure the male patrons left her alone. Even if she had wanted one to talk to her, he wouldn’t have dared, not under Durban’s watchful eye.

  But now it was Spike who needed protection.

  “Yeah, I know some guys who could keep an eye on him,” Durban said, after hearing about Tess’s encounter on Saratoga Street. “Better do it that way, instead of going to the cops. Spike wakes up and finds some cop outside his hospital room door, he ain’t going to be very happy with you.”

  “I don’t know how I’ll pay them—”

  Durban flapped his hand in front of his face as if he smelled something bad. “We’ll talk about that when Spike wakes up. Now, stop wasting time and get cracking. Tyner told me you gotta lot of work to do to get ready for the rowing season. I’m suppose to make sure you don’t dog it.”

  Although it was above freezing, warm enough to run outdoors, Tess opted for five miles on the treadmill, jogging until she had the sweet, rubbery feeling only an overheated gym can provide. Imagin
ing Colleen Reganhart’s bright blue body beneath her feet, she pounded out her last mile in under 7:30, the treadmill’s top speed.

  “I’m watching you, Tess,” Durban called across the room, pointing to the clock. “Seventy-five minutes on aerobics, Tyner said. He also says you gotta do more weight work.”

  “Fine, I’ll do the bike. I’ve got Don Quixote to keep me company.”

  “Yeah, well get him to spot you on some bench presses, too. Tyner said.”

  Tess settled on the stationary bike with her book propped on the control panel. After a few minutes, she barely noticed the gym’s sounds around her—the throb of the speed ball, the duller tones of the heavy bag, the muted thuds of colliding bodies. In its own way, Durban’s was a serene place. She always felt safe here.

  A sudden breeze swept through the room, changing the pressure like a cold front coming through town. An entourage had arrived, and the bright white light of a television camera was capturing its every movement. What was the fuss? Durban had trained a few moderately successful boxers in his time, but no one who could generate this kind of heat. Tess saw the silver-haired anchor from Monday night’s rally, unnaturally pink in his makeup, schmoozing with Paul Tucci, still walking stiff-legged but no longer using a cane. The Tucci money seemed to promote that kind of reflexive brown-nosing. The rest of the group looked like bankers and Chamber of Commerce types, blue suited and bland.

  The suits parted and Wink Wynkowski emerged, shockingly scrawny in a gray wool singlet. Interesting costume for someone with legs the size of my forearms, Tess thought. Wink hadn’t gained weight as he aged, but he also hadn’t put on any muscle, or bothered to expose his narrow chest and stringy arms to the sun. With his tanned face and pale body, he appeared to be wearing a white turtleneck and stockings beneath the skimpy one-piece.

  “I’m going to work out, get a little glow going,” Wink told the anchorman. “I work out every day, I tell you that? Wait, here’s a line for you: ‘Wink Wynkowski might be sweating at the gym, but he’s not sweating the bullshit charges against him in the Beacon-Light.’ Pretty good, huh? I mean, I know you can’t use the profanity, but I think that’s got a nice feel to it.”