“The article said you didn’t deny the charges.”
“Well, it was half right. I told her I wouldn’t confirm or deny anything she asked me about my time with Wink. Funny, how much it changes the meaning, losing a word here and there. I called Miss Ruiz to complain and she told me the error had been edited into the story and she would ask for a correction. I’m not holding my breath. I’ve lived in Baltimore all my life, I know how arrogant the Beacon-Light is.”
One of the sales clerks opened the curtains and gave an involuntary cry when she saw Linda and Tess ankle-deep in hundreds of dollars of clothes. “Oh, Mrs. Wynkowski, couldn’t you at least put the dresses over the chair? You know I’m glad to hang them for you when you’re done, but we can’t have them on the floor.”
To Tess’s amazement, Linda shoved roughly past the young woman, knocking her into the wall, then stepping down hard on her foot.
“The customer is always right,” she called over her shoulder, as tears came to the clerk’s eyes. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”
On the way back to the Blight, Tess puzzled over what Linda Wynkowski had told her. Despite her antipathy toward Rosita, she knew editors did insert errors into stories. And people often complained of being misquoted when what they really had was a bad case of interviewee’s remorse. Possibly Rosita had confused Linda with a jumble of reporting jargon: on background, off the record, not for attribution. Given that most reporters couldn’t agree on the meaning of those terms, it was impossible for a civilian to understand. But Linda had seemed quite definite that she had told Rosita she would neither confirm nor deny. She was right: dropping one word made a lot of difference in that quote. She had offered a no comment; Rosita had twisted it into serving her needs.
As Tess got off the elevator on the third floor, Feeney got on, barely glancing at her. She darted back in at the last second, the elevator doors bouncing off her shoulders.
“It’s funny, Feeney. You’re one of two people I know in this whole building and you’re the one person I never see or hear from. Whitney at least sends me electronic greetings and drops in.”
Feeney studied his shoes. Penniless penny loafers, as usual. Worn with no socks, as usual. “This basketball story has taken over my life. It’s like a greased boa constrictor. It twists, it turns, and just when I think I’ve got it pinned down, it turns out the snake’s about to swallow me.”
“Does Baltimore still have a chance to get a team?”
“Maybe. The deal has lost a lot of momentum since Wink’s death, although there’s actually more real money connected to it, now that the Tucci family has decided to put its full weight behind it. With Paul as the majority partner, the family is willing to put up a lot more than before. But money isn’t everything. Wink may not have brought that much money to the table, but he did have cunning and charisma, something Paul Tucci can’t fake. Tucci’s not exactly the brightest light on the Christmas tree. Why do you think he’s still not a full partner in his father’s business?”
The elevator had reached the first floor. Tess walked outside with Feeney, determined to prolong their conversation. She wanted to bring him around to his phony alibi, the lie that had her wrestling with her own greased boa constrictor, but she knew better than to be too direct or confrontational.
“What a difference a week makes. Last time we talked, you were delivering the eulogy for your own career. Remember?” The night you lied about your whereabouts, and dragged me into this whole mess.
Feeney made a strangled noise, half-grunt, half-laugh.
“Then comes what your publisher likes to call the ‘unscheduled publication’ and—bam—everything starts falling into place. The first story leads to the tip from the guy in Georgia and you suddenly have the story of your career.”
“And Wink is dead.”
“How did you get there so fast the night Wink died, then get the story in the paper? It must have happened right on deadline.”
“I dictated from a pay phone outside a Royal Farm on Reisterstown Road.”
“But the story said the cops didn’t arrive until ten-thirty, so you had to be right behind them. Who tipped you off? County police? The medical examiner? An ambulance driver?”
“I didn’t get there right behind the cops, Tess. I got there right before them.”
Tess stopped at the bottom of the long, low steps in front of the Blight and grabbed Feeney’s arm, forcing him to stop and look at her.
“Wink? Wink called you?”
“He called my beeper and left his phone number. I recognized the number—I’d been dialing it almost every day, if only to get a ‘no comment’ from him or a ‘drop dead’ from his wife. I called back, no answer. I figured if Wink was ready to talk to me, I shouldn’t let the mood pass, and I drove out there. The garage was closed and locked, but the front door was unlocked, as if he had been waiting for me all along. And I guess he was, in a way. Wink always did do things with flair.”
“What did you do?”
“I called the cops from his house. And then I got out my notebook, took down all the information, and filed my story, like a good boy.”
“The story said the cops found the body.”
“No, we neatly sidestepped that detail. I wanted to put it in—I thought it made for a nice ironic touch. You know how the editors like those phrases ‘The Beacon-Light has learned,’ or ‘As the Beacon-Light first reported.’ I dictated: ‘The Beacon-Light last night discovered the body of Wink Wynkowski, an apparent suicide.’ Colleen and Jack over-ruled me.”
“It is a little melodramatic.”
“Have you ever seen a dead body?” Feeney asked, then blushed, remembering Tess had seen her share. He jammed his hands in his pocket and began walking north along Eutaw. She fell in step beside him, too intent on their conversation to be put off by his rudeness.
“You shouldn’t feel guilty, Feeney. I bet Rosita doesn’t have any guilt pangs, and she’s as responsible as you are.”
“Rosita’s young. She’s probably mad he didn’t beep her. Rosita always thought she could crack the story wide open if she had a few minutes with Wink. She does get people to open up to her, I’ll give her that. I don’t know how she does it.”
I do. She doesn’t let their quotes get in the way of the story.
“How much reporting did she contribute to the first story? Without any help from you, I mean.”
“Most of the personal stuff about Wink, the details about his marriage and his childhood. And she was the one who got the call from the guy who knew him at Montrose. She wanted to do that interview by herself, but Sterling was skeptical about the guy, wanted to good-cop/bad-cop him, make sure he wasn’t some petty psycho. Rosita went in all empathetic, while I was the hard-ass. The guy was solid, though, and my courthouse source backed him up.”
“Did the courthouse source help you out on the first story? Was he one of the people you didn’t want to identify?”
“Yeah, he’s given us lots of stuff over the years, it would be crazy to burn him. But the key was the financial source, someone who—well, let’s just say he was a former business associate whose creative accounting tricks for Wink could have resulted in jail time. Now he’s born-again, the father of three little girls, soccer coach, PTA president. I was so careful to protect his identity I never even wrote his name in my notebook. He was just U.C.—the Unknown Citizen.”
In her memory, Tess tasted gin, heard the congenial buzz of the Brass Elephant, saw Feeney’s red face as he slurringly declaimed a few lines of poetry.
“That’s what you recited to me in the bar, the allusion I couldn’t place. Auden’s ‘The Unknown Citizen.’ ‘Am I happy? Am I free?’”
“Did I?” Feeney asked unhappily. “I don’t remember.”
“It was your exit line,” Tess reminded him. “When you stormed out at eight o’clock and left me alone with your tab.” He squirmed a little, as she had expected he would, as she wanted him to. Good: now they had acknowledged t
he lie between them, the way he had used her.
“Well, obviously he was on my mind,” Feeney offered. “I’m surprised I didn’t blurt out his name, in the state I was in.”
“Go ahead and blurt it out now. I’m an old friend, you can trust me.” Tess’s mind was racing ahead: if Rosita had conducted any of the interviews with the Unknown Citizen, perhaps she had twisted his words the way she’d twisted Linda’s. It was worth checking out.
Feeney’s face was pensive, the way he sometimes looked before a poetry jag, although he was obviously stone-cold sober now.
“Tess, as long as you work for management, you’re not my friend and I don’t trust you. And if you want to continue this conversation, I suggest we find my union rep.”
He turned and began walking quickly toward the Shrine of St. Jude. Tess stood on the corner, as breathless as if he had just punched her in the stomach. How had Feeney gotten things so twisted? She was here because of his deceit, because he had used her as his alibi, and if she didn’t make the case that Rosita had sneaked the story into the paper out of unalloyed ambition, Feeney might take the fall. Typical Feeney, going on the offensive when he should be offering profuse apologies.
“Fuck you, Kevin Feeney,” she called after him, although he was already too far away to hear her. “You can take care of yourself from now on.”
The sleet had finally stopped, but the wind had picked up, stinging and bitter. That’s the only reason my eyes are tearing, Tess told herself as she walked back inside. Because of the wind.
Chapter 19
A dispirited Tess left the Beacon-Light at 4:30, sick of the media, only to arrive home in time for the tail-end of a press conference at Women and Children First. All four local television stations were crowded into Kitty’s bookstore, along with the reporter from the East Baltimore Guide, a neighborhood paper, and someone from the city’s alternative weekly. The object of their attention was a quivering Esskay, whom Kitty had brushed to a high shine and beautified by intertwining a green velvet ribbon through her collar. It was a toss-up who was going to lose control of her bladder first—Esskay, or Tess, who couldn’t believe Kitty was pulling a stunt like this.
“Yes, this dog was an outstanding racer,” Kitty was saying, in response to someone’s question. “The top earner at her track in Juarez last year. But her owner decided to let her retire at the top of her game and become the official mascot of Women and Children First. Esskay—that’s her nickname, her full name is Sylvia Quérida—will also serve as a model for a children’s book I plan to write and illustrate about the greyhound rescue movement.”
Illustrate a book? News to Tess. Kitty couldn’t draw a stick figure with a ruler.
“How’s a high-energy dog like that going to get all the exercise it needs when you don’t have a real yard?” asked one reporter, a hard-nosed skeptic by television’s standards.
“As some of you know, residents near Patterson Park take their dogs on patrol every night, in an attempt to discourage prostitution and drug-related crimes. We’ll walk Esskay as part of the patrol at night. As for her morning walks, some old friends of mine have volunteered to take her out.”
Kitty waggled her fingers at two muscular men in Spandex leggings and tight T-shirts. “These police officers plan to jog with Esskay as part of their conditioning program. But if this wintry weather doesn’t go away, we’ll have to get Esskay a sweater—she doesn’t have any body fat to protect her. Then again, neither do the officers.”
The reporters laughed as the officers blushed a bright, happy red. Kitty then fished a dog biscuit out of a box propped next to the cash register, climbed to the top of the counter, and held the treat straight out from her shoulder, about eight feet above the floor. In one graceful movement, Esskay leaped up and snatched the bone from Kitty’s hand.
“Beautiful visual,” Tess muttered to herself. “That’s going to be on every channel tonight.”
So it was. But the stations cut away from the next shot: Esskay, crouched over her treat, looking up to see four television cameras approaching her. The overwhelmed dog made a strange yodeling noise deep in her throat, lost control just as Tess had thought she might and, profoundly humiliated, bolted from the room at top speed.
“That which you cannot hide, proclaim,” Kitty expounded to Tess and Crow that night, after a dinner designed to chase away the winter blues while it packed on pounds: corn chowder with sherry, a chicken-and-rice casserole, Crow’s home-made rolls, and gingerbread with a heated caramel sauce and fresh-whipped cream. Stuffed and contented, they sat in Kitty’s kitchen, listening to the wind whipping around the building as if looking for someone it had a long-standing grudge against. Kitty and Tess sipped coffee with healthy slugs of Kahlua, while Crow settled for straight-up caffeine. He still had to take Esskay out for her first jaunt with the Patterson Park patrol.
“Okay, so we’ve proclaimed Esskay,” Tess said. “But we’ve also taken out an advertisement for our friends in the shit-and-salmon car. Hey guys! Come and get her. The dog you’re looking for is at the corner of Bond and Shakespeare Street.”
“They would have found you eventually, if they haven’t already,” Kitty said. “Now that Esskay is famous, those men who have been dogging you—if you’ll pardon the expression—will have to be much more careful. They won’t go after two police officers jogging with a dog. And they’re not going to wade into that pack of dogs who roam Patterson Park with their civic-minded owners.”
“What about the stuff you made up, like her racing record?” Crow asked. “What if the reporters check?”
“Even if they do think to call a dog track in Juarez, I think there’s going to be a slight language problem.”
Crow laughed, but Tess sighed. “Still, I wish you hadn’t brought the cops into it. Remember, we don’t know how Spike came to have this dog, or what he has to do with her altered tattoo. The less the cops know, the better.”
“I thought of that, too,” Kitty said, her voice a smug purr. “The ‘officers’ are actually bartender friends of Steve’s. The reporters think they’re police officers because I told them they were. Perception is more important than reality.”
“My, you’re just full of aphorisms tonight. When do we get to hear the one about the penny saved? Or how about the early bird, Aunt Kitty? Will you tell us that one, pretty please?”
Kitty bounced a leftover roll off Tess’s head, which Esskay caught neatly on the rebound and devoured. “I was thinking more of gift horses and the bodily cavities you’re not supposed to inspect, a train of thought that leads me directly to your uncanny impersonation of another part of the horse’s anatomy.”
“Ladies, ladies.” Crow still didn’t know what to make of the way Tess and Kitty bickered with one another, even if it was all in good fun. His parents, onetime Bostonians who had fled the winters and settled in Charlottesville, Virginia, were almost painfully civilized in their affection for one another. Esskay, however, liked the mock yelling and rushed to the fray, eager to see if more food bits might fly.
Crow snapped a leash to the excited dog’s collar. “I hate to leave this warm kitchen, but we might as well get this over with, girl. Maybe you’ll make friends with the other pooches.”
“Don’t talk to strangers,” Tess advised, half-serious.
“We won’t. And we won’t take any dog biscuits from strangers, either.”
Almost an hour later, Tess was stretching on the bedroom floor when she heard Crow and Esskay clattering up the stairs. Her muscles were tight—she hadn’t been cooling down after her workouts and the lapse was catching up to her, a sure sign of age. Only twenty-nine, and yet twenty-nine was old in some ways. By twenty-nine, for example, it was too late to improve one’s bone density; all you could do was protect what you had with high calcium food, exercise, and daily doses of Tums. By twenty-nine, baby-oil sunbaths from high school had already damaged your skin irreparably. And by twenty-nine, it was too late to have a baby to reduce one’s risk of br
east cancer. Tess imagined she could feel the engine of her body slowing down, burning fewer calories every day. Eventually, she would have to work out more or eat less. The first option seemed impossible, the second highly undesirable. She calculated quickly: running one extra mile a day burned an additional 100 calories, which could offset a weight gain of ten pounds over a single year. One mile, not even ten minutes. She could probably squeeze it in.
Esskay, fur cold, nose colder, pounced on Tess, ending her aerobic reverie. Tess wrapped herself into a tight ball and the dog took her braid in her mouth as if it were a toy, shaking it with surprising vigor.
“Boy, she’s revved up,” Tess said, rescuing her hair as Crow flopped on the bed with a groan. “She must have had a good time.”
“Too good a time. I never noticed how aggressive she is with other dogs. She tried to pick a fight with a Rottweiler, for God’s sake. He snapped at her and she backed down, but I still had to choke up on her leash.”
“Did you see any prostitutes working the park?”
“A few brave ones, but they weren’t doing any business. I don’t think the Pooch Patrol can claim credit, though. You take anything out of your pants tonight and it’s going to snap off.”
Crow, who didn’t own a real winter coat, had dressed in several ratty layers—a leather jacket and wool muffler over three sweaters and a thermal undershirt. Now, as he stripped down to the undershirt, he reached inside the leather jacket and pulled out a long manila envelope from its breast pocket. “I almost forgot. This was on your car when we got back. I thought it was a ticket at first.”
“Probably some new advertising gimmick dreamed up by one of the megabars,” Tess said, opening it. Photocopies spilled out, along with two pieces of cream-colored stationery, a stark black name emblazoned across the top.
Rosita Ruiz.
“What is it?” Crow asked.
“Rosita’s résumé.” Tess was bewildered. “And her cover letter, as well as copies of stories she wrote for the San Antonio newspaper, and her evaluation at the Blight. It’s her whole personnel file, a highly confidential thing. Crow, did you see who left this on my car, by any chance?”
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