Charm City

by Laura Lippman

  “Rosita Ruiz.” Ouch—a bad case of NPR disease. The Rs rolled off her tongue like ball bearings and the T was an aural machete. Rosita seized Tess by the hand, pinching the flesh between thumb and index finger the way a crab pinches one’s toes in the surf. Tess, who often did grip-strengthening exercises with an old tennis ball as she spoke on the phone, took pleasure in squeezing Rosita’s hand back, taking her own inventory as she did.

  Short, but most women looked short to Tess. Built like a gymnast—slender above the waist, stocky and firmly rooted below. With her even features and glossy black hair, she should have been striking, even beautiful, but something had soured her looks.

  “Tess Monaghan,” she said, dropping Rosita’s hand and turning back to Feeney. “I can’t believe you’re covering this. Don’t they have interns to do this kind of crap? Or sportswriters? You belong in the courthouse, covering real news.”

  “I told you. We’re here for color. Sparkling details.”

  “For what?”

  “Can’t say, darling, can’t say.”

  “When Feeney says color, he doesn’t mean it literally,” Rosita explained earnestly. “You see, in newspapers, color means—”

  “Tess used to be one of us,” Feeney interrupted gently, although Tess sensed no interruption was ever gentle enough for Rosita. “Now she’s a private investigator.”

  “Well, sort of. I still have to get my license. But I’m definitely no longer a member of the fourth estate.” Funny, it didn’t hurt to say that anymore. The Star was dead, life had gone on, Baltimore was a one-newspaper town, and the one paper, for better or worse, was the Beacon-Light—the Blight, as it was known by its often less-than-satisfied customers.

  “Well, let us know when you do. Maybe Rosita can write a little feature about you when you crack a big case. Tess Monaghan, the rowing P.I.”

  “No rowing this time of year,” Tess reminded him. “That’s for the real diehards. I’ll go back on the water on April Fool’s Day, not a day sooner.”

  Feeney didn’t hear her. He was practically glowing, lighted from within by his secret story. It could be about politics, Tess guessed, given the cast of characters onstage. A new profile of the governor would require a fresh anecdote about his propensity to make himself ridiculous. Or the Tucci family might be using its considerable clout to ensure another concession for its trash disposal business, which found fewer and fewer neighborhoods wanted an incinerator down the street. Like most rich families, they were quick to cry poverty whenever a state regulation or a new fee got in their way.

  No, it was more likely that Feeney was writing about the main event, about Wink and this basketball deal. But what did any of this have to do with the courthouse? And why assign a feature writer to help?

  “Let’s have a drink, soon,” Tess said, lowering her voice so Rosita wouldn’t think the invitation was being extended to her as well. “It’s been too long.”

  He laughed. “You just want to pump me for details.”

  “Fair enough. But what’s it to you if I interrogate you over a round of drinks at the Brass Elephant? You’ll get a free drink out of it, and probably won’t answer my questions anyway. Tomorrow night? Seven-thirty?”

  “Make it eight. Who knows—it may be time to celebrate by then.”

  “Okay. ’Til then.” She squeezed his hand, then lied to Rosita. “Nice meeting you.”

  The young woman smiled, a tight-lipped little V that dropped the temperature ten degrees. Okay, I wasn’t exactly warm, either. But Tess figured she had only been responding to the little reporter’s bitchiness, smashing it back the way one returned a tough first serve in tennis. Rosita wore her ambition the way oldtime reporters wore trench coats. On her young frame, it wasn’t particularly becoming.

  Tess grabbed another free hot dog and tried to make it last for the rest of the walk home. Out of eighteen blocks, she ended up only sixteen short. Still, she was happy and full when she arrived at her apartment. She decided to stop in her aunt’s bookstore on the ground level and rehash the rally for her. Kitty had a fine appreciation of the absurd, as evidenced by her store’s name, Women and Children First.

  “Oh, Tesser, where have you been?” Kitty cried out, before she could even begin to act out the governor’s spastic dribbling, the mayor’s pseudo-cool manuvers, Tucci’s gimpy plays. “Tommy’s been calling and calling. He just missed you at your office, and he’s been phoning here every five minutes since then—”

  “Tommy, Spike’s hysterical busboy? What, did someone steal the lifts from his shoes? Take an extra handful of pretzels, or walk a seven-dollar check? Trust me, Kitty, Tommy’s calls are never the emergencies he thinks they are.”

  Kitty’s blue eyes were bright with tears. “It’s your Uncle Spike, Tess. He’s at St. Agnes Hospital. Someone tried to rob The Point and the crazy old goat tried to stop them—and he almost did.”

  “Only almost?”

  “Only almost.”

  Chapter 2

  “The years, I saw the years,” Spike muttered, his brown eyes glazed and unfocused, incapable of seeing anything. “Years.”

  “I know, Uncle Spike, I know,” Tess said, patting his hand. But she didn’t know. The years must be his life, fifty-some years in all, passing before his eyes. The cliché was a good sign, she decided. Surely, if death were near, one could be allowed a little originality.

  “The years.”

  Spike’s face was mottled and crisscrossed with tiny cuts, the liver spots that gave him a slight resemblance to a springer spaniel overwhelmed by vivid purple-red bruises. Only his pointy bald head, rising above the fringe of brown hair, was still white and unblemished.

  “Years,” he muttered.

  “I found him?” said Tommy, the dishwasher from Spike’s bar, who framed almost every thought as if it were a question. This wishy-washy tendency, combined with his thick Baltimore accent and talent for malaprops, made him virtually incomprehensible to anyone but Spike. “About two hours ago? I came by to get ready for the Monday night crowd? I was going to peel some hard-berled eggs because the new cook didn’t show up, being so lacks-a-daisy as he is?”

  “A robbery?” Tess had not meant this as a question, but Tommy’s inflections were contagious.

  “Yeah, a robbery, but we don’t have much money on Mondays, not once pro football is over? That’s why they got their dandruff up? They beat him to a pulp?”

  Tommy was right: Uncle Spike looked like a plum gone bad, or a skinned, mashed tomato. Who did this to an old man? But Tess knew. Amateurs. Kids. Idiots, the kind of crooks who were giving crime a bad name. They didn’t know from hold-up etiquette, which said you didn’t kill a guy in a tavern robbery, and you certainly didn’t try to beat him to death. You didn’t rob taverns at all, in fact, for the owner usually had a sawed-off shotgun under the bar, especially if he had a flourishing side business as a bookie. Spike had the side business, Spike had the shotgun. Why hadn’t he been able to get to it in time?

  “Numbers,” he cried weakly, as if he, too, were thinking of his bets, which produced far more income than the bar. And then he said nothing, eyes fluttering closed.

  They remained frozen in this tableau—Tess holding Spike’s hand, Tommy on the other side of the bed, rocking nervously, arms wrapped around his body—until a young doctor came in and asked them to leave.

  Tommy, all ninety-five pounds of him, insisted on walking Tess to her car for her protection. There were frozen puddles in the lot and the promise Tess had sensed earlier in the evening was gone. March, with its morning rains and wintry nights, suddenly seemed as bitter as baking chocolate.

  “He has something for you?” Tommy began, tentative even by his standards. “Back at the bar? Before the paramedics took him, he said to make sure to get it to you?”

  “He doesn’t expect me to run the bar, does he?”

  Tommy cackled and cackled, bent over double at the thought of Tess running The Point, Spike’s bar. Between sputtering laughs, he ev
en managed a whole string of declarative sentences.

  “No, not the bar. But it’s at the bar. C’mon now, and I’ll give it to you. But follow me, okay? I got a special shortcut?”

  They left St. Agnes Hospital and drove through Southwest Baltimore to her uncle’s place, using back streets. Highways were seldom the fastest way to get anywhere in Baltimore, at least not east to west, but Tommy’s shortcut seemed to be an unusually circuitous route, approaching The Point through the winding roads of Leakin Park.

  The Point was dark, shuttered for the night, shuttered forever, perhaps. Tommy took Tess in the back way, through the kitchen—the kitchen where she had eaten her first french fry, her first onion ring, her first mozzarella stick, even her first stuffed jalapeño. Those had been the base of Spike’s food pyramid, and who was Tess to disagree?

  Tommy unlocked a storeroom and stood on the threshold, peering into the darkness.

  “There,” he said finally, pointing to what appeared to be a black bag.

  “What?” Tess said. Alarmingly, the bag began to move, rising on four sticks and walking toward her, into the light. “What the hell is it?”

  It was a dog, a bony, ugly dog with dull black fur and raw patches on its hindquarters. The brown eyes were as vague and glazed as Spike’s, the shoulders hunched in an uncanny impersonation of Richard M. Nixon.

  “It’s a greyhound? Spike just got it this weekend?”

  “But it’s black.”

  “Most greyhounds ain’t gray, and you call ’em blue when they are.” Tommy spoke confidently, sure of himself on this particular subject. “Some are kinda beige, and some are spotted, and some are black. They say gray ones don’t run so good, but that’s just a super-supposition.”

  “Was Spike going to race this dog?”

  “No, this dog is retired. And she wasn’t ever much good? Spike got her from some guy?”

  “What guy?”

  “The guy he knows from the place he goes sometimes?”

  The dog looked up at Tess and her droopy tail moved ever so slightly, as if she had some vague memory of wagging it a long time ago. Tess looked back. She was not a dog person. She was not a cat person, fish person, or horse person. On bad days, she was barely a people person. She ate meat, wore leather, and secretly coveted her mother’s old mink. Fur was warm and Baltimore’s winters seemed to be getting worse, global warming be damned.

  “Why can’t you take her, Tommy?”

  “Can’t keep a dog in the bar, health department will close us down? Name’s S. K.?”

  “What do the initials stand for, S. K.?”

  “No, Esskay. Like the sausage?”

  “As in ‘Taste the difference ka-wality makes?’ and Cal Ripken, Jr., touting the role of bacon in his athletic endeavors?”

  “Yeah, it’s her favorite food, but she only gets it for special treats. Rest of the time, she eats this special kibble Spike got her.”

  Five minutes later, Tess was in her twelve-year-old Toyota, the kibble was in the trunk, and Esskay was standing stiff-legged in the backseat, sliding back and forth with every turn and whimpering at every pothole, which came roughly every fifteen feet. Baltimore’s streets, never in the best repair, had suffered as much this winter as anyone. It didn’t help that the car behind her, which had its brights on, seemed intent on tailgating her all the way to Fells Point. She ended up running a red light on Edmondson Avenue, just to get away from that inconsiderate driver.

  “Sit! Sit down!” Tess hissed at the dog, but Esskay just stared back at her forlornly and resumed skidding along the vinyl covered backseat, hitting her head on one window, then slipping back and smacking her rump on the other. But she never barked, Tess noticed, never really made any sound at all, except that almost imperceptible whine from the back of her throat.

  The sun had just come up, weak and feeble, when Tess opened her eyes the next morning. Strange, she usually didn’t wake this early in the winter, her one season to sleep in. Spring through fall, when she rowed, she was up with the birds. “And now you’re down with Crow,” her friend Whitney had joked frequently, a little too frequently, over the past few months. It wasn’t clear if Whitney resented the presence of a boyfriend in Tess’s life, or simply found the boyfriend in question somewhat ridiculous. A little of both, Tess suspected.

  But it was not Crow’s long, warm body next to her this morning. She rolled toward the middle of the too-soft bed and found herself staring into the faintly cross-eyed gaze of Esskay, the dog’s untrimmed toenails digging into her arm, her hind legs twitching spasmodically.

  Tess propped herself up on one elbow and glared, and the dog shrank back, averting her mournful gaze.

  “Don’t take this personally, but you are the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen.”

  The snout was reminiscent of a dinosaur’s, the long-jawed velociraptor, to be precise. The legs were skinny, the hair thin and mussed in parts. There were red sores on the rump and tail, and the watery eyes could not hold one’s gaze. The total effect was not unlike Tess at thirteen—body too long, legs too thin, skin red and splotchy, manner socially inept. But the dog’s teeth were bad, too, judging from the fishy, hot breath Esskay pushed out in quick, panting gasps.

  Muttering to herself, Tess pulled on sweats and hiking boots to take the dog for a quick walk. The dog jumped up at the sight of her makeshift leash, a long, heavy piece of metal that Spike had probably been using to padlock his parking lot gate. But once at the top of the stairs, Esskay balked, refusing to start down. Last night the greyhound had declined to go up the stairs to Tess’s apartment, so she had carried her up two flights of stairs, assuming the dog was too weak to climb. Now it appeared the greyhound was opposed to staircases on general principle.

  “C’mon, you silly bitch,” Tess said, grabbing the dog’s collar, but Esskay wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard she tugged. She crouched behind and tried to nudge her down, but the dog resisted, her scrawny limbs surprisingly strong.

  “Move, dammit! I’m not going to ferry you up and down these steps every day.”

  Tess’s words had no effect on the dog, but they did bring her aunt out onto the second-floor landing. Kitty was normally the kind of landlady one wanted on the premises, with few rules and a high tolerance for noise and rowdy companions. But she couldn’t abide anything unpleasant looking, and Esskay was clearly in trouble on that score.

  “How’s Spike?” she asked, wrapping a teal-colored chenille robe tightly around her. Her pale face was flushed, her red curls rumpled. “I’m sorry I was out when you got in last night, but I had to go to that meeting for local business owners. We’re still fighting the city over those megabars. And what is that? The world’s largest rat?”

  “It’s a gigantic pain in my ass, that’s what it is, courtesy of Spike.”

  A short, muscular man appeared behind Kitty, dressed in a plaid robe Tess had seen on many men in the two years she had lived above her aunt. She knew this one only by sight—a bartender at a new place on Thames, one of the so-called megabars that had the Fells Point neighborhood in an uproar. But Kitty had always been remarkably open-minded, capable of opposing a business while still feeling kindly toward its employees.

  “That’s one of those racing greyhounds,” the bartender diagnosed smugly. “How long you had him?”

  Funny, how some men project their own gender on everything, as if all living creatures must be male until proven otherwise.

  “I’ve had her about twelve hours, give or take.”

  “Well, that’s your trouble, then. An ex-racer like this has never seen stairs, so you gotta teach ’em. One foot, other foot. One foot, other foot. My cousin had one once. You help ’em up and down until they get it. They don’t know about mirrors, either.”

  “All women should be so lucky,” Kitty murmured. “This is Steve, by the way. Steve, this is my niece, Tess.”

  “Niece?”

  Some women might have quickly told him that Tess’s father was years older, which he w
as. Tess’s aunt was the afterthought in a family of four boys, not even fifteen years older than the twenty-nine-year-old Tess. But confident Kitty merely smiled and nodded.

  Tess squatted in front of Esskay and coaxed the dog’s forelegs down one step. The dog was amazingly malleable, allowing her to pick up each foot, then set it down. But she still wouldn’t move forward on her own. One-two, forelegs down, three-four, hind legs. Repeat. In this fashion, it took Tess only a few minutes to get the dog to the landing, where she paused to catch her breath. She was in good shape, but apparently nothing in her various workout routines had developed the necessary muscles for this greyhound walk-and-hobble. And the crouching position was hell on her back and knees.

  “What else don’t they know how to do?” Tess called back to Steve the bartender, as she and Esskay started down their second flight.

  “Well, they’re kennel trained, but not housebroken. You gotta crate ’em at first, if you don’t want accidents. Also, don’t yell at her if she loses control. They’re real, real sensitive.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  Tess was worn out by the time they reached the first floor, but the dog was suddenly ecstatic, wiggling her snout and pulling her lips back over her front teeth in a serviceable James Cagney impression. Tess took her on a tour of Fells Point’s vacant lots, which Esskay found olfactorily fascinating. Tess dimly recalled the city had an ordinance about cleaning up after dogs, but she figured dog waste was the least of the indignities visited on these sites, scoured by chemicals and toxins over the last five decades.

  Intriguing aromas were drifting out of Kitty’s first-floor kitchen by the time they returned home. Tess lurked in the hallway, fiddling with Esskay’s leash, hoping to be asked in, if only to forestall the long climb back to her apartment. Kitty, like all Monaghans, assumed Spike came from the Weinstein side of the family, but she had always had a soft spot for him. She’d want to know more about his condition. Sure enough, generous Kitty cracked open the door and beckoned them in.