Charm City

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. Imagining 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."

"I write my own copy-" the anchor began. Wink cut him off with a flap of his hand.

"Go ahead and use it. I'm not going to sue you. Besides, you won't think of anything better. Now, what do you want to do, get some shots of me moving, maybe talking to the other guys here?" Wink was a natural boss, directing the television segment as if it were a subsidiary of Montrose Enterprises. "You know, these are just regular guys, black and white, working out together, the kind of people who really want to see a basketball team in their hometown. How's the light in here? A little harsh, don't you think? When I started my chain of workout places, the first thing we did was move away from this fluorescent crap. People want to look good when they're working out. I mean, that's the point, right? If you look good in the gym, maybe you won't have to go any farther to find someone to cozy up to, she'll be right there. But Durban and I go way back, so I wanted to drop by. I fought Golden Gloves when I was seventeen, I ever tell you that? Welterweight. Won, too. You can look it up."

Tess caught Durban 's eye. He shook his head, mouthing "Glass jaw."

"You going to get in the ring today, Wink?" That was the oh-so-chummy cameraman.

Wink looked around the room. His eyes rested on Tess for no more than a second, then moved on quickly, taking in the rest of the equipment.

"The bike. I think I'll warm up on the bike." He hopped up on the Lifecycle next to Tess, only to find the seat was too high: his height, what there was of it, was in his torso. Debonairly as possible, he set the seat three notches lower, and started pedaling.

"Which program you using?" he asked Tess, leaning over to see the readout on her machine, which happened to be covered by her book. His breathing sounded ragged, for he had started out much too quickly.

"Manual. Level six." She knew the drill: short, curt answers, no questions, no eye contact. This method was the best way to kill a conversation at the gym, or anywhere else, for that matter.

"I do the random program. Much more challenging."

Honor dictated a reply. "Not really. You have some tough intervals, but you also have a lot of downhill stretches. Manual is flat and constant. At this level, I'll burn about 750 calories in an hour. You'll be lucky to burn 450-assuming you can last an hour."

The cameraman, who had been creeping across the room, turned the light on full in Tess's eyes and began filming this exchange. Reflexively, she held up Don Quixote, shielding her face.

"Excuse me, but I'd prefer not to be on the evening news." Her voice, although somewhat muffled by Cervantes, was nevertheless distinct. "This is private property, and I didn't give you permission to photograph me."

"Oh, you're not in the shot," the cameraman lied smoothly. He probably assumed everyone secretly yearned to be on television. "I'm just shooting Mr. Wynkowski here for a story we're doing on him. It's a tight shot. No one will see you."

"What about sound? Don't you have a built-in microphone, which picks up everything I say?"

"Everyone has those now. Don't say anything, and you'll be okay."

Tess lowered the book to chin level, stared into the camera, and recited in a bored monotone, "Fuck. Shit. Bite me. Eat me. Piss on you, asshole." Then she smiled sweetly. "Did you get that?"

Wink laughed so hard he almost fell off the bike, while the cameraman flushed with anger and turned his camera off.

"We could still use it, you know," he said. "We could use that part of the video as B-roll if we really wanted to, putting in a voice-over."

"You could," Tess agreed. "But when you look at the tape, you'll see I was giving you the finger the whole time, on both sides of my book." She demonstrated. "I don't think that would look very nice on the station that bills its six o'clock program as ‘Good news for the whole family.'"

Irritated, she was cycling faster and faster without realizing it, while Wink had given up any pretense of working out. He leaned toward her again, as if they were co-conspirators. Just two private citizens, ambushed by the local television station. He waved his entourage away, Paul Tucci practically leering at them as he retreated. Wink then dropped his voice, so Tess had to move her head closer to his in order to hear.

"You're pretty ballsy. I find that attractive in a woman."

"I don't want to infer too much from what I'm sure is an innocent, heartfelt compliment, but aren't you married?"

"I am married," he confided, "but my wife lets me date."

"What do you let her do?"

"Have babies and buy things."

Although she was not belligerent by nature, Tess briefly considered punching him. She was sure one well-placed sock would knock him from his perch on the bike, maybe even knock out a few teeth if he fell against the pedals on the way down. There was a perverse fairness to hitting someone who hit on you. Wink Wynkowski, reared on the playgrounds of Southwest Baltimore, would understand a good solid thump to the jaw.

But hitting him was just a fantasy, and a stupid one at that. Tess opted to hide behind her book, rereading the scene in which the muleteers beat Sancho Panza.

"You'd rather read a book than talk to me?"

"I'd rather be set on fire than talk to you."

Wink dismounted, grabbing her left arm as if to balance himself, although his footing seemed sure enough. She tensed, hoping he could feel the clenched bicep, the long tricep beneath it.

"I guess you don't want to watch basketball games from the floor. It's a good way to meet good earners. Unfortunately, we tend to be married, us rich guys."

"From what I read in the papers, you're not so rich."

"Yeah, well, maybe I'll get richer, courtesy of the Beacon-Light. Maybe I'll have some of the Pfieffer family's millions before this is all over."

"Are you saying the newspaper libeled you? I'd like to hear more about that. I'm sure a lot of people would." The Blight editors hadn't asked her to probe Wynkowski's legal intentions, but it couldn't hurt.

"I'm saying they'll be sorry. Like you, honey." This time, he ran his index finger along the inside of her arm. "You listen to the Boss, or are you one of those younger kids who thinks you're too cool?"

"Actually, I like Springsteen." I'm just not queer enough to call him the Boss.

"Well, the Boss may have been from New Jersey, but he coulda been writing about Baltimore all these years. This is a town full of losers, baby, people who are so scared of the future, they end up talking about the past all the time. There's more to life than getting Barry Levinson to make some fucking movie about you. No one made a movie about me, but I'm going to be bigger than any of 'em. Don't believe everything you read in the papers."

A parting squeeze of her arm, then he returned to his satellites, who had been lost without him, bumping into each other and looking around. Relieved, they clapped him on the back, although a little gingerly, in case there was any moisture left over from his five minutes of activity. Paul Tucci glanced back at Tess curiously, then limped out after them.

That night, Tess and Crow tried to watch the 6 o'clock news from bed, while trying to protect the perimeter from Esskay, who circled them, intent on stealing their Chinese food or curling up on their pillows, maybe both.

"What a hedonist," Tess complained, rescuing a carton of General Tso's chicken from the nightstand just as Esskay tried to clamp down on it. Thwarted, the dog grabbed one of the pillows and carried it off into the corner, where she appeared to be making a nest. So far, she had kidnapped an old, stuffed bear of Tess's, placing it in the center of a pile made from one of Crow's T-shirts, tissue salvaged from the trash, and several pairs of Tess's underwear.

"Have a heart," Crow admonished. "You'd need pillows, too, if you were all bones."

"You're saying I'm not?" Tess asked in mock outrage. "Hey, turn up the sound. They're doing the piece on Wink."

The TV showed several television crews massed in front of Wink's fake Tudor mansion, an overdone confection of turrets and stained glass. Stock footage, Tess realized, shot the day before, when the Blight's story had run and all the TV reporters had camped out in front of Wink's property, waiting in vain for him to comment.

"What's the point of a new house designed to look old?" Crow wondered.

"I guess it's for people who have to have wainscoting, ivy, and a subzero refrigerator. Louder, please. I still can't hear."

The anchor's voice, so deep and rich it vibrated on Tess's cheap set, filled the room: "Channel Eight has learned tonight that Wink Wynkowski plans a news conference Monday to respond to the charges against him in the local press." The footage changed to shots from the gym-Wink pedaling, Wink thumping the heavy bag, Wink flirting.

"That's your arm!" Crow exulted. "I recognize the mole on your elbow."

"And although he took time out to sweat at Durban 's gym today, Wink assured me, in an exclusive interview, that he wasn't sweating the basketball deal." So the reporter had stolen the line after all.

Cut to a shot of Wink outside Durban 's gym, breathing clouds of smoke in the wintry air as he spoke into a microphone. Tess was thankful he had put a jogging suit on over his singlet.

"All I want to tell my supporters-and I know I have a lot of them-is to rest easy. I always knew we'd have people fighting us on this. I just didn't expect they'd be right here in my hometown." He paused, as if he expected cheers or applause, then remembered he was being taped for television. "You know, maybe when I wrap this deal up, I ought to look at starting a new newspaper, or convince one of the big chains to buy the poor excuse for the one we got. You know what they say about Baltimore? It's the biggest city in the country without a daily newspaper."

"What about those charges in the Beacon-Light, Wink?" the anchor asked, puffed up with pride at his daring. "Any truth to them at all?"

Tess rolled her eyes. "He's going to hit this one farther than the home run Frank Robinson hit out of Memorial Stadium."

"I can't comment on that now, but I expect to have a detailed response by Monday after talking to my advisers. It's a complicated situation and I have to keep my priorities straight, not get distracted. The game plan is, number one, buy the team, number two, get it here, and then, number three, I'll worry about those little dogs nipping at my heels."

"But what about the information on your, uh, youthful transgressions? Can you elaborate on that? Some people have noted that three years is a long time to send a juvenile away on robbery charges."

To Tess's surprise, Wink's eyes began to tear up in what seemed to be a genuinely spontaneous show of emotion. He started to speak, stopped, cleared his throat, and continued, almost seething and crying at the same time.

"There's a reason they keep your name confidential when you do things as a kid, you know. It gives you a chance to start over, get things right. And I did pretty well with the chance I got, better than most. Yet I get singled out. Is that fair? You gonna open up the records of every guy in town who went to Montrose? Because I'm not the only one, you know. I'm not the only guy in this town who needed a fresh start."

Tess and Crow were so mesmerized by this performance that Esskay was able to make another lunge toward the Chinese food, snaring a gnawed sparerib from Crow's plate. Her victory was short-lived: she began retching, the bone lodged deep in her throat.

"Try the Heimlich maneuver," Tess cried, panicking. Unruffled, Crow reached his hand down the dog's throat and extracted the rib, gooey with drool and sauce. Esskay stared at the bone as if she had never seen it before, then tried to snatch it back from him.

"Pavlov, indeed," Tess snorted in disgust, but her heart was still beating a little fast. "This stupid mutt can't learn anything. She can't even remember she almost choked to death on that same damn bone ten seconds ago."

"Oh, I don't know," Crow said, forgiving as always. "We all have things we desire even though we know they wouldn't be good for us. Don't you have a few spareribs in your life?"

A rhetorical question, one of Crow's flights of fancy, nothing more. To Tess's consternation, an image of Jack Sterling flashed through her mind-his blue eyes, the strange little sensation she had felt when they shook hands, as if he had caught a spark of static electricity from the carpet in the conference room and passed it on to her. Blushing, she hid her hot face in Esskay's hotter neck, stroking the dog until she was sure the telltale color had subsided.