In A Strange City

Chapter 16

Crow had a yen for French toast the next morning, so they ended up at the Paper Moon Diner, a twenty-four-hour oasis near the Baltimore Museum of Art. It had once been a dreary coffee shop, the Open House, a place so bad that Tess kept returning to see if it could possibly be as awful as she remembered. It was. The Open House had been a place where the jelly on your English muffin turned out to be mostly mold and whatever white substance they provided for the coffee was invariably curdled. If anyone dared to complain, the help glared, put out to find customers there.

But with a little purple paint and a heavy dose of whimsy, the Paper Moon had vanquished the ptomaine ghosts of the previous regime. The place now radiated good cheer, with its collection of Pez containers and old-fashioned toys. Christmas lights shone from the exposed rafters year-round, and naked department store mannequins lurked in the shrubbery out front. The service was also divine, thanks to what Crow referred to as the only successful model for socialism in the new millennium: All tips were shared, so everyone on the staff had a vested interest in getting the food to the table and keeping drinks refilled. The menu needed an entire page to explain this system, and the explanation verged on manifesto, but the Paper Moon always made Tess feel as if she were John Reed in the Soviet Union: She had seen the future of restaurant service, and it worked.

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” Crow said, yawning over his coffee. They had stayed up late the night before, until almost 3 a.m. It had been worth it.

“I like the Paper Moon.”

“No, I mean this Poe thing. It’s all my fault.”

“How do you figure?”

“If I hadn’t insisted we go to Westminster and ”protect‘ the Visitor, you wouldn’t have felt obligated to start looking for this man. Now that you’ve found him…“

“Now that I’ve found him,” Tess sang, “I can let him go.” The Paper Moon’s whimsy was infectious. Besides, she didn’t want to talk about Arnold Pitts. She wanted to prolong the warm, happy mood in which she had awakened. Later, stomach full, she would contemplate Pitts’s nasty threat, try to figure out if he had left her any room in which to maneuver. Could she launch a preemptive strike, go to Rainer and tell him to expect Pitts’s false accusations?

But Pitts was shrewd in his judgments: Rainer disliked her so much, he’d want to believe the worst of her. She was stuck. She studied the menu, wondering if it was too early in the day to order the hummus, which was billed, perhaps inevitably in this self-referential city, as “Hummuside: Life on the Pita.”

Puns ruined her appetite. Perhaps an omelet instead.

“You know, one day-not at breakfast, but if we come here for lunch or dinner-I’m going to order a beer milkshake. If any place on the planet would make you one, it would be the Paper Moon.”

“Wasn’t there a character in a book who had a beer milkshake?”

“Doc, in Cannery Row,” Tess replied, glad to know a piece of literary trivia. She was still embarrassed at being the butt of Arnold Pitts’s literary joke. The twentieth, now that was her century If someone had come into her office claiming to be Edmund “Bunny” Wilson or Harold Bloom, she’d have been in on the joke from the jump.

Two women walked into the dining room and took seats beneath a mobile of flying Barbies. Tess couldn’t help noticing the dark and light heads bent over the menus. Both women had short razor-cut hair, which exposed willowy necks. If it weren’t for their coloring-the one so dark, the other a rose-petal blonde- they might have been mistaken for sisters. There was a sameness in the way they dressed, in their posture. Tess was so caught up in trying to figure out how they could look so different and yet seem so related, that it took a second for the dark-haired woman’s familiar profile to register.

“Cecilia Cesnik,” she said, for the second time in three days.

And for the second time in three days, Cecilia turned and gave Tess a wary smile.

“Now I remember why the City Paper suggested Tiny Town as a nickname for Baltimore,” Cecilia said. “Sometimes it seems as if there are only a couple dozen people living here.”

The blonde’s blue-green eyes had a frosty glaze that would have done a doughnut proud. Tess realized she must be Cecilia’s girlfriend, and she was trying to assess the nature of the relationship between Cecilia and this strange woman.

“I’m Tess Monaghan,” she said, “and this is my boyfriend, Crow Ransome.”

That was all it took to melt the frost. “Charlotte Menaker,” she said. “How do you and Cecilia know each other?”

The answer was complicated-and involved so many events better left forgotten, so much violence and waste-that Tess and Cecilia, after exchanging a look, shrugged and laughed.

“Another Baltimore story,” Tess said. “We were… thrown together once, by circumstances. Then Cecilia clerked one summer for the lawyer I work with, Tyner Gray.”

“The handsome man in the wheelchair?”

“I suppose,” Tess said, knowing she would never carry the compliment back to Tyner. Bad enough that heterosexual women thought he was attractive. If he heard a pretty young lesbian had called him handsome, his conceit would be unbearable.

Crow, who had met Cecilia about the same time Tess did, suddenly got up and enveloped her in a bear hug. Cecilia looked faintly alarmed, then relaxed in his grip.

“You look great,” he told her. “I saw you on the news, and I was so proud of you.”

“Oh, yeah, the news,” Tess said. “So how goes the crusade? Has Rainer unbent, told you anything more about his investigation?”

Cecilia appeared torn. Clearly her instinct was to spin the story to her advantage, but Tess was a friend, more or less, not a gullible newscaster.

“The mainstream media gave us cursory mentions, sort of the obligatory crackpot-theories rubric,” she admitted. “But I have a television appearance tomorrow on an hour-long news show, Face Time. We’re going to talk about hate crimes and whether legislation can make a difference.”

“Face Time? That show with Jim Yeager?” Tess asked, nonchalant in the extreme.

“Yes. I know he’s not exactly a friend to our cause, but he does provide a forum for free and open debate.”

Tess wondered if Cecilia had ever seen the show in question, or if she was simply buying into Yeager’s version of what he offered the viewing public.

“I wouldn’t trust him, if I were you,” she said, deciding not to reveal she had turned down a chance to be on the same show.

Cecilia could not bear instructions, no matter how mild or well intended. “I don’t recall asking your advice. Besides, I have a great visual. We just came from the SPCA, where I bailed out Shawn Hayes’s Doberman. The family doesn’t know what to do with her, so they’re boarding her there. I’m going to take her on the show with me. People may not respond to the plight of a gay man, almost beaten to death, but a little doggie mourning for her master gets them every time.”

She pointed to Twenty-ninth Street, where a blue RAV-4 was parked. Tess saw the long snout of a Doberman poking through the window, which had been lowered about an inch to let fresh air circulate in the car.

She hated to anthropomorphize, especially from this distance, but the dog did appear depressed.

“How does a Doberman not come to her master’s aid when he’s being beaten?” she wondered.

“Good question,” Cecilia said. “The police want to think it’s because Shawn Hayes’s attacker was someone he knew. But that would only explain why the dog didn’t bark when the person entered the house. You told me you have a dog. Would it sit idly by while someone was hurting you?”

Tess thought about this. “No, she’d lie idly by, at least if you gave her something to eat first. In fact, if you were feeding her bacon, you could set me on fire and Esskay wouldn’t notice. But she’s no Doberman.”

“The Hound of the Baskervilles,” Crow mused. “Why didn’t the Doberman bark?”

“Ah, but this is a story of Poe, not Conan Doyle,” Tess reminded him.

“It’s not a story about Poe at all.” Cecilia’s voice was edged with irritation. “That’s the very problem I’m having with the press. One man is dead, another is near death, and all anyone wants to do is make weak puns about ”The Telltale Heart‘ and Baskerville hounds, whatever they are.“

They all looked across the street at the dog in question. A suspicious-looking man appeared to be sneaking up on the RAV-4, but he jumped back when he saw what was inside. The Doberman didn’t move, didn’t react at all. Maybe she was capable of sitting out an attack on her master.

“That’s a big dog,” Crow said. “She’s going to need a lot of exercise. Do you have a yard?”

“We not only don’t have a yard, we have a cat,” Charlotte put in, with the tone of the frequently put upon. Get used to it, honey, Tess longed to advise her. Welcome to life with Cecilia. “So I’m not sure how this is going to work. She’s a sweetie, though. Her name is Miata.”

“Miata?”

“Hayes told his friends she was his version of a midlife crisis,” Cecilia said. “Look, why don’t you bring your food over here and join us, instead of shouting across the tables like this?”

She could not have been more offhand, but Tess was moved by the offer. Perhaps Cecilia had room in her life for those who were not allies and comrades, just friends.

“You know, we could keep the dog for you,” Crow said, after they had reconfigured.

Tess choked a little on her orange juice.

“Well, we could,” he said. “Just temporarily. The backyard is fenced, and Esskay could use the company.”

“Esskay doesn’t even know she’s a dog.”

“True,” Crow said, “but she’s very tolerant. If she saw us being kind to some strange new creature, she’d do the same.”

“It wouldn’t have to be forever,” Cecilia said, seizing the opening Crow had given her. “Just temporarily, until Hayes’s family makes arrangements for her.”

“She’s incredibly well behaved,” Charlotte put in. “Except for the sofa incident.”

Cecilia gave Charlotte a sharp look even as Tess asked, “The sofa incident?”

“The SPCA said she ate a sofa while she was with one of Hayes’s relatives,” Charlotte confessed. “That’s why she was put there in the first place.”

“Not all of it,” Cecilia said quickly. “Just part of a cushion. She was making a nest.”

“Don’t worry, Esskay won’t let that happen,” Crow said. “She doesn’t let anyone sit on the sofa.”

It’s strange, how being allowed to do a favor for someone can feel like a gift. Tess was touched that Cecilia would admit to needing anything, much less allow Tess and Crow to fill that need. Sitting here, a happy foursome, they felt like friends.

And friends shouldn’t have secrets from one another. She owed it to Cecilia to tell her what she had learned about the Bobby Hilliard case.

“You know, the cops have widened the investigation, beyond the homicide and the assault,” she said. “They’re looking into two burglaries, too. I’m not sure what’s involved, but they’re definitely not hate crimes, just ordinary break-ins.”

“So?” Cecilia was suddenly on full alert, back in activist mode.

“Well, I thought that might affect what you say on the air tomorrow night.”

“I can’t be overly concerned with property crimes when people’s lives are at risk,” Cecilia said.

“I’m not asking you to equate the four crimes morally. I’m telling you the police think they’re related. Doesn’t that fact make the hate-crime scenario less likely?”

“We have to draw attention to these issues however we can. Police treat gay men who are attacked the way they once treated rape victims.” Cecilia was a rape victim, Tess recalled, and she had never hesitated to wield this bit of moral superiority. “We have to keep pressure on them, if only to ensure that future cases are taken more seriously.”

Tess wasn’t sure if Cecilia was using the editorial “we,” the royal “we,” or merely the pain-in-the-ass self-important “we.”

“Are you saying it doesn’t matter if you’re right about the details, as long as you get your message out?”

Cecilia blushed, unaccustomed to being on the defensive. “No, no-I would never say anything I knew to be false. But even if I’m wrong in the details, I’m calling attention to the bigger picture, if you will.”

At moments like this, Tess realized she could not quite vanquish her reporter persona. She had never confused working for a newspaper with being in the service of the truth, but she had been devoted to facts. Cecilia’s blatant disregard of them was a kind of pollution. The world was stinking with urban myths and Internet-spawned apocrypha. People shouldn’t get in front of television cameras and say things they knew might not have a jot of truth to them, just because they served an allegedly higher purpose.

“Do you even have a police department source?” Tess demanded. “Or are you just making this up as you go along, figuring you’re right until someone proves you wrong?”

But they had both been trained in Tyner’s trenches, and Cecilia was not one to fold in the face of combat. “Look, everyone knows Shawn Hayes was beaten by some homophobe he picked up somewhere.”

“Everyone knows,” Tess repeated scornfully. “No one knows anything, because people manipulate facts for results, the way you’re planning to do. How would you feel if the Christian right held a press conference, putting out rumors to promote its antigay agenda? You’d be livid.”

“Because they’re wrong,” Cecilia said, her face tight with the anger of the self-righteous.

“Which is what they think about you.”

“For your information, Jim Yeager agrees with me. He told me he wants me on because he believes this was a hate crime. And he’s pretty far to the right, so what do you have to say about that?”

“I say Yeager will tell you whatever he needs to, if it means getting a guest for that stupid show of his. He asked me, too, you know. Only his pitch was different, all about Poe and literature. If he’ll lie to get you on the show, imagine what he’ll say once you’re there.”

Crow and Charlotte, the apolitical, conflict-averse partners, stared at the table, like children stuck with quarreling parents. Tess’s omelet was only half eaten, but she began counting out money, hoping she had enough singles to cover the tip, so she could leave and not return.

“About the dog-” Charlotte began.

“We’ll take her,” Crow said quickly. “She’ll be happier with us. Just tell me when you need me to come and pick her up.”

“Why not now?” Charlotte asked.

Fine, Tess thought. The arrangement was between the two of them; it had nothing to do with her and Cecilia. She managed a clenched-jaw good-bye, got one in return from Cecilia. Charlotte accompanied her and Crow outside, where they liberated Miata from the RAV-4. She was a shockingly docile dog, her mournful brown eyes seeming to say, Do with me what you will. Ah, well, Esskay had come into their lives with a similarly defeated attitude, and they had turned her into a narcissistic, hedonistic chowhound in less than a year’s time.

“Cecilia always thinks she’s right,” Tess fumed from the passenger seat of Crow’s Volvo as Miata breathed heavily in her ear, uninterested in the passing landscape. “She’s so principled, so sure of herself, so emphatic in her beliefs. She never entertains any doubt, never stops to think about how her principles might affect living, breathing people. Have you ever known anyone like that?”

Crow smiled. “Oh, I think I have.”