In A Strange City

Chapter 1

His card said he specialized in porcelain, but Tess Monaghan couldn’t help thinking of her prospective client as the Porcine One. He had a round belly and that all-over pink look, heightened by a rashlike red on his cheeks, a souvenir of the cold day. His legs were so short that Tess felt ungracious for not owning a footstool, which would have kept them from swinging, childlike, above the floor. The legs ended in tiny feet encased in what must be the world’s smallest-and shiniest-black wing tips. These had clicked across her wooden floor like little hooves. And now, after thirty minutes in this man’s company, Tess was beginning to feel as crotchety and inhospitable as the troll beneath the bridge.

But that had been a story about a goat, she reminded herself. She was mixing her fairy-tale metaphors. He seemed to be a nice man, if a garrulous one. Let him huff and puff.

“I don’t have a shop, not really,” he was saying. “I did once, but I find I can do as much business through my old contacts. And the Internet, of course. A good scout doesn’t need a shop.”

“Of course.”

He had been chatting about Fiestaware and Depression glass since he arrived. It wasn’t clear if he even knew he was in a private detective’s office. That was okay. She had nothing else to occupy her time on a January afternoon.

“Those auction sites are really for-amateurs-only if you know what I mean. That’s where I go when I want to unload something that doesn’t have any real value but which people might get emotional about. For example, let’s say I was going to try to sell a Fiestaware gravy boat in teal, which is a very rare color. I’d have to set the reserve so high that people would get all outraged and think I was trying to cheat them. But put a Lost in Space lunch box out there, and they just go crazy, even if it’s dented and the original thermos is missing.”

Tess glanced at her notes, where so far she had written the man’s name, J. P. Kennedy/antique scout, and not much else. She added gravy boat/teal and Lost in Space- no thermos.

“Now, you have some nice things,” the Porcine One said suddenly. “This Planter’s Peanut jar and the Berger cookie jar. I could get you good money for these. And the clock. Especially the clock.”

He stared almost hungrily at the Time for a Haircut clock that had once hung in a Woodlawn barbershop. Tess wondered if he would be similarly impressed by the neon sign in her dining room at home, which said “Human Hair.” That had come from a beauty supply shop, one where the demand for human hair was no longer so great as to require solicitation.

“Look, Mr.”-she glanced covertly at her desk calendar, having blanked on his name-“Kennedy-”

“Call me John. No relation.” He giggled; there was no other word for it. A cheerleader or a sorority girl would have been embarrassed to emit such a coy little squeal. “I’m JPK, I guess you could say. That’s why I sometimes use the full name, John Pendleton Kennedy, to avoid confusion, but it only seems to add confusion. You may call me John.”

“Mr. Kennedy,” she repeated. Being on a first-name basis was highly overrated, in Tess’s opinion. “I was under the impression you were interested in hiring me, not scouting my possessions for a quick buck.”

“Oh, I am, I am. Interested in hiring you.” But he was looking at her Planter’s jar now, where she stored her business-related receipts until she had time to file them. He even held out a pudgy pink hand, as if to stroke the jar’s peanut curves. On the sofa across the room, Tess’s greyhound, Esskay raised her head, ears pointed straight up. The Porcine One’s hand was dangerously close to the Berger cookie jar, which held Esskay’s favorite treats.

“People rush so, these days,” Mr. Kennedy said. Yet he spoke as quickly as anyone Tess had ever known, his words tumbling nervously over each other. “No pleasantries, no chitchat. I suppose we’ll stop saying ”How are you?“ before long. I can’t remember the last time someone said ”Bless you‘ or even “Gesundheit’ after a sneeze. Again, I blame the Internet. It creates an illusion of speed. And E-mail. Don’t get me started on E-mail.”

Get him started? All Tess wanted to figure out was how to get him to stop.

“It’s a hard time to be an honest man,” he said, then looked surprised, as if caught off guard by his own non sequitur. A good sign, Tess thought. He had inadvertently veered closer to the subject of why he was here.

“How so?”

“Dealers such as myself, we are expected to go to great lengths to make sure the items we buy and sell are legitimate. Yet there is little protection afforded us by the law when we are duped. When I buy something, I do everything I can to ensure I’m dealing with someone reputable. Then it turns up on some hot sheet and I’m expected to give it back, with no recompense for my time and money.”

Tess had no idea what he was talking about. “You bought something that was stolen and you had to give it back?”

“Something like that.” He folded his little hands across his round belly, settling into his chair as if Tess were a dentist, the truth an infected molar she was preparing to extract. No, he was more like a patient in therapy, one who enjoyed the endlessly narcissistic process of paying someone to figure out why he did what he did.

But she had no patience for this form of Twenty Questions, although she had played it with other clients. It was one thing to coax a woman into confessing that she feared her husband was having an affair or to help a tearful mother admit she was looking for a runaway daughter, driven out of the house by a stepfather’s inappropriate attentions. This man, the Porcine One, Mr. Kennedy, was interested only in objects. Which he called, perhaps inevitably, objets.

“Please, could we cut to the chase, Mr. Kennedy?”

“John. Or Johnny, if you will.” The same high-pitched giggle came geysering out of him.

Tess pointed to the Time for a Haircut clock. “I hate to be strict, but in five minutes, if you haven’t explained why you’re here, my hourly fee is going to kick in. And I don’t charge in increments. In other words, you’re soon going to be paying me the equivalent of several place settings of Fiestaware.”

He looked thoughtful. “What color?”

“Mr. Kennedy.”

He held up his hands, as if to ward off a blow, although she had not spoken in a particularly loud or forceful voice. The greyhound hadn’t budged during the exchange.

“You may think it’s a petty beef. A man did me wrong in a business deal.”

Did me wrong. It struck her as an odd phrasing, better suited to a blues song than fenced goods.

“You underpriced something and someone took advantage of your ignorance?”

He shook his head, which made his chins wobble. He looked so soft he might have been sculpted from butter. She imagined him melting, à la the Witch in The Wizard of Oz. Then she imagined cleaning up the greasy little puddle he would leave behind.

“No, he sold me an item that was not what he said it was. The authenticity papers were forged.”

“And the item was-?”

“That’s not important.” He saw this was not going to satisfy her. “A bracelet. It had belonged to a young woman from a prominent family, or so he said. That was the part that proved to be a lie.”

“So? Caveat emptor applies to you, does it not?”

“He cheated me.” Mr. Kennedy squeezed his little hands into an approximation of fists, but his fingers were so short he could barely hold on to his own thumbs. Tess, five foot nine since age twelve, found small men amusing.

“Then sue him.”

“Litigation would bring no remedy and might do much harm.” He paused, waiting to see if she was following him. She wasn’t, but then, she wasn’t trying very hard. She could use a job, but she didn’t need this job.

“Any financial recovery I might make would be overshadowed by the damage to my reputation. It was a sophisticated forgery, quite cunning, and the best appraisers are caught from time to time, but still… my business depends on word of mouth. Besides, there was not a lot of money involved. I paid only one thousand dollars for the bracelet.”

Tess caught a little flash of daylight. “And how much did you think you could sell it for?”

The question irritated Mr. Kennedy, who huffed and puffed indignantly. “Obviously, one has to make a profit… If one wants full value for an item, let one take it to the marketplace himself and absorb all the costs, all the risks. I am not a currency exchange, I am not-”

“How much did you think it was worth, Mr. Kennedy?”

He sighed. “If the letter had been real, I would have taken it to auction in New York. Handled right, it would have brought in a nice sum-although not so much as if Princess Diana had worn it. Strange times we live in.”

“Who owned it? I mean, presumably who owned it?”

“Betsy Patterson.”

The name meant nothing to Tess, but she surmised it should.

“You might know her better as Betsy Bonaparte.”

She did, but not by much. “The Baltimore girl who married…”

“Jerome, Napoleon’s brother. The emperor later forced him to come home and marry someone more suitable. Still, if it had been true-” He made a fish mouth, as if to kiss good-bye his dream of an easy score. Something told Tess it was the only kind of kissing he got a chance to do.

“He cheated you.”

“Yes.”

“But if the letter had been authentic, you would have cheated him. Do you believe in karma, Mr. Kennedy?”

“I’m an Episcopalian,” he squealed.

Tess pinched the bridge of her nose. She was on the verge of a headache, something she usually experienced only via a hangover. “Please tell me what you think a private detective can do for you.”

“I believe the man who cheated me has a secret-a secret he would go to great lengths to protect. If I knew his secret, he would have to pay me the money he owed me. But it involves following him, and he would recognize me if I attempted that. I need a private detective to prove what I think is true.”

“Mr. Kennedy, you’re talking about blackmail, and I can’t be a party to it.”

He looked indignant. “How is it any different from tracking insurance cheats and adulterous husbands around town, snapping their pictures and turning them over to lawyers? Isn’t that a form of blackmail?”

She wondered how he had come to be so perceptive about the work that filled most of her hours. For every flashy headline-making case that had put Tess in the public eye for a few days, there were twenty basic no-brainer jobs that fit Mr. Kennedy’s thumbnail description. “Perhaps, but it’s legal.”

“Well, let’s say you verify my hunch and forget I told you why I wanted to know.”

“I can’t fake amnesia, Mr. Kennedy.” She was becoming interested in spite of herself. “But if you know this person’s secret, or think you do, why not bluff him?”

“I need proof, and I can only get the proof on one day of the year. Which happens to be the day after tomorrow at Greene and Fayette Streets, sometime between midnight and six a.m. January nineteenth.”

“You know the time, you know the place. Why not wait for him there?”

“As I told you, I’m not very good at being inconspicuous.”

She could see that. In the fedora and camel’s-hair coat he had worn to this interview, he resembled a beige bowling ball. And his prancing walk was unforgettable.

He looked at her slyly. “The date doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?”

“January nineteenth? Not offhand.”

“It’s the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. And the night that the Visitor, the so-called Poe Toaster, comes.”

Tess knew this story. Everyone in Baltimore did. For more than fifty years now, someone had visited the old graveyard where Poe was buried, leaving behind three roses and half a bottle of cognac. No one knew the man’s identity. It had been suggested that the baton had passed, that a new Visitor came now, perhaps even a third one. Life magazine had photographed him one year, but from a respectful distance. It was one mystery no one wanted to solve. Unless-

“You think the man who cheated you is the Visitor?”

“As I said, I have no proof. But if I did…” He held his palms up in the air, but the gesture was not as charming as he had intended.

“But that’s sick. Why don’t you just drive around to area malls and tell kids waiting in line there’s no Santa Claus? What if you unmask the Visitor and he decides to stop? You’ll have ruined a beautiful tradition the entire city loves.” Even if few had ever seen it, including Tess. It was awfully cold on a January midnight. But she had read the dutiful accounts in the Beacon-Light every year. The visit was, in some ways, Baltimore ’s groundhog, a dead-of-winter ritual that held a promise of spring.

“I wouldn’t take the knowledge public. I’d simply use it to ensure he paid me what I’m owed. If I’m right,” he added. “I could be wrong, I suppose.”

“Which would only make it worse. The Visitor might be scared away for no reason.”

“It’s a childish custom, if you think about it.” Mr. Kennedy sniffed. “And it will end one day, for whatever reason. Everything ends. Does that woman still go to Valentino’s grave? Does Joe DiMaggio still send flowers to Marilyn Monroe, now that he’s dead? Everything peters out. A dramatic ending would be better. It would give people-what’s that hideous word?-closure. Might generate a few headlines for you as well, and you’ve never been averse to publicity.”

The last was untrue, unfair even. Tess loathed the media in the way only a former reporter could. The Beacon-Light had never written about her without getting at least one salient fact wrong, and it had given her four different middle initials over the years. As for free advertising, she had noticed that the bump of interest she received after any press attention, large or small, yielded little in actual work. The sort of people who picked a private investigator because her name had shown up in the morning paper were not people who thought things through with much care.

“How did you happen to come to me, Mr. Kennedy?”

He lowered his eyes. “Truthfully?”

“Please.”

“Truthfully, I’ve been working my way through the phone book, concentrating on the smaller agencies. No one has agreed to help me, and it’s January seventeenth.”

“In other words, you have a little more than twenty-four hours or your window of opportunity closes for a year. Isn’t there some other way to find this man and make him pay you what he owes? You’ve seen him, you know what he looks like, you had a name for him.”

“He’s vanished. He might as well be smoke. He gave me a fake name and address.”

“How can you know so little about him and be so sure he’s the Visitor?”

“Um-the person who introduced us alluded to same.”

“Go to him, then. Or her.”

“That person… has moved away. So you see why I need your help.”

“Never.” She was tempted to say Nevermore, but she tried not to mock clients to their faces, even the ones she was turning down.

“But if-”

“Never.”

Mr. Kennedy stood, tapping his pudgy fingers on the lid of the cookie jar. Esskay was back at full alert, ears pricked in perfect triangles, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was abstracted, lost in thought.

“You weren’t my first choice,” he said. “I’ve tried four others, but they were too busy to grant me an appointment.”

“Good.” He might have meant to insult her, but Tess was relieved to know the clock was working against him.

“I’d like to state for the record that I didn’t hire you.” She admired his phrasing, the way he pretended the decision had been his. “And I’m going to assume our discussion here has been confidential.”

“That’s how I do business. I can’t vouch for anyone else, however.”

“I don’t suppose you’d want to sign something to that effect? I mean, how naïve would a man have to be to count on such a promise, without proof?”

“I don’t know. How naïve-or greedy-would a man have to be to believe that a bracelet offered at a bargain price really belonged to Betsy Patterson Bonaparte?”

“It’s not about greed,” he murmured, more to himself than to her. “It never is, not really, although that’s what most people think.” Unselfconsciously, he lifted the lid of the cookie jar, picked a dark-brown square from the top, and tossed it in his mouth before Esskay could roll from the sofa and demand her portion.

“Mr. Kennedy-”

“I’m sorry, I should have asked first. I have such a sweet tooth, it’s a sickness with me.”

“No, it’s just that… those are homemade dog treats, from a bakery in South Baltimore. They’re made of molasses and soy.”

“Oh. Well, that explains why it wasn’t sweeter.”

He buttoned his camel’s-hair coat to the chin and tapped out into the world. Tess almost-almost-felt sorry for him. But watching him trot away, she found herself thinking of the ending of Animal Farm, where it was no longer possible to tell the men from the pigs, or the pigs from the men.