No Good Deeds

MONDAY
12

“Tess, I don’t know what to tell you. I edited the story myself and baby-sat it every step of the way through that first edition. I checked midday Saturday to see if anything had cropped up, if the top guys were second-guessing so much as a comma. Sunday editor told me everything was okay. Even so, I had my cell phone on every moment, and no one called me.”

Tess almost felt sorry for Feeney, who was so upset that he couldn’t be bothered to sip the martini in front of him. But Feeney wasn’t the one who had to move out of his own house Sunday morning and go into semi-hiding. Feeney was going home to his own bed tonight.

“So how does my name end up above the fold and before the jump? It might as well have been in neon.”

“Hector called Marcy at home at six P.M., began badgering her. Said one anonymous source was pretty thin, and couldn’t we source it at all? She only told him about your role to buttress the case that the source was trustworthy. He didn’t tell her that he was going to put it in the story, just turned around and called the desk himself. That’s why it reads a little stilted.”

“How could he do that without talking to you first?”

“As an assistant managing editor, he outranks me. He doesn’t need my permission to do anything.”

Neither one of them mentioned the obvious fact-that the AME might not have been so quick to insert Tess’s name in the story if she hadn’t pissed him off earlier in the week. Her mother had frequently told Tess that there was a cost to speaking one’s mind, but Tess had never imagined that it could be jail time. But that would be the outcome if she was brought before a grand jury and refused to testify.

She chewed her lip, found that unsatisfactory, and decided to try the olives the restaurant had provided. Baltimore had discovered tapas, or vice versa, and the city was now thick with variations-Greek, Spanish, Middle Eastern. Tess and Feeney had agreed to meet at Tapas Teatro because it was reliably chaotic, the kind of place where no one attracted attention and even the most determined eavesdroppers were thwarted. Plus, it had windows on the street and several exits through which Tess could flee if any official types showed up.

“I promised Lloyd. I gave my word that I wouldn’t tell the police his name. You did, too, but you’re covered by shield laws.”

“Only on the state level, although I’d never reveal an anonymous source. But what’s Lloyd got to lose by coming forward?”

“He thinks that the police won’t believe he’s told all he knows, that they’ll hold him as an accomplice to the homicide until he’s revealed the name of his contact-and he doesn’t have it. He’s given us everything he’s got.”

“Can you argue that your position in this is privileged, that Lloyd falls under the attorney-client exemption?”

“Lloyd’s not a client, and he didn’t sign the usual paperwork. Tyner’s never heard of him, and I can’t ask an attorney to lie about that.”

Tess drained her sangria as if it were fruit punch and looked around the restaurant. So many happy, normal people with such uncomplicated lives, chatting about the films they had just seen at the Charles Theater next door, eating with gusto and joy. Not a single one of them under the threat of federal investigation.

Actually, neither was she. Yet. For the past thirty-six hours, only the Howard County detectives had been trying to find her for questioning, sending increasingly urgent messages via Crow, then her lawyer Tyner, who was able to say truthfully-and, because he was Tyner, loudly and brusquely-that he didn’t have any idea where she was. No one did. She had packed a bag, turned off her incoming cell phone, and checked into a nightly rental at a North Side high-rise. Even some of the residents didn’t know about these by-the-day rooms, so Tess was confident that she had bought herself a little time. Very little.

“They’re saying you did it for the reward money.”

“What? What they?”

“The feds. It will be in the paper tomorrow. The U.S. attorney says if you’re a good citizen, you’ll cooperate with the investigation. But then she floats the possibility that you arranged for the interview to get part of the reward.”

“I didn’t even know there was one.”

“There is, and it’s hefty as these things go, a hundred thousand. Hey, maybe that would be enough to get Lloyd to come forward voluntarily.”

“Maybe. But it’s not a sure thing, right? You usually only get the money upon the conviction of a suspect. Lloyd’s not going to have the patience to play those odds. And Crow won’t forgive me for betraying Lloyd.”

“Even if it comes down to you being jailed for contempt?”

“Crow idolizes the Catonsville Nine and some group called the Baltimore Four. He expects me to live up to their lofty example.”

“The Baltimore Four? Crow expects you to have twenty winning games as a pitcher?” It made Tess feel better that Feeney’s brain also jumped to the Orioles, not some long-forgotten incident at the Customs House.

“Have you been paying attention to spring training? I’d have a shot at the number-five spot in the Orioles rotation.”

Tess chewed an olive pit. She had no appetite, and there was no better barometer to her mood. She was in very deep shit. She never got herself in more trouble than when she was being clever.

The thing that killed her was that Lloyd was wandering clueless through the city, with no inkling of what he had set in motion. Ignorance was bliss.

At the relatively advanced age of fifty-seven, Bennie Tep was still in the game, but he had been trying to grow the legal side of things, rely less on the game itself, which was so volatile. He planned to enjoy his old age, retire like any citizen, although he wasn’t going to play fuckin’ golf. Last thing he wanted at this point was another homicide on his calendar, but once it was explained to him, he understood. The boy had talked, the boy had to go. Okay, so he’d been clever enough not to throw Bennie’s name around, or so they assumed, because the cops hadn’t dropped by to talk to him yet. It was only a matter of time. They would get to the boy, and the boy would give them all up. The newspaper might not know or care who’d given the order, but the investigators most certainly did. The boy had been given a job, and he not only screwed it up, he had talked. The consequences for the second were more dire than for the first. And it wasn’t like it was the first time this kid had fucked up. Bennie understood why it had to be done. But his heart wasn’t in it. Heart wasn’t in it, and his hand couldn’t be anywhere near it.

Toad wasn’t crazy about being the triggerman, but disloyalty pissed him off, so he took on the job. Toad could be trusted. Tell him to do a thing and he did it. No muss, no fuss. Thing was, they could have done it this way in the first place, just popped the guy on a downtown street. Bennie didn’t believe in making things more complicated than they had to be. If the lawyer needed to die, he needed to die. But why all the to-and-fro? The whole plan had made Bennie’s head hurt. Bennie already knew how to commit the perfect murder. He had done it many times over, coming up. Shoot the guy. Make sure there are no witnesses. Get rid of the gun. Doubt his system? Well, he was here, in his own house-titled to his aunt, but his house nonetheless-fifty-seven years old and forty years in the business, and they’d never even gotten so much as a felony indictment against him. There were men in so-called legitimate businesses who couldn’t make that claim.

Bennie puttered around his kitchen looking for something he was allowed to eat or drink. This was usually the time of night that he liked to have a little cognac, but his doctor was down on that. Said his liver was fatty, although Bennie himself was lean, just a little paunch. Apparently he was like that guy on the commercial, the cut one who belly-flopped because his cholesterol was so high. Wine with dinner was okay, he had been told, but wine was something you wanted with a steak, and he wasn’t allowed to have that either. He looked at the doctor’s diet suggestions, taped to the side of the refrigerator. Fish, but not fried. Chicken, no skin. Nasty. The usual rabbit food. He could have some low-cal microwave popcorn, but his dentist looked down on that. Bennie’s heart was simply on notice, but his gums had crossed the line to rotten. He could have popcorn or nuts only on the night before a trip to the periodontist, but he was so sick with dread about the pain the night before that he didn’t have the appetite for much.

He settled for a York Peppermint Patty, a mini, only fifty calories, low-fat, and no trouble for his teeth. With a cup of hot tea, it was almost as good as a real dessert. Almost.

Waiting for his water to come to a boil, he turned on the late news. Slot machines-shit, he hoped they didn’t come to town, the legal numbers were bad enough-something else about the governor. Had Toad missed his chance? But when the news came back from commercial, the anchorgirl had on her serious face, signaling a sad story. That meant a homicide, a fatal car accident, or something about an injured pet.

“We’ve just gotten word that police have been summoned to the 2300 block of East Lombard Street for what appears to be a drive-by shooting. A young man was shot multiple times while standing on the corner there. Police say there were no witnesses. Those with information are asked to call…’’

Bennie winced, poured a little extra sugar in his tea. The boy was so young. Bennie hadn’t even started at sixteen, and here was a young man already dead. But it had been a different business in Bennie’s day-more time to learn on the job, get some savvy. The young ones today were too impatient, hotheaded, wild to use their weapons. Plus, no one diversified anymore. Bennie, for example, still carried some gambling action, a daily street number and some sports book from time to time. Now he had the real estate and the sub shops, although those were wearing him out. Damn health department. They were more formidable competition than the New York boys, citing a man for every little thing. It was the ghetto. Of course there were roaches and rats.

Damn. He felt bad for the kid. If they had done things Bennie’s way to start, none of this bullshit would have come to pass. He hated fancy shit. All that hoodoo with ATM cards and bank machines and surveillance cameras, and they weren’t any more in the clear than if they had just shot the guy in the head and left him in Patterson Park. Everybody had to be so got-damn smart all the got-damn time.

But it was over. Now only two of them knew what was what, and they would never tell. They both had too much to lose.

TUESDAY
13

In his dreams Crow held fast to Tess while she tried to wriggle out of his grasp. She wasn’t attempting to escape out of malice or rejection, only because her curiosity had fastened on something bright and shiny and just out of reach. It was like trying to hold on to a squirming child, and eventually he had to concede her strength and let go.

Plus, she smelled awful.

He awakened to find his arms around the greyhound, who was not trying to evade his touch at all but had instead burrowed into him, exhaling bursts of fishy breath. A mere two nights since Tess had decamped, Esskay had usurped Tess’s place in the bed, even using her pillow. Miata, less conflicted about the idea that she was a dog, was draped across the foot of the bed.

It was odd, being in Tess’s house-and he always thought of it as her house, despite the work he had done on the rehab-without Tess. He felt off balance and tentative. But perhaps what he really felt was superfluous. The rational part of his mind understood that Tess was protecting him by concealing her whereabouts, but another part wondered if she had expected him to wilt when confronted by various authorities. “I don’t want to put you into the position of lying,” she had said Sunday when she packed her bag and left the house. They had been in regular phone contact since then, and she had let slip that she was less than a mile away, somewhere in North Baltimore. “I can almost see Stony Run Park from where I am,” she said, then stopped abruptly. But Crow knew that meant one of the high-rises near Johns Hopkins.

What if the newspaper had reported that Edgar “Crow” Ransome was the actual go-between in this tale? Would he now be on the run, while Tess was kept in the dark? True, he had not ferreted out the connection between Lloyd and Youssef, much less gone out and plucked the kid off the streets of Baltimore and forced him to tell what he knew. Crow had found that part of the story a little appalling, in fact, an echo of nineteenth-century bounty hunters rounding up slaves. Whitney and Tess didn’t have good sense sometimes. But none of this would have happened if he had not brought Lloyd home that first night.

Right now Tess probably wished this were so, although Crow thought the Howard County investigators had been given a promising lead, if they could just focus on it. Even if Lloyd couldn’t or wouldn’t say who had asked him to use Youssef’s ATM card, the detectives now knew this wasn’t a case of a man being murdered by a piece of would-be trade.

He glanced at the clock: 11:00 A.M. With Tess gone, he had honored his own night-owl nature instead of trying to fit his schedule onto Tess’s days, playing weft to her warp. It had felt good, sleeping in, obeying his own body’s needs for once.

The dogs, poor things, hadn’t adjusted to the new routine. They needed to be walked immediately. He threw on his clothes, Esskay leaping around him in giddy circles while Miata just panted in excitement. They preferred Crow, for he was focused on them during the walk, while Tess’s thoughts tended to drift and her pace to slacken. Eager and anxious, they burst through the door-and almost tripped over the huddled form of Lloyd Jupiter, who seemed to be trying to fold himself behind a yew-berry bush.

“You gotta help me, man. They killed Le’andro. They killed Le’andro.”

“Le’andro was the one who was supposed to use the card, but he had a chance to get with this girl. So he gave me the card, told me I could have the money. But that was a secret, see? Between us. Because he had a direct order to do it his own self. So they think he done it. And if they think he done it-”

“Then they think he’s the source in the newspaper article.”

“Yeah.” Lloyd picked up a rock and threw it as far as he could-which turned out to be pretty far. The kid could probably be a decent baseball player. But inner-city kids seldom played baseball. It took too much equipment, too many people, whereas basketball could be played with two guys on a cement playground covered with broken glass.

They were walking along Stony Run Creek, a narrow stream in a park known mainly to those whose houses bordered it. Esskay and Miata were compassionate dogs, but it was hard to explain to two walk-bound creatures that anything was more important than their twice-daily routine. They scampered ahead, towing Crow behind them as if he were a water-skier. Lloyd had refused to hold either leash on the grounds that he hated dogs. Crow had a hunch it was more fear than hate but didn’t press the issue.

Along the way Lloyd’s story had tumbled out quickly, as if trying to keep pace with the dogs. Le’andro was a low-level player in an East Side drug gang, one run by a man that Lloyd knew as Bennie Tep, although he admitted that probably wasn’t his full and proper name. Still, he whispered it, as if it were a powerful thing in its own right, almost like an Orthodox Jew saying Yahweh or spelling G-d. And before he told Crow the name, he made him promise it was a secret-secret, one just between the two of them. “Not for your girlfriend or those damn reporters,” he said. “They got Le’andro killed.”

Crow didn’t have the heart to point out that Lloyd had helped. In trying to protect his contact, he had only made him more vulnerable.

“But Le’andro was involved in dealing drugs, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you said he was shot to death on a corner where there have been disputes over territory. It could be unrelated.”

“There ain’t been no quarrels over that corner for at least three weeks. That thing was settled when Buck Jackson was locked up.”

Three weeks didn’t seem like a true truce in a drug war, but perhaps Crow didn’t understand how time was calculated in Lloyd’s world. Perhaps three weeks in East Baltimore was three years in Iraq.

“So if they killed Le’andro, you’re off the hook. They think the informant is dead.”

“Yeah, but your people”-Crow was charmed despite himself by the concept that he had people-“have to make it official, tell police that Le’andro was the one they talked to. That’s the only way I can be safe.”

“They can’t, Lloyd. Not if they get hauled in front of a grand jury. Perjury is a big deal.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd said. “They got Lil’ Kim on that, but Baretta and his parrot go free on murder. World is fucked up.”

Crow couldn’t disagree on that last point, although he remained as mystified as ever by Lloyd’s cultural markers. A hip-hop star like Lil’ Kim, sure, but how did he know about Baretta? Then again, even the poorest homes in Baltimore were usually wired with premium cable, and why not? Crow couldn’t find it in him to begrudge the poor any luxury, no matter how shortsighted it seemed.

“Tess told me that the reporters who know your identity can invoke state shield laws,” he said. “If brought before the grand jury, they’ll testify that everything in the story is true, but they can’t be compelled to say anything else. Not under state law. And Tess is trying to figure out a way to avoid being interviewed at all, because she has no privileged status. Maybe if police assume it was Le’andro…”

But even ever-optimistic Crow couldn’t see how this would happen. They would demand that Tess verify that Le’andro was the source, and Tess couldn’t risk lying to local investigators when the stakes were so large.

“Lloyd, here’s the thing: If you stay with me at the house, someone’s going to put it together really fast that you’re the source.”

“Why?”

“Well, because, it’s just that…”

Lloyd laughed at his discomfiture. “I was just messin’ with you, man. I know you got no black friends.”

“That’s not true. That’s absolutely not true.”

“Yeah? So who you hang with who’s black?”

“Well, Tess’s friend Jackie and her daughter. And I sometimes have lunch with Milton Kent, the talk-show host.”

“On 1010 AM?” Lloyd looked impressed. The station was the only talk channel in Baltimore programmed for a black urban audience. Crow sometimes toggled between it and the all-conservative WBAL, marveling at the wide world of conspiratorial thinking.

“No, the NPR affiliate.” Lloyd was no longer impressed. Meanwhile Crow was reeling inside his own head. Of course he had black friends, he must have black friends. There was, well, Seth, back at college. They had been tight. And some musicians, from his days as the lead singer of Poe White Trash. Certainly he had never made a conscious choice not to have black friends.

But this was Baltimore. Sixty-six percent black, and most of its white citizens lived inside an all-white bubble. Just walking through the park, Crow and Lloyd had drawn more than their share of odd looks from the stay-at-home mothers who speed-walked at midday. That’s why he knew he had to get Lloyd out of Roland Park as soon as possible.

“Lloyd, you have to go to the police. Tell them the part about Le’andro, and they’ll understand you’ve got nothing more to tell. Tess will do everything she can to keep her promise to you, but you can’t expect her to go to jail to protect your identity.”

“I never asked for this trouble. She made me do it. She was just looking out for her own self. Now I’m looking out for me.”

This was all too true. Not particularly noble on Lloyd’s part, but true. Tess, driven by insatiable curiosity as sure as Kipling’s elephant was, had dragged Lloyd into this, not the other way around.

“But it’s the only way you’ll be safe. Once you talk to the police, they’ll do everything they can to protect you. You can’t get in trouble for giving a dead man’s name.”

“Yeah, right. You know how many witnesses been killed in my neighborhood? Even locked up, you’re not safe. They want you, they get you. Besides, if I say Le’andro, they gonna go to Bennie Tep and he’ll have me killed. Snitchin’ don’t play where I’m from.”

They had come full circle, in the conversation and in the walk. Lloyd was right. Well, not right exactly, but logical in his own way. Outing himself would achieve nothing. Lloyd had already told everything he knew. True, he had omitted a key detail, Le’andro as middleman, but now that Le’andro was dead, Lloyd truly had nothing more to offer. Police would charge him and hold him. Worse, they might release him to streets where he, too, would be hit. Meanwhile Lloyd couldn’t stay with Crow, because even Barney Fife would quickly ascertain the identity of the black teenager who had suddenly taken up residence in Tess Monaghan’s North Side home. He needed to get away, somewhere safe.

Why not take a page out of Tess’s playbook? If Crow and Lloyd disappeared, she could then say in all innocence that she didn’t know where her source was. He’d have to work it out with Pat-no, let Tess explain to her father why Crow was on the lam and couldn’t come to work. On the lam. He couldn’t help finding the idea somewhat romantic. He and Lloyd would take off today, disappearing into the city. He’d need cash to avoid leaving any trail, but cash was never a problem. They would use disposable cell phones, the kind available from every convenience store now, to stay in touch with Tess; he had learned about that scam from watching HBO. No, no, he wouldn’t call at all. If Tess’s phones weren’t already tapped, they would be soon. He’d have to buy pairs of cell phones, send one to Tess in the mail.

“Lloyd, are you sure no one knows that Le’andro handed the card over to you?”

“Absolutely.” His answer was swift, emphatic. Perhaps too much so.

“Lloyd?”

He sighed, put-upon by his own unreliability. “I got a friend.”

“The kid you run the tire scam with?”

“Uh-huh. But he’s good people. You don’t need to be bothering with him.”

“What if he tells someone?”

“He won’t.” The swift conviction was sincere this time.

“How much does he know?”

“He knows Le’andro gave me a chance to make some money last Thanksgiving. And he was with me when I used the card, out at the mall. I bought him something, too. But he don’t know I talked, and I don’t want him to.”

“Lloyd-you were supposed to tell the reporters everything. That was the deal.”

“I told ’em about what I bought myself. The DVD player was for him. He likes movies, and it got a battery pack, so he can charge it up at the library, watch it in the night.”

Crow remembered the pile of DVDs he had found on the floor of the spare bedroom the day after Lloyd’s memorable first visit, the copy of Throne of Blood in the Volvo.

“You steal the Kurosawa movie for him?”

“What? Oh, no, I just thought it looked cool.”

“It is cool. If we had time, I’d let you watch it.”

“Where we going?”

“To hide in plain sight.”

14

In principle Tess disliked people who used cell phones in restaurants. But she was getting ready to make an exception for herself, rationalizing that she hadn’t spoken to Crow all day, when Tyner arrived for their meeting. His face was stormy with general disapproval-of her cell phone, of the restaurant, of Tess, who had chosen it-and she meekly slid the phone back into her knapsack.

“You can’t keep playing this silly game of hide-and-seek,” he said as soon as he had barked his drink order at the waitress. Tyner wasn’t big on social preliminaries. “You need to decide what you’re going to do when you finally surface.”

“I could take the Fifth.”

“You haven’t broken any laws.”

“Maybe I think I have,” Tess said.

“Your lawyer,” Tyner said, pointing to his chest in case she had forgotten he was here in a professional capacity, not a family one, “is informing you that you haven’t. You can’t invoke self-incrimination if you haven’t in fact done anything incriminating. That’s a kind of perjury, too.”

“I could marry Lloyd and refuse to testify against my husband.”

“Don’t be droll, Tess. Besides, if you married the boy, you’d create a legal trail that would lead police right to him. That’s the one thing you’ve managed to do right so far, through no real fault of your own. The boy’s name isn’t recorded anywhere. If Crow had given Lloyd’s real name to the police the night of the accident, the detectives would eventually have pieced it together. As it is now, they’re probably searching Baltimore for Bob ‘One O’ Smith.”

“I know,” Tess said. “That’s Crow’s karma. He’s also refused to help the insurance companies, who are just as keen to find our little friend.”

“He won’t be able to stonewall them forever, you know. And you won’t be able to evade the cops much longer. They’ll put you in front of the grand jury when it meets next month. You’ll be asked to name the source you brought to Marcy and Feeney. If you refuse to name a person of interest in a homicide case, you could be jailed. In fact, they’ll take great delight in locking up a middle-class white woman.”

“A lot could happen before the grand jury convenes. Lloyd could decide to come forward on his own-”

Tyner, a champion snorter, gave a short, elegant whiff of air. It was the equivalent of a teenage girl’s “as if.”

“Or they could develop leads in the case that make Lloyd irrelevant.”

That earned a shake of the head and an even more contemptuous snort. Tess didn’t take it personally. Tyner was grouchy with everyone but Kitty, his wife of almost six months. (He insisted on calling her his “bride” with a kind of starry-eyed, gooey devotion that Tess found far more alarming that his usual cantankerousness.) But his mood was particularly dark today, a fact that Tess chalked up to her choice of lunchtime rendezvous, the Club 4100. She had picked the old bar in the Brooklyn section of Baltimore for its twin advantages of cheeseburgers and an off-the-beaten-track location. No one ever ended up in the Club 4100 by accident. She also loved the décor, which had been built around Baltimore sports in general and Johnny Unitas in particular. Alas, the restaurant did have a habit of serving red wine chilled, and she hadn’t warned Tyner off the cabernet in time. The icy grape wasn’t improving his mood.

“Outside a grand jury setting, I can’t be compelled to tell the cops anything, right?”

“No.”

“And it’s not illegal to lie to cops in an interview?”

“It depends, but no, it’s not like with the feds-only why would you even think of trying to lie at this point?”

“I could give them a fake name or say I honestly don’t know the kid’s name, that I met him through someone.”

“They’d want to know who made the introduction, then.”

Tess shrugged. It would be ironic if the cops used the same trick on her that Marcy had played on them, asking her if they would be wrong to assume the source was the kid who had stolen her car. Of course, cops didn’t need to play such games. They could jack her up now, apologize later. After all, that’s what Lloyd said had happened in the wake of Youssef’s death. The drug dealers had been arrested and held on whatever pretense the investigators could manufacture, then let go when a different scenario emerged.

Seemed to emerge. That’s what intrigued Tess. Youssef’s murder had been a mise-en-scène, an elaborate play. Yet the multiple stab wounds still struck Tess as awfully personal. Thirty-nine stab wounds wasn’t an act. The scenario had been faked, but the rage had been real.

She reached for the scar on her knee, remembering the night she had used far more bullets than strictly necessary to defend her own life. She had fired until the gun was empty, and she would have done that if the weapon had held ten, twenty, a hundred bullets. If she could dig the man up and shoot him again, she would.

“I wish I could talk to the widow.”

“I hardly recommend that course of action.” Tyner was cupping his hands around the frigid glass of red wine, but not the way a wine lover might. He was rubbing them back and forth like a Boy Scout making a fire from twigs, trying to bring his drink to room temperature.

“No, no, of course not,” Tess agreed automatically. “Why not?’

“Because to Mrs. Youssef you’re the woman who’s shielding someone who could help police solve her husband’s murder. Besides, what would that accomplish?”

“Lloyd told us everything he knew. He’s done as a source of information. Whatever happened to Youssef, Lloyd was at arm’s length from the origin of the plan, an errand boy, assigned to use the card and create an alternate reality.”

“So he claimed. Did it ever occur to you that Lloyd might have been directly involved in the murder and that he’s spinning the story to deflect suspicion?”

The question caught Tess off guard. She was so sure she had considered every angle of Lloyd’s story, processing it through what she thought of as her cynic meter.

“No,” she said. “He didn’t recognize Youssef’s face. Lloyd’s not sophisticated enough to lie on that many levels. How can you be an accessory to murder if you don’t know what the guy looks like?”

“By helping to cover up the crime,” Tyner said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle, which always troubled Tess more than his usual rages. “Which is what Lloyd did, Tess. Don’t lose sight of that. He helped someone conceal a murder and create a chain of evidence designed to confuse investigators.”

“But until he met me, he didn’t even know that the two things were related.”

“So you say. So you believe. But you can see why homicide detectives might be a little more dubious. It’s not unreasonable to think that Lloyd is now trying to cover his ass, distance himself from a crime.”

“Sure, if they had him on another charge and he offered up this story to save his own neck. But no one had any leverage over Lloyd.”

“You did. You could have turned him in to the police for stealing Crow’s car. Which, with Lloyd’s record, meant more time inside.”

“Only, what he told us checked out. The police have confirmed now that they always knew about the ATM charges but had been sitting on them because they thought it was something that only Youssef’s killer could know.”

Youssef’s killer-Tess heard the echo and made the same argument in her head that she had been making to Tyner. Lloyd didn’t know what Youssef looked like, so he couldn’t be directly connected to his murder. Youssef was dead in a state park when Lloyd bought his sandwich, while Youssef’s car was crossing into Delaware. He couldn’t have been there. Right?

Tyner took a sip of his wine, frowned at the taste and the temperature but pressed on. “Even if you’re not going to cooperate with Howard County police, I think you should go down there-with me of course-and pretend to be a good citizen. Okay? Maybe we can argue that Lloyd was a client who made an oral contract with you to keep his identity secret and that you expose yourself to a civil lawsuit by breaching that promise.”

“But no contract entitles me to shield criminals, right?”

“True.”

“And Lloyd has broken the law. In fact, on just the first ATM withdrawal, I think he might be in felony territory. Or some kind of fraud.”

“Yes, it’s a serious charge. Why don’t you introduce me to Lloyd, let me take him on as a client? I can’t make your deal with him privileged after the fact, but I can help him.”

“I made a promise-” she began.

“Yes, but you didn’t know you could face jail time for it. Crow will understand, Tess. Lloyd has to speak to the police. I’ll get him immunity, if possible, protect him every way I can. But this can’t go on.”

“I guess not.” Tess pulled out her cell phone again. “Crow and the dogs will be glad to have me home. You know, it’s not that I gave my word to Lloyd so much. It’s the promise to Crow that I would keep my promise to Lloyd. That’s the one I can’t break.”

“I’m sure the Howard County detectives will be very moved by that sentiment,” Tyner said, but Tess hardly heeded his sarcasm. The phone was ringing unanswered at home, kicking into voice mail after the usual five rings. She tried Crow’s cell. It went straight to voice mail, which indicated it was off. Should she try the Point? No, he didn’t work Tuesdays. She felt a little clutch of panic, silly, she knew. But he was usually so accessible. If not at her beck and call, at least at her call. She was the one who forgot to check in, neglected to say where she was going to be. They had spoken-when had they spoken? Last night. A sweet, easy call. He said he missed her but he understood why she couldn’t say where she was. She assured him that she didn’t think he would ever tell anyone where she was. She just wanted him to be able to claim ignorance of her whereabouts with a clear and sunny conscience.

Privately, she thought Crow a rotten liar. But she hadn’t told him that. No, their last encounter had been nothing but pleasant.

“Tyner, you have my permission to set up the meeting with Howard County for tomorrow. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to throw some money down and run home.”

Jenkins knew he should just leave the Howard County cops alone, let them do their jobs. But they were such incompetent mopes. Nice but ineffectual. When were they going to find the broad and drag her in? He couldn’t keep from calling just one more time, checking to see if they had made any progress.

“So,” he said, knowing that small talk was neither expected nor welcome. “You got the name yet? You got the broad?”

“No,” admitted the detective, a feeb named Howard Johnson, poor guy. Worse yet, he had hair as orange as the old restaurants and eyes the same blue color as the trim. It was like his parents had peeped into the bassinet and said, Let’s make his life hell! “The PI has dropped out of sight. Not at home, not in her office, not answering her phones.”

“You sitting on her house?”

“Not yet.”

Rubes.

“But her lawyer just called. She’s willing to meet.”

Really. But then he had expected as much. Still, he gave an impressed whistle, as if he chalked all this up to Johnson’s formidable skills. “Huh. Look, Howard, I know I promised to keep the fed’s collective nose out of this, but can I come to the interview? Not participate,” he added hastily, sensing even over the phone line that he had pushed a little too hard. “Just watch, through the glass.”

“Sure, but…why do you want to watch some stupid woman PI stonewall her way to the grand jury?”

“Just got a feeling about this one.”

“Me, too. But my feeling is that it’s the kind of red ball that’s going to sink me. I almost wish you guys had taken over this one.”

Jenkins hung up. He did have a feeling, a literal one in his gut, which was cramping from nerves. He poured himself a tumbler of Jameson and forced it down, reasoning that his stomach and his throat would just have to get over it and live with the burning reflux, because the rest of his body needed it bad. Take one for the team, esophagus. Take one for the team.

It was dusk when Tess came home to two strangely exhausted dogs. Still, they were never so tired that they couldn’t greet her properly-Esskay doing the little vertical jumps that Crow called leaping and posturing, Miata circling Tess’s shins.

“Where’s Crow?” she asked, but the dogs just kept up their welcome-home dance.

The house had a too-neat look, as if it had been picked up in anticipation of something. Newspapers were in the recycling bin. Crow’s breakfast dishes had been rinsed and placed on the drain board. Her heart clutched a little, for the scene reminded her of the other times Crow had left. But no, when he left her left her, he did it with more obvious ceremony. Crow had a weakness for the grand gesture. Besides, his cell was on the kitchen counter, plugged into its charger.

She checked the cell phone she used for incoming calls. The technology was still quirky; calls were received and dropped into her voice mail without the phone ringing. Wait, she had placed it on vibrate while working from a coffeehouse in South Baltimore that afternoon. Still, there were no familiar numbers on the log and only one message, which had came from the home number.

“Lloyd’s in danger,” Crow said, his tone as light and uninflected as if he were telling her to pick up milk at the store. “The guy who gave him the ATM card was killed, and Lloyd is sure it’s because of the story. Yeah, he lied about being the only one involved. So I’ve taken him somewhere he’ll feel safe-and I’m not telling you where we are, so you’ll be able to claim ignorance without lying. We’ll keep in touch via disposable cell phones, changing every few days so we can’t be tracked. You should get your first one tomorrow or Thursday.”

Lord, he sounded cheerful, as if this were some Hardy Boy adventure. Crow and Lloyd, a Frank and Joe for the new millennium, a postmodern variation on all those black-white buddy movies of the 1980s: 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon.

Weapon-shit. Tess went to check the gun safe in her bedroom. She had her Beretta with her, as always, but she still owned the Smith amp; Wesson that she’d used before trading up last summer. The safe was empty, which almost made her weep in frustration and anger.

But it was the handwritten note on her pillow-I love you! Trust me on this!-that did the trick. She sat on the neatly made bed and cried. In frustration, in anger, but more in loneliness and fear.

If Lloyd was in danger, then it followed that anyone with him was, too. Crow had thrown himself on a very live grenade. Didn’t he realize that? Now she was in an impossible position. If she gave up Lloyd’s name without knowing where he and Crow were, how could she protect either of them?

If she didn’t, then how could she protect herself?

WEDNESDAY
15

Crow had thought he would find it easy to spend a night in a homeless shelter-after all, he’d been working with various soup kitchens and shelters for the past three months-but he was wholly unprepared for the difference between life as a come-andgo-as-you-please volunteer and the lot of a client. Or guest, as this Southeast Baltimore shelter called the twenty-odd men it took in every night. It wasn’t so much the smells or the sounds that threw him, although those were plentiful and strange. It was the lack of autonomy, from when the lights were turned out to when the men themselves were turned out onto the streets the next morning. As a benefactor Crow had power. As someone in need of the shelter’s services, he felt at once meek and surly.

It was a safe haven, however, and he had planned to return there for a second night until the director pulled him aside after breakfast.

“Look, I’d do anything for you,” said Father Rob, short for Roberto. A Lutheran minister, he had convinced his church to let him use the parish hall as a shelter as the congregation’s neighborhood members dwindled over the years, replaced by yuppies who thought churches were only good for condo rehabs. “But if you’re trying to hide, this isn’t going to work for you.”

“Why not?”

“You stick out, Crow. I mean, Lloyd-sure, we could keep Lloyd forever and no one would give him a second look, although he’s a little young. But Lloyd’s not going to put up with that. He’s going to go back to his own neighborhood the minute he gets bored or frustrated.”

“His life’s in danger. He’s the one who came to me, the one who sought my help.”

“I know Lloyd, Crow. I’ve known him a lot longer than you have. You think this is the first time he’s slept here?”

“I thought you didn’t take teenagers.”

“We don’t-officially. What would you do if a kid showed up on a snowy night?”

Buy him a meal, Crow thought. Take him into my own house. Wreck my girlfriend’s life.

“Anyway, Lloyd’s ideas don’t have a lot of what I’ll call staying power. Yes, he’s scared now. But the fear will pass. It has to pass. His part of East Baltimore might as well be the Middle East. There’s so much violence he’s numb to it. This isn’t his first friend to be killed. It won’t be the last. He’ll persuade himself that Le’andro’s death doesn’t have anything to do with him after all. Or that he’s cool as long as he doesn’t talk to the police. Once out of your sight-and he’ll try to lose you, sooner rather than later, no matter how many good meals you buy him-he might go to the very drug dealer he fears, beg for some kind of clemency.”

“So I should take him to the police.”

Rob hesitated. “The good-citizen part of me says yes. The part of me that knows this city-Crow, a man was beaten to death in jail this winter. By the guards. So if I’m honest, I can’t tell you there’s a way to guarantee Lloyd’s safety. Yet you definitely can’t control him as long as he’s in Baltimore. Two days from now, he’ll be chasing a sandwich or a girl, forgetting all about how scared he was. You need to get him out of town for a little while, figure this out from a safe distance.”

Crow studied Lloyd, slumped in an old plastic chair in the shelter’s foyer, his posture and attitude radiating the typical adolescent sullenness. What would Crow do with him all day in Baltimore? He’d thought they could go to the library, a prospect that had filled Crow with joy. A day to read and think, hidden away in the gracious main library’s nooks and crannies. Then down to the harbor for lunch, maybe a long walk for exercise, back to the library until closing time, dinner somewhere in Canton, and here to sleep. Given the circumstances, Father Rob had even agreed to hold two beds for them, waiving the usual first-come, first-served rule out of gratitude for the favors that Crow had done the shelter.

But Crow saw now how delusional he was. Lloyd would never spend a day in a library, much less see the point in taking a long walk on a cool spring afternoon. He would fight Crow every step of the way.

“Where should we go?”

“I don’t know, Crow.” Father Rob gave him a rueful smile. “I really shouldn’t know, should I?”

“If anyone comes here asking after us, even someone who knows me-”

“Crow who? Lloyd who? Vaya con Dios.”

Before Tess’s father had taken over the Point, it had belonged to Tess’s uncle, Spike. At least she called the old man Uncle Spike. The nature of his relationship to the family remained vague. No one even seemed sure if he was a Monaghan or a Weinstein. There was also the hint of some scandal about Spike, a criminal past that the usually voluble Tess skirted in conversation. Whatever Spike had been, whatever he had done, he was now a proper retiree, living in a condo in South Florida and going to the greyhound tracks. Not to bet but to monitor the treatment of the dogs. It was Spike, in fact, who had rescued Esskay, although he always insisted that Esskay had rescued him.

From a sub shop in South Baltimore, a place with a video game that would keep Lloyd occupied as long as there was a supply of quarters, Crow called Spike on the cell phone he had just purchased, a twin to the one he’d overnighted to Tess.

A man of few words, Spike listened to Crow without comment or interruption, reason enough to be fond of him.

“There’s a man,” Spike said. “Friend of the family, will look after you for a while. Edward Keyes.”

“Isn’t he the former cop who signed off on Tess’s paperwork so she could get licensed?”

“Yeah. Good people. He lives down the ocean.” Spike may have retired to South Florida, but his Baltimore accent had not diminished at all and he pronounced this phrase with the classic Baltimore o sounds: Downy eaushin. “I’ll call him. I’ll also call a guy in Denton, who will swap out cars for you. Give you something nice and legitimate, put yours on a lift for the duration. But look, Fast Eddie-”

Spike, despite being Spike, did not approve of Crow’s nickname and had settled on “Fast Eddie” as a suitable substitution.

“What, Spike?”

“You got enough cash? ’Cuz I’ll front you, wire some to Keyes.”

“I have all the cash I need, Spike,” Crow said, knowing that Spike would not ask how that could be, bless him. Spike was a great respecter of secrets, having had a few himself. “Enough to last for weeks, if necessary, especially with the accommodations you’re arranging.”

“But what you’re doing, it’s short-term, right?”

“Probably no more than a week or so. Just until we figure some things out.”

Even over the telephone, Spike was capable of eloquent silences. This one was skeptical.

“I need Lloyd to trust me,” Crow rushed to explain. “Once he trusts me, he’ll understand that I have his best interests at heart, and he’ll come in voluntarily, do what he has to do.”

“You don’t think he’s told you everything.” Said flatly, a question and a statement. Spike had his opinion, but he still wanted to know what Crow thought.

Crow glanced over at Lloyd, whose every cell seemed focused on the game in front of him. He held on to the controls, swaying side to side, his right hand darting out to pound the button that unleashed his artillery. His grace, his dexterity, his rapt concentration-what could Lloyd accomplish if those gifts could be directed elsewhere? But how could anyone persuade him to redefine the future as something more than the next four to six hours?

“No,” Crow admitted. “I don’t think he’s told me the whole story. But I also think he’s right that his only choices just now are being killed or being locked up.”

“Don’t lose sight of that,” Spike said.

“That he’s in danger?”

“That he’s a liar.”

“That’s harsh, Spike.”

“Also true. I bet you’ve already caught him in one lie.” Crow’s silence answered that question for Spike. “Just because he’s ’fessed up to one doesn’t mean he’s done yet. Lying’s a way of life with some people.”

It was 2:00 P.M. when Crow called Tess on the disposable cell phone that was not yet in her possession. She could retrieve the message tomorrow.

“Lloyd and I are on the road,” he said. “Details to follow via these lines of communication.”

Lloyd meanwhile was looking around the increasingly flat countryside, sniffing the air suspiciously. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Salt. The ocean’s maybe thirteen miles from here.”

“Which ocean?”

Honestly, Baltimore schools. Even a sixteen-year-old dropout should know which ocean bordered Maryland and Delaware. “There’s only one we could have reached in three hours, the Atlantic.”

“Ain’t nothing here, if you ask me.”

“Not in March, no. Not down the ocean.” Crow took a moment, for he always needed to prepare himself before he launched into an imitation of Spike’s Bawlmer accent. “We’ve gone downy eaushin, hon.”

“Hate that ‘hon’ shit,” Lloyd said, going back to the X-Men comic book that Crow had bought him at the same convenience store that provided the phones. But a few miles later, when they pulled up on the street that dead-ended into a small boardwalk and the Atlantic came into full view, Lloyd found it hard to maintain his studied nonchalance. There was a palpable awe in his silence, although he tried to hide it.

“There sharks in there?” he asked.

“No. Dolphins sometimes.”

“Is it always so loud?”

“Loud?” Crow hadn’t thought of surf as noisy, more of a soothing music, one that took him back to his childhood, the summer nights on Nantucket. “I guess so. It’s a beautiful sound, isn’t it?”

Lloyd shrugged. Crow wished that it were warmer, that they could take off their shoes and socks, roll up their pant legs, and wade into the surf. It seemed almost criminal to him that Lloyd had reached the age of sixteen without knowing what it felt like to wiggle one’s toes in wet sand, to feel the sensation of the tide rushing out, so it seemed as if one were moving while standing perfectly still.

“So what we going to do now?”

“This is our new home for the next few days. Until we figure out what’s best for you.”

“The ocean?” Lloyd’s voice squeaked a bit.

“No, this place here.” Crow waved toward a faded white square of a building, the red lettering on its side weathered by the winter. FRANK’S FUNWORLD.

“What’s there to do?” Lloyd looked at the tiny strip of boardwalk, the largely empty houses, with a sense of desperation. “No fun that I can see.”

“Don’t worry,” said a short, squat man who came waddling out of a side door. Because the door was centered in the face of a grinning clown, it appeared as if the man had crawled out of the clown’s belly. “I got plenty to keep you busy.”

16

Gabe Dalesio still couldn’t believe his luck. He had all but given up on ever getting a piece of the Youssef investigation-too big now, too radioactive. Plus, all the agencies had to present a united front, pretend they were on top of things, not start pointing fingers across jurisdictional lines and glory hogging. Gabe had tried to drop some hints in front of the boss woman that the case interested him, that he had some experience with shield laws if she wanted to pursue that angle. (A lie, but what of it? He’d get the expertise if he needed it.) But nobody cared about what he had to offer.

And then boom, out of the blue, this FBI agent Barry Jenkins calls up and asks if he’d like to watch the interrogation of the private investigator, the grandstander who was refusing to name the source.

“Why me?” he asked, then wanted to kick himself. That wasn’t the comeback of a natural-born winner, all grateful and pathetic. Why me? He should have asked for the time and place, said he’d be there.

Jenkins, to his credit, didn’t bust balls. “I’m sort of the unofficial liaison on the Youssef matter. Collins at DEA told me you’d been challenging the, um, received wisdom on the murder before any of this broke. I asked your boss, and she said she could spare you on this.”

“Sure.” Trying now for the cool, hard-as-nails stoicism that he should have shown from the start. So Collins didn’t think he was a faggot after all. “I could fit it in.”

“We’re just going to watch, mind you. The state people don’t want us breathing down their necks. They want our help, but they want to run the show.”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Gabe had said. “If Youssef is a kidnapping victim-”

“Who said that?”

“That’s my theory. It all goes to the E-ZPass, what I told Collins. I don’t think Youssef was at the wheel of his vehicle when it passed through the toll on its way south, but he wasn’t dead yet either, so it’s a kidnapping charge, which makes it a federal case even if you don’t know he’s a U.S. attorney-”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, young’un.” The guy actually said “young’un,” as if he were John Wayne and Gabe was some kid, Ron Howard in The Shootist or one of those boys from the movie about the cattle drive.

But that was okay. Those boys came through for the Duke in the end, proved they were men. And now Gabe was here in the Howard County public safety building, arms folded, eyes squinted, staring through the one-way glass at what appeared to be a remarkably average woman. She had wavy, almost shoulder-length hair that begged to be shaped and styled in some way, light hazel eyes, and a nice shape if you liked that buxom type, which Gabe usually did. Her voice was low, her words clipped, although Gabe sensed that this was not her natural way of speaking. With each question she glanced sideways at her lawyer, an old geezer in a wheelchair. Ironside and Perry Mason, all rolled into one. It was unclear why they made eye contact each time, as the lawyer didn’t seem to signal her in any way, didn’t so much as shake his head yes or no. She looked at him, then said, over and over again, “I’m sorry, but I consider that information confidential.” Gabe didn’t get that. She had volunteered to come in, presumably to cooperate. What was this shit?

“You have no standing to assert privilege,” the Howard County assistant state attorney reminded Tess.

“I’m not saying it’s privileged. I’m saying I made a promise, a binding oral contract. Breaking it would make me liable to civil action, which would be ruinous to my business. I literally can’t afford to tell you what you want to know.”

“And this promise is more important to you than solving the murder of an officer of the court?”

“Let me remind you,” Tyner put in, “that my client has already shown her willingness to do her civic duty by getting her source to share his-or her-information with reporters. It’s up to investigators to use this information as they wish.”

“A newspaper article is no substitute for a true criminal investigation. There are unanswered questions.”

“Such as?”

“The source didn’t name who provided the ATM card.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Tyner said. “Given that I was not present for the interview, I can’t speak to that.”

“She was present.”

“That hasn’t been established for the record,” Tyner said.

“Were you present?”

“Not for the entirety of the interview.” Tess had made the food run.

Detective Howard Johnson could not hide his exasperation. Tess didn’t blame him. Semantic games pissed her off, too. “Did the source tell the reporters who gave him the ATM card?”

“Or her.”

“Excuse me?”

“Him or her,” Tess said. “I’ve never put a gender to the source, nor did the reporters. I’d like to establish that for the record.”

Detective Johnson picked up a piece of paper. “The purchases-the Nikes, the North Face-they were men’s, according to the receipts.”

“I buy men’s shirts at the Gap,” Tess said. “I’m wearing one right now. At any rate, I’m not going to answer questions that imply the gender of the source is known.”

“Okay. Did he or she identify the person who gave him or her the ATM card?”

“Not to me.”

Tess was walking a very fine line here. Lloyd had not identified the source of the card at the time of the interview. But he had told Crow yesterday, prompting their flight. She didn’t know the name, but she knew it was gettable. All one had to do was look at who had been killed late Monday or early Tuesday-something that Tess had steadfastly avoided. With so many secrets to protect, a little genuine ignorance was bliss.

Poor redheaded Howard Johnson was beginning to sweat. “Your source is protecting a killer, which makes him-”

“Him or her,” Tess said.

“Him or her an accessory. Which means you are obstructing justice.”

“Charge her with that and we’ll proceed from there,” Tyner said. “Until then it’s an empty threat.”

“The source knew nothing about the murder of Gregory Youssef. The source believed the whole incident to be some kind of low-level scam. But-” Tess looked at Tyner. They had spent much of the morning trying to decide if they should share the new information that Crow had provided, brainstorming every ramification and possibility. It was hard to know sometimes how a piece of information would land. To Tess it was obvious that the murder buttressed her position. But it might not appear that way to the detectives and attorneys. “I do have some new information. New to me.”

She was aware of the anticipation in the room, the hope that she would tell them something significant, the worry that she was setting them up for the anticlimax.

“I still don’t know the name of my source’s contact. But I do know that the contact is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Homicide.”

“Who? When? How could you know this?”

“As I said, I don’t know his name. But I can give you some information about my source’s contact.”

Detective Howard Johnson leaned forward.

“The victim was one of the city’s sixty-some homicide victims since the beginning of the year. So you have a finite universe of cases to examine.”

“We will put you in front of the grand jury,” the detective said, his temper beyond lost. “We will hold you in contempt. We will let you sit in the detention center until you get over yourself and stop this stupid shit.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Tess said. “But the person I’m protecting honestly believes this to be a matter of life or death. Someone has already been killed. We don’t know for certain that it’s connected to the Youssef case, but it’s a possibility we have to consider.”

“Only, the person who was killed wasn’t in protective custody,” Johnson pointed out. “Your source would be a lot safer, coming to us.”

“You think? There’s a tradition of dead witnesses in Baltimore that belies your confidence. Besides, even though I could tell you who my client is, if I were so inclined, I can’t tell you where the client is. The source has created his-or her-own brand of protective custody. Has left the area and has no plans to return for the time being.”

“Are you being truthful?”

“I’ve been truthful at every point in this interview.” Tess couldn’t keep a little heat out of her voice. When the circumstances suited her, she was perfectly capable of lying, but she had been extremely precise today. True, she hadn’t been particularly helpful, but that wasn’t the same as lying. She had walked the line, as the old song had it.

And was hovering right above a ring of fire, to keep it in the Johnny Cash canon.

On the other side of the glass, Jenkins popped a Pepcid, although he kept his face impassive, unreadable. Sanctimonious bitch. Where did she get off?

No matter. He had been smart to heed his stomach’s queasy instincts and invite the AUSA last-minute. This eager beaver next to him was the key to finding out what he wanted to know. All he had to do was unleash Fido here and he would cheerfully, happily, and quite legally proceed to press this bitch until she was begging for mercy. Jenkins hoped she was smart, or at least pragmatic, the kind of person who would abandon a principle when things got rough. Let her play this half-assed game with him and he would own her. Sure, she could be all noble here, when the only thing she was risking was some penny-ante shit from county cops. But when it was her life versus someone else’s, those lofty principles would fall away. They always did.

The thing is, he sort of got where she was coming from. In a different context, he might have respected her. He knew what it was to believe in something and how hard it could be to give it up, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that those to whom you were loyal had no loyalty to you. She had been taken in by this kid, whoever he was, bought into the idea that he needed her protection. Couldn’t see the forest for the trees, a figure of speech that had long puzzled Jenkins, who had always been able to see everything all at once. She had placed herself at the center of the Youssef matter, losing sight of the fact that it wasn’t about her, that she was an insignificant player. This wasn’t her story, but he could see why she might think it was. To her credit, she was trying to do what she thought was right.

But she believed in the wrong thing, she had chosen the wrong side, and that was reason enough to dismantle her life.

THURSDAY
17

“Ocean’s hell on paint and wood,” Edward Keyes said, handing out scrapers and brushes to Crow and Lloyd. “Ocean’s hell on everything, corrosive as a sonuvabitch. I usually paint in the fall, but my Mexican crew up and quit on me.”

“Do you have to stereotype them by race?” Crow said automatically, then regretted it. They were dependent on this man’s generosity, after all.

“What I’d say? Just said they quit, and they did. Left me high and dry last fall, and now I’m way behind if I’m gonna open for Mother’s Day weekend. I should give up on shingles, go with something more mod-ren I know, but I like the old-timey look. It’s not as much work as it looks to be, not once you get a rhythm.”

Lloyd, who had glared at Edward Keyes throughout his overview of the seasonal preparation required by Frank’s FunWorld, spoke for the first time. “Why Frank?”

“What?”

“Your name ain’t Frank. So why this place called that?”

“Sounds better, don’t you think? Allitter-something.”

“Alliteration,” Crow put in, and the other two regarded him as if he were the nerdiest kid in the class.

“Had a cat named Frank once. Mean old tom. By the way, you’ll want to get as much painting done as you can in the morning. Wind kicks up in the afternoon something fierce. That’s why I usually do it in the fall.” And with that, Edward Keyes left them, whistling a happy tune.

Crow supposed that he would be cheerful, too, if he were dispensing the supplies for this backbreaking work, then retiring to the sheltered interior of the park to tinker with the rides and reassemble the Whac-A-Mole games, with a radio to provide some mental distraction. Crow and Lloyd remained outside on this bright, windswept day, with nothing but their own companionship. Which could have been pleasant, but the only conversation Lloyd seemed capable of was a litany of complaints.

“Why we got to paint? We’re paying our way, aren’t we? You givin’ him cash for our food and our rooms, which ain’t much. So why we got to work?”

“What else are we going to do with our time?”

“I don’t know. Watch TV and shit. Anything but this.”

“What would you be doing back home, a day like today?”

“Find some action. Hang.” Lloyd made a few desultory passes with the paintbrush. “Why can’t we use a roller at least? Go a lot faster.”

“Roller won’t cover shingles. We’ll be able to use it on the concrete, though, on the other side. And when we get to that part, it will seem so easy it won’t be like work at all.”

“Were you a teacher?”

Crow was flattered. “No, but it interests me. I think sometimes of going back to school, getting a certificate.” Only how would I explain to Tess that I could afford it?

“Yeah, that sounds like teacher shit.” Lloyd pitched his voice high and took on a bright, prissy tone. “‘Really, it’s not that hard, boys and girls, if you just try.’ That kind of thing. They was always saying shit like that.”

“Was there anything you liked about school?”

“It was warm,” Lloyd said pointedly. “They didn’t make us stand outside in the cold, painting shit.”

“Look, if we talk, pass the time, this will go a lot faster.”

“I got nothing to talk about with you. Seems to me talking is what got me here.”

“Here” was actually beautiful in its way, a short, old-fashioned stretch of boardwalk in the town of Fenwick, just above the state line and Maryland ’s far-busier resort, Ocean City. The early-spring light, the empty beach, the careworn buildings-they made Crow’s fingers itch with the desire to paint again, although not in this way, applying coats of latex to the battered surfaces of Frank’s FunWorld.

“World” was a little grandiose for this bunkerlike rectangle that contained one bank of Skee-Ball machines, several video machines, a single Whac-A-Mole, and a couple of booths for the hand-eye coordination games that spit out tickets good for schlocky items at the so-called Redemption Center. The rides were geared toward small fry for the most part-little motorcycles that went ’round and ’round, little boats that went ’round and ’round (although their basin was dry), and a ringless, currently horseless merry-go-round. The only concession to anyone above age ten was a bumper-car ride, with the obligatory You Must Be This Tall sign. They would have to paint that, too, Mr. Keyes had said. That and the clown’s face. Well, Crow had just complained to Kitty that he never got to paint anymore.

“No, I mean we could just talk talk. About life. Or movies and books. What do you like?”

“I like them dinosaur books and movies,” Lloyd said. “ Jurassic Park .”

“Michael Crichton. So you like futuristic plots, science fiction.”

Lloyd made a face, but Crow decided it was the word “science” that was putting him off.

“You liked Minority Report, right?”

“The one with the Top Gun dude?”

“Yeah, sure. Anyway, the guy who wrote that also wrote this one called Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which they made into a Harrison Ford movie. Bladerunner.”

“Bladerunner’s a better title.”

“Maybe.” Crow began with bounty hunter Rick Deckard and his mood organ, his argument with his wife, Iran, whose name confused Lloyd no end. Crow’s memory was shaky at first, and he sometimes conflated film and book, but slowly the beloved story came back to him in detail, almost every sentence intact.

Once the mix-up over Iran ’s name was cleared up, it wasn’t apparent if Lloyd was listening. Then he asked a question about midway through, a clarification of some plot point. Other than that, he was quiet and thoughtful. The wind seemed to settle down and the sun grew stronger, so the work wasn’t quite as hard on their exposed hands. Before they knew it, they had finished scraping and painting most of the shingles.

“That guy write any other stories?”

“A few,” Crow said.

When the wind kicked up as predicted and they had to suspend painting for the day, Crow prevailed on Edward to come to the library with them. He was paranoid enough to want to avoid using his own card to check out materials, even if it turned out that Delaware and Maryland had some sort of reciprocity agreement between their library systems. A silver-haired volunteer with an accent that reminded Crow of his Virginia roots showed them the library’s books-on-tape, which included several unabridged editions. With the tapes running up to twelve hours, they couldn’t get through more than two in a week of work, and it was hard for Crow to imagine they would be in this limbo much longer than that. He encouraged Lloyd to make one of the selections. Lloyd picked Stephen King’s The Stand, despite Crow’s subtle lobbying for The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. “No girls,” Lloyd had said. Crow chose Robert Parker’s Early Autumn, then picked up several books as well-Chester Himes, Walter Mosley, Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch, which Lloyd seemed to find mildly intriguing after being assured it was the basis for Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.

“That was kind of conspicuous,” Edward Keyes said when they were back in Fenwick, sitting down to a lunch of warm soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, made on the hot plate in Frank’s office. Crow had considered his own appetite remarkable until he watched Lloyd consume four sandwiches, three glasses of sweet tea, and most of the Utz chips in under ten minutes.

“What? Choosing Stephen King and Robert Parker? Or buying a boom box with a tape deck to play them?”

“The three of us going up to the South Coastal Library. Me getting a library card after living here almost twenty years without needing one, then helping some white kid and some black kid check out books on tape. They’ll be talking about that for months, up to the library.”

In Baltimore fashion he pronounced it “lie-berry.” The very sound of Edward’s vowels made Crow a little homesick.

“It’s not as if anyone is looking for us,” Crow said. “Not in this, um, configuration. True, the authorities are keen to find Lloyd. Maybe,” he added hurriedly, noting Lloyd’s panicky look. “But as far as everyone else is concerned, I’m down south, looking for bands to book at the Point.”

“I told Spike I’d take you in, no questions asked, and I’m not asking any. I’m just making a few commonsense observations. You’re supposed to be laying low. What you did today-that was about as laying low as a mallard tap-dancing at the edge of a duck blind.”

“Okay, so we won’t go to the library again. We probably won’t need to. I’m sure we’ll have this sorted out in less than a week.”

“No hurry,” Edward said. “It’s not like I’m going to run out of work for you two to do. You might not be able to paint in this breeze, but there’s plenty of other stuff to do around here.”

Crow had been afraid of that.

Jenkins decided to take Gabe to a restaurant where he still had some residual drag, dating back to his first tour of duty in Baltimore. McCafferty’s was a Mount Washington steak house, sort of the Palm Lite, with caricatures of Baltimore celebrities hanging on its walls. “ Baltimore celebrities”-now, there was a phrase that could never be used without invoking in-the-air quotation marks. But the steaks were excellent and the location obscure, so the likelihood of being overseen or overheard was practically nil.

“What do you think?” Jenkins asked Gabe, who was studying the caricatures with what appeared to be a mix of yearning and contempt. He was a New Yorker. Well, a New Jersey kid, but the biggest snobs often came from across the river. He probably wanted to be up on that wall, but felt sheepish about it, as if he were aiming too low.

“It’s a good New York strip, although a little pinker than I normally like. Restaurants just don’t believe you when you ask for medium, but it’s what I prefer.”

Dumb-shit. “No, I mean about the case. Is there a way we could sort of slide our way in, without actually breaking faith with the county police?”

“Oh, the case.” At least the Youssef investigation excited the kid more than the food in front of him. “If you really want to take it from them, we need to press my kidnapping theory. Although we could argue that the mere fact it appears to be job-related-a federal prosecutor, probably killed on orders of a drug dealer-gives us an entrée as well.”

“Yeah.” Jenkins swirled the red wine in his glass, watched the legs run down the side. He had gotten very enthusiastic about wine for a while there, started learning the basics and the vocabulary, then lost interest. Dinner was going to cost him about $140, and he would have to put it on his personal card, given that none of this was authorized, although he would tell the kid it was on the government. Not that he couldn’t afford it, but it seemed unfair somehow. Why shouldn’t an agent be allowed to take an AUSA to a meal, no questions asked? They were talking about a case, damn it, the murder of a federal prosecutor. But it was that kind of loose thinking about his expense account that had caused Jenkins so much grief when they started gunning for him.

“Yeah,” Jenkins repeated. “Thing is, I’m not so sure we want the case, officially. Not the way it is now.”

“What do you mean?” Oh, the kid was a glory hound, wild for the scent.

“They’re gonna drag her to the county grand jury, right? And she’ll probably give in, tell them what she knows. But that’s too public, too drawn out. It builds expectations-and it gives her too much power. I’d like to get to him-and I’m sure it’s a him, fuck that ‘he-or-she’ shit-before this whole thing gets out of hand. Plus, the trail gets colder every day. She says he’s out of town. With our luck he’ll be in Mexico by the time she gives up the name. She could be stalling us for just that reason.”

Gabe chewed thoughtfully, although not thoroughly. When he opened his mouth to speak, he still had a little steak moving around.

“But what else can we do except wait, if we’re not willing to take the case away from the county cops?”

“You’re a federal prosecutor.”

“Yeah.” Realization was dawning, but it was a slow, ponderous dawn. Jenkins preferred young men who thought a little faster on their feet, but he was stuck with this one.

“Example: Collins did a little door-to-door in her neighborhood yesterday, while we were at the interview. One guy said she had a houseguest recently, a black kid who caused all sorts of problems. I say it’s the source. We figure out who his contact is, this allegedly dead guy, and I’ll bet anything it’s a drug dealer. That links her guest to drug dealing, and that means she had a drug dealer staying under her roof.”

Jenkins turned over the palm of his right hand, gesturing Gabe to follow him. But he was still chewing his undercooked-by-his-standards steak.

“RICO statutes,” Jenkins prompted. “You accuse someone of allowing drugs to be dealt from her house, you can file to seize the house, the car. Once her own assets are threatened, she won’t be all Joan of Arc, will she?”

“Bit of a reach. It presumes that we can figure out who the dead contact is and that he’s a drug dealer.”

“Collins said he could have that name in twenty-four hours,” Jenkins said. “Besides, no harm in bluffing, right? We don’t have to actually do any of this. We just have to make her think that we can. But okay, put RICO aside. We also could have her bank records in a day or two, depending on what bank she uses. So many of our old guys are in security gigs around town, they’d let you eyeball her records, probably, if we tell them the paperwork is coming.”

“I’d have to go to Gail…” The kid looked at once nervous andeager, wanting this opportunity, yet fearful of breaking chain of command. Jenkins would never have gotten anywhere if he thought this small. Then again, he might not have gone too far either. It had been such a shock when they came for him, especially when he realized how his colleagues gloated at his fall. Yes, he had been a little pushy and he had courted the media more than he should have. But he’d also been genuinely collegial, a good guy, friendly and helpful. He hadn’t realized that small-minded types could hold even innocuous stuff against you. Pygmies. Fucking pygmies. He wondered if that was a word you were allowed to say anymore, if it was now officially insensitive. But “fuckin’ little people of tribal origin” didn’t have the same ring, did it?

“We don’t need to involve the boss lady just yet. No authorization memo, nothing in writing. You and me, we could just go visit the chick dick at home, unofficial-like. Talk to her. Let me tell you, once you start poking around people’s affairs, you always find something. If all else fails, just say IRS. Everybody cheats on his taxes.”

“I don’t.”

“Well, yeah, of course. We don’t.” Jenkins winked at the boy over his wineglass. He was drinking iced tea and had seemed judgmental when Jenkins ordered alcohol with lunch.

“No, I don’t. For real. I don’t even itemize deductions. Without a house it’s not worth it. And when my dad rigged up an illegal cable box, I told him to take it down or I’d turn him in.”

“You didn’t.” Jenkins tried to make his tone sound admiring, but he was actually thinking, What a stiff-necked little prick.

Ah, well. That just made him even more perfect for the task at hand.

18

“Miss Monaghan?”

Tess was used to being accosted anywhere, anytime in Baltimore, her personal and professional identities forever overlapping. Relatives crashed meetings with clients when she was foolhardy enough to conduct her affairs in public places, while those who knew her through her work had no qualms about confronting her during obvious downtime. Once, a disgruntled city official, unhappy with the effect that Tess’s research had on his divorce settlement, kept up a running commentary on her ethics during a screening of Lawrence of Arabia. He had finally been led out of the Senator Theater by two young ushers, still hissing invectives all the way-“Bitch! Whore! CUNT!”-while Tess stared straight ahead, trying to lose herself in the restored glory of Peter O’Toole’s gaze.

Still, it was disconcerting to have someone address her formally while she was naked except for Jockey underwear.

“Yes, that’s me,” she said, pulling on her bra and T-shirt as quickly as possible.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but you looked too, um, focused to interrupt on the gym floor. I’m Wilma Youssef.”

The first irrelevant thought that crossed Tess’s mind was, But you’re so blond. Silly, she had imagined Youssef’s wife more as a sister-dark-haired, dark-eyed, olive skin. The woman standing at the end of this row of lockers was a petite, blue-eyed blonde. Tess’s second, still-not-on-point reaction was, You’ve kept your face out of the news. Gregory Youssef’s image may have been as ubiquitous as the girl on the Utz potato chip bag, but his wife had managed to stay off camera, no small feat for a grieving widow.

Then, finally, an almost appropriate observation: What did one say to a notorious widow? What did one say to a widow who almost certainly believed that you were an obstacle in her husband’s murder investigation?

“Hi,” Tess said, offering her hand, once her T-shirt was in place. Mrs. Youssef declined to shake.

“I really need to talk to you, but I don’t have much time. My mother-in-law spells the nanny at day’s end, but I hate to impose on her longer than necessary. Can we speak in the café upstairs?”

Tess made a face. There was nothing wrong with the bar-restaurant in the Downtown Athletic Club, but gym was like church to her-a sacred place, yet not one where she wanted to linger once her ablutions were done.

“The Brass Elephant is just a few blocks away. Could we have a drink there?”

“Oh, yes. That bar you like so much.”

“How do-”

The widow Youssef’s smile was at once sad and superior. “We’ve been making quite a study of you. Do you think it’s a coincidence that I’m at this particular gym at this particular hour? I don’t exactly have time to work out.”

Tess wasn’t sure what was more unnerving-the idea that someone could so easily discern her patterns or the woman’s use of the first-person plural. Who was this “we,” exactly?

“I can be there in five minutes,” she said. “It’s not a bar that stands on formality, but it does prefer that the patrons wear something below the waist.”

It wasn’t clear if Wilma Youssef understood that this was a joke or if she simply didn’t see the humor in anything. She gave Tess a chilly smile and nodded her assent.

“Club soda,” Wilma Youssef told the bartender.

“Nursing?” asked Tess.

“Yes, but I never drank. Neither did Greg. We met through a Christian fellowship group at Cornell.”

The information seemed at once pointed and defensive to Tess, but all she said was “Oh.” And then to the bartender, “I’ll try that weird gin drink you make, the one with peach schnapps. Maybe it will make me feel as if spring is on the way.”

“We’re not what people mean when they speak of the religious right,” Wilma said, picking up on Tess’s unvoiced skepticism. “But we were conservative by most people’s standards. Didn’t drink or use drugs. We also happen to believe that homosexuality is a sin. So I always knew that Greg’s death was not as it appeared. Nothing could make me believe that.”

Funny, the Christian fellowship stuff was the one piece of information to date that made the scenario more plausible to Tess. She wondered if Youssef’s killer had known this and factored it in.

“When the story with the new information ran in the Beacon-Light, I was so hopeful. At first. I thought it meant that Greg’s killer had been found and the truth would finally come out. But now police tell me that you’re determined to shield the killer.”

“Not the killer. Just a-” Ever vigilant, Tess stopped herself short of using Lloyd’s gender. “Just an individual who was holding a piece of the puzzle, unawares.”

“Some lowlife.”

“Is that part of your doctrine, too? Assigning people their value on earth?”

Nothing seemed to shake Wilma Youssef’s eerie poise.

“I’m a widow with a three-month-old child. A boy who will never know his father. It’s important to me that Greg’s name be cleared.”

“It seems to me that it has been. We still may not know who killed him, but it seems more likely now that it had something to do with his work, right?”

She chewed a piece of ice. Tess wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the Widow Youssef subsisted solely on ice.

“I received something…unexpected,” she said, once the ice cube had been crunched into oblivion beneath her small, perfect teeth.

“What?”

“I prefer not to say.”

“I won’t tell anyone.” The woman clearly wanted to confide in someone. Perhaps she had been drawn to Tess in part because she thought Tess owed her that much. “If you know anything about me, it’s that I keep my promises, that I’m willing to go to extraordinary lengths to do just that.”

“I can’t say.”

“Which is it? Don’t want to or can’t?”

“Both. I don’t know what this thing means. I don’t want to know, because then I can say I didn’t know, if someone else finds out. Greg had…” In Wilma’s pause, Tess supplied a thousand possibilities, an array of wonderful and intriguing nouns. It was a bit of an anticlimax when Wilma Youssef finally said, “A safe-deposit box.”

“So? Lots of people do.”

“This one was secret, kept in a bank down in Laurel, quite a distance from where we live. I wouldn’t even have known it existed if the renewal paper hadn’t arrived in the mail last month. Apparently the bank doesn’t even know he’s dead.”

“That’s awful,” Tess said, meaning it.

Wilma sighed. “You get used to it. Almost. The telemarketers that call and ask for Mr. Youssef-they don’t even lose their place in the script when I say, ‘He’s dead.’ They just plunge ahead, telling me about the new ‘products’ available on my charge cards.”

Wilma Youssef was making it awfully hard to out-and-out loathe her. Her values may not have been Tess’s, but her situation engendered sympathy. All the more so because she didn’t seem to expect it.

“Well, if you need help getting access to it, that can be accomplished pretty quickly through probate. I know some lawyers-Well, you know some lawyers, obviously. I’m sure there are ways to expedite.”

“I don’t have a key.”

“Still, there has to be a way-”

“I didn’t come to you for legal counsel. I’m not worried about straightening out Greg’s estate.”

“What are you worried about?”

She gave a tiny, embarrassed shrug.

“Have you told the police about the safe-deposit box?”

“No. It’s not required, not by law.”

“But it could be relevant to his murder.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Neither do I. But that’s because we don’t know what’s in it. And maybe it will be something silly or inconsequential. But the fact of its existence is not going to go away.”

“You promised not to tell.” Said swiftly, almost accusingly.

“That I did.”

“We told each other everything, Greg and I. Everything. We didn’t have secrets from each other.”

“With all due respect, you clearly had at least one.”

To Tess’s horror the woman burst into tears-gusty, loud sobs that seemed all the more enormous coming from this doll-like woman. Tess and Wilma were the only customers in this part of the bar, but it was still mortifying. Luckily, her sobs ended as quickly as they came, like a summer cloudburst.

“Sorry,” she said with a sniffle. “Hormones.”

“Ms. Youssef-”

“You may call me Wilma.”

“Wilma. That’s a hell of a name to settle on a kid.”

“Yes, a life of Flintstones jokes. When I found out I was having a boy, I immediately insisted that he would be called Gregory Jr.”

“Anyway, Wilma”-it was hard not to give it the Fred Flintstone inflection, now that the fact had been acknowledged, but Tess resisted. “What exactly is it you want from me? To break the promise I made to someone else while keeping yours? To assure you that what I know can’t have anything do with a safe-deposit box in Laurel? Or do you want my permission to keep your secrets as I’m keeping mine?”

The woman sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap. “I want the truth, but I’m frightened.”

What could Tess say? It was in the end what everyone wanted-painless truth. Problem was, she wasn’t sure such a thing existed.

Wilma Youssef, however, had the damnedest ability to squander whatever sympathy she managed to arouse. She continued, “My husband and I were good people. We worked hard. We didn’t deserve this.”

“The implication being that some people do deserve what happens to them.”

“Well…yes. Yes. I’m sorry, but people who take drugs, who sell them, who live without benefit of marriage, who have children as if they’re throwing litters of puppies-they bring their problems on themselves. Greg was trying to do good in the world.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“The only way of looking at it.”

“No. No, not even close. Imagine being born into that world. Remember how it was said that Bush, the first one, was a guy who was born on third base and thought he’d hit a triple? Well, these kids aren’t even in the ballpark and they don’t have any equipment-no bats, no balls, no field. It’s like they’re in some weird reality show where they have to play the same game with rotted tree limbs, spoiled grapefruits, and hundred-fifty-pound sacks of rocks tied to their backs.”

Wilma’s cool blue eyes were thoughtful. Shrewd, actually. Tess remembered, perhaps a beat too late, that Wilma Youssef was a lawyer, too, already back in the office less than three months after her baby’s birth-and less than four months after her husband’s death. A tough cookie and an analytical one, accustomed to parsing every word.

“So the source is someone young,” Wilma said. “Relatively. A juvenile?”

Tess waved a hand as if impatient, although her only frustration was with her own big mouth. She had been so strong, so taciturn in the police interview, only to natter away with Youssef’s widow.

“I’m speaking in generalities.”

“Sure. Of course.” Wilma sipped from her water glass, her gaze downcast. Tess had a sickening feeling that she was being played.

“Is there really a safe-deposit box?”

“What? Oh. Yes, of course.”

“And is that the reason you came to see me? Because you think what I know can somehow render that fact inconsequential? That whatever your husband may have hidden becomes irrelevant as long as his murder is solved before you gain access to it?”

“What could my husband possibly have to hide?”

“You tell me.”

Wilma Youssef took some bills from her purse. “I really shouldn’t impose on my mother-in-law. She adores Gregory Jr.-I sometimes think his birth is the only thing that kept her grief from tearing her apart-but I don’t like to leave her alone too long. And it’s such a trek down to Sherwood.”

“What about your father-in-law?” Tess meant only to be kind. “How’s he holding up?”

Wilma allowed herself another tight, mirthless smile. “Hasan has been dead for almost a decade. He was shot to death in Detroit. A robbery in the neighborhood deli that he owned, where he had done nothing but perform a thousand kindnesses to the very people who ended up killing him. So you see, my husband knew something about being born outside the ballpark, too. Perhaps you’d like to come home with me, explain to my mother-in-law your theories about the underclass and why they deserve your sympathy and protection more than her son.”

It wasn’t often that Tess allowed someone the last word, but Wilma Youssef had earned it. She bent over her drink, her face hot in a way that no cocktail could ever cure, no matter how light and springlike the recipe.

When she looked up again, Wilma Youssef was gone.

19

Tess never pretended to greater street smarts than she had. There was strength to be gained by admitting one’s weaknesses, if only because one could then compensate for them.

But even her most naïve neighbor-that would be Mrs. Gilligan, a blithe eighty-five-year-old who still slathered pinecones with peanut butter in order to bring chickadees to the evergreens outside her kitchen window-would have made the car parked outside Tess’s house as a government vehicle. Boxy and nondescript, it could serve no other purpose than the transport of Very Official People on Very Official Business.

I could just keep going, Tess thought. Head to Mr. Parrish’s drinking spot of choice, the Swallow at the Hollow, down a few beers, eat some fried mozzarella sticks. Wilma Youssef had put Tess over her daily limit for unplanned encounters.

Problem was, she was going so slowly that she had already been made by her men-in-waiting. There was nothing to do but suck it up and find out what they wanted.

The three men who emerged from the car struck Tess as a mismatched set, although she couldn’t have said why. One of these guys is not like the other, as they might have sung on Sesame Street . It wasn’t that two were white and one was black, or that two were young and one was on the far side of middle age. If anything, she would have picked the young white guy as the odd guy out. He was so filled with nervous energy that his dark, bristly hair practically danced with static. The other two seemed calm and stoic, more self-contained.

“Miss Monaghan,” the manic one began, giving it a hard g.

“Let me guess, you’re here from the government and you want to help me.”

At least the older one smiled at the old joke, or pretended to.

“We want you to help us, actually,” he said, stepping neatly into the role of good guy. So what was the third one’s function? “If we could go inside…”

“IDs,” she demanded. “Not business cards, but whatever official-issue stuff you’ve got.”

She studied the two badges and plastic ID that were handed to her as if she could spot fake ones: Barry Jenkins, FBI; Mike Collins, DEA; Gabriel Dalesio, U.S. attorney.

“Quite the task force,” she said. “No ATF? Customs? Postal inspectors?”

“All in good time,” the old one, Jenkins, said, and although he was just playing along, Tess felt the goose-prickly chill that her mother described as someone walking over her grave.

“I don’t talk without my lawyer present.”

“Oh, it’s not that official,” Jenkins said, the epitome of avuncular. “In fact, Gabe and I watched your interview with Howard County, so in a sense we’ve already done the lawyer thing. This is more of a friendly conversation. A social call.”

“Then I can ask you to come back when I feel more like having visitors?”

“Well, no.” He smiled, ever so apologetic.

“Would you please wait here while I go inside and call my lawyer?” She unlocked the door, peeling a “We missed you” sticker from FedEx off the glass. Must be something Crow had ordered. She scrawled her name on the back, reattached it, and closed the door pointedly behind her.

They ignored her, of course, filing in behind her as if she hadn’t asked them to stay outside. Tess would have done the same thing if she had their authority. The dogs inspected the men with interest. Esskay, the attention slut, showed her usual lack of discrimination. Miata, however, reared back when Collins reached out to scratch her behind the ears. Great, her dog was acting like a racist.

“Back up, guys-I mean the dogs. Although, well…” She hustled the dogs into the kitchen, where she dialed Tyner from behind the closed door. No answer at home or office, and he didn’t pick up his cell. Damn his unending honeymoon bliss with Kitty. He was probably feeding her raw oysters at Charleston, or sharing the gingerbread with lemon chiffon sauce at Bicycle. She left messages at all the numbers-his office, his cell, Kitty’s business, Kitty’s cell, their home above the bookstore-but if Tyner and Kitty were having a romantic evening out, voice mail wouldn’t be his first priority upon arriving home.

Desperate, she dialed one last number. “Get here now,” she hissed, allowing no greeting, offering no explanation. She then returned to the living room, where the three men were inspecting her home décor in such a way that the most innocuous items now seemed sinister, redolent of meaning-the Mission-style furniture, the small legal bookcase filled with Crow’s most precious books, not rare titles per se, but ones he prized highly nonetheless: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Confessions of a Mask, Don Quixote, Tally’s Corner. Determined not to betray her own persona, she turned on a neon sign that Crow had given her for Christmas a few years back, the one that proclaimed HUMAN HAIR in bright red letters.

“Can I get you anything?” she asked, as if she were vapid enough to confuse this with a social call. “Water, beer, wine, crackers, cheese, raisins, nuts-”

Jenkins raised his hand, uninterested in the contents of Tess’s pantry. “That won’t be necessary. We just need to talk to you, unofficial-like.”

“I really don’t want to talk without a lawyer here.”

“We could take you downtown, wait for your lawyer to meet us there. If it’s going to be like that, we might as well go all the way, right?”

His tone was friendly as ever, his manner casual, but Tess didn’t miss the implicit threat in his words. She took a seat at the head of her dining room table, and the men followed her lead. Perhaps she could bluff her way through this, speaking without saying anything.

“We just want to impress upon you how important it is that you tell us now, without further delay, who your source is.”

“And where he is,” put in Collins, the DEA agent. Why DEA? That was still troubling her.

“I can’t answer those questions.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“Okay, to be precise, I won’t answer the first, but I can’t answer the second.”

“You told Howard County police that he left town.”

“He or she. That’s my understanding, yes. I haven’t spoken to the source directly, however. In fact, I haven’t had any contact with the source since I arranged the meeting with the Beacon-Light reporters a week ago.”

“Tell us this,” said the prosecutor, Dalesio, the one who struck Tess as the odd man out. “Was your source a number-one male?”

Tess actually understood the police jargon, although it seemed strange for a federal prosecutor to speak as if he were on police radio.

“A black man,” Jenkins supplied when she didn’t answer right away. “African-American.”

“I’m not going to answer that question.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not going to provide any identifying information. And I want to point out that I still haven’t assigned a gender to the source. You may use ‘he’ and ‘him’ if you like, but I’m not going to do that.”

Jenkins rested his hands on his belly in the manner of a beloved uncle settling in after a particularly satisfying Thanksgiving meal. “African-American, that’s not exactly a big clue in a city that’s sixty-six percent black-and where ninety percent of the homicide victims are black men.”

Tess raised an eyebrow. She was conscious of what she was doing-by refusing to give the expected answer, she was making them consider the possibility that the source was white, throwing them off the trail. The main thing was not to say anything untrue, no matter how trivial. That required a lot of self-control for Tess, who was used to lying in work situations.

“So if the source isn’t a black man,” Jenkins continued, his voice a calm and easygoing drone, “then we can rule out that he’s the young man who was staying at your home last week.”

Any sense of control she had vanished.

“Collins here canvassed your neighborhood yesterday, asked some questions about you. Your neighbors find you a, uh, colorful personality. Your comings and goings attract more attention than you might realize.”

This was news to Tess, who thought she had successfully disappeared into this leafy, quiet neighborhood, taking on the camouflage of seminormalcy, just another working gal. Oh, sure, there were her dogs, especially Esskay, who was notorious for trying to eat the smaller dogs in Stony Run Park, mistaking them for squirrels and rabbits. And Crow, with his handsome face and exuberant personality, was much beloved by the not-so-desperate housewives who swapped recipes with him at the local coffeehouse. There was the time she had come home to find an intruder in the house and had ended up crawling across the yard on her belly, skirt up to her hips, gun in hand. But even this had seemed all so Anne Tyler idiosyncratic, the kind of gentle lunacy on which North Baltimoreans prided themselves. Certainly she was no more notable than Mr. Parrish, with his nightly drunken coasts.

Mr. Parrish. Fuck. And the police report on the incident. What was that fake name that Crow had given?

“Bob Smith,” the prosecutor read from a photocopy. “Believed to be age sixteen, of 400 Battery Avenue, an address that would put him in the middle of the harbor. Is Bob Smith the correct name for the young man who was staying with you?”

“If it’s the name in the report, then it’s the name my boyfriend gave the police. He’s the one who brought the kid home.”

“Yes, and given that the police decided that fault couldn’t be ascertained in the accident and left it to the insurance companies to untangle, they probably don’t care if the name is correct or not. But we do. Is this the name of the young man who stayed with you, Miss Monaghan? And is this young man the source you’re protecting?”

There’s no time limit, she reminded herself, no penalty for not speaking immediately. Think this through, anticipate where they’re going.

“I should probably have my lawyer with me,” she ventured.

“As I said, we can go downtown to wait for him.”

She should do that. But she was tired and hungry, two factors on which they were clearly banking, and she didn’t want to sit in some uncomfortable chair all evening, waiting for Tyner to return home. The opera, she remembered. He and Kitty had season tickets. Box seats-hardly an indulgence for a man in a wheelchair. She imagined them holding hands, lost in some nineteenth-century melodrama while she was caught up in this twenty-first-century one.

“I can’t lie to you,” she said, her voice sorrowful.

Jenkins nodded in kind empathy, while the younger men just stared at her, sharp and impatient.

“I can’t lie to you-because it’s a federal crime to lie to you. If there was anything for the average American to glean from the exhaustive coverage of the Martha Stewart case, it’s that it’s against the law to lie to federal investigators. So I can’t lie to you. I just won’t answer that question, if that’s okay.”

Jenkins’s smile vanished. “This is your source,” he said, pointing to the photocopy of the police report. “This is your source, and your boyfriend made a false statement to a police officer, and he can be prosecuted for that.”

Tess said nothing, focusing all her energy on remaining impassive. It took an amazing amount of effort, but she imagined herself as the Sphinx. Of course, Oedipus had defeated the Sphinx, but these three men didn’t appear to be anointed by destiny.

“We can’t find Bob Smith at his nonexistent address on Battery Avenue. But we did find a Bob Smith in the database of people who have been convicted of drug crimes. Can we assume that’s your Bob Smith?”

Sphinx. Sphinx, sphinx, sphinx. The word repeated in her head like a key on a tinny piano, pressed over and over again, or a drip from a faucet. Sphinx, sphinx, sphinx. Plink, plink, plink.

“Okay, we’re going to assume that it is. And given that Mr. Smith has served time for distribution-related charges, we’re going to assume that you’re working with him. And given that Mr. Smith had permission to use your vehicles, we can seize those, along with your personal and professional accounts. To keep that from happening, all you have to do is set the record straight and tell us who stayed at your house last week. Once we establish that your Bob Smith is not the convicted drug dealer, we won’t have to pursue these charges against you.”

Tess did not doubt that they could do everything they said they could. But she was reasonably certain they could not do it this very minute and that they were not prepared to charge her with anything. If they were, they would have taken her downtown at the outset. They were bullies and bluffers-for now. They were trying to do an end run around the grand jury proceedings, bigfoot the case on the sly, and grab all the glory for themselves.

“What’s the DOB on your Bob Smith?” she asked on a hunch.

“January thirtieth, 1969,” the prosecutor said swiftly, one of those bright boys who can’t resist giving an answer he knows, even as the older man frowned at him.

“Well, as you said, you’re looking for a teenager.”

“Enough,” said Jenkins. “Tell us the name of the boy who stayed here. You’ll regret it if you don’t, Miss Monaghan. I’m sure you think you’re being noble, but your loyalties are misplaced.”

“I can’t continue this conversation without my lawyer,” she said, much the way a polite child might say, The brussels sprouts look delicious, but I happen to be full.

It was the kind of moment that actually deserves to be called pregnant, a full and bursting moment in which it was clear that something was about to happen, but not what or how.

Then Whitney Talbot arrived.

“I was at Video Americain, so I grabbed a movie from the recommended shelf-Funny Bones, have you seen it? I thought we could order in from the Ambassador. Oh, and I picked up red wine and beer at Alonso’s, because Indian food is so hit-and-miss in terms of beverages, and I don’t trust your taste in wine.” She turned to the agents and rolled her eyes. “She still likes merlot.”

It was always interesting watching someone meet Whitney for the first time, trying to take in what would have been a sedate, preppy prettiness if she were ever quiet for more than twenty seconds. She made an especially striking impression tonight, dressed in ratty sweats that appeared to date from their college days. Tess must have caught her as she headed home from doing erg pieces at the boathouse.

It was also interesting to see how quickly Whitney could size up a situation. Her own breathless monologue finished, she regarded the three suited men in Tess’s dining room, dropped the alcohol and videos on the table, then disappeared into the kitchen and began noisily gathering plates and glasses as if nothing unusual had happened. After pointedly setting two places at the table, she headed into Tess’s office, where she could be heard noisily punching the buttons on the phone and demanding Indian food. All for show, Tess assumed. The Ambassador didn’t deliver.

“Where is your boyfriend, Miss Monaghan?” Jenkins asked.

“I don’t know exactly.”

“Is that the truth?”

“He told me he was scouting bands for the club where he works.”

“He told you-interesting choice of words. It almost sounds as if you don’t quite believe him.”

“They’ve had a lot of off-and-on moments, those two,” Whitney said, coming back into the living room with Tess’s digital camera. “Tess, did you forget your ritual?”

“Ritual?”

“Taking everyone’s photograph when they cross your threshold. You know, like John Waters does.” The local film director did in fact take Polaroids of everyone who entered his home, an obsession he had detailed for several magazines. Whitney quickly shot three photographs of the visitors, not giving them time to protest, then handed the camera to Tess. “Me, too. Remember, you shoot me every time.”

Tess followed her instructions, not sure what Whitney was up to, but confident there was, as always, a plan.

“There’s only going to be enough food for two,” Whitney said, her voice den-mother brisk, her hands on her barely existent hips. She looked as if she were about to start a rousing game of I’m a Little Teapot. “So unless you want to watch us eat-”

“I didn’t get your name.”

“Whitney Talbot.”

“As in the county?”

“As in the congressman,” she said. “The one they named the bridge after, on the upper shore? A Republican, but a moderate one in the Maryland tradition. Well, the old tradition. Life is so partisan now. We love Uncle Deucie dearly.”

“Uncle Deucie?”

“Trevor Sims Talbot Jr. The second. Therefore, Deuce. Therefore, Deucie.”

The three men exchanged a look, and the older one jerked his chin upward, indicating they should leave. It wasn’t Whitney’s name-dropping that had done the trick, Tess was sure of that much. Whitney’s uncle was the kind of gentlemanly pol who had gone out of style in these more strident times, and it was doubtful he had any clout in Washington. No, it was the sheer fact of Whitney’s presence, which was what Tess had counted on when she summoned her. They didn’t want a witness to this interview, however unofficial, especially someone like Whitney, whose remarkable confidence made her difficult to scare or cow. She was simply too much of a variable to control for.

“Enjoy your dinner,” Jenkins said. “We’ll get back to you.”

Whitney and Tess did not speak again until they heard the car’s engine turn over, the crunch of gravel, the disappearing whine of the motor. They sat at the table in silence, poured themselves red wine and sipped-contemplatively in Whitney’s case, numbly in Tess’s. Minutes later another car pulled up, and Tess tensed, but it turned out to be the Ambassador. Whitney had somehow cajoled them into making this one-time-only delivery. Lamb saag, savory meat samosas-it should have been great comfort food, but Tess was beyond being comforted.

“Project Zeus?” Whitney asked when they were alone again, using the code they had agreed on when Tess realized that Whitney also could be pressured to provide Lloyd’s name if anyone guessed her part in this whole affair. Other friends might have used an astronomical reference, but this Roman-to-Greek transposition of Lloyd’s surname was a natural for two former English majors.

“Yeah. Feds.”

“Shit.”

“What was that thing with the photos?”

“I couldn’t be sure who they were. If they weren’t official, they would have balked, right? Besides, it freaks people out when you pull a camera on them. When you call me like that, I know it’s because you’re trying to fuck with someone. I was just doing my part.”

Tess raised her glass to her friend. “You did beautifully.”

“So what do they want? I mean, I know what they want, but why are the feds stepping in? They were content to let Howard County have this investigation when it was a gay pickup gone wrong.”

“I guess there’s glory in it now, avenging a fallen colleague whose death may have something to do with the drug cases he prosecuted. I don’t want to think about it, much less talk about it. Let’s hope this movie you brought over is good for a few laughs.”

Funny Bones was good for quite a few laughs, although not quite in the straightforward way the title had seemed to promise. Things went unexplained-Oliver Reed and those strange eggs-and there was a moment in which everything literally hung in the balance. It was, in fact, one of the few films that Tess had ever seen in which she could not predict the tenor of the ending, could not figure out if she was watching a comedy or a tragedy.

It made for an admirable quality in a movie, she decided, but an unnerving situation in one’s own life.

FRIDAY
20

Gabe didn’t have a photographic memory, although he had a good one. Gabe’s talent was that he knew paper, as if it were a language unto itself, an unmapped country. Gabe was good at paper even when it wasn’t paper, when it was just a facsimile of a document captured in a computer screen. If files and forms were women, Gabe would have been the Casanova of his time. In fact, if Gabe had been content to play to his greatest strength, he would be a forensic accountant, being summoned to testify as an expert witness in corporate scandals.

But Gabe had disliked the idea of life on the sidelines, waiting for things to happen. That wasn’t how he saw himself. So he had chosen the prosecutorial track, hoping that his knack for paper, for details, would pay off.

Finally it had.

“Barry told me that you expect to get a subpoena soon,” said the point guy at the bank, a former fed, just as Jenkins had predicted. “Until then we can’t give you copies. And, technically, you shouldn’t even take notes, so I’ll pat you down for pad and paper.”

He waved his hands in front of Gabe, maintaining three feet of space between them. “Nope, I don’t feel any thing. Anyway, enjoy yourself.”

The files were so straightforward that Gabe didn’t really need to take notes. Tess Monaghan maintained only two accounts at the bank, one personal, one corporate, both small. There were bumps of incoming cash here and there, but in amounts that jibed with the nature of her business.

But not for a while, he noticed. She was living pretty close to the margins these past few months. Interesting, but not necessarily of use. In fact, kind of the opposite. He wanted to find some big, mysterious sum, something that he could say looked like it had come from a drug dealer or an individual otherwise involved in a criminal enterprise. But this was just, well, pathetic. He wondered how she could afford that house up in Roland Park. According to the property-tax records he had checked this morning, she had bought it at a bargain price, $175,000. Even accounting for Baltimore ’s overheated real-estate market and the fact that it was probably a falling-down wreck when she acquired it, that was a suspiciously good deal. City rolls had it assessed at $275,000 for tax purposes, and that was low, based on his quick eyeballing of the place. She had probably made some of the improvements on the sly. Great, he could get the city to fine her for not pulling the proper permits. Yeah, that would scare her. Given her father’s juice as a former liquor-board inspector, she probably had the city types eating out of her hand.

The father-that was another lead. Gabe called up Patrick Monaghan’s records, but the old man didn’t keep the corporate account at this bank, just the personal ones. Wait, here was some overlap-a check from daughter to father, for $7,000, made out last fall after she had a fairly respectable deposit in her business account, which she then transferred to her personal account. Like a lot of self-employed types, she didn’t appear to pay herself a salary per se, just transferred a regular amount to her personal checking every month. Anyway, the father was still worth pursuing. All relatives were good. Even the toughest targets got upset when you started dragging family members into things.

Which brought him to the boyfriend. Gabe pulled out his pad to remind him of the full name-Edward “Crow” Ransome IV. Sounded like some inbred preppie to Gabe, the kind of guy that he had loathed in law school. The type who didn’t study, didn’t sweat making law review because he had a soft place to land at Daddy or Granddaddy’s firm. Barry’s preliminary inquiry had established that Ransome kept a brokerage account, but he had his checking at this bank, too. God bless consolidation. Five years ago they might all have been at different places, but there were fewer and fewer banks these days.

Fuck. He did a double take, counted the zeros again. Oh, this was rich, pun intended. This was fascinating. He should check into this further. No-back up, rethink. He didn’t need to know any more about this, not yet. He just had to be there to see the girlfriend’s face when she was asked how much she knew about her boyfriend’s finances. Gabe had seen how they lived, what they drove, what they owned, and it didn’t correlate with this kind of dough-re-mi.

It was going to be sweet, lobbing this little grenade at that self-satisfied bitch.

The last thing Tess felt like doing on Friday was starting a new job, but there it was on her calendar, indifferent to her red-wine hangover and generally jittery state. It wasn’t even supposed to be her gig; Crow had agreed to do the undercover work on this one, which would have come much more naturally to him. In fact, it was one of Crow’s do-gooding buddies who had hired her. A board member of a local nonprofit had asked Tess to investigate its “public face”-an up-from-welfare success story who had effectively branded the charity with her name and image. Ellen Mars was the charity, the charity was Ellen Mars. She was a beloved figure, an inspirational role model-and the world’s shoddiest bookkeeper, putting the organization at risk for an IRS audit. Incompetent or crook, that was the question bedeviling the board member, who didn’t dare pursue the inquiry openly. He had asked Tess to volunteer for the organization on a part-time basis. It had been her plan to send Crow in her stead-he was the philanthropist, after all, and would arouse far less suspicion. He also had some context for how a charity should be run, given his work recycling leftovers. But Crow was gone and the client was anxious, so Tess got up Friday morning and reported for her afternoon shift at the Ellen Mars West Side Helping Hand.

As soon as she turned off her block, she saw a familiar car idling at the small traffic island on Oakdale, not far from where Mr. Parrish had collided with Lloyd-and Tess’s life. The beige sedan followed her, not even bothering to lag back or disguise its intentions. Mike Collins was at the wheel, Barry Jenkins in the seat beside him. Tess gave them a little wave in the rearview mirror, but they didn’t acknowledge her in any way. That made it creepier somehow. They were following her yet refusing to concede the fact that she existed, that she was another person on the planet. Tess wanted it to be like the cartoon with the sheepdog and the wolf punching in and out at the time clock. Just a job, nothing personal. But these guys seemed to feel it was extremely personal. She wondered if they had known Youssef, worked with him. How would she feel if she believed that someone was obstructing the investigation into a colleague’s death?

Then again, how would she feel if she turned Lloyd over to them and he was charged with a murder he clearly didn’t commit or was killed by those keen to obscure their own involvement? If only they could make an arrest without Lloyd. They knew everything that Lloyd knew. Why wasn’t that enough? After her second missed stop sign, she reminded herself that she needed to look at the road in front of her, not the car behind her.

A half-dozen volunteers had gathered at the West Side rowhouse that served as Ellen Mars’s headquarters, all first-timers, an excellent setup for Tess’s intentions, although it gave her a pang to realize how easily she blended with these middle-aged North Side types in their embroidered sweaters and pressed jeans. Ellen Mars was nowhere to be seen, but a younger woman who bore a strong resemblance to the eponymous founder came in and began assigning jobs-someone to sort the donated clothing for the women’s shelter, someone to inventory the foodstuffs that had come in the day before, someone to open the mail, helping record the checks and cash-

“I could do that,” Tess said. “I was an accounting major in college.”

The woman-she had yet to introduce herself-led Tess to a beyond-cluttered desk behind the kitchen. Tess couldn’t help notice how ratty the little rowhouse was. Upkeep was difficult on those old places, which hadn’t been built with the expectation of lasting for centuries. But this place was simply unclean. She watched a roach meandering along the baseboard. It was headed, no doubt, for the food-encrusted dishes in the sink.

“Bills here,” the woman said, placing her hand on one stack. “Other correspondence here.” She indicated a stack of similar size. “You write down our obligations in one column and the day’s incoming receipts on the other.”

“Write them…?” Tess opened her empty hands, bereft of pen, bereft of paper.

The woman dug around in the desk’s drawers, unearthing a legal pad and pencil.

“I didn’t get your name,” Tess said.

“Phoebe. I’m Ellen’s sister.”

“Is Ellen here?”

“She’s in Annapolis for Ellen Mars Appreciation Day.”

“I’d think you’d want to be there.”

“Chil’, if I went to every ceremony honoring Ellen, I’d never get anything done. If it ain’t the White House or the queen of England, I can’t see taking the time. Okay, Verizon-we owe nine hundred and fifty dollars.”

“How can the phone bill be that large?” Tess, almost forgetting her role, was on the verge of advising Phoebe that Verizon had packages with limitless long distance for as little seventy-five dollars a month, and there were probably better deals still.

“It’s three months past due. Plus, Dwayne-that’s my cousin-met some woman on the Internet, ran up a bill. Turns out she lives in Poland. Or maybe it was Prague. One of those P places.”

“So it’s a personal expense.”

“No, he used the phone right here.”

Tess started to object, then remembered this was the kind of information she was here to gather. Apparently Ellen Mars didn’t recognize any division between Ellen Mars the nonprofit and Ellen Mars and family. Within thirty minutes Tess had a neat column of numbers, showing almost three thousand in obligations for the organization, with most of the bills marked as second or third notices, and an incoming haul of eighteen hundred dollars. It had been almost touching to see the small checks and creased bills that made up that amount. Some people sent in as little as five dollars, often with handwritten notes.

“Is this a typical day?” Tess asked Phoebe, who hovered close, snatching and examining each check as it emerged, recoiling from the bills.

“Oh, it gets slow toward spring and summer. ’Round Thanksgiving we start bringing in real money.”

Tess began doing the math in her head. Assuming, conservatively, that Ellen Mars West Side Helping Hand brought in seventy-five hundred a week on average, times fifty-two-that was almost four hundred thousand a year. Yet the board member who hired her said there were no salaried employees. And there didn’t seem to be much money spent on the headquarters, so-Phoebe’s sharp scream interrupted her thoughts.

“Police!” she said, and Tess thought she was calling for them, but she was simply identifying them, after a fashion. Mike Collins stood on the other side of the barred window above the desk, looking in at them. When Phoebe jumped and started, he gave her a wave and then pointed to Tess, effectively miming, Don’t worry, it’s her that we’re interested in.

“You got troubles?” Phoebe demanded.

“N-n-not exactly,” Tess said.

“But he’s police, right? Black man in a suit, gun on his hip-in this neighborhood he better be police.”

“Well, DEA. But he’s just…keeping an eye on me. It’s not what you think.”

“Honey, we can’t have that.”

“But-”

“No thank you. I don’t know what’s going on in your life, but we don’t need that around here. Thank you for coming in. You’re a good worker, and we’d welcome you back any day. But not your friend.”

Furious and embarrassed, Tess left. Her client’s suspicions were clearly justified, but what should have been a nice leisurely gig, with steady hours mounting up every week, had just been ruined. She’d have to wait for Crow to come back, and when would that be? For a moment she tried to persuade herself that she was no longer obligated to keep her promise to Lloyd. She hadn’t bargained for the disruption it was causing to her life.

Then again, Lloyd hadn’t bargained on his friend’s being killed. Neither one of them had known what they were getting into, and now they were both stuck. Tess remembered a Yiddish folktale that she had heard when she was in court-ordered therapy. Her therapist was big on Yiddish folktales. He told her of a woman who set out on a journey that she had long intended. On a bridge a man handed her a rope, told her not to let go, and then jumped over. If she left him, he would die. The woman had to see that the man’s choices were not hers and that she was not obliged to stand there and hold the rope.

Tess had always assumed she was the woman in that scenario, but now she was beginning to think she was the man. She had handed the rope to Lloyd, and he had walked away without a qualm. Or would it be the other way around, if she gave him up?

She started up her car and began to head home, then thought better of it. The sky was overcast, but the promise of spring was in the air. Why not take a little drive? Drawing on a knowledge of Baltimore ’s streets that is unique to firefighters, patrol cops, and former reporters, she made her peripatetic way through the city, stopping as the mood struck her. She went to Louise’s Bakery for chocolate drop cookies and a loaf of stale bread, which she then distributed to the geese and ducks along the banks of the Gwynn’s Falls. And everywhere that Tess went, her little lambs were sure to follow. She headed back downtown, ducked into the parking garage beneath the Gallery shops-then shot right back out on the other side. The maneuver gained her only a minute, but a minute was enough to lose them in downtown traffic, a victory in principle. They would be there tomorrow and the next day and the day after. But, for today, she was triumphant.

Her victory proved to be even shorter-lived than she had thought. She and the dogs were coming back from a longer-than-usual evening walk when she saw Collins on her front porch. She tried, for one valiantly optimistic moment, to imagine a piece of good news that had brought him here. He was working for Publishers Clearing House in his off-hours. She had been recognized as a point of light. No, that was a previous administration. Perhaps it was all a mistake and the federal government wanted to apologize for its treatment of her.

But she didn’t think the federal government did apologies. Waco, Ruby Ridge, WMDs. No, not their forte.

“Mike Collins, DEA,” he said, as if they had never met.

“I remember,” she began as Esskay lunged forward, her nose jabbing into Collins’s crotch. Miata, however, held her ground and semigrowled. It was more throat clearing then menace, a sound indicating that Miata could be trouble if she deemed it necessary. Jesus, what had the Doberman’s previous owner done to create this knee-jerk racism in a dog?

“We’d like to talk to you downtown.”

“Didn’t we just go through this yesterday?”

“New info.”

“What?”

“Downtown,” he said.

“I’ll need my-”

“Lawyer. That’s fine.”

“May I tell him what this is about?”

“They’ll tell you both together.”

“Are you going back to the idea that I sheltered a drug dealer and you can use that to begin forfeiture on my house and car? Because-”

“Downtown.” If his voice had any inflection to it, he could have been Petula Clark.

“May I change?” She indicated her sweats, streaked with mud. The dogs had decided it was a good idea to ford the creek, in search of quarry that turned out to be a falling leaf.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I need to call someone about the dogs-”

“Your boyfriend?”

Something about the question-an underlying keenness, a just-perceptible sharpening in Collins’s tone-made Tess uneasy.

“No, the kid who takes care of my dogs when I’m not around. Am I coming home tonight?”

He shrugged. “Remains to be seen.”

“Then you should let me change.”

“Look-” He took a step toward her, and Miata produced a full-throated snarl. Tess was touched by the Doberman’s devotion but doubtful that it would help her, in the long run, for Miata to bite a DEA agent.

“Let me put the dogs away, call my sitter, and change into jeans, okay? It’s not like I’m going to pull a Goldilocks, jump out a window. I’m not under arrest, right?”

“Not yet.”

Tess studied his face, hoping for a wisp of a smile, the tiniest crack in the stony façade. The FBI agent, Jenkins, had seemed human at least, and there had been a blustery quality to the young prosecutor that allowed Tess to believe she could outwit him. Collins, however, made her feel like growling, too, if only because she sensed he was enjoying himself a little too much.

“I’m going inside. Don’t follow, okay? Stay on the porch. My dog doesn’t like you, for whatever reason, and with Crow gone, she’s super protective of me. I can’t guarantee your safety if you follow me inside.”

“I guess she hasn’t seen a lot of brothers in this neighborhood.”

“Brothers?” The word sounded strange in Collins’s mouth, which was funny. Usually it was only white people who sounded ridiculous aping street slang. “Oh, well, I mean, she’s seen-”

She caught the name, just, before it teetered off her tongue. She had been about to say, She’s seen Lloyd, and come to think of it, she didn’t like him much either.

“She’s seen…?”

“A lot,” Tess said flatly. “Her former owner was very badly beaten when Miata wasn’t there to protect him. That’s why she’s so territorial.”

“I’m not worried. If the dog comes at me, I can always shoot her.”

“Is that your idea of a joke?” His noncommittal shrug didn’t fill her with confidence. “Just stay here, okay?”

She opened the storm door, stumbling in her haste over a FedEx package that had been left there. She scooped it up and ran inside, shutting and locking the door behind her. Moving quickly, she did all she said she would do, then tried to think if there was anything else to be accomplished before surrendering. Her eyes fell on the package, which she had thrown aside. It had been shipped from Denton, Maryland, and the sender was listed as E. A. Poe of Greene and Russell streets. Crow had been named for the poet and storyteller, and he knew that Tess was familiar with Poe’s final resting place at that downtown intersection. Inside was a cell phone, and when she powered it up, there was already a message.

“Use this phone for seventy-two hours,” Crow’s voice said in her ear, and she almost wept at the familiar sound. “Then a new one will arrive. That way, even if they put a trace on your known numbers, they can’t track these calls to a cellular tower and figure out where I am. We’re okay. We’re safe. I’ve been trying to persuade Lloyd to come back on his own and cooperate, but he’s just not ready yet. If I bring him back now, I think all he’ll do is run.”

Collins began rapping on the front door. It was a hard yet matter-of-fact knock, dull, steady, and utterly unnerving. Miata barked and snarled, while the usually silent Esskay gave a high yodel, almost as if in pain. Tess shoved the “safe” phone in the laundry hamper, below some truly disgusting workout clothes that should keep anyone but the most determined searcher at bay. It wouldn’t matter if they came back with a warrant, but it was all she could do for now.

21

“When I was growing up, if we wanted a Jacuzzi, we had to fart in the bathtub.”

“Trading Places,” Crow said. “That movie was made before you were born, Lloyd. I’m surprised you know it.”

Lloyd shrugged, leaned back in the small hot tub. “It was on all the time when I was little. It’s still on all the time. There’s, like, a million movies in the world, but on television it’s always Trading Places, Die Hard, and Pretty Woman.”

The two were soothing their sore muscles at the Clarion, a beachfront hotel south of the Delaware-Maryland line. Ed had long ago arranged a swap of sorts with the hotel’s manager, giving him free passes to FunWorld in exchange for offseason privileges at this small exercise room, with its indoor pool, its hot tub, and a few ancient exercise machines. A gym snob such as Tess would have been appalled by the antiqueness of it all, but it was a fine place to soak at day’s end. Ed told the manager that Crow and Lloyd were his workers, and that was the simple truth, after all. They had put in two days of scraping and painting now. When they weren’t painting, they were applying oil to the dried-out hinges on the ten garage doors that ringed the amusement park. The merry-go-round horses were next in line, waiting to be reunited with their poles.

On the first day of April, the pool area was empty, with not even a lifeguard on duty. But then this whole part of the world felt empty this time of the year. It was pleasant, Crow thought. He wouldn’t mind living here, September through May, where the loudest noise was the ocean and there seemed to be more room in the sky for the light, pale and diffuse. But Tess could never leave Baltimore for more than an extended vacation.

Lloyd looked over at the pool, which had a slide at the shallow end. “I knew they had big water slides, but I didn’t know they had little ones.”

“You like to go to water parks?”

He shook his head. “Been to Great America and seen the wave pool, but I got no use for that.”

“Do you know how to swim, Lloyd?”

He gave an elaborate shrug, as if to suggest that swimming was esoteric or exotic. Crow might as well have asked him if he took ballet lessons or made sushi at home.

“You want to learn?”

“Naw.”

“Why not?”

Lloyd shook his head again, as if Crow were being willfully igorant.

“I could teach you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know, that’s a stereotype.”

“What?”

“African-Americans and swimming.”

“Ain’t my fault.” Said quickly, defensively, as if Lloyd were used to being blamed for all sorts of things that weren’t his fault.

“But you could challenge it. Upend it.”

Lloyd continued to shake his head, uninterested.

“What if knowing how to swim could save your life?”

“How that gonna happen? Flood gonna come down Monument Street one day?”

Even here, more than a hundred miles from East Baltimore, Lloyd still couldn’t imagine a life beyond a small nexus of streets.

“You’re not on Monument Street now. You’re sitting a couple hundred yards from an ocean. And it was only a few months ago that an entire ocean rose up and killed almost two hundred thousand people.”

“I don’t remember nothin’ about how the people died because they didn’t know how to swim.”

Crow laughed. “You’ve got me there. There are some situations you can’t prepare for.”

Lloyd nodded wearily, as if Crow had just realized something that Lloyd had been born knowing.

“When we get to go back?”

“You tell me. We can go back anytime you agree to talk to the police.”

“Uh-huh. That’s gonna get me killed.”

“And going back without talking to the police might get you killed, too. So what’s it going to be?”

“I’m so bored.” He tilted his head back against the lip of the Jacuzzi, stared at the ceiling.

“So you want to go back?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. If I could just go to a club or something, get out for a night.”

“No clubs around here, Lloyd. And we can’t go back to Baltimore just to go clubbing. We could go to the movies, though.”

“Seen all that shit at the Sun ’n’ Surf.”

“Maybe we could find some decent paperbacks at the bookstore up in Bethany Beach.”

Lloyd rolled his eyes. “Man, we listen to books all day. Do we have to read ’em at night, too?”

“Ed said he might finish blowing out the bumper-car machines with the air hose today.”

“He saves all the good jobs for himself,” Lloyd grumbled. “He gets to stay inside, out of the wind, tinker with shit, while we just paint and scrape, scrape and paint.”

“You’re missing the bigger picture, Lloyd. Once the bumper cars are up and running, Ed will need to do some test drives.”

“Now, that,” Lloyd said, “is something I could do.”

Given Lloyd’s experience behind the wheel of the Volvo, Crow somehow doubted that. Then again-no stick shifts on bumper cars. Maybe Lloyd would do better.

“Your finances look pretty shaky,” Gabe Dalesio informed Tess an hour later. She was in an office in the federal courthouse, not an official interrogation room, but that didn’t comfort her.

“It’s been a thin few months, but things are turning around. I started an excellent job today-although you guys pretty much ruined it for me. And the Beacon-Light owes me quite a bit of money.”

“They paid for you to turn over that source? I didn’t think legitimate newspapers played that way.”

“I did a seminar on investigative techniques. The two things aren’t related.” Not directly.

“You were asked to teach their reporters how to report? You think they would have picked someone more successful.”

Tess supposed that Gabe thought this would hurt her feelings. She simply looked away, not even bothering to shrug.

“It’s been established,” Tyner said, “that my client doesn’t have a lot of cash in her accounts. Is that a federal crime now? Is federal enforcement going to be part of the overhaul of Social Security, with citizens being rounded up if they’re not putting away enough for retirement?”

“It’s just I don’t get why she’s carrying her boyfriend and all. Why doesn’t he pitch in?”

“He does what he can. The house is in my name, so I pay the mortgage, and that’s how I want it. But we split everything else.”

“That’s big of him, going dutch when he’s sitting on almost a hundred fifty thousand in his checking account.”

Tess didn’t have to fake her laugh at the bluff. “Don’t be ridiculous. Crow doesn’t have that kind of money.”

Jenkins didn’t literally elbow the young prosecutor aside, but he did square his shoulders back, signaling that the interview was now his. “According to bank records, he deposited that amount in his account on Tuesday, right before his…um, road trip. That was what you told us, wasn’t it? That he went out of town for business?”

Again she had to tell the truth without telling too much. “He’s out of town, and I don’t know where he is.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“No.” Listened to his voice mail less than an hour ago, but not spoken to him.

“Heard from him?”

“He left a message, said he was safe.”

“Safe?” Shit. “Unusual choice of words, don’t you think? Why wouldn’t he be safe?”

“It’s what he said. I didn’t think about it.”

“Safe,” Jenkins repeated. “Safe. Is it dangerous, what he does?”

“I don’t really know.”

“Of course, he’s got five thousand in cash on him, so maybe that’s why he’s worried. See, the deposit was for a hundred and fifty K, less five thousand.”

Five thousand? Five thousand dollars? Crow didn’t have enough money to fix the muffler on his Volvo.

“You and your boyfriend ever use illegal drugs?”

Tess glanced at Tyner. “She doesn’t have to answer that question. Self-incrimination.”

“Okay, your boyfriend ever use illegal drugs?”

Tess sat, stony-faced.

“Your boyfriend dealing in illegal drugs? Because I have to tell you, that’s the only thing that makes sense. The cash, the road trip. I bet he deals out of your daddy’s bar. Lord knows that business needs all the help it can get, too.”

“He would never do that.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I know him.”

“Yet you didn’t know he had all this money.”

“I never said that.”

“Did you? Did you know?”

Again there was the not-lying problem. The federal rules seemed so unsporting. “His parents are very well-to-do.”

“I guess we’ll have to put them on our list.”

“List?” She hated the way her voice squeaked, making the word two syllables.

“Yeah. We’ve already started checking into your finances, your father’s. I mean, when there’s a drug dealer in the family, who knows how far it goes?”

“You keep saying that as if you’ve established the fact.” Tyner spoke, as Tess was having trouble with complete sentences. “I know the young man. He is not a drug dealer.”

“We think he is.”

“Based on?”

“Information that we’ve gathered.”

Tess’s mind felt as if it might split in two. One part was stuck on this stupid accusation, trying to shoo it away, but wondering maybe, what if, did he…? The other part was trying to be heard over these shrill fears, signaling to her urgently. You can’t lie to them, but / You can’t lie to them, but / You can’t lie to them, but…

They can lie to you.

“It’s illegal for me to tell you anything that I know to be untrue, right?”

“Yes,” Jenkins said, leaning forward on the table, hands clasped as if in prayer. So friendly, so kind, so inviting.

“Then why is it legal for you to lie?”

Jenkins’s mask of collegiality slipped then. Just for a moment, but Tess saw the angry man behind the warm and fuzzy façade. “We haven’t said anything that’s demonstrably untrue,” he said.

“But you can, right? You can say anything you want to get me to talk, but if I say the least little thing wrong, you’ll pounce on me. It hardly seems fair. If you’ve got proof my boyfriend is a drug dealer, then show me. Get a warrant to search my house.” She remembered belatedly the phone buried beneath her dirty underwear, as well as the minuscule amount of marijuana concealed in her unicorn box, and regretted the offer, but there was no turning back. She was on a roll. “Show one iota of evidence that he’s done anything but turn up with a lot of money in his checking account. If he deposited it in one lump sum, the bank has to report it, right? Hardly seems like the work of a criminal mastermind trying to launder money. And where did the funds come from anyway?”

“That’s for us to know,” said the young prosecutor, sounding for all the world like a peevish eight-year-old. He might as well have added, “and for you to find out.”

“You don’t have anything,” Tess said. “You’re just bullies.”

Collins stiffened, the first time Tess had seen him show any unwilled reaction. Gabe Dalesio looked as if he wanted to fling himself on the ground and drum his heels until Tess did or said whatever he wanted.

Jenkins, however, was back to playing nice.

“Look, I have a daughter about your age. I know how things happen. You meet a fellow, you’re in love, you don’t look too closely or ask too many questions. You know what I mean? Or there are those girls, the ones who get, like, life sentences in federal prison because they took a bag on the train to New York, no questions asked, and it turned out to be heroin. I’d hate to see that happen to you.”

Tess widened her eyes, so ingenuous as to be disingenuous. “What’s her name?”

“What?”

“Your daughter.”

He paused just a beat. “Marie.”

“You got a photograph of her?”

“What?”

“Your daughter. I figure you must have one, you being so loving and all. So concerned.”

Jenkins leaned back, no longer making a pretense of affection and concern. “Okay, so I got two sons. But we’re not talking about me. Where the hell is your boyfriend?”

“I don’t know,” Tess said, never happier to be ignorant. “I just don’t know.”

They kept her for another hour, then released her, reminding her that she was making a grave mistake, that she should demand Crow’s whereabouts the next time he checked in, that they were far from finished prying into her life. In front of them, she was at once blithe and resolute, but she began sagging as soon as she got into the elevator and felt strangely dizzy by the time she and Tyner reached the street level.

“Are they lying?” she asked Tyner as they made their way into the parking garage, where homeless men slept on the steaming grates. “Could Crow really have this kind of money?”

“I don’t know, but it would shed some light on his happy-go-lucky nature. Easy to be a blithe spirit when you don’t have to worry about making a living.”

“He was stone-cold broke when I found him in Texas. He’s always refused his parents’ attempts to help him out. Where does he suddenly come up with a hundred fifty grand? And why would he keep it secret from me?”

“You can ask him when he calls,” Tyner said. “But just remember-anything you know, these guys will make you tell eventually. I wouldn’t ask any question just now if I wasn’t sure of the answer.”

Ed made Crow and Lloyd wait until after dinner to test the bumper cars, delivering a rather ponderous lecture about how they worked. And while Lloyd took great pleasure in ramming Crow’s car from every angle, Ed delighted in gliding around and away from them, demonstrating a level of control that would do a NASCAR driver proud. “Try to catch me,” he yelled over his shoulder, and the younger men happily gave chase, futile as it proved to be. At one point Lloyd even demonstrated with an unmanned car exactly how the accident with Mr. Parrish had happened, and Crow could see that it had indeed been Mr. Parrish’s fault.

He knew he would sleep particularly well that night, and Lloyd didn’t even complain about the cool, salt-laden breeze that came in through the open window. Sleeping with the windows open had been an ongoing contest between them since they first arrived.

“Crow?” Lloyd said, his voice drowsy.

“Yes?”

“What we gonna do tomorrow night?”

It was almost eleven when Tess, just on the edge of sleep, heard her laundry hamper ringing. She could have reached the phone before it switched into voice mail, but she didn’t even try. She lay in bed, listening to the burst of music, one of the few classical airs she recognized, the beginning of Madama Butterfly. Had Crow programmed that into the phone for her before he slipped it into the FedEx pouch? Puccini gave way to the double beep indicating that a message had been left. She got up then, but not to retrieve the phone. Suddenly wide awake, she decided she would need a hit of pot to recapture the unconsciousness that had been so close just a few minutes earlier.

Do you or your boyfriend use illegal drugs? You betcha, Mr. FBI man. Especially now that you showed up in my life.

The unicorn box was gone. Had Crow taken it in anticipation that the house might be searched? Where did Crow buy the little bits of pot he brought into the house anyway? Where was Crow? Who was Crow? She had met his parents, seen the house where he had grown up. He was no drug dealer. If he were one, he’d be the world’s worst, extending credit to junkies, declining to maximize profits by cutting the purity of what he sold. Where had the money come from? Why had it popped up in his account on the very day he ran away? Was Crow with Lloyd, truly?

The only thing worse than having so many questions about the man she loved was being afraid of the answers. Not so much because she feared that Crow had done something nefarious, but because Tyner was right: Knowledge was dangerous in this case. The three caballeros were going to come back to her, again and again. Right now the only thing Tess had going for her was ignorance. For Crow’s own good, she should avoid speaking to him directly. She wasn’t even sure she should listen to the voice mail he had left.

But in the end she could not maintain her resolve that strictly. She pulled the cell from her laundry hamper and, after a few fumbling missteps, retrieved the new message.

“I miss you,” a familiar voice said. “I love you. Call me on this number when you get a chance.”

She meant to press 2 to save it, but she hit 3 instead, erasing it forever.

Check yes or no. Wasn’t there a country song by that title a few years back? Not that Gabe listened to that shit, but that lyric had somehow wormed its way into his consciousness, one of those songs you want to forget but can’t. Check yes or no. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, another country song. My wife ran away with my best friend, and I sure miss him. Okay, he watched CMT sometimes late at night when he couldn’t sleep. So sue him. He liked the female singers, that kind of big-hair denim-and-lace femininity-like Jersey girls but softer, more pliant. Better than counting sheep and quicker, too, because it just took one. Robert Bork laws be damned, Gabe wasn’t going to have a pay-per-view porn bill come back to haunt him. Besides, who needed porn when regular cable went as far as it did? Proud to be an American, yes siree, because at least I can say that I’m free-free to have my mortgage application pulled, along with tax returns for the past five years, and never be the wiser for it.

Gabe was back in his office, his real one, not the fake-o one they had used to interview the Monaghan woman. He had thought that was pretty sly on Jenkins’s part, taking her to the offices that theU.S. attorney had so recently vacated for this plusher joint across the street. The courthouse had an ominous vibe after hours, a real ghost-town feel. Plus, it meant no snooping colleagues would see what they were up to. But he could do the paperwork at his own desk late into the night, and no one would ever notice. It was going on 1:00 A.M., and here was the bull’s-eye, all he needed.

Gabe found it ironic, the ultimate proof that what you didn’t know could hurt you. People were running around, all steamed because the Patriot Act let authorities examine one’s fuckin’ library records, and they had no clue what the government already had the power to do. Of course Gabe was for the Patriot Act. It was an essential tool. It didn’t go far enough, to his liking. That civil-liberties crap killed him. He wouldn’t blink an eye if someone wanted to open up his life. He had nothing to hide. But he didn’t need the Patriot Act for most of the penny-ante idiocy he pursued, not even in this chick’s case.

The boyfriend’s cash had been interesting, but it hadn’t done the job, had it? He had tried to tell Jenkins and Collins that was the risk of jumping on it so fast. They should have let him find something else before they threw that one at her, but they were so impatient. They had stretched and come up empty. If they had waited just a few more hours, he could have delivered this whammy to them. They called it the head shot. Once you had this on a person, they had no wiggle room. He was still going to go through the dad’s files, because bars were such sleaze magnets, but it was all gravy now. He had her. Pops was going to be the bonus.

Gabe had wanted to go after the reporters, too, but Jenkins had shot him down. At first, Gabe didn’t see why. The state shield laws didn’t apply in federal cases. And the press had no public support these days anyway. The reporters would probably fold in a second. But Jenkins had been adamant, said going after the newspaper would tip their hand. He was probably right. The too-many-cooks approach had spoiled this broth in the beginning. They needed to keep things close, keep the team lean and mean.

Gabe looked at his notations again. So simple, so lethal. A photocopy of a form that thousands of people filled out every day. Three checks-one from her father, two from her. Put it all together and it added up to thirty years in the federal system.

SATURDAY
22

“Salisbury?” Lloyd said, making a face. “You taking me to a club in Salisbury?”

“Where did you think we were going to go?”

“I dunno. Philly. Wilmington, even. A city.”

“Salisbury’s a city.”

“Sh-it.”

They were driving along U.S. 50, the route they had taken east three days earlier, which now felt like a lifetime ago. It was the weekend of daylight savings time, so what was today’s nine o’clock would be tomorrow’s ten o’clock. The sky was inky black, with just a few stars poking through, like rips in a scrim. Crow enjoyed the quiet and the darkness, which reminded him of the countryside close to his hometown of Charlottesville. But Lloyd was too busy pouting about their destination to notice the world around him.

“A club?” Ed Keyes had echoed when Crow consulted him, scratching his red-stubbled chin. “I might could get you in my VFW lodge, although I don’t think they allow minors.”

“You belong to the Veterans of Foreign Wars?”

“Vietnam,” he said. “I only joined to get access to the lodge parking lot. It’s near a good clamming spot, but you can’t park there unless you’re a member. They tow.”

“Lloyd wants to go hear music, be around people his own age.”

“Shit, I don’t know. Ask the cashier over to the Shore Farms. I think she’s got family down there.”

The bright-eyed young woman did know of a club, which she described in rushed, excited tones, clearly hopeful of an invitation. Crow felt almost guilty not taking her elaborate hints, but it would have complicated things, getting too close to anyone over here.

The club, such as it was, was in an abandoned bank in downtown Salisbury. From the outside there was little sign of the activity that marked the hot Baltimore clubs-a valet parker for the high-end SUVs, dolled-up women teetering on their high heels, the occasional gunshot-but the Shore Farms cashier had sworn by the place.

“Doesn’t look like much,” said Lloyd, every inch the world-weary connoisseur. But how much experience could he really have in clubland? He wasn’t of legal age, and he wasn’t someone who could pass for older than he was, even with the best fake ID. They wouldn’t have been able to come here if it weren’t for the fact that it was “Teen Night,” an alcohol-free evening for the high school set.

Lloyd pimp-walked toward the door, determined to be unimpressed. But when the second set of doors opened, revealing a packed room of girls in filmy tops and tight jeans dancing to a hooky hip-hop song that Crow recognized from listening to WERQ, Lloyd couldn’t help smiling just a little. ’Twill do, his expression seemed to indicate, ’twill do.

“Sorry.” A bouncer’s thick arm came down, a swift and certain barrier, blocking Crow from the club.

“But I’m with him.”

“Teen Night,” the man said. “No one over nineteen admitted.”

“But-”

“You can come back and pick up your…son at midnight.”

“Today’s midnight or tomorrow’s midnight?” Crow asked.

“What?”

“Never mind. Look, I need to keep a watch on my friend. I promised his, um, people that I wouldn’t let him out of my sight.”

“He somebody?” Asked with 90 percent skepticism, 10 percent hope. Lloyd could be some on-the-rise rapper, up from Atlanta, passing through.

“You could say that.” Crow tried to load his voice with subtle insinuation, as if anyone who was anyone would recognize the young man who had just entered the club.

“And you’re, what? Like his bodyguard?”

Crow gave the slightest of nods. It was true, in a fashion.

“Tough shit,” the bouncer decreed, folding his arms across his chest. “See you at midnight. Tonight’s midnight.”

Crow waved frantically at Lloyd, who was disappearing into a group of teenage girls, but he paid no attention. Crow would simply have to sit outside the club for the next three hours. Ah, well, it was an opportunity to find a convenience store, pick up new phones. He wondered why Tess hadn’t called as instructed or at least left a message. Maybe he had chosen a provider that didn’t work too well in her area. He’d try a new one this time. It was strange, not speaking to Tess directly for almost a week. She must be up to her eyeballs in work. Shit-the Ellen Mars case. He had forgotten that he was supposed to help Tess with that. But she had to understand that nothing was as urgent as keeping Lloyd safe.

While part of Lloyd felt superior to the teenagers dancing to what was an outmoded song back in Baltimore, a tired old thing that had been at the height of its popularity last fall, the girls were as pretty as any he’d seen back home. A stranger in their midst, he wasn’t getting much play, but when he started cutting up, doing his trademark comic moves, they began to notice him. He set his sights on a dark-skinned shorty with processed hair and a juicy body. She didn’t seem to be with anyone in particular, and she let him dance closer and closer to her. Now he had her eye, and she was smiling at him, matching her moves to his. He was smoothing it out now, toning it down so he looked serious about what he was doing but keeping his face clownish because she seemed to respond to that.

Thing was, he didn’t have anything to tempt her with. Crow had paid his admission fee but neglected to give him any spending money, and he didn’t want to go in search of him now to ask. That would be weak. He didn’t have a car he could take her to, although he could always get one. That’s why he had started learning to steal cars in the first place, to impress girls. But that would probably be a bad idea here. Country police didn’t have enough work to fill their days. And the cracker types around here would probably come down hard on his black ass. No, he couldn’t invite her outside for a ride.

He felt the bump in his inside breast pocket, the unicorn box. Weed, now that was something he could offer.

He leaned in, his mouth close to her ear. She had a nice fruity smell. Might be gum or something she put on her hair.

“You smoke?” he asked.

Wide-eyed, she shook her head. What was this, like, Teen and Church Night?

“Wanna try?”

To his delight she nodded and took his hand, leading him to the bathrooms at the rear of the club. With a quick glance around for lurking authority figures, she ducked into the men’s room, and he followed. The stall’s lock was broken, but the old metal frame was warped enough to hold the door.

“You’re pretty,” he said, not thinking clearly, allowing what was in his head to pop out. That was a punk thing to say. Le’andro always said you shouldn’t compliment a girl too early in the game. “What’s your name?”

“Glory.”

“Gloria?”

“Uh-uh. Glory. You’re not from here, are you?”

“Naw,” he said pridefully. “I’m from Baltimore. East Side.”

There was an awkward silence, and he tried to think of something to ask her, but to his amazement and delight she started kissing him. She might not have smoked before, but she seemed familiar enough with this. Maybe he wouldn’t have to break out the weed after all.

But she stopped as abruptly as she had started. “Show me.”

“Show-”

“What you promised.”

He pulled out the box, showed her the cache within. Shit, he didn’t have papers. How was he going to make use of it?

“That sure is pretty,” she said, running her fingers over its surface. “When it’s empty, can I have it?”

“Ain’t gonna be empty for a while. There’s more than an evening of fun here.” Trying to hook her, set up the long-term play.

“Maybe you could put it in a Baggie, let me have the box tonight.”

“I don’t know…” He was reluctant to give up the box, for reasons he wasn’t sure he could explain even to himself. Glory began kissing him again and this time added the extra touch of placing one shy but game hand down the waistband of his pants. Okay, maybe she could have the box. He put the top back on it and returned it to his pocket so his hands could tend to her. Dancing, she had looked young, a babyish fourteen who just happened to have a grown girl’s body. He hadn’t counted on getting a lot from her. But now she seemed ready to do just about anything. He was trying to figure out if he should let it go now, give himself up to that warm hand or get her somewhere he could get inside her. Maybe if he sat down on the toilet seat and pulled her on him-

“What the fuck you doing?”

The stuck door was dislodged with such force that it caught Lloyd in the back, catapulting him forward into Glory, who all but fell into the toilet, which made her sputter and squawk in indignation. It would have been funny if he hadn’t been scared to death. Lloyd grabbed her and swung around, so she was between him and the invader, a tall guy with dark, angry eyes. And a gun. Fuck, even in the country, the niggas had guns.

“You her boyfriend?” he asked, trying to think how he would plead his case.

“I’m her brother.”

A boyfriend, Lloyd might could deal with. It would still be bad, he’d probably get the crap beat out of him, but a boyfriend might get that it was an honest mistake, the kind anyone can make when a girl leads you to a bathroom and begins kissing you. After all, if this was Glory’s boyfriend, that was probably how they had started. A brother-no chance. A brother would kill you if he could, just like that scene in Scarface. Lloyd did the only thing that seemed likely to save his ass, dropping to his knees and crawling out from under the stall, then running full-tilt into the club, trying to lose himself in the crowd.

He thought he heard a shot but told himself it had to be something else, a balloon popping, a car backfiring. At any rate, he didn’t look back, just kept running for the door. Out on the street-fuck, no Crow. No Crow! And Lloyd didn’t have time to look for his worthless ass. He just had to run as fast and far as he could and hope he was running away from trouble, not into it.

An hour before Teen Night was to end, Crow returned to the street with two new cell phones and a couple of magazines he had been delighted to find at the local Shore Farms-the Atlantic and Harper’s. He ran the heater as necessary, dispelling the chill from the car. The solitude was a nice break. He hadn’t really been alone since Lloyd had shown up on the doorstep Tuesday morning. He liked the kid, who could be good company when he wasn’t brooding or complaining, but it was nice to be alone, too.

As midnight approached, other cars began pulling up, parents fetching their kids. Crow hung back, aware that he was all too visible, a white guy picking up someone who obviously was not his son or younger brother. Ed was right. They had to be careful about drawing attention to themselves.

It was only when the bouncer, the one who earlier had denied him entrance to the club, padlocked the door that Crow realized that Lloyd was never coming out.