The Sugar House

chapter 9

CANNIBALISM WAS CONSIDERED A PRIVATE AFFAIR IN the state capitol, so the joint committee on ethics was allowed to meet behind closed doors. Reporters, with few other legislative stories to chase this time of year, lined the hall outside the hearing room, waiting for breaks in the action so they could try to gauge the progress of the hearings. Tess took her place next to them along the wall, wondering if Vasso had come and gone already. She could check out his office, in one of the pricey, refurbished town houses near State Circle, but everyone knew that Vasso was never in his office. A good lobbyist never was. The reporters, most of them strangers to her, looked at her curiously, trying to figure out why a civilian would be camping here. She recognized only one, Tom Stuckey, the slight Associated Press reporter who had been in Annapolis longer than any of the elected officials. Well into his fourth decade in the job, he was the closest thing the State House had to an institutional memory, yet he remained remarkably sane. But she couldn’t tell the Beacon-Light reporter from the Washington Tribune reporter, a sad state of affairs indeed. Tall, rangy men in their thirties, they both wore navy sports jackets, khaki pants, white shirts, and moderately interesting ties. On the other side of the hall, the television reporters were similarly indistinguishable, whether male or female-glossy of hair, vacant of eye.

“Hertel’s only problem,” one of the newspaper reporters was saying, “is that he’s a white guy. They kicked out Larry Young, so they have to expel a white guy to make it all nice and even. Especially since Young was acquitted of the criminal charges.”

“They already did that,” the other print reporter objected. “Gerry Curran, remember? They were already even-steven. This isn’t about affirmative action, this is about Dahlgren wanting to be a glory hog, trying to build up his name recognition for the congressional run.”

“He’s not going to run for the first,” the other scoffed. “He likes sure things too much.”

The two continued to argue, but it was a languid, no-stakes debate, its only purpose to pass the time. Tess smiled, remembering when a State House job had been her fervent ambition, back in her reporter days. Her bosses at the Star had worried her family was too connected to state politics. “It’s not that you’d be too nice. You’d go the other way, to prove you weren’t cutting anyone any slack,” the state editor had told her. “Besides, you’re young. You have all the time in the world.” The Star folded less than a year later, making the whole discussion moot.

The truth was, she wouldn’t have been much good, although not for the reasons the editor had cited. Political coverage required schmoozing, a skill Tess lacked. Few females could do it. The senators and delegates feared, quite rightly, that women didn’t play by the rules, that they wouldn’t protect them from their own verbal slips. Once, Whitney had been at a hearing on proposed legislation intended to ensure financial support for battered women. A senator from the upper shore had asked, in his drawling country-boy accent: “Under this bill, could a boy go out on a Saturday night, pick up a gal, have sex with her, pop her in the eye, and then have to pay her support and give up his house? Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”

The male reporters covering the story had let the comment go, but Whitney had written an editorial about it. The resulting fall-out had forced the chastened senator to work with the advocates to write a better bill, so it should have been a win-win scenario. But Whitney later told Tess that the senator was, on one level, right: The bill didn’t distinguish between violence in ongoing relationships and one-night stands gone bad. His question had been insensitive, but his eye for the law unerring. Whitney had won a little skirmish, only to lose an important ally.

The double doors of the hearing room opened and the cluster of reporters perked up. The only person to emerge, however, was Adam Moss, the pretty-boy aide to Senator Dahlgren. The television reporters didn’t appear to know who he was-after all, he wasn’t in the face book of senators and delegates. But the print reporters trailed him down the hall, cajoling him in soft voices. Tess saw no reason not to tag along. It was a public building, she was the public.

“You’ll have to ask the senator,” Moss was saying, his lovely mouth curved in a slight yet superior smile. “I’m not at liberty to speak for the record. The senator will tell you when he thinks the committee will vote.”

“Then what?”

“You remember the drill, how it worked with Senator Young. Although I think Senator Hertel, if recommended for expulsion, will see the wisdom in resigning, rather than forcing the General Assembly to kick him out.”

“You’re saying Hertel has agreed to resign?” Tess admired the reporters’ technique. They kept their pads in their back pockets, as if this were still a casual conversation, but the tenor of the conversation had changed. The game was afoot.

“There’s the senator,” Moss said, pointing back to the double doors, through which a steady stream of people now poured. The television reporters had clustered around Dahlgren, lobbying frantically for the live shots they needed to do at noon. “Ask him, once the television reporters are through. Or ask Hertel.”

A short, round man scurried by them, his head down. He looked pale and utterly confused, like a prize hog who had just been taken on a tour of the abattoir.

The print reporters loped down the hallway after him, leaving Tess and Moss alone.

“You’re not a reporter,” he said.

“I was.”

He stared her down and she was the one who finally broke the gaze, if only because it was unnerving, gazing into that perfect face. Adam Moss’s confidence was unseemly in one so young. Looking at him, Tess found herself thinking inexplicably of the Vermeer exhibit that had come to Washington a few years back. Adam Moss had the same golden light in his face.

“Do you find the legislative process so interesting, then?” he asked Tess.

“No,” she responded truthfully. “I came here looking for Arnold Vasso.”

“Are private detectives going to hire him to protect their interest next session? To ensure that people’s private lives remain as open as possible, so they can do their dirty little jobs?”

She did not recall her job had been mentioned when they met at the Sour Beef dinner.

“Vasso’s name cropped up in a file connected to my case. It’s a long shot, but he may be able to help me. If I can find him.”

Moss checked his watch. “Try Piccolo Roma, over on Main Street. Vasso has a standing reservation. And he’s going to be eating alone today, because his lunch date is standing him up.”

“Would that be you, or Senator Dahlgren?”

“You ask too many questions. You should learn how to take what is given to you, and leave gracefully.”

“Sorry, I don’t have your boarding school manners.”

“But you could acquire them,” Adam Moss said. “Anyone could, with just a little effort.”

Arnold Vasso’s regular table was in the window at Piccolo Roma, off to the side-visually prominent, but out of eavesdropping range.

“Mr. Vasso?” she asked, as if she wasn’t sure it was him. The fact of a question in her voice would stop him, she figured. Arnie Vasso wanted it both ways, wanted to work behind the scenes and still be well-known as a fixer. He had an enviable kind of fame, she supposed. Unknown to the public at large, but a star within this tiny galaxy.

“Guilty,” he said, his smile automatic, his hand shooting out and shaking hers, even though she had not offered it.

“I’m a private investigator in Baltimore. I’m trying to identify a girl who might be connected to a bar on Hollins Street -”

“I never touched her!” He threw his hands up in the air in mock innocence, still smiling.

“I guess that would be funny,” Tess said, “if she weren’t actually dead.”

Vasso had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry, when you said identify, it didn’t occur to me…I didn’t think you meant…”

Tess waited, letting him twist and stammer a little longer.

“The bartender at Domenick’s said he didn’t recognize her from the sketch I have. I went to see the owner, only to find out he’s been dead for almost a year. The widow never knew he had a bar. And, although you were his lawyer at the license hearing, she never heard of you either.”

Vasso looked around. A reflexive gesture for him. His eyes were probably always sliding from side to side, making sure no one more important had come into the immediate vicinity. Tess saw a bald man bent over a piece of paper several tables away, doodling on the back of a receipt with an old-fashioned fountain pen, but the restaurant was otherwise empty.

“Let me buy you lunch.”

“This really won’t take very long,” Tess said.

“Better yet. Then we can talk about more interesting things. Look, I don’t like to eat alone. Since the rules changed, and I’m not allowed to treat our public officials unless they declare it on their ethics forms, it’s harder for me to find someone to keep me company. Please, have a seat.” He gave her a shrewd look. “It doesn’t hurt anyone to be seen with Arnold Vasso.”

They were definitely being seen, and not just by the lunchtime crowd on Main Street, a mix of tourists and government workers. Tess had the feeling that the waiters were speculating on Vasso’s business with a woman who clearly was not one of his monied clients. Given the mix of people that Annapolis attracted, it was an informal town, so her jeans and turtleneck sweater were not out of place here. Still, she felt odd, sitting across from Vasso in his expensive blue suit. Expensive, but tight.

“That guy over there?” Vasso asked out of the corner of his mouth.

“Yes,” Tess said, glancing back at the bald man, who continued to doodle with small, tightly controlled strokes, as if he were working on an elaborate design.

“Meyer Hammersmith. You know him?”

“Know of him.”

“I can’t believe he’s working for Kenny Dahlgren. Hammersmith’s a classic limousine liberal, while Dahlgren’s the kind of Democrat who’d be at home in the far right wing of the Republican party. Politics makes-”

“Strange bedfellows?” Tess offered.

“No. I was going to say politics makes me hungry. What are you having?”

They ordered, and Vasso seemed almost amused at the amount of food Tess required. In fact, now that she was sitting across from him, Vasso seemed amused by everything Tess said and did.

“Are you really a private investigator?” he asked.

“Yes. I got my license by apprenticing with a former policeman.” A former policeman who did nothing more than lend his name, Keyes, to her business and take a small commission at month’s end.

“Gun and badge and everything?”

“Not a badge,” she corrected. “A license. But a gun. A thirty-eight Smith and Wesson.”

“Do you have it with you right now?”

“Are you crazy?”

“Just curious. I don’t think I’ve ever met one of you before. Except in divorce cases, you know. The usual surveillance thing. I hired one for my second divorce. I’ve been divorced four times. Now ask me how many times I’ve been married.”

Tess was feeling agreeable. “How many times have you been married?”

“Three!” He smacked the edge of the table, pleased with himself. When Tess didn’t laugh, he added helpfully. “It’s a joke. My last marriage was so bad, I always say I divorced her twice, just to make sure.”

“But that’s not the one where you used the private detective.”

“No, that one wasn’t about cheating. It was just about hating each other’s guts.”

A fragment of a story came back to Tess, something about Vasso breaking into an ex-wife’s house and leaving behind a large hog in gastric distress. By the time his wife returned late that evening, the carpeting throughout the first floor of the home was ruined. He had avoided criminal charges, though. His wife had ended up selling the house, at a loss, so Vasso was out a good chunk of the equity. But that hadn’t been the point for him. Winning had been the point and, according to his internal scoreboard, Vasso had done just that.

Vasso was now looking intently at Tess’s hands, which embarrassed her. Even facedown on the white tablecloth, so her rowers’ calluses were hidden, they were not her best feature. As short as she kept her nails, they always looked a little ragged. She put them in her lap, beneath the tablecloth.

“You’re not married,” he said. “See? I could be a detective, too.”

“Maybe I just don’t wear a ring.”

“Women always wear their wedding bands.”

“Maybe the fifteen-karat diamond is loose in the setting and I dropped it off at a jewelry store to have it repaired.”

“I don’t see you with a big diamond.” Vasso studied her. “Because I don’t see you keeping company with the kind of men who can afford big diamonds. But you could, if you wanted to. In fact, maybe you’d be interested in meeting some of my clients during the session. Some of the ones who come in from out of town, don’t know anybody in the area. I give a little party in January, you should drop by.”

Was Vasso trying to pimp her? Tess decided not to think about it. “So, Lawrence Purdy, owner of Domenick’s. Ring a bell?”

“Not really. I probably did it as a favor, you know. Stepped in, helped out a friend.”

“Who?”

“I have a lot of friends. I have a lot of friends because I don’t tell their business to just anyone who drops by. Lawmakers have to make disclosures, I don’t. But it wasn’t a big deal. A guy needed a license to run a bar, that’s all. I went before the commission with him.”

“So why doesn’t his wife know about this, or you?”

“Look, liquor laws are crazy-”

“I know, my father is a city liquor board inspector.”

Vasso gave her a hard look. “So you know. Law says you have to live in Baltimore City if you want to own a bar in Baltimore City. Is that fair? Is it even constitutional? Or maybe you had a little youthful indiscretion, ended up with a rap sheet. Law says you can’t own a bar in that case, either. So there are owners, and there are owners of record. I’m sure the gentleman whose name appeared on the license was the owner of record.”

“But he’s dead.”

“I guess the city liquor board doesn’t stay on top of its paperwork. But you can ask your daddy all about that.” Vasso squinted at her again. “Patrick Monaghan, right? Tight with Senator Ditter? Related somehow to old Donald Weinstein, as I recall.”

“My mother’s brother.”

Vasso smiled knowingly. “He was good, your uncle. You know, with that kind of pedigree, I’d think you’d be down here. I could see you as a lawyer on one of the committees.”

“That would require going to law school.”

“Then you could be a lobbyist. Although I suppose you’d be one of the do-gooder kinds. Not much money in that, but with the right wardrobe, you could do all right.”

“Sure, as long as I let the committee chairman grab my knee under the table.” One of the state’s most powerful delegates had done just that and lost the judgeship he so coveted, only to be re-elected to the General Assembly. “Do you think that’s what the early Marylanders were thinking when they chose ‘Womanly Words, Manly Deeds’ as the state motto?”

“Here’s the thing.” Vasso had a piece of lettuce half in, half out his mouth, but he didn’t seem to notice. “If some senator wanted to grab my dick before he voted for one of my bills, I’d say ‘Help yourself.’”

“Here’s the thing” Tess parroted back. “How often does that really happen?”

Vasso slurped in the leaf he had left dangling on his lip.

“I’m just saying women have some advantages, if they want to tap into them. Some do. Believe me, some do.”

“How am I going to find out who really owns that bar on Hollins Street?” Tess wasn’t even sure why it seemed so important. The discrepancy in the bar’s ownership didn’t make it any more likely that Jane Doe had worked there. But it was a lie, and other people’s lies made her crazy.

“Ask your daddy.” The simple phrase sounded ugly, insinuating. “Not that he knows anything. But he should know enough to tell you to drop it.”

Tess looked at Vasso, who was bent over his plate, dredging a large piece of foccacia through olive oil. From this angle, she could see the tanned bald spot at the crown of his head, see the way his neck oozed from his collar in tight little rolls. For the first time in her life, she knew how to use “oleaginous” in a sentence.

“I’m not really hungry,” she announced.

“But you’ve got all this food coming.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to write it off. Or find some senator who’s willing to eat my leftovers. Hey, maybe you’ll get lucky and he’ll grope you under the table.”

Vasso’s mask of bonhomie slipped just a little then. Without his fake smile in place, he looked shrewd and not a little scary.

“Maybe you don’t want to be my friend, but you don’t want to be my enemy, either. I’m a hired hand, I work for those who pay me and stay on the good side of those who can help me bring home the goodies for my clients. Someone asks me to go to a liquor board hearing, help a guy out, it’s no skin off my butt. And it’s not exactly a conspiracy, you know what I mean? If you were one of those little Columbia J-School grads that the Blight sends down here from time to time, I’d understand why you had such a big stick up your ass-”

“Your butt, my butt, could you work your way toward a different kind of imagery?”

“Hey, I gave you polite already. All I’m saying is your uncle worked for one of the biggest crooks that ever came through Annapolis, and that includes Spiro T. Agnew and Marvin Mandel. Your dad was appointed by Senator Ditter, who wasn’t exactly racking up high scores on Common Cause’s list of good legislators. So who are you to get all huffy and holier-than-thou about how business is done down here? Let me put it for you this way: It’s none of your fucking business. I don’t know from any dead girls, but I know you’re going to be one sorry little girl if you don’t leave some stuff alone. Just let it be. Now let’s have some antipasto, talk about the weather, and why the Ravens suck.”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t have any appetite.”

Vasso laughed, and grabbed another piece of bread from the basket. “See, it’s all personal with you. I guess I was wrong. Even with the right clothes, you’d never make it down here.”

Tess got up to leave, bumping the table with her hip so that a glass of ice water toppled into Vasso’s lap.

“You stupid-”

“An accident,” she said, and it was, except in the Freudian sense. “Don’t take everything so personally.”