Charm City

Crow, who didn't own a real winter coat, had dressed in several ratty layers-a leather jacket and wool muffler over three sweaters and a thermal undershirt. Now, as he stripped down to the undershirt, he reached inside the leather jacket and pulled out a long manila envelope from its breast pocket. "I almost forgot. This was on your car when we got back. I thought it was a ticket at first."

"Probably some new advertising gimmick dreamed up by one of the megabars," Tess said, opening it. Photocopies spilled out, along with two pieces of cream-colored stationery, a stark black name emblazoned across the top.

Rosita Ruiz.

"What is it?" Crow asked.

"Rosita's résumé." Tess was bewildered. "And her cover letter, as well as copies of stories she wrote for the San Antonio newspaper, and her evaluation at the Blight. It's her whole perso

He shook his head. "All I saw was the envelope beneath your windshield wiper."

Tess turned the envelope inside out and shuffled all the papers. "No note. Well, it's obviously not Colleen, and Sterling would just hand it to me. It must be one of her underlings, Hailey or Whitman. But what's the point? I don't see any smoking gun here."

"Editors as anonymous sources? This job is getting stranger and stranger, Tess."

Tess, still thinking about those extra calories that her thirties would demand, decided she better go back to two-a-days at the gym until it was warm enough to row. She stopped by Durban's the next morning, resigned to a long session with the weight machines.

Weights require unrushed discipline, perfect form, concentration-not Tess's strengths, especially when she worked on her lower body, whose creaky joints protested that ru

She zipped through a second set, then pumped the button for more resistance. As usual, she felt invincible on the first three reps, increasingly mortal on the next five, painfully decrepit by the last two. Rushing the last rep just a little, she sensed more than saw a movement in the room, some-one lumbering toward her. Before she could push her upper body away from the bench, a man's large bulk flattened her into the vinyl. She wrenched her face to the side, assuming she would see one of the men from the shit-and-salmon car.

"So how's the jewelry business?" asked Paul Tucci.

"A little slow right now." Tess tried to raise her head, but Tucci pressed his palm against her ear, pi

Tucci didn't move his hand, but he shifted his bulk until he rested more comfortably on Tess's fleshier parts.

"It took me awhile to remember exactly where I had seen you," he said. "Once I did, I knew how to find you. What were you doing, sneaking into see Lea with that stupid bracelet story? And you went to see Linda, too. What lie did you tell her?"

"Someone I know was worried about Lea." A truth, more or less. "A lot of people are worried about her. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be worried about a widow with three kids under the age of five. Linda was an…afterthought. She lost someone, too."

"Look, if you're from one of Wink's creditors, you're go

"Lawyer?" she asked, in what she hoped was an i

"Every personal injury shark in town has sent someone to Lea's door, although the rest weren't as clever as you. They think there's gotta be some deep pocket to sue. A psychiatrist who didn't realize Wink was suicidal? Wink didn't have a psychiatrist. Malfunctioning garage door opener? It's not like he tried to open it at the last minute and it failed. He didn't want it to open. Booze and drugs? Hey, it says right on the label not to mix them. And not to operate heavy machinery, which takes us back to the car. What are you going to do, sue Ford Motor Company because the '67 Mustang didn't have an automatic shut-off to stop someone intent on killing himself?"

"How do you know he had drugs in his system?" Tess asked. Tucci had loosened his grip slightly, but she could still feel the blood pounding in her ear. "The tox screens aren't back yet and there hasn't been anything in the papers about the cops finding drugs at the scene. All they tested for that night was alcohol."

Tucci grabbed her braid with two hands, pulling her head back the way Esskay had the night before, only not as playfully. "i know Wink. He wouldn't have been able to go through with it unless he was knocked out. He would have lost his nerve, bailed at the last minute. He was kind of a wuss, when you get down to it. The cops told Lea he broke open a new bottle of Jack Daniels that night, had two, three glasses at the most. His blood alcohol wasn't even.10, he was legal to drive. That was in the paper. So I figure he took some over-the-counter shit to speed things up. Makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Sure." She was inclined to agree with anything Tucci said, as long as he had a hold on her. But why was it so important to him that she agree? Why did it sound as if he were rehearsing a story he might want to tell again?

"Good. Now-why-don't- you-tell-me- what-you-were- doing-hanging-around- Lea-and-Linda?"

With each word, he bounced for emphasis. Tess was thankful she had no breakfast to throw up.

"You've really packed on the pounds since your lacrosse days," she said. "How much weight have you gained? Twenty pounds? Thirty? And all in the butt and the gut, from what it feels like."

Tucci stood up, sucking in his belly as he smoothed down his shirt front and confronted his profile in the mirrored wall. "Nothing a few sit-ups wouldn't cure," he said, which gave Tess the opportunity she needed to free her legs, roll over, and take aim. Was it the right knee the doctors had just replaced? It was. Tucci screamed and fell to the floor, writhing in pain.

"You fucking cunt," he gasped out. "I'm probably going to be back on a cane because of you."

Tess didn't wait to hear the rest of Tucci's self-diagnosis. She ran down the stairs and into the street, where she found Durban's attendant smoking a cigarette. At least he had the decency to look furtive and embarrassed when he saw her.

"He said he just wanted to talk to you, private-like," the attendant said sheepishly, knowing this was no excuse, not at Durban's, where Spike's niece was to be shielded against all male interest. "He gave me twenty bucks to take a long smoke break. I didn't see the harm in it."

"Well, maybe he'll slip you another twenty to call a doctor. He blew out his knee, he's in a lot of pain."

"How'd he do that?"

"Um, I forgot to spot him on the hamstring machine."

"You don't spot on hamstrings," the attendant pointed out.

"Maybe that was the problem."

It took him a second. "Jesus, Tess, what do you think you're doing? Your Uncle Spike hung out with some rough people, but even he had the good sense not to fuck with the Tuccis. Do you have any idea what you're doing?"