Charm City

"If it were daytime, you might be able to see my terrace," she said, waving her fork toward the windows.

"Sounds quite grand."

"Only if you consider living over a store grand. But it's a nice place and Aunt Kitty gives me a break on the rent."

"Kitty?" Sterling looked up from his soup. "Wasn't she in the photograph, the one that's ru

"Um, yes." Upstaged by her aunt again, whom the Blight photographer had insisted on getting in the shot.

"Tell me-" Here it came. He was going to ask for Kitty's number, try to find out if she was available. "Aren't you worried those guys are going to come back for you?"

She almost laughed in her relief. "Only one got away. The cops picked up the other three while they were still in the vet's waiting room. The fourth one drove my car to the Maryland House rest stop on I-95, helped himself to another car, then dropped that outside Philadelphia. The cops think he'll be more concerned with staying out of the state, now that he's wanted for felony kidnapping."

"Still, it sounds as if these guys were working for someone else. What's to keep them from sending new recruits to find whatever it is they want?"

"I don't know. The man who got away did have the presence of mind to take the ears with him. They won't be able to trace the dogs who were killed."

"Presumably killed." Sterling's correction was automatic, an editor's tic.

"Well, I guess there could be some earless greyhounds ru

The waiter cleared away their dishes. The mango soup had proved too rich for Sterling, who had abandoned it after only a few spoonfuls.

"At any rate, you've fulfilled Warhol's prophecy. Sorry you won't get better play. I thought the story merited the local section front, but I decided to recuse myself from that decision, as I have a conflict of interest here." He paused. "That is, I hope I'm going to."

Tess felt as if she were right at the edge of the kind of happy normalcy that had eluded her for so many years. Di

"Sorry," he said, pulling out a cell phone. "I always have to stay in touch with the desk."

The co

"Don't forget when and why," Tess teased, even as Sterling handed her the phone.

"It's Whitney. Says it's some kind of emergency."

Whitney sounded as if she were shouting from inside a wind tu

"Feeney?"

"Close. Colleen Reganhart is here and she's about sixty seconds away from leaving in a cop car, but she says she wants to talk to you before she goes anywhere." Whitney paused. "Look, I know my timing sucks. But there will be other dates, right?"

"How did you know about-" She didn't want to say Sterling's name in front of him, or repeat the word "date," so teen-agerish and vapid. "How did you know where to find me?"

"Newsrooms can't keep secrets, Tess. Don't you know that by now?"

The Working Man's Bar and Grille was the most notorious of Fells Point's megabars, a sprawling warehouse on the waterfront. Its deck, strung with Japanese lanterns, had been part of the pretty lights that made the view from the Joy America so charming. Close up, the charm quickly dissipated. The bar's ersatz Marxist decor-machine parts from its paper-recycling past, the '30s-style posters of brawny working men and the real picket signs from famous Baltimore strikes-was incongruous, almost offensive, alongside five-dollar microbrews and margaritas at seven-fifty. And its college-kid patrons thought working with one's hands déclassé, although urinating in public and walking on top of the parked cars of Fells Point was apparently just another Saturday night.

Whitney was at the rubber-topped bar, designed to look like a conveyor belt. Colleen Reganhart was more or less on the bar, facedown, arms spread in a crucifixion pose, black hair fa

"She looks pretty docile," Tess said.

"Watch this." Whitney patted her arm. "Colleen, don't you think we ought to be ru

Colleen raised her head a few inches, looked at Whitney with bleary eyes and said, "Fuck you, Talbot. You're the last person I want to see tonight."

"Tess is here. Didn't you say you wanted to talk to her?"

Colleen managed to pull her entire upper body from the bar and turned toward Tess. "Did I? Well, fuck you, too."

The bartender came over. It was Steve, Kitty's most recent dalliance. But Kitty had already dropped him, so he saw no percentage in being helpful to her niece.

"Look, Tess, I cut her off half an hour ago, but she won't leave and our crowd is starting to pick up. I can't have this broad taking up prime real estate and mouthing off at anyone who brushes against her. Blondie here said you'd take care of it."

Whitney raised an eyebrow. She didn't feel a bit guilty, Tess could tell. She might even be relishing the way she had interrupted her di

"My car's out front," she said blandly. "I need your help to carry her, then we'll drop her off at her apartment and put her to bed."

"How did you become the chaperone?" Tess said, tucking a hand beneath Colleen's armpit, as Whitney propped her up on the other side. Colleen didn't put up much of a fight, simply muttered a cursory list of curses as they propelled her to the door.

"Another favor for Lionel Mabry. He'd prefer his top people not to get arrested for public intoxication. She called him from a pay phone here an hour ago, threatening to quit one minute, then just threatening him. He convinced her to tell him where she was, then he called me and asked that I take care of it."

"With my assistance."

"I couldn't call anyone from the paper." Whitney glanced at Tess, taking in the good winter coat, the sheer hose and high heels, the upswept hair. "Although Sterling was welcome to come along. How was di

"Let's just get this over with, okay?"

Sometimes Tess wondered if there was a single warehouse left in Baltimore still doing an honest day's work. Colleen lived in Henderson's Wharf, which had started life as a storehouse for the B amp; O Railroad. It sat at the end of Fell Street, a short walk from the Working Man's Bar and Grille, assuming one could still walk. Colleen never would have made it in her heels-the cobblestones on Thames Street would have brought her down in only a few steps. She passed out during the five-minute drive, forcing Whitney and Tess to carry the editor into her building like so much dirty laundry.

"She's on the sixth floor," Whitney said. "Harbor side, naturally."

"Naturally," Tess echoed.

Yet the duplex apartment they entered was simply a richer version of Rosita's spartan apartment, with almost no real furniture and not even one picture hung, although two rectangles wrapped in brown paper leaned against the exposed brick wall. Another woman on the move, Tess thought, so determined to get somewhere she never stopped and looked around at where she was.

"Should we try to put her to bed?"

"I don't want to carry her up the stairs," Whitney said. "Let's leave her on the sofa and help ourselves to her bourbon. I have a feeling that's one thing you can always find in Colleen's kitchen."