Baltimore Blues Read online

  “I like it,” Tess said. “Then again, knowing the local immunity to irony, I see a men’s group and the NAACP picketing out front, claiming you’re glamorizing gendercide and discriminating against people of color. And those Mothers Objecting to Violence and Everything Related—you know, the MOVERS—would interpret it as a pro-violence thing.”

  “MOVERS! There’s no such group, not even in Baltimore.”

  “Don’t you read the paper? They’ve set up a permanent picket outside the multiplex in Towson. It’s convenient to shopping. They march up and down for an hour, take a break, and go shop at Nordstrom.”

  Kitty laughed, a startlingly loud and wonderful sound. Most of the Monaghans were a little dour, even Tess. Kitty, however, was a changeling. She was the happiest person Tess knew, with an endless capacity for delight. She asked only that life be tangible, full of things to touch and hold, smell and devour. Soft fabrics, new books, full-bodied wines, well-made dresses, defined calves. Twelve years older than Tess and nine inches shorter, she had flame red curls and the only green eyes in three generations. Her latest beau was one of the city’s new bicycle cops, lured into the shop after Kitty saw his legs flashing by. Thaddeus Freudenberg. He was twenty-four, as big and cuddly as a Labrador, and only a few IQ points dumber. Tess figured he was on the bike patrol because he couldn’t pass the test for a driver’s license.

  Thaddeus was not in evidence this morning. Tess leaned against the fountain. “I’ve had an interesting offer,” she began, filling Kitty in on Rock’s proposal. She thought her aunt would be impressed, especially given the fact Tess often had trouble coming up with the rent.

  But Kitty was dubious. “It sounds like meddling for a fee. Don’t the ethics bother you?”

  “I can’t afford ethics. Summer was slow, and I need some cash on hand.”

  “I suppose.” She stared Tess down, a feat she could manage only because she was seated on the old fountain and Tess was slumped over it. “But you don’t really like this woman. So how can you be objective? If you see something ambiguous you might draw false conclusions because you want to catch her. You might not even realize what you’re doing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you might see her kissing someone on the street, for example, and assume it’s her lover. But it could be her brother, or a friend.”

  “I think I’d know the difference between a lover and a brother.”

  “I don’t know, Tesser. It’s been awhile since I’ve heard any feet but yours climbing up to the third floor.” Kitty smiled and tugged the slippery silk kimono back over her left shoulder.

  “Don’t be smug just because you have Officer Friendly to tuck you in at night. Some people do sleep alone, you know.”

  “Maybe Jonathan will turn up again soon. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

  “I gave up Jonathan for Lent.”

  “And you’ll forgive him for Yom Kippur. You always managed to get the full mileage out of your dual religions, Tesser, even when you were a little girl.”

  With that, Kitty swung off the counter and padded to her living quarters behind the store, leaving Tess to think about Jonathan Ross. It hadn’t occurred to her to miss him until Kitty mentioned him. Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, was next month. And Jonathan had more to atone for than she did, much more.

  Her thoughts scattered when Crow, one of the clerks, rapped on the front door.

  “Only two hours early today,” Tess said as she let him in, feeling mean. Crow, infatuated with Kitty, often showed up as early as 7 A.M. for his morning shift and stayed late into the night, trying to computerize the inventory system.

  “Yeah, well, I thought I could eat my breakfast here.” He held up a greasy sack of doughnuts and a bottle of orange juice. A battered guitar case was strung across his back. “I like the light here in the morning. It’s very…inspiring.”

  Tess almost felt sorry for Crow, simply the latest in a string of workers to fall in love with Kitty. Maryland Institute of Art students seemed particularly vulnerable. But her pity was tempered by a vague grumpiness. He never looked at her that way, with his moist brown eyes and pretty mouth.

  Crow hoisted himself up on the counter, as if drawn to the spot where Kitty’s kimono had slithered just minutes before. Ignoring his breakfast, he took out the guitar and began playing. An original tune, Tess judged, or a particularly bad version of a well-known one.

  “I’m writing a song,” he told her.

  “You won’t be the first. Just remember, though—you’re going to be limited to pretty, pity, and shitty for rhymes.”

  “Not necessarily.” He strummed a few bars and began to sing. His voice, while thin, was charming and true. “‘The first time I saw Kitty/She made me feel like Walter Mitty/My heart did that tapocketa ditty/And I wanted to rescue her from this grim, dank city/Tapocketa. Tapocketa. Tapocketa/I’m almost a hero now.’”

  “Find a rhyme for Monaghan and I’ll really be impressed.”

  “If I did I could write a song for you, too,” Crow said, grinning at her. “Tess rhymes with so many things.”

  “Less,” she told him. “Primarily it rhymes with less.”

  Tess left Crow to his doughnuts and his daydreams, climbing the back stairs to her apartment. It was a steep climb, given the high ceilings on the first two floors, more like a fifth story walk-up. When Kitty renovated the building she had intended to rent the third floor to help carry her mortgage. Tess, its first and only tenant, paid much less than Kitty could have commanded on the open market.

  It was small, essentially a large room divided by bookcases. The living area was big enough for only a desk, an easy chair, and a small mission table, which she used for meals. The kitchen was an alcove with a miniature refrigerator and a two-burner stove. One had to pass through it to get to the bedroom, the largest space. This, too, was plain, large enough for only a lumpy double bed, a small table, and a bureau.

  But the apartment did have one outstanding feature: a terrace off the bedroom, with a ladder leading to the rooftop. On this morning Tess went straight to the roof, hoping the view would help her mind expand and clear so she could concentrate on her latest odd job.

  She preferred the view to the east, the smokestacks and the neon red Domino Sugar sign, turning her back to downtown and the city’s celebrated waterfront. Tess had little use for that part of Baltimore, which had been reinvented as a tourist haven. To her way of thinking it wasn’t much different from the old strip bars, which let people in for free, then jacked up the prices for everything else. She had nightmares in which she was trapped in a papier-mâché head, forced to greet people. “How you doin’, hon? How you doin’, hon?”

  Tess reviewed the addresses Rock had given her. Ava’s life was neatly contained. She lived in a condominium at one end of the harbor. She worked at the other end at the white-shoe firm of O’Neal, O’Connor and O’Neill. She could walk to work in less than fifteen minutes—assuming Ava walked anywhere.

  The photograph was crudely cropped into an oval shape, a man’s clumsy handiwork. It had probably been in a frame at Rock’s bedside, or on his desk. A picture from a spring regatta, with Ava standing next to Rock. He wore a red T-shirt and black Lycra rowing shorts. She had on a crisp, navy striped T-shirt that looked as if it cost more than Tess’s best dress. Her right hand could not even span Rock’s wrist, yet she seemed to have a firm grasp on him. Her hair was a dark cloud around her face, a face so perfect it was easy to understand why her parents had dared to give her a sex goddess’s name. Ava lived up to it.

  Tess knew all about beautiful women. She had been surrounded by them all her life—her aunt, her college roommate, Whitney, even her mother. Some were generous, allowing you to bask in their glow. Others shut you out, made you feel fat and clumsy. Ava fell into the latter group.

  At twenty-nine Tess had made peace with her face and body. She wasn’t beautiful, but her looks served her well. She kept things simple: long brown hair in a single
plait down her back, no makeup on her pale face or hazel eyes, clothes designed for comfort and speed. One thing was certain, she had the wardrobe to be a spy—drawers full of old, baggy things in dark colors. She knew how to be invisible.

  Chapter 3

  Ava lived in Eden, in Eden’s Landing, a mid-rise condominium of pink marble and glass bricks near the National Aquarium. Ahistorical and asymmetrical, it was modeled after the Pyramid of the Sun in Tenochtitlán and would have looked perfect anywhere between San Diego and Malibu. On the Baltimore waterfront the building seemed to shrink away from its neighbors, folding its terraces into itself. Eden’s Landing gave the impression it was horrified to find itself in Baltimore. On Tess’s part, the horror was mutual.

  She had stationed herself at a bus stop on Pratt Street, figuring she would see Ava’s Mazda Miata pull out of the garage. According to Rock’s tip sheet, she left for work at 7:15. At precisely 7:20 Ava appeared on foot. The first surprise of the day, Tess thought. It actually made it easier for Tess, as she had parked her Toyota in a lot across President Street, planning to follow by bicycle, which was far more practical in downtown. She stowed the bike in her trunk and hurried back to Pratt Street.

  Luckily Ava was moving slowly, sauntering along Pratt. The street was congested, but it was still early for many people to be walking. Tess stopped and started her way along Pratt, trying to measure her stride against Ava’s more leisurely progress. Her hair still damp from a quick shower at the boat house, she felt particularly conspicuous on the almost empty sidewalk.

  Ava wasn’t the type to wear running shoes and white socks beneath her trim little suit. She glided along on suede pumps with three-inch heels and ankle straps, looking straight ahead, oblivious to the bright morning, the breathtaking view of the harbor to her left, the dark hulk of the USS Constellation. Tess could have trailed her on a tricycle, ringing a metal bell, and Ava would not have noticed. She spared glances only for expensive cars and well-dressed men. Her head would turn, just barely, when she saw one with the other, giving Tess a glimpse of a familiar profile. Half the women in Baltimore had the same profile, thanks to a certain surgeon.

  Despite her perfect nose Ava did not look like a real lawyer to Tess, but like a fashion magazine’s idea of a lawyer, an important distinction. Her glossy black hair was curly and loose, unbound by a headband or tortoiseshell clips. Her pearl gray skirt was short and snug, her crimson blouse silk and low cut. Her pumps, which matched the blouse, would have been at home just four blocks north along the strip of nude bars and porno stores known as the Block. And Ava’s briefcase, shiny black leather that looked softer than Tess’s pillow, swung too loosely in her hand, as if it held nothing more than a mascara wand and lipstick.

  Doubtful, Tess reminded herself. As a young associate at O’Neal, O’Connor and O’Neill, Ava would be loaded down with work, paper-intensive, nonglamorous work. But who needed glamour when you started at $80,000 a year? Nice work if you can get it, Tess hummed as Ava disappeared into the Lambrecht Building, the mirrored skyscraper that housed the Triple O. Its reflective surface made entering the building look like a magic trick: Now you see her, now you don’t. Tess waited a few seconds, then circled the block, noting the building’s rear exit along the alley. It also had a coffee shop with a separate entrance. There was no spot from which she could clearly see all the doors. And if Ava left in someone’s car from the underground garage on the east side of the building, Tess would be clueless.

  How could she be otherwise? Tess had never followed anyone in her life. She had not been that kind of reporter. As a general assignments writer she had written about people more likely to stalk her, so desperate were they for publicity. She had written about street corner evangelists, precocious premed students, even LBJ’s podiatrist, now retired to Arbutus. (“Hard-working feet, but more delicate looking than you might think,” the podiatrist had told her.)

  She walked back to the front of the building and found a bench affording an unobstructed view of the front door and the intersection of Pratt and Howard. A homeless woman eyed her suspiciously.

  “Do you know the power of the mind?” the toothless woman asked Tess.

  “Yes,” Tess replied, pulling a well-worn copy of Love’s Lonely Counterfeit out of her battered leather knapsack, then rummaging for her Walkman.

  The woman scooted a little closer to her. It was almost eighty degrees and, although the morning haze was beginning to burn off, Tess could tell it was going to be another sticky day. Yet the woman wore a gray wool cardigan over a gingham-checked housedress, thick crew socks, and heavy hiking shoes. She smelled of cigarettes, sweat, and cheap wine. Beneath it all Tess picked up a fainter, familiar scent. Lily of the valley perfume. Her grandmother, Momma Weinstein, wore it.

  “Do I scare you?” the old woman asked hopefully.

  “No. No, not at all.”

  “Could I have a quarter, then?” Tess fished in her pocket and handed her a crumpled dollar bill. She had little sentiment for panhandlers and none for her grandmother, considered a harridan by those closest to her. But a dollar should buy her a morning of silence.

  The woman tucked the bill into the voluminous folds of her dress and rocked happily, singing to herself. Tess sighed and turned on her Walkman. Ella Fitzgerald, The Johnny Mercer Songbook.

  She and her new friend sat on the bench for four hours without exchanging another word. Johnny Mercer gave way to Jerome Kern. “All the Things You Are.” “You Couldn’t Be Cuter.” “I’ll Be Hard to Handle.” Good theme song for Ava. Tess finished her book and started over again. Obviously too short for surveillance work.

  She was about to start the book for a third time when Ava appeared a few minutes past noon. She walked briskly east, briefcase in hand, looking every inch the important lawyer on her way to an important trial. A lawyer, Tess thought, who felt coolly confident because she had used the right deodorant that morning. Catty, she chided herself. I’m just jealous because her suit costs more than I make in a week. It fit perfectly, too, Tess noted. She had never been so polished. Tess considered herself well dressed if her hose didn’t run and her blouse didn’t pull out of her waistband.

  Today, of course, Tess had dressed to disappear. Jeans, a white T-shirt hanging loose, basketball sneakers. She didn’t worry about Ava remembering her face, but she had tucked her braid under a black wig, one of the Gabor sisters’ creations. The wig belonged to Kitty, who wore it one memorable Halloween, playing a fortyish Cleopatra to a twenty-one-year-old Julius Caesar, an anachronism she said Shakespeare would have loved. Tess liked her raven tresses, but she wasn’t sure she had achieved the low-key look she wanted. She had a feeling the ropy black strands made her look more like a would-be Rastafarian, or Crow, with his green and black dreadlocks.

  She had assumed Ava would walk east, then head north on St. Paul toward the courthouse. But Ava kept going, bearing down on the Gallery like a homing pigeon. The Gallery was a four-story mall topped by the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel and filled with the same stores found in every mall in America. Tess would have thought it a little common for Ava, but Ava almost cooed with pleasure as she walked through its glass doors, throwing out her arms as if to embrace all the potential purchases waiting there.

  Sweating profusely beneath her wig, Tess ducked and bobbed through the crowded mall, trying to keep a comfortable distance between them. Luckily Ava had eyes only for the shop windows. She lingered to check out her own perfect reflection, then moved on, sometimes glancing at her watch. There seemed to be an itinerary to her browsing, some kind of agenda, but Tess couldn’t figure it out.

  Amaryllis, a small jewelry store, lured Ava in. Tess watched from outside as Ava asked a clerk to show her an odd, flamboyant necklace, a silver chain loaded with charms and lockets. It would have looked hideous on most people, but against Ava’s white throat and crimson blouse, it was just the right touch. Ava handed it back with a pretty shake of regret. It’s just not as perfect as I am, she seemed to be say
ing.

  She returned to her window-shopping, venturing into stores only to sneer at the merchandise. Again and again Tess watched her hold something in front of her—a bag, a dress, a scarf, a belt—then put it back with that same charming shake of her head. Nothing suited her. The more expensive it was, the sadder she seemed.

  In Victoria’s Secret, Tess got as close to Ava as she dared, hiding behind a rack of Miracle Bras. Ava trailed her hand along a table of underwear, then recoiled as if the polyester fabric had shocked her skin. Yet she reached out again, running her hand more lightly still over the pile of burgundy panties. This time two pairs fell into her open briefcase.

  Tess blinked in shock. Her aunt’s cautionary words echoed in her mind. The underwear must have fallen on the floor. Or Ava was using her briefcase as a shopping basket and planned to pay for everything when she was finished.

  She couldn’t be a thief.

  Ava walked to a table full of camisoles and repeated the same trick. Touch, recoil, brush—into the briefcase! By Tess’s count Ava now had two pairs of panties, burgundy, and three emerald green camisoles. A salesclerk approached her as she fingered the lace on a nightgown, and Ava threw her right hand up, a friendly but stern warning. “Just looking,” she pantomimed and quickly left the store. No one stopped her.

  Ava the shoplifter. She might be having a breakdown, Tess thought. Ava the kleptomaniac. It could explain her strange behavior toward Rock. But was shoplifting the problem or the symptom? And if it was the problem, how did it account for the late hours and the canceled vacation? Was she part of some odd ring, or a bored lawyer, boosting to make her lunch hour fun?

  Rock wouldn’t care. He would be content with this bit of information, almost desperate for it. Tess wasn’t. Instinctively she knew it was one piece of a puzzle, a key to a door she hadn’t found yet. A single fact was like an unripe avocado, something whose time could not be rushed. You rolled it in flour and you waited.