Baltimore Blues (3 page)

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.

A
va 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 saying.

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.

Lost in this thought, Tess didn’t notice that Ava had moved on. By the time she spotted her, she was a floor below, getting off the escalator. Tess tried to follow quickly, but the escalator was stacked with carefree tourists, the kind of people who don’t stand to one side because they assume everyone is on vacation. Unless she wanted to send bodies flying, she had to wait her turn to travel the ten feet of ribbed rubber Ava had already crossed.

By the time Tess reached the first floor, Ava had disappeared. Tess thought she saw her toward the rear of the building, where the shops ended and the hotel lobby began. But there was no flash of crimson or pearly gray, no briefcase overflowing with green camisoles and burgundy panties, no dark hair.

Ava was gone.

Tess ran outside, thinking she might still catch her. Perhaps she was heading back to the office to stick death certificates in the files of asbestos victims or turn away another grieving relative. Or maybe she had stopped by the small amphitheater across the street, where jugglers and fire-eaters performed in the warm-weather months. But when Tess worked her way through the semicircle of gawking tourists, there was no performer at all, just an old man sleeping on the hot sidewalk.

“Do you think he’s dead?” a woman asked no one in particular.

Disgusted, Tess yanked the Gabor wig from her head, exposing her own matted, sweat-flattened hair. Three Scandinavian students mistook this for the opening flourish of a street performer’s act and threw a dollar bill at her, applauding wildly.

“What do you think this is, some G-rated version of the Block?” Tess asked. “Or my performance-art tribute to Blaze Starr?”

The students clapped and shouted something that appeared to be “More, more, more” in their native tongue.

Tess dangled the wig in her hand and looked at the dollar bill on the pavement. The trio of blondes, their faces red with sunburn, stared at her hopefully. She started to throw the bill back, then thought better of it. She had given her last dollar to the old woman on the bench. This, with the change in her pocket, would buy a cup of Thrasher’s fries. Twirling the wig, Tess pocketed the money, blew her Scandinavian admirers a kiss, and ran to the food stands. Surveillance could wait.

It was lunchtime.