Butchers Hill (14 page)

"Just don't
lollygag," he said. "I am paying you by the hour,
as I recall. And that doesn't include sitting here, waiting
for a locksmith." Then he was gone, without a
"thank-you," without a word of praise for what Tess
had done so far. Well, that's what being in business was
about. People who paid you didn't have to be grateful, they
just had to give you checks that cleared. On that score, Beale was a
dream client.

Still on hold at the Eastern Precinct, she
hung up and called her landlord instead. Let Hersh deal with the busted
door, nattering to the locksmith about how he, tortoiselike, had
progressed so far beyond the Weinstein hares. She was going to work out.

Tyner had been unusually nice to Tess as of
late. She suspected he felt guilty for forcing her out of the nest of
his office and giving her desk away while her chair was still warm.
Certainly, she didn't expect his little kindnesses to last.
But she was enjoying the temporary benefits of his guilt, the gifts he
showered on her, such as the new watch and this free summer pass to his
gym, the Downtown Athletic Club, a place she couldn't afford
on her own budget.

The DAC, as its denizens called it, was not
the grandest club in Baltimore, but it was easily the largest. Built in
an old warehouse on the site where Lincoln's funeral train
had passed through, it had its own history. The legendary fights over
parking, as the workout-bound folks jockeyed for the spaces closest to
the door, determined not to walk one more inch than necessary. The
pickup scene that made the men's locker room strictly NC-17
on the weekends. Then there was the apocryphal story about the man who
suffered a heart attack during the peak evening hours. While some
people had rushed to his aid, other impatient exercisers had used the
confusion to sneak ahead in the StairMaster line.

"Oh, c'mon, Mr.
Gray," protested the young trainer who was bumping
Tyner's wheelchair up the short flight of steps to the main
floor as Tyner repeated all these stories to Tess, his stentorian voice
jouncing with each stair. "You know no such thing ever
happened here."

"If it isn't true, it
should be," Tyner insisted. With the attendant's
help, he hoisted himself into the Nautilus butterfly machine, pulling
on his weight-lifting gloves once he was settled. "What do
you have today, Tess? Weights or aerobics?"

"I rowed this morning, a good long
one, so all I have are weights. But I'll start with lower
body."

"Don't slack.
I'll be watching you."

"Watch yourself." Tess
reached out and caught Tyner's arm as he attempted to return
the weight to its resting position. "C'mon, fight
me a little, old man. Press harder.
Harder
.
You can do it."

He could, quite easily. Tyner had taken good
care of himself. Above the waist, he was as lean and strong as he had
been in his early twenties, when he was on the Olympic rowing team.
Below—well, below, he was what he had been for more than
forty years, since a speeding car had crumpled his legs and ended his
Olympic pursuits.

"I've still got much
more upper-body strength than you," he taunted her
good-naturedly.

The DAC was quiet on a Saturday afternoon.
Although school wasn't out, people with weekend shares had
already started heading to the shore, or moved their athletic pursuits
outdoors while the weather was so fine. Tess would have preferred to be
outside herself, but there was no outdoor substitute for weight-lifting.

A stringy, pale man in his forties was on
the quad machine. "May I work in?" she asked.

"Only two more," he
said, holding up two fingers helpfully. But he just sat there, as
comfortable as a man on a barstool, in no hurry to move. Tess decided
to work on the leg press instead of waiting, and took the machine next
to him.

"What do you think of
that?" he asked, still stalling, not anxious to start his
next set.

"Think of what?" she
gritted out as she released on the final rep, the weight bouncing a
little as it hit. She hoped Tyner hadn't heard it,
he'd been on her back for such sloppy work.

"The guy in the wheelchair.
What's
that
about?"

"I'm not sure what you
mean."

"He's an
old
guy in a
wheel
chair, for
Christ's sake. What's the point? I do this because
I got divorced last year and I'm, you know, out there. Gotta
keep the old bod in shape. I hate it, but that's the price
you pay. What's he doing it for?"

"You finished on there
yet?" Her tone was light, but as sure as Clark Kent slipping
into a phone booth, she could feel her secret alter ego emerging. She
counted to thirty, but not to control her temper. She was just marking
the time of her rest periods, trying to keep them as short as possible.

"Almost." He huffed and
puffed through another set much too quickly, his motions fast and
jerky, his legs swinging as loose as a little kid. He held up a single
finger. "One more set. What's your name,
anyway?"

"I'm Tess."
But
others know me as the Emasculator
.

She bided her time, patient now, letting him
natter on through a long rest period and then his final set, all the
while dropping little hints about the things that made him such a great
catch. Oh, he was clever enough to weave it into a narrative, an
unnecessarily complicated story about how he hated taking his
Range
Rover
to the ballpark, but it wasn't
so bad when you parked in the
season ticket
holders
lot, loved them O's, but
didn't eat ballpark food, unless it was at the
Camden
Club
, usually went
Dalesio's
afterwards. None of this was offered as an invitation—Tess
could tell he hadn't decided if she was worthy—but
she would have the essential information if he decided he
didn't have a better prospect for tonight's game.

Finally done, he wiped his nonexistent sweat
from the seat in a show of courtliness, then pulled the pin out from
the seventy-pound mark.

"Where you want this? I know you
gals don't like to bulk up too much."

"Oh, I don't
know," Tess said carelessly. "I'm not
feeling at my peak today…how about 120?"

He laughed, as if this were a wonderful
joke, and put the pin where she had asked. With an impassive, bored
expression, Tess hopped into the seat and ripped off a set, swiftly,
but with good form. Her new friend, now perched on the leg press,
paused when he saw where Tess had left the pin. She could tell he was
loathe to choose a lighter weight, yet didn't want to get on
and find he couldn't lift what she had lifted.

"I guess I'm done,
anyway," he said.

Not quite
.
"The man in the wheelchair?" Tess said as he
started to walk away.

"Yeah?"

"That's my
boyfriend."

Now he was done.

Tess told Tyner most of the story over
lunch, editing out the parts about him. Although Tyner claimed
indifference to the idiots of the world, she couldn't imagine
that the other man's careless statements wouldn't
hurt.

They were at the Point, the run-down tavern
owned by her Uncle Spike. It was never clear whether the tavern was
simply a front for Spike's bookie operation, or whether this
was what kept body and soul together when gambling was slow. June was a
slow time for both businesses—basketball and Pimlico winding
down, football far away and baseball a sucker bet. To entice people
into the bar, Spike had started offering free peanuts in large,
shallow-bottomed barrels. But his assistant, Tommy, refused to sweep
the floor every night and it was now impossible to walk through the
Point without making a constant, crunching sound and raising little
clouds of peanut dust around your ankles.

"I'm sure your secret
life as the Emasculator keeps you quite busy," Tyner said,
"but I'm more interested in how your real work is
going."

"It was going fine until someone
pried my door open with a crowbar last night. They didn't
take anything, but I have a feeling break-ins are going to be a
constant worry in my location." "So it was a
junkie?"

"You want some more
peanuts?" Tess walked over to the nearest barrel, grabbed two
fistfuls, and brought them back to the table, dropping them with a
great clattering noise.

"Have you ever noticed how, in
every batch of peanuts you eat, there's one that's
almost perfect?" she asked, opening a triple pod.
"It's roasted a little darker than the rest, has an
almost piquant flavor. So you eat dozens more, looking for one that has
that same strong, roasted flavor and instead, you find one
that's acrid and shriveled, which cancels out the perfect
one, so you eat dozens more, trying to regain your equilibrium, and
next thing you know you have peanut belly, all swollen and bloated, and
you still haven't found that elusive, perfect
peanut."

Tyner wasn't the type to be
distracted by a monologue on peanuts.

"It wasn't junkies, was
it?"

"No," Tess admitted,
sighing out loud. "I think someone went into my computer and
made a copy of a file. There was paper in the tray, and I never leave
it out. I feed it into the printer as I need it."

"Which file was copied?"

"Can't tell, but I
assume it was Beale's. He was sitting there when I arrived,
said he happened on the scene. Suspicious, I know, but why would he
steal his own file? He's entitled to what's in it.
Then again, it can't be Jackie. The only person who knows
I'm working for Jackie is Jackie."

"As far as you know."

"Yeah, but why would she
lie?"

"I haven't a clue, but
the one thing we know is that she lied before, right? I mean, even if
she had a reason for her elaborate Mary Browne charade, she does lie,
and she lies well." Tyner brushed the peanut shells and meal
to the floor. "What do you know about the baby's
father?"

"Long gone and long forgotten,
some guy from the neighborhood. Didn't want to be a father
and signed away paternity. Jackie hasn't seen him for
years."

"
She
says."

"Again, why wouldn't she
tell the truth about that?"

"I don't know why anyone
does anything," Tyner said. "My job is to remind
you the universe of possibilities is large. Don't take
anything for granted, Tess. Someone printed a file out of your
computer. There are two files there, Beale's and
Jackie's. Beale was sitting in your office when you arrived,
declaring his innocence before anyone accused him of anything. Strange,
very strange. Jackie has lied to you at least once. Who knows if she
lied to you about the baby's father, if there's
someone else out there who wants to find the little girl." He
thought for a moment. "Do you keep your gun in the
office?"

"Yes, in the safe. It was still
there."

"You have a license to carry.
Maybe you ought to take advantage of it."

"Oh Tyner, that's so
paranoid."

"I'd just feel better
about you on Butchers Hill if I knew your gun was a little handier.
What are you going to do if you walk in on the burglars next time? Say,
‘Excuse me, I just have to get something out of the safe, and
then I'll be right with you.' If it is a druggie,
you'll need to act swiftly. They're not rational,
they might kill you out of sheer stupidity."

Tess didn't say anything, just
kept picking through the pile, still intent on finding that perfect
peanut.

O
n
Sunday morning, Tess started her Treasure hunt.

Although it was on the hot side, she decided
to walk, because that's how Treasure would move through the
city, heading west to Beans and Bread, then back east to wherever he
was squatting near Butchers Hill.

The Beans and Bread soup kitchen was only a
few blocks from her own apartment. Now housed in a former synagogue,
the Catholic mission had started in a tiny storefront closer to the
water, just around the corner from where Tess now lived. But poverty
was one of the few businesses in Baltimore that had never known a slow
season, and Beans and Bread had long ago outgrown that small space.

Still, Tess wasn't prepared to see
almost fifty men and women waiting outside Beans and Bread's
doors at 11 a.m. on a Sunday. A broad-shouldered man in mirrored
sunglasses stood with his back to the door, murmuring into a
walkie-talkie. Occasionally, the door would open a crack, a woman would
lean out and whisper to him and the doorman would then shout numbers to
the crowd. Five to ten people would present tickets and be admitted
inside. The scene was not unlike one of those New York clubs of the
moment, although those waiting here were more polite.

"You can't bring your
dog in here, sister." The doorman's voice was firm,
but kind. "I'll watch him while you eat, if you
like. We've got about a thirty-minute wait right
now."

"I'm not here for a
meal. I'm trying to find someone who comes around here,
though, a kid named Treasure Teeter."

"Treasure Teeter?" The
mirrored sunglasses stayed focused on the crowd.
"Doesn't sound familiar, but I don't know
all the names. Sister Eleanor would probably know him, but
she's not here today. Can it wait until tomorrow?"

"If it has to, it has
to," Tess sighed.

"You know what he looks
like?"

"No, just that he's real
young, about seventeen, and he may be using."

"There's one kid who
comes in here regular, but I've never heard anyone call him
Treasure." He muttered something into the walkie-talkie,
listened to the static-y reply. "Joe Lee says the guy
I'm thinking of was here when the doors opened at ten.
He's long gone by now, though. That's three or four
seatings ago."