Laura Lippman - Baltimore Noir

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not,” Ty said. “Been through a lot of tough stuff, kiddo. Got divorced and ended up limping back to town. But she still looks great.”

“She does?” He knew that he sounded like the hopelessly smitten teenager he’d once been, but after his third Jack Daniel’s he didn’t care.

Ty smiled and rubbed his shoulders again.

“I promised you a surprise, old buddy, and that’s it. Ruth Anne’s having a party tonight and she absolutely insisted you come.”

“Hey, that’s great,” Tommy said. His head was spinning and he suddenly felt another rush of pure affection for Ty. Why had he been so worried about meeting Ty? It was crazy, really, his old paranoia still informing his life. Why, Ty was an adult now, and so was he. They could be friends, without all the old one-upsman bullshit.

Ty looked at his Cartier watch and squeezed the back of Tom’s neck again.

“Hey, the party’s already started. Let’s get over there before all the food’s gone.”

“Great,” Tom said, feeling about fifteen years old. “That’s just great, Ty. Wow, Ruth Anne. I can’t believe it.”

They drove across Kirk Avenue, past City, Tommy’s old high school. He remembered hanging out there on the stone wall outside the school, listening to the black guys singing acappella harmonies, and knowing even then that nothing would sound purer or better than that, no matter where he went or how long he lived. And he’d been right, nothing ever had. They drove by a hair salon at Kirk and 33rd Street, the place that had once been Doc’s Drugstore where he’d hung out with the City guys, eyeing the Eastern girls, of which Ruth Anne was number one. If he could have talked to her, he felt now, maybe his whole life would have been different. Maybe he would have married her and stayed in town and had four or five kids, and been happy and satisfied with a normal job and taking care of his family. Maybe his mother wouldn’t be so angry with him for leaving her behind.

They drove down Loch Raven Boulevard, then down the Alameda, and he suddenly felt that maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he and Ruth Anne would see one another and they would instantly understand that they were meant to be together. Maybe he’d invite her out to Los Angeles, and after a few visits she’d move out there with him but they’d keep a place here in town, too.

That was crazy, but why not? It happened all the time, didn’t it? Old acquaintances meet and fall head over heels in love, and after all he wasn’t the scared little kid from Govans anymore. No, he was a successful screenwriter, knew all the stars, all the directors. God, a guy like him was a catch for her… and yet it didn’t feel that way. Thinking of her, he still felt scared, breathless, unsure of himself. He didn’t want to come off like a Hollywood phony, dropping names, but he didn’t want to miss the chance to impress her either.

Let her know that he was the new Tommy Weeks now, not some goof who mumbled into his SpaghettiOs, like he used to back in junior high school whenever she came around…

He looked up and noticed that they were heading right down Winston Avenue, his old street. The single Victorian houses flashed by, old man Greengrass’s place, the balding old coot who never let them come into his yard to retrieve their pinkies, and there was the little store that Pop Ikehorn used to own. Right there on the corner at Craig and Winston, where he used to buy sodas and horror comics, and hang out with his little friends, Danny and David Snyder, and Eddie Richardson… and… then Ty was pulling over, parking his Mercedes.

There was someone huge standing on the corner, a guy at least six-foot-five, but he was cloaked in shadow.

“What’s up?” Tom said, looking across the seat at Ty. “I thought we were going around the corner to Chateau.”

“We are,” Ty said. “But I’d be a poor host dragging you out for just one surprise. Hop out. There’s an old pal of yours standing right there. He wants to welcome you back.”

Ty raised his left eyebrow and looked exactly like a demon, Tom thought. In spite of his best efforts to hop gamely out and face this unexpected visitor, Tom found his stomach jumping with butterflies. Who the hell could it be standing there on that corner at 10:30 in the cold?

He took a step toward the huge hulking figure, and then, even before the guy lit a cigarette revealing his long, haggard face, he knew.

The man was none other than Crazy Louis Wetzel, and the shock of seeing him here, right here where it had happened so long ago, made Tom break out in an icy sweat.

“Hey, look who it ain’t,” Wetzel said, spraying some spittle in Tom’s direction.

He smiled a weird, gap-toothed grin at Tom, and reached out to shake hands. Tom hesitated. He didn’t want to shake this jerk’s hand. He had spent years in therapy because of him, and now the guy was offering him his hand in a gesture of friendship? Fuck that.

And yet, if he refused to shake hands with him, then Wetzel would know how much pain he’d caused Tom, which would make him happy, the sadistic son of a bitch. More than anything he didn’t want to make Louis Wetzel happy.

So he reached out and took the big man’s hand.

“Good to see you, Tommyboy,” Wetzel said, taking it and holding on.

“Yeah,” Tom replied. “How you doing, Louie?” Why the fuck wouldn’t he let go?

“Great. ’Cept for my back. Had an accident downa Point… I worked at Bethlehem for years. Was working inna rod factory and shit got overheated and jumped on me. Got third-degree burns on my legs, and when I fell down I fucked up my back.”

“That’s too bad,” Tom said. Good, he thought, may it hurt you every day for the rest of your sick fucking life, you piece of shit. He finally managed to extricate himself from Wetzel’s grasp.

“That must seriously limit your mobility,” Ty said, leaning on the hood of someone’s ’76 Caddy.

“Nah,” Louis said, glaring at Ty, as though he’d been cursed out. “Not that bad at all. I could still take you, buddy.”

“Don’t doubt it at all, Lou,” Ty said.

“’Course, if I had a way wif words, like Tommyboy here, I could write me some movies and make a ton of money. ’Cause you guys know I got the fucking stories.”

“No doubt,” Ty said. “Let’s hear one. Just for old time’s sake.”

“Shouldn’t we be getting along?” Tom said. He tried not to look at Louis as he spoke, but glancing down at the street was even worse. For just below him was the sewer grate, rusted, ancient… Was it possibly the same grate from twenty-five years ago? Sure it was… Nothing stayed the same except the sewers in Baltimore.

“What’s a matter?” Louis said. “You don’t wanna hear my story, Tom? You only listen to stories now if they pay you, is that it?”

“No, that’s not it.” Tom felt the weight of Louis’s reptilian gaze glowering down at him, but in spite of it, he felt angry now. He really wasn’t the helpless kid he’d been back then, with a father who didn’t speak to him and an insane mother. Hanging out in bars as he had for so many years, he’d had more than his share of fights, physical as well as verbal. Indeed, the only place he felt really helpless was when he was back home… Baltimore was like some great behemoth that he could never quite slay.

“What is it then?” Louis said.

Tommy found himself smiling at Louis, and sticking his own face in the big man’s chest.

“It’s you, Lou. I know what story you want to tell. But I don’t want to hear it.”

Wetzel laughed and glowered down at him. “Yeah? What story is that?”

“You wanna tell the one about how you stuck me in the sewer when I was eight years old. How you stepped on my fingers when I tried to push the grate up, and how you found a rat and threw him down there on top of me. And then left me down there for four fucking hours.”