Laura Lippman - By A Spider's Thread

Isaac refused to answer that question, spinning the rack of books while Zeke waited in line to pay for his newspaper. They looked like adult books for the most part, but there was a copy of something called The Amber Spyglass . Isaac had seen older boys at school with this book. He picked it up and opened to a page. Although the type was really small, he could read most of the words. Tests at school said Isaac read at the sixth-grade level, even though he was only going into the fourth grade. He was filled with longing for this book, any book. If his mother were here, he would beg her to buy it for him. But he hated to ask Zeke for anything, and not just because Zeke almost always said no.

Back home he had a savings account and a bank shaped like an Orioles cap. He could easily buy this book for himself. Of course, if he were back home, he wouldn't have to. His father would buy it for him.

Sighing, he started to return The Amber Spyglass to the rack, then saw the store's security camera focused on him, beneath a sign that promised SHOPLIFTER WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW. He stared back into the camera's eye, then made a show of shoving the book down the front of his pants, smoothing his shirt over it.

"You ready to go, buckaroo?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

Isaac and Zeke were almost back to the side of the highway before a woman began shouting after him. "Sir? Sir?" Zeke didn't turn around right away. He never did if he could help it. "Sir-I think your little boy has something of ours."

The woman caught up with them, pink-cheeked and a little out of breath. "I'm sorry, but one of the girls thinks she saw your son put something under his shirt."

"He's not-" Zeke caught himself before he denied he was Isaac's father. "He's not a bad kid. I can't believe he would do something like that."

Isaac shook his head. He didn't have much experience with breaking rules, but he was pretty sure a thief would pretend, at first, that he wasn't one. He clutched his middle, so the book wouldn't slip out.

"There-" The woman pointed to his stomach, and Zeke bent down, pulling the book from Isaac's grasp the way he might yank a hair from his head, hard and fast.

"I'm so sorry, ma'am. I apologize for… my son."

Isaac's cheeks burned, and he wanted to scream, He's not my father . But he didn't want to distract the woman from calling the police, or have Zeke call him a liar.

"It happens," she said. "Not so much with the books, though."

"Are you going to persecute me?" Isaac asked.

"Perse-Oh, prosecute. I don't think that's necessary. Next time, though, you should ask your daddy if you want something, or save your money so you can buy it yourself."

"The sign said you always"-he paused, making sure to get the word right this time-"prosecute."

"That's for grown-ups," she said, winking at Zeke. Women were always winking at Zeke when Isaac's mom wasn't around. Winking or patting their hair. "Little boys get second chances."

"Yes they do," Zeke said, placing a hand on Isaac's shoulder and squeezing hard enough to make him squirm. "Sometimes."

They returned to the car, and Zeke said Isaac had to ride in the trunk for the next hour, maybe the foreseeable future, a phrase that seemed weird to Isaac. How much of the future could anyone see? Isaac's mother started to argue, but Zeke told her what Isaac had done, how he had tried to attract attention, perhaps even the police. "If you show that you can be trusted, you'll get your car privileges back, buckaroo."

So he was in the dark again. For the foreseeable future. He almost wished he hadn't gotten caught, given that his plan hadn't worked. If the woman wasn't going to call the police, he might as well have gotten away with stealing and had a new book to read. It was so unfair. When people made promises on signs, they should keep them. For some reason this made Isaac think of the time he was driving somewhere with his father and they saw a huge sign that said JESUS SAVES. And his father had pointed to it and said, "But Moses invests." He had laughed, and Isaac had laughed, too, once his father explained it.

He moved his hands along the trunk's lid above him, then felt along the sides. It was such a crummy old car that parts were always falling off. The spotty holes in the fenders, like little bits of lace, let air in, but also fumes. Did his mother realize what those fumes could do? The carpeted bit beneath his blanket was almost completely gone, and you could see through to the rear lights, which rattled, loose in their casings. Bored, Isaac placed a hand where he thought the lights might be and began to poke around, just to see what might happen.

TESS MADE A GAME OF TRACKING DOWN THE FOUR local felons that Mark Rubin had met through his volunteer work, deriving a peculiarly Baltimorean pleasure in structuring the most efficient route through the chaotic city. Uncle Donald, glorying in his ability to get confidential information, had procured the men's workplaces from Parole and Probation, which simplified things. Katzen was on the edge of downtown, Russell in downtown proper. She would then swing into SoWeBo, the southwest Baltimore neighborhood whose dilapidated row houses were more likely to evoke Soweto than SoHo, and end the day in southeast Baltimore, close to her own office. If she timed it right, she'd make Cross Street Market for lunch, pick up some fresh Utz potato chips, hot from the fryer, and still have time for a late-afternoon dog walk and coffee break.

"Good-bye," she called to the dogs, as she headed out. "I'm off on the Jewish-losers tour of Baltimore."

She would come to regret that joke, private as it was, before the morning was through.

Daniel Katzen-burglar and beater of old ladies-had found gainful employment as a security guard, at no less a place than the Beacon-Light . If such a man worked for any other employer, it probably would have sparked a five-part investigative series on the Blight's front pages. But in the newspaper's own lobby, an ex-felon with a gun was no cause for alarm. Tess wondered if Katzen had lied about his background or if the newspaper's management reasoned that Katzen's willingness to hit women in moments of stress would come in handy should its unions strike.

"You need a pass to go upstairs," Katzen informed Tess before she even had a chance to introduce herself and state her business.

"I don't want to go upstairs," she said, not bothering to tell him that she had been sneaking in and out of the Beacon-Light for years, using a former employee's swipe card. "I'm here to see you. Do you remember a man named Mark Rubin?"

"No."

"Let me provide some context. Seder dinners, monthly prayer sessions, baruch ata Adonai ."

"Hebrew school? There mighta been a Rubin in my class."

"Bars, electronic fences, guard towers-"

" Hey ." Katzen glanced around the lobby, although there was no one there to overhear. "No need to screw with me like that. Okay, yeah, I remember Mark Rubin from you-know-where. So what?"

"What about Rubin's wife? Or his father-in-law, Boris Petrovich?"

"Boris was his father-in-law?" If Katzen was playing dumb, he was exceptionally good at it. "That dirty old Russian? Man, I hope his daughter had money. Because if she looked like her old man, she was definitely a two-bagger."

"She's not a two-bagger," Tess assured him. "She's gorgeous. And missing."

"Yeah?" He patted his pockets. "Well, I'm clean. Gorgeous, huh? Go figure. But then, Rubin was rich. A rich guy can always get a girl. Women are all about money. Like you, I bet you wouldn't go out with a guy like me because I'm a security guard."