Laura Lippman: Butchers Hill

"Right there," she said, placing the picture back on the wall. She could find something more appropriate later. Poker-playing dogs were always nice.

"Miss Monaghan?"

The man she let into her office was barrel-chested with skinny legs that seemed ridiculously spindly beneath such a large bulk. He stepped around Tess, as if encased in an invisible force field that required him to keep great distances between himself and others, then settled slowly into the chair opposite her desk. His joints creaked audibly, the Tin Man after a long, hard rain. No it was another Oz character he reminded her of, the lesser-known Gnome King from the later books in the series. He had the same rotund girth atop skinny legs. What else? The Gnome King had been deathly afraid of eggs.

"So this is Keyes, Inc.," her visitor said. "Would you be Keyes?"

"I'm his partner, Tess Monaghan. Mr. Keyes is, uh, semi-retired."

"I'm retired myself," the man said, eyes fixed on his own lap. For all Tess's last-minute worrying, nothing in the surroundings seem to register with him-not the furnishings, not the photograph, not even Esskay, who had opened her eyes and was doing her adorable bit, just in case the visitor wanted to toss her one of the biscuits that Tess kept in a cookie jar on her desk.

"I guess you know who I am." His voice was meek, but his chest, already so large, seem to swell with self-importance.

She didn't. Should she? He was an elderly black man, which in his case meant he had skin the color of a stale Hershey bar-dark brown, with a chalky undercast. He wore a brown suit two shades lighter than his face, and although it was clean and neat, it wasn't quite right. Too tight in the shoulders, slightly baggy in the legs and paired with a rose-pink shirt and magenta tie. He held a once-white Panama hat, now yellow as a tortilla chip. No woman had watched him dress this morning, Tess decided.

"I'm afraid I don't," she admitted.

"Luther Beale," he said, as if his full name would be enough. It wasn't. She did hear in his voice the same ponderous, overenunciated quality that had led her to think he was drunk on the phone.

"Luther Beale?"

"Luther Beale," he repeated solemnly.

"I'm afraid I don't…"

"You might know me as the Butcher of Butchers Hill," he said stiffly, and Tess was embarrassed at the little noise she made, halfway between a squeal and a gasp. The nickname had done the trick. In fact, her former employer, the defunct Baltimore Star , had bestowed it on him. The Star had been good at bestowing nicknames, while the surviving paper, the stodgy Beacon-Light , was good only at attracting them. The Blight , most called it, although Blite was beginning to gain currency, thanks to a new media column in the city's alternative weekly.

Luther "the Butcher" Beale. The Butcher of Butchers Hill. For a few weeks, he had been famous, the leading man in a national morality play. Luther Beale, evil vigilante or besieged old man, depending on one's point of view. Luther Beale. His name had been invoked more often on talk radio than Hillary Clinton's. Hadn't "60 Minutes" done a piece on him? No, that had been Roman Welzant, the Snowball Killer, acquitted almost two decades ago in the shooting death of a teenager tossing snowballs at his home outside the city limits a decade earlier. Beale had killed a much younger boy for breaking one of his windows. Or was it a windshield? No matter. The main thing was that a county jury let Welzant walk, while a city jury sent Beale away.

"Yes, Mr. Beale. I remember your…incident."

"Do you remember how it ended?"

"You were convicted-manslaughter, I guess, or some lesser charge, not murder, if you're sitting here today-and you went to prison."

Beale leaned forward in his chair and wagged a finger in Tess's face, an old man used to teaching lessons to insolent young folks. "No, no, no. I got probation for the manslaughter charge. It was the gun charge I had to do time for. I killed a boy, a terrible, terrible thing, but they would have let me stay on the streets for that, because I had no intent. They put me away for using a gun in the city limits. Mandatory sentencing. Isn't that something?"

Tess was inclined to agree. It was indeed something, something twisted and warped. But she recognized the question as a rhetorical one and sat back, waiting. She had met people like Beale before. They were like one of those minitrain rides at the zoo or a shopping mall, just going around and around on the same track all day long.

"So what can I do for you, Mr. Beale?"

"You know, I was sixty-one when I went to prison. I'm sixty-six now, out for three months. This neighborhood is worse than it was when I went in. I guess even hell can get hotter. Which is why I took notice when I saw a nice girl like you opening up a business here. I hope you have some protection, Miss, something besides that skinny dog. You should have a gun. Because you can bet the little boys 'round here have them. Yet I can't have a gun any more. I'm a convicted felon. Isn't that something?"

This time, he seemed to expect an answer. Tess tried to think of a noncommittal, noninflammatory reply. "It's the law."

"The law! The law is foolish. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, not thou shalt not use a firearm in the city limits. You know I'd never done a thing in my life before they arrested me for shooting that boy? They looked, believe me they looked. They wanted me so bad. I never understood that, why did those police officers and those prosecutors want me so bad? It was as if locking me up would make everything right in the city. But I had no record. I didn't even have an unpaid parking ticket. You know what they found on me, after all that looking and looking?"

Tess shook her head, if only to indicate she was listening.

"Sometimes I did contracting work on the weekends, but I didn't have a state license for home improvements. Oh yeah, they had themselves Public Enemy Number One, right then and there, that they were sure of. Man goes out and paints rooms and cleans gutters, doesn't have a state license. Lock him up and throw away the key."

"I hear they've got a warrant out for Bob Vila, too," Tess offered.

Beale swatted the air, as if Tess's joke were a pesky gnat. "So now I have a record. It's all I have. It's all anyone knows about me. Used to be, people saw me on the street, they might say, ‘Oh there's Luther Beale, he lost his wife Annie to the cancer.' Or, ‘Luther Beale, he works over at the Procter and Gamble in Locust Point, he could afford a nicer house in a nicer place, but he likes Fairmount Avenue, lived here all his life.' You know what they say about me now?"

She waited a beat. "No, I guess I don't."

Tess thought she saw tears in the corners of Beale's eyes. "They say, ‘That's Luther Beale. He'd kill you as soon as look at you. He killed a little boy one time, just for throwing rocks at some cars.'"

Well, you did . But there was no percentage in antagonizing a prospective client with the truth. Tess couldn't see any percentage in this conversation at all. Had Beale confused her with a street-corner psychiatrist? Or did he assume, as so many men did, that a woman's primary function on earth was to listen to a man? Maybe she could make some extra money that way, just listening to men speak of their troubles. Forget phone sex. How about 1-900-UBOREME, or a web page, www.tellyourtroubles.com.

"Mr. Beale, is there anything I can help you with today?"

"Retribution."

The word, pronounced with great care in Luther Beale's deep, growly voice, seemed to hang and shimmer in the air. Tess envisioned it in black plastic letters on the marquee outside one of those hellfire churches on the Eastern Shore, the little cinderblock buildings that stood in the middle of vast cornfields. Today's sermon: Retribution. Don't forget Guild Ladies annual scrapple breakfast .