Laura Lippman - Charm City

Marconi's was a dowdy grande dame . The dining room was too bright, the food too heavily sauced, the wallpaper faded and waterstained. Prices, while not steep, climbed quickly on the a la carte menu. And although the owners had finally agreed to a reservation system, the last seating for dinner was at 8 P.M., ensuring the regulars were at home in time for reruns of Matlock and Murder, She Wrote . But Baltimoreans cherished the place. Tess opened the menu with happy anticipation.

"I'll have the house salad-it's big, we can split it if you like-fried pork chops, and potatoes au gratin," she told the waiter, who was young by Marconi staff standards, not even sixty. "And please make sure the kitchen doesn't run out of fudge sauce. I know I'm going to want a sundae for dessert."

Sterling seemed slightly taken aback by Tess's appetite, but he tried gamely to keep up with her. His choices were healthier, however-broiled sole and a plain baked potato. And while he urged Tess to have a drink, he settled for club soda and lime. After hearing his abstemious order, Tess wished she could at least rescind her request for a glass of white wine. Bad enough to be such a pig, did she have to be a drunkard, too?

"Don't worry, you won't lose points for drinking in front of me," Sterling said, again guessing what she was thinking. "I'd love a drink myself, but my metabolism went south when I turned forty. Can't afford those empty calories."

"I guess I do have a pretty good metabolism. Of course, I exercise every day." Tess was aware she sounded boastful, yet she didn't stop. She wanted Jack Sterling to know how strong she was, how fast, how firm. "On a typical day, I bet I burn at least a thousand calories from my workouts-rowing in the warm weather months, running and weight lifting year round. That's five glasses of wine, or almost four packs of Peanut M amp;Ms."

"Well, you look very…healthy," Sterling said. His naturally pink cheeks turned a little pinker and a dry cough almost choked him. He gulped his club soda, spilling some on his shirt front. "I'm sorry, that was inappropriate."

Tess wanted to ease his embarrassment, the way he had eased her discomfort earlier. "You don't know from inappropriate. You should have heard what Wink Wynkowski said to me when I ran into him at the gym."

"When was this?"

"Friday. The day before…" she stopped, flustered.

"You can say it, Tess. The day before he killed himself, thanks to the Beacon-Light 's enterprising reporters. Maybe I will have a drink after all."

The salad arrived, a welcome distraction. Tess watched the waiter as if she had never seen someone toss and cut greens before, then forked up several mouthfuls in a row to avoid saying anything. It seemed tactless to speak of Wink's death to Sterling, although she wasn't sure why.

But Sterling wouldn't let her off the hook.

"Did we do it, Tess? Did the paper, in its zeal for a story, kill a man?"

"Of course not. You didn't know-you couldn't have known what he would do when the story ran. It's no different than what happened with Newsweek and Admiral Boorda. Wink made himself out to be such a tough guy. Who knew it was all an act?"

"Who knows anything about anyone? I'm burning out on this business, and on the glib explanations we offer up for everything, as if we could ever really know a man's soul. I'm no longer so confident I know what's right and what's wrong. I'm not even sure Wink's crimes are relevant. Wink Wynkowski left behind a wife and three children under the age of five. How do I weigh their pain against the readers' ‘right to know'?"

The entrees and side dishes arrived, along with a bourbon and water for Sterling. Although she knew form past experience how hot the potatoes were, Tess plucked a cube from the yellow-orange cheese sauce, which had tiny grease bubbles on the surface. Sure enough, it burned the roof of her mouth.

Sterling stared glumly at his food. "I think about his widow a lot. I wonder if she spoke to him Saturday, if he told her what he was going to do. I wonder if she knew about the story before it was in the paper. Had Wink ever confided in her? Had he ever confided in anyone about his past?"

"Are Feeney and Rosita working on a Sunday story about how it…happened?"

"No-not if I have anything to say about it. I'm not worried about answering these questions for the Beacon-Light . I want to know for myself, for my conscience. But Mrs. Wynkowski's not talking to anyone. I'll never know how she feels or what she's thinking."

Tess sliced off a piece of pork, chasing it with another potato cube. Still hot, but no longer lethal. "What if someone intervened, asked her a few questions? Questions you wanted asked."

"Who would do that?"

"I would, if it counted toward my six hours daily of indentured servitude. I can't take being on such a tight leash, Jack. I'm probably in trouble right now for not checking out with Colleen's secretary before I went to lunch. Maybe if you told Colleen I was talking to Mrs. Wynkowski on your behalf…"

"Why would Lea Wynkowski talk to you?"

"Because I'm not a reporter. Which means I can misrepresent myself, becoming someone she might like, someone she would want to confide in."

When Sterling smiled, really smiled, his grin split his face like the crack in a cheap watermelon. "I think I know now why Whitney is so devoted to you. I couldn't see it at first. The two of you seem so different, but you both have a devious side."

Tess probed the roof of her burned mouth with her tongue. Comparisons to Whitney seared in a way no potato could. "Are you saying you're surprised we're friends because she's gorgeous, rich, and successful, and I'm a plain, poor failure?"

"Don't beg for compliments," Sterling said, wagging his fork at her, still smiling broadly. The color in his cheeks was even higher than usual, perhaps because of his drink, and his hair was falling in his eyes again. Tess had a sudden desire to push it back. "You're both good-looking women, and I suspect you know that. Which is the main reason I find your friendship intriguing. Most attractive women pick plain friends."

" Smart women prefer beautiful friends: you meet more men that way, especially if you complement one another. I've met a lot of my boyfriends through Whitney."

"Including Jonathan Ross?"

The name, the too-casual way Sterling used it, made something catch in Tess's throat. Before his death, Jonathan Ross had been one of the Blight 's star reporters. Obviously, Sterling would know that. He also had once been Tess's boyfriend, and she wondered if Sterling had learned this as well. She saw Jonathan again, the way she saw him in her nightmares, in clumsy flight over Bond Street. He had saved her life, losing his in the process. Not my fault , she reminded herself. Not my fault .

"Jonathan and I worked together at the Star years ago, then he moved to the Beacon-Light . We were friends, Whitney, Jonathan, and I. Friends. Men and women can be, you know."

"Sometimes I think Whitney would like to be a man."

"Whitney would like all the opportunities open to men. There's a difference."

Sterling didn't pick up on her dig. "Whitney reminds me of a man in one of those English hunting prints. I always expect her to stride into my office one day, a riding crop in one hand and a dead fox in the other. I've never really liked those blueblood types. Something androgynous there. You're actually more feminine, even if you do spend a lot of time trying to hide it." He turned pink again. "Sorry. There I go again, being inappropriate."

"More bizarre than inappropriate. Whitney's not mannish at all."

"I've been known to hold minority opinions before. I didn't get where I am by embracing the conventional wisdom."