Laura Lippman - Charm City

"C'mon, ask me another question. This is kind of fun."

"Are you a moron?" Tess asked.

"Wait, I know this one. Some comedian, right? The guy who plays retards in all his movies. I am not…I am not…"

Tess leaped from the chair and lashed out at him with the chain, catching him across the face. He wasn't quick enough to grab the lethal leash, and he wasn't close enough to grab her. Tess backed away from him, moving toward the door and away from the fireplace, where his gun still sat on the mantel. He kept advancing, so intent on taking the chain away from her that he didn't think to retreat and grab his gun.

"Stupid bitch," he panted. "I am going to" -another futile grab-"make you so sorry." He caught her left wrist just then, but Esskay interceded, sinking her teeth into his hand. Not much of a grip, but she could do some damage. He yelled and fell back, then scrambled for the other side of the room, where his gun waited. But Tess and Esskay were at the door by then and Tess wrenched it open, letting Esskay go first and set the pace, praying the dog would have the good sense to run toward the streetlights, not into the alleys, where they were less likely to be seen. Her keeper might have enough power to overcome her in a sprint, but she was sure she could outlast him over anything more than a few blocks. And she was pretty sure he wouldn't want to fire his gun on this quiet suburban street.

Esskay ran, easy and happy, kicking up her back legs in the now-familiar kangaroo style. Tess followed breathlessly behind. By the time they stopped, they were at a Royal Farm a quarter-mile up Frederick Road and their captor was long behind them, if he had tried to chase them at all. Tess had never looked back. She called the police from the pay phone, then convinced the clerk to let her and Esskay wait in the back, where the greyhound finally received her long-awaited treat-two slices of bologna and three of her own namesake hot dogs. Taste the difference ka-wality makes , indeed.

"Did you really hit him with a dog chain?"

"Don't you believe everything you read in your own paper?"

"The story won't be in ‘my' paper until tomorrow. Remember, we didn't find out about your little adventure last night in time for today's editions. It's a good read, too, but I can't help being nervous, dining with a woman known to lash men with dog chains."

For once, it was Tess who blushed, while Sterling smiled at her discomfort.

They were in the Joy America Cafe, the restaurant on the top floor of the American Visionary Art Museum. The food at the Joy America, as visionary and unusual as the museum's world-class collection of outsider art, was a little determinedly creative for Tess's taste. Citrus and pumpkinseed seared antelope with Virginia ham and butternut squash succotash. Food miscegenation, Whitney called such cuisine. Tess thought of appropriating the line as her own, then worried Sterling would be offended. He could be a little on the earnest side.

"Have you noticed people still call this the new Visionary Museum, although it's been open for almost two years?" she asked instead, falling back on the reliable conversational gambit of mocking her hometown.

"There are people here who still think of the Inner Harbor as new, and it was redeveloped almost two decades ago. I'm resigned to being called the new guy for the rest of my career at the Beacon-Light ." Sterling took a tentative sip from the soup before him, a deep terra cotta color with a slash of avocado green through it, like the mark of Zorro. "Chili powder and cilantro in mango soup. Not bad, but I detect some cream in here, despite the waiter's assurances."

Tess tried not to make a face. She was eating field greens dressed in raspberry vinaigrette, a prosaic choice by Joy America standards. The waiter had not approved. That was fine, she had not approved of the waiter. While her brain understood this was one of the city's best restaurants, her palate secretly yearned for less determinedly fashionable places. Antelope was a poor substitute for Hausnner's potato pancakes, or a plate of tortellini from the Brass Elephant. But you couldn't veto your host's choice and Joy America did have a spectacular view of the harbor-the National Aquarium and the Columbus Center, the row houses and churches of Little Italy beyond them. She could even see the Fells Point waterfront, lights blazing on a Saturday night.

"If it were daytime, you might be able to see my terrace," she said, waving her fork toward the windows.

"Sounds quite grand."

"Only if you consider living over a store grand. But it's a nice place and Aunt Kitty gives me a break on the rent."

"Kitty?" Sterling looked up from his soup. "Wasn't she in the photograph, the one that's running with your story?"

"Um, yes." Upstaged by her aunt again, whom the Blight photographer had insisted on getting in the shot.

"Tell me-" Here it came. He was going to ask for Kitty's number, try to find out if she was available. "Aren't you worried those guys are going to come back for you?"

She almost laughed in her relief. "Only one got away. The cops picked up the other three while they were still in the vet's waiting room. The fourth one drove my car to the Maryland House rest stop on I-95, helped himself to another car, then dropped that outside Philadelphia. The cops think he'll be more concerned with staying out of the state, now that he's wanted for felony kidnapping."

"Still, it sounds as if these guys were working for someone else. What's to keep them from sending new recruits to find whatever it is they want?"

"I don't know. The man who got away did have the presence of mind to take the ears with him. They won't be able to trace the dogs who were killed."

"Presumably killed." Sterling's correction was automatic, an editor's tic.

"Well, I guess there could be some earless greyhounds running around somewhere, but what would be the point?"

The waiter cleared away their dishes. The mango soup had proved too rich for Sterling, who had abandoned it after only a few spoonfuls.

"At any rate, you've fulfilled Warhol's prophecy. Sorry you won't get better play. I thought the story merited the local section front, but I decided to recuse myself from that decision, as I have a conflict of interest here." He paused. "That is, I hope I'm going to."

Tess felt as if she were right at the edge of the kind of happy normalcy that had eluded her for so many years. Dinner on a Saturday night. A nice man, with a real job instead of a band. Everything was perfect. Then something began ringing in Sterling's jacket pocket.

"Sorry," he said, pulling out a cell phone. "I always have to stay in touch with the desk."

The connection must have been bad, he almost had to shout to be heard, and the other diners stared in pointed disapproval. "Who? What? Where are you?"

"Don't forget when and why," Tess teased, even as Sterling handed her the phone.

"It's Whitney. Says it's some kind of emergency."

Whitney sounded as if she were shouting from inside a wind tunnel, a wind tunnel with loud music and hoarse laughter in the background. "There's a situation here I really need your help with," she said without preamble. "I'm at the Working Man's Bar and Grille."

"Feeney?"

"Close. Colleen Reganhart is here and she's about sixty seconds away from leaving in a cop car, but she says she wants to talk to you before she goes anywhere." Whitney paused. "Look, I know my timing sucks. But there will be other dates, right?"

"How did you know about-" She didn't want to say Sterling's name in front of him, or repeat the word "date," so teen-agerish and vapid. "How did you know where to find me?"

"Newsrooms can't keep secrets, Tess. Don't you know that by now?"