No Good Deeds Part 15

"How can the phone bill be that large?" Tess, almost forgetting her role, was on the verge of advising Phoebe that Verizon had packages with limitless long distance for as little seventy-five dollars a month, and there were probably better deals still.

"It's three months past due. Plus, Dwayne-that's my cousin-met some woman on the Internet, ran up a bill. Turns out she lives in Poland. Or maybe it was Prague. One of those P places."

"So it's a personal expense."

"No, he used the phone right here."

Tess started to object, then remembered this was the kind of information she was here to gather. Apparently Ellen Mars didn't recognize any division between Ellen Mars the nonprofit and Ellen Mars and family. Within thirty minutes Tess had a neat column of numbers, showing almost three thousand in obligations for the organization, with most of the bills marked as second or third notices, and an incoming haul of eighteen hundred dollars. It had been almost touching to see the small checks and creased bills that made up that amount. Some people sent in as little as five dollars, often with handwritten notes.

"Is this a typical day?" Tess asked Phoebe, who hovered close, s.n.a.t.c.hing and examining each check as it emerged, recoiling from the bills.

"Oh, it gets slow toward spring and summer. "Round Thanksgiving we start bringing in real money."

Tess began doing the math in her head. a.s.suming, conservatively, that Ellen Mars West Side Helping Hand brought in seventy-five hundred a week on average, times fifty-two-that was almost four hundred thousand a year. Yet the board member who hired her said there were no salaried employees. And there didn't seem to be much money spent on the headquarters, so-Phoebe's sharp scream interrupted her thoughts.

"Police!" she said, and Tess thought she was calling for them, but she was simply identifying them, after a fashion. Mike Collins stood on the other side of the barred window above the desk, looking in at them. When Phoebe jumped and started, he gave her a wave and then pointed to Tess, effectively miming, Don't worry, it's her that we're interested in.

"You got troubles?" Phoebe demanded.

"N-n-not exactly," Tess said.

"But he's police, right? Black man in a suit, gun on his hip-in this neighborhood he better be police."

"Well, DEA. But he's just...keeping an eye on me. It's not what you think."

"Honey, we can't have that."

"But-"

"No thank you. I don't know what's going on in your life, but we don't need that around here. Thank you for coming in. You're a good worker, and we'd welcome you back any day. But not your friend."

Furious and embarra.s.sed, Tess left. Her client's suspicions were clearly justified, but what should have been a nice leisurely gig, with steady hours mounting up every week, had just been ruined. She'd have to wait for Crow to come back, and when would that be? For a moment she tried to persuade herself that she was no longer obligated to keep her promise to Lloyd. She hadn't bargained for the disruption it was causing to her life.

Then again, Lloyd hadn't bargained on his friend's being killed. Neither one of them had known what they were getting into, and now they were both stuck. Tess remembered a Yiddish folktale that she had heard when she was in court-ordered therapy. Her therapist was big on Yiddish folktales. He told her of a woman who set out on a journey that she had long intended. On a bridge a man handed her a rope, told her not to let go, and then jumped over. If she left him, he would die. The woman had to see that the man's choices were not hers and that she was not obliged to stand there and hold the rope.

Tess had always a.s.sumed she was the woman in that scenario, but now she was beginning to think she was the man. She had handed the rope to Lloyd, and he had walked away without a qualm. Or would it be the other way around, if she gave him up?

She started up her car and began to head home, then thought better of it. The sky was overcast, but the promise of spring was in the air. Why not take a little drive? Drawing on a knowledge of Baltimore's streets that is unique to firefighters, patrol cops, and former reporters, she made her peripatetic way through the city, stopping as the mood struck her. She went to Louise's Bakery for chocolate drop cookies and a loaf of stale bread, which she then distributed to the geese and ducks along the banks of the Gwynn's Falls. And everywhere that Tess went, her little lambs were sure to follow. She headed back downtown, ducked into the parking garage beneath the Gallery shops-then shot right back out on the other side. The maneuver gained her only a minute, but a minute was enough to lose them in downtown traffic, a victory in principle. They would be there tomorrow and the next day and the day after. But, for today, she was triumphant.

Her victory proved to be even shorter-lived than she had thought. She and the dogs were coming back from a longer-than-usual evening walk when she saw Collins on her front porch. She tried, for one valiantly optimistic moment, to imagine a piece of good news that had brought him here. He was working for Publishers Clearing House in his off-hours. She had been recognized as a point of light. No, that was a previous administration. Perhaps it was all a mistake and the federal government wanted to apologize for its treatment of her.

But she didn't think the federal government did apologies. Waco, Ruby Ridge, WMDs. No, not their forte.

"Mike Collins, DEA," he said, as if they had never met.

"I remember," she began as Esskay lunged forward, her nose jabbing into Collins's crotch. Miata, however, held her ground and semigrowled. It was more throat clearing then menace, a sound indicating that Miata could be trouble if she deemed it necessary. Jesus, what had the Doberman's previous owner done to create this knee-jerk racism in a dog?

"We'd like to talk to you downtown."

"Didn't we just go through this yesterday?"

"New info."

"What?"

"Downtown," he said.

"I'll need my-"

"Lawyer. That's fine."

"May I tell him what this is about?"

"They'll tell you both together."

"Are you going back to the idea that I sheltered a drug dealer and you can use that to begin forfeiture on my house and car? Because-"

"Downtown." If his voice had any inflection to it, he could have been Petula Clark.

"May I change?" She indicated her sweats, streaked with mud. The dogs had decided it was a good idea to ford the creek, in search of quarry that turned out to be a falling leaf.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"I need to call someone about the dogs-"

"Your boyfriend?"

Something about the question-an underlying keenness, a just-perceptible sharpening in Collins's tone-made Tess uneasy.

"No, the kid who takes care of my dogs when I'm not around. Am I coming home tonight?"

He shrugged. "Remains to be seen."

"Then you should let me change."

"Look-" He took a step toward her, and Miata produced a full-throated snarl. Tess was touched by the Doberman's devotion but doubtful that it would help her, in the long run, for Miata to bite a DEA agent.

"Let me put the dogs away, call my sitter, and change into jeans, okay? It's not like I'm going to pull a Goldilocks, jump out a window. I'm not under arrest, right?"

"Not yet."

Tess studied his face, hoping for a wisp of a smile, the tiniest crack in the stony facade. The FBI agent, Jenkins, had seemed human at least, and there had been a bl.u.s.tery quality to the young prosecutor that allowed Tess to believe she could outwit him. Collins, however, made her feel like growling, too, if only because she sensed he was enjoying himself a little too much.

"I'm going inside. Don't follow, okay? Stay on the porch. My dog doesn't like you, for whatever reason, and with Crow gone, she's super protective of me. I can't guarantee your safety if you follow me inside."

"I guess she hasn't seen a lot of brothers in this neighborhood."

"Brothers?" The word sounded strange in Collins's mouth, which was funny. Usually it was only white people who sounded ridiculous aping street slang. "Oh, well, I mean, she's seen-"

She caught the name, just, before it teetered off her tongue. She had been about to say, She's seen Lloyd, and come to think of it, she didn't like him much either.

"She's seen...?"

"A lot," Tess said flatly. "Her former owner was very badly beaten when Miata wasn't there to protect him. That's why she's so territorial."

"I'm not worried. If the dog comes at me, I can always shoot her."

"Is that your idea of a joke?" His noncommittal shrug didn't fill her with confidence. "Just stay here, okay?"

She opened the storm door, stumbling in her haste over a FedEx package that had been left there. She scooped it up and ran inside, shutting and locking the door behind her. Moving quickly, she did all she said she would do, then tried to think if there was anything else to be accomplished before surrendering. Her eyes fell on the package, which she had thrown aside. It had been shipped from Denton, Maryland, and the sender was listed as E. A. Poe of Greene and Russell streets. Crow had been named for the poet and storyteller, and he knew that Tess was familiar with Poe's final resting place at that downtown intersection. Inside was a cell phone, and when she powered it up, there was already a message.

"Use this phone for seventy-two hours," Crow's voice said in her ear, and she almost wept at the familiar sound. "Then a new one will arrive. That way, even if they put a trace on your known numbers, they can't track these calls to a cellular tower and figure out where I am. We're okay. We're safe. I've been trying to persuade Lloyd to come back on his own and cooperate, but he's just not ready yet. If I bring him back now, I think all he'll do is run."

Collins began rapping on the front door. It was a hard yet matter-of-fact knock, dull, steady, and utterly unnerving. Miata barked and snarled, while the usually silent Esskay gave a high yodel, almost as if in pain. Tess shoved the "safe" phone in the laundry hamper, below some truly disgusting workout clothes that should keep anyone but the most determined searcher at bay. It wouldn't matter if they came back with a warrant, but it was all she could do for now.

21.

When I was growing up, if we wanted a Jacuzzi, we had to fart in the bathtub."

"Trading Places," Crow said. "That movie was made before you were born, Lloyd. I'm surprised you know it."

Lloyd shrugged, leaned back in the small hot tub. "It was on all the time when I was little. It's still on all the time. There's, like, a million movies in the world, but on television it's always Trading Places, Die Hard, and Pretty Woman."

The two were soothing their sore muscles at the Clarion, a beachfront hotel south of the Delaware-Maryland line. Ed had long ago arranged a swap of sorts with the hotel's manager, giving him free pa.s.ses to FunWorld in exchange for offseason privileges at this small exercise room, with its indoor pool, its hot tub, and a few ancient exercise machines. A gym sn.o.b such as Tess would have been appalled by the antiqueness of it all, but it was a fine place to soak at day's end. Ed told the manager that Crow and Lloyd were his workers, and that was the simple truth, after all. They had put in two days of sc.r.a.ping and painting now. When they weren't painting, they were applying oil to the dried-out hinges on the ten garage doors that ringed the amus.e.m.e.nt park. The merry-go-round horses were next in line, waiting to be reunited with their poles.

On the first day of April, the pool area was empty, with not even a lifeguard on duty. But then this whole part of the world felt empty this time of the year. It was pleasant, Crow thought. He wouldn't mind living here, September through May, where the loudest noise was the ocean and there seemed to be more room in the sky for the light, pale and diffuse. But Tess could never leave Baltimore for more than an extended vacation.

Lloyd looked over at the pool, which had a slide at the shallow end. "I knew they had big water slides, but I didn't know they had little ones."

"You like to go to water parks?"

He shook his head. "Been to Great America and seen the wave pool, but I got no use for that."

"Do you know how to swim, Lloyd?"

He gave an elaborate shrug, as if to suggest that swimming was esoteric or exotic. Crow might as well have asked him if he took ballet lessons or made sushi at home.

"You want to learn?"

"Naw."

"Why not?"

Lloyd shook his head again, as if Crow were being willfully igorant.

"I could teach you."

"Uh-huh."

"You know, that's a stereotype."

"What?"

"African-Americans and swimming."

"Ain't my fault." Said quickly, defensively, as if Lloyd were used to being blamed for all sorts of things that weren't his fault.

"But you could challenge it. Upend it."

Lloyd continued to shake his head, uninterested.

"What if knowing how to swim could save your life?"

"How that gonna happen? Flood gonna come down Monument Street one day?"

Even here, more than a hundred miles from East Baltimore, Lloyd still couldn't imagine a life beyond a small nexus of streets.

"You're not on Monument Street now. You're sitting a couple hundred yards from an ocean. And it was only a few months ago that an entire ocean rose up and killed almost two hundred thousand people."

"I don't remember nothin' about how the people died because they didn't know how to swim."

Crow laughed. "You've got me there. There are some situations you can't prepare for."

Lloyd nodded wearily, as if Crow had just realized something that Lloyd had been born knowing.

"When we get to go back?"

"You tell me. We can go back anytime you agree to talk to the police."

"Uh-huh. That's gonna get me killed."

"And going back without talking to the police might get you killed, too. So what's it going to be?"

"I'm so bored." He tilted his head back against the lip of the Jacuzzi, stared at the ceiling.

"So you want to go back?"