"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?"
The Working Man's Bar and Grille was the most notorious of Fells Point's megabars, a sprawling warehouse on the waterfront. Its deck, strung with Japanese lanterns, had been part of the pretty lights that made the view from the Joy America so charming. Close up, the charm quickly dissipated. The bar's ersatz Marxist decor-machine parts from its paper-recycling past, the '30s-style posters of brawny working men and the real picket signs from famous Baltimore strikes-was incongruous, almost offensive, alongside five-dollar microbrews and margaritas at seven-fifty. And its college-kid patrons thought working with one's hands déclassé, although urinating in public and walking on top of the parked cars of Fells Point was apparently just another Saturday night.
Whitney was at the rubber-topped bar, designed to look like a conveyor belt. Colleen Reganhart was more or less on the bar, facedown, arms spread in a crucifixion pose, black hair fanning out into the dipping sauce from a half-eaten plate of Buffalo wings.
"She looks pretty docile," Tess said.
"Watch this." Whitney patted her arm. "Colleen, don't you think we ought to be running along now?"
Colleen raised her head a few inches, looked at Whitney with bleary eyes and said, "Fuck you, Talbot. You're the last person I want to see tonight."
"Tess is here. Didn't you say you wanted to talk to her?"
Colleen managed to pull her entire upper body from the bar and turned toward Tess. "Did I? Well, fuck you, too."
The bartender came over. It was Steve, Kitty's most recent dalliance. But Kitty had already dropped him, so he saw no percentage in being helpful to her niece.
"Look, Tess, I cut her off half an hour ago, but she won't leave and our crowd is starting to pick up. I can't have this broad taking up prime real estate and mouthing off at anyone who brushes against her. Blondie here said you'd take care of it."
Whitney raised an eyebrow. She didn't feel a bit guilty, Tess could tell. She might even be relishing the way she had interrupted her dinner with Sterling.
"My car's out front," she said blandly. "I need your help to carry her, then we'll drop her off at her apartment and put her to bed."
"How did you become the chaperone?" Tess said, tucking a hand beneath Colleen's armpit, as Whitney propped her up on the other side. Colleen didn't put up much of a fight, simply muttered a cursory list of curses as they propelled her to the door.
"Another favor for Lionel Mabry. He'd prefer his top people not to get arrested for public intoxication. She called him from a pay phone here an hour ago, threatening to quit one minute, then just threatening him. He convinced her to tell him where she was, then he called me and asked that I take care of it."
"With my assistance."
"I couldn't call anyone from the paper." Whitney glanced at Tess, taking in the good winter coat, the sheer hose and high heels, the upswept hair. "Although Sterling was welcome to come along. How was dinner, by the way? Did you make it to dessert? Did you have that whirligig thing they serve, with chocolate and cinnamon?"