“Do you find the legislative process so interesting, then?” he asked Tess.
“No,” she responded truthfully. “I came here looking for Arnold Vasso.”
“Are private detectives going to hire him to protect their interest next session? To ensure that people’s private lives remain as open as possible, so they can do their dirty little jobs?”
She did not recall her job had been mentioned when they met at the Sour Beef dinner.
“Vasso’s name cropped up in a file connected to my case. It’s a long shot, but he may be able to help me. If I can find him.”
Moss checked his watch. “Try Piccolo Roma, over on Main Street. Vasso has a standing reservation. And he’s going to be eating alone today, because his lunch date is standing him up.”
“Would that be you, or Senator Dahlgren?”
“You ask too many questions. You should learn how to take what is given to you, and leave gracefully.”
“Sorry, I don’t have your boarding school manners.”
“But you could acquire them,” Adam Moss said. “Anyone could, with just a little effort.”
Arnold Vasso’s regular table was in the window at Piccolo Roma, off to the side-visually prominent, but out of eavesdropping range.
“Mr. Vasso?” she asked, as if she wasn’t sure it was him. The fact of a question in her voice would stop him, she figured. Arnie Vasso wanted it both ways, wanted to work behind the scenes and still be well-known as a fixer. He had an enviable kind of fame, she supposed. Unknown to the public at large, but a star within this tiny galaxy.
“Guilty,” he said, his smile automatic, his hand shooting out and shaking hers, even though she had not offered it.
“I’m a private investigator in Baltimore. I’m trying to identify a girl who might be connected to a bar on Hollins Street -”
“I never touched her!” He threw his hands up in the air in mock innocence, still smiling.
“I guess that would be funny,” Tess said, “if she weren’t actually dead.”
Vasso had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry, when you said identify, it didn’t occur to me…I didn’t think you meant…”
Tess waited, letting him twist and stammer a little longer.
“The bartender at Domenick’s said he didn’t recognize her from the sketch I have. I went to see the owner, only to find out he’s been dead for almost a year. The widow never knew he had a bar. And, although you were his lawyer at the license hearing, she never heard of you either.”
Vasso looked around. A reflexive gesture for him. His eyes were probably always sliding from side to side, making sure no one more important had come into the immediate vicinity. Tess saw a bald man bent over a piece of paper several tables away, doodling on the back of a receipt with an old-fashioned fountain pen, but the restaurant was otherwise empty.
“Let me buy you lunch.”
“This really won’t take very long,” Tess said.
“Better yet. Then we can talk about more interesting things. Look, I don’t like to eat alone. Since the rules changed, and I’m not allowed to treat our public officials unless they declare it on their ethics forms, it’s harder for me to find someone to keep me company. Please, have a seat.” He gave her a shrewd look. “It doesn’t hurt anyone to be seen with Arnold Vasso.”
They were definitely being seen, and not just by the lunchtime crowd on Main Street, a mix of tourists and government workers. Tess had the feeling that the waiters were speculating on Vasso’s business with a woman who clearly was not one of his monied clients. Given the mix of people that Annapolis attracted, it was an informal town, so her jeans and turtleneck sweater were not out of place here. Still, she felt odd, sitting across from Vasso in his expensive blue suit. Expensive, but tight.
“That guy over there?” Vasso asked out of the corner of his mouth.
“Yes,” Tess said, glancing back at the bald man, who continued to doodle with small, tightly controlled strokes, as if he were working on an elaborate design.
“Meyer Hammersmith. You know him?”
“Know of him.”
“I can’t believe he’s working for Kenny Dahlgren. Hammersmith’s a classic limousine liberal, while Dahlgren’s the kind of Democrat who’d be at home in the far right wing of the Republican party. Politics makes-”
“Strange bedfellows?” Tess offered.
“No. I was going to say politics makes me hungry. What are you having?”
They ordered, and Vasso seemed almost amused at the amount of food Tess required. In fact, now that she was sitting across from him, Vasso seemed amused by everything Tess said and did.
“Are you really a private investigator?” he asked.
“Yes. I got my license by apprenticing with a former policeman.” A former policeman who did nothing more than lend his name, Keyes, to her business and take a small commission at month’s end.
“Gun and badge and everything?”
“Not a badge,” she corrected. “A license. But a gun. A thirty-eight Smith and Wesson.”
“Do you have it with you right now?”
“Are you crazy?”
“Just curious. I don’t think I’ve ever met one of you before. Except in divorce cases, you know. The usual surveillance thing. I hired one for my second divorce. I’ve been divorced four times. Now ask me how many times I’ve been married.”
Tess was feeling agreeable. “How many times have you been married?”
“Three!” He smacked the edge of the table, pleased with himself. When Tess didn’t laugh, he added helpfully. “It’s a joke. My last marriage was so bad, I always say I divorced her twice, just to make sure.”
“But that’s not the one where you used the private detective.”
“No, that one wasn’t about cheating. It was just about hating each other’s guts.”
A fragment of a story came back to Tess, something about Vasso breaking into an ex-wife’s house and leaving behind a large hog in gastric distress. By the time his wife returned late that evening, the carpeting throughout the first floor of the home was ruined. He had avoided criminal charges, though. His wife had ended up selling the house, at a loss, so Vasso was out a good chunk of the equity. But that hadn’t been the point for him. Winning had been the point and, according to his internal scoreboard, Vasso had done just that.
Vasso was now looking intently at Tess’s hands, which embarrassed her. Even facedown on the white tablecloth, so her rowers’ calluses were hidden, they were not her best feature. As short as she kept her nails, they always looked a little ragged. She put them in her lap, beneath the tablecloth.
“You’re not married,” he said. “See? I could be a detective, too.”
“Maybe I just don’t wear a ring.”
“Women always wear their wedding bands.”
“Maybe the fifteen-karat diamond is loose in the setting and I dropped it off at a jewelry store to have it repaired.”
“I don’t see you with a big diamond.” Vasso studied her. “Because I don’t see you keeping company with the kind of men who can afford big diamonds. But you could, if you wanted to. In fact, maybe you’d be interested in meeting some of my clients during the session. Some of the ones who come in from out of town, don’t know anybody in the area. I give a little party in January, you should drop by.”
Was Vasso trying to pimp her? Tess decided not to think about it. “So, Lawrence Purdy, owner of Domenick’s. Ring a bell?”
“Not really. I probably did it as a favor, you know. Stepped in, helped out a friend.”
“Who?”
“I have a lot of friends. I have a lot of friends because I don’t tell their business to just anyone who drops by. Lawmakers have to make disclosures, I don’t. But it wasn’t a big deal. A guy needed a license to run a bar, that’s all. I went before the commission with him.”
“So why doesn’t his wife know about this, or you?”