“I need to speak to you,” Tess said.
“When they break.”
“It’s about Henry Dembrow.”
Vasso took his eyes from the Senate floor, but only for a moment. “When they break.”
“I need to speak to you now.”
“Your needs don’t interest me much. You want my time, get elected to something.”
“It’s about Henry Dembrow.”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“It’s about Henry Dembrow and a place called Domenick’s and the strange coincidence that the same Annapolis lobbyist stepped in and dusted off his barely used shingle when they needed help.”
Had her voice risen? She could swear Dahlgren had glared up at the gallery, lost a step in his carefully planned speech, then resumed again. Vasso’s hand closed over her wrist and he all but dragged her into the hallway, as if he had been the urgent one all along.
Once in the corridor, she took her arm back.
“You’re proving to be a real pain in the ass,” Vasso said. “I’m sorry, I guess that wasn’t very PC of me.”
He was trying to act jocular now, as if this were some joke between the two of them. People were passing through the hall, mainly secretary types from the offices on this floor, but Vasso was being careful not to draw too much attention to himself, or to her.
“The girl that Henry Dembrow killed was identified recently.”
“So I heard. Nice bit of publicity for you. Lots of potential. Don’t fritter it away, looking for connections that don’t exist, or weighing yourself down with losers. Yes, I represented Henry Dembrow. As I told you, I do favors for people.”
“Who was that a favor for?”
“I believe I also told you there’s no point in doing favors if I’m indiscreet. Baltimore is a small town, everyone’s only one or two people apart here. I tried to help a kid in a jam. I helped a bar get its liquor license. No connection.”
“You’re the connection.”
Adamancy was all she had going for her. Vasso glanced over her head, back at the doors to the Senate chamber.
“You’re spinning your wheels,” he said.
“Is it true that Henry Dembrow was going to file for a new trial, based on inadequate counsel?”
“He wouldn’t be the first man to wake up in prison and start thinking about ways to get out, and pointing fingers.” His voice had lost a little of its rat-a-tat slickness. “Henry watched too much television, he kept saying it was his understanding that I’d be able to get him out on a technicality because I was so ‘connected.’ I told him the only technicality I could find was that he didn’t want her to die, but if you shove a woman standing at the top of a flight of concrete steps, that’s intent as far as the law’s concerned. He made it personal, tried to threaten me, and I told him I’d do anything to protect my reputation. He backed off.”
“Actually, I made that part up.”
Vasso looked at her blankly.
“The part about Henry asking for a new trial. But thanks for confirming that he was considering it. And that you would do quote-anything-unquote to protect your reputation.”
Vasso brushed the lapels of his suit, as if he had been in a fistfight, and yanked the sleeves down over his wrists. Hand-tailored suits didn’t do as much for a man if he kept gaining weight after the fitting.
“Can I give you some advice?” he asked Tess. “Take a branch off the family tree. Your father understands how things work, when to push, and when to walk away. Your father knows all about favors. Someone wants me to step in, do a little pro bono for some bozo, I’m fine with that. I didn’t do it for Henry, you get me, or his bitch of a sister. The real owner of Domenick’s doesn’t want his name on the license. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t live in the city. Maybe it’s because he has a criminal record. These are just hypotheticals, I hope you understand. But bar owners all over the city find ways of getting around the regs. I helped one out. That doesn’t make me the fucking missing link.”
“Henry Dembrow died for a reason. Maybe Gwen Schiller did, too.”
“Everyone dies for a reason. Everyone dies for the same reason-their heart stops.”
“Then you’ll never die, because you’ve got no heart to stop.”
Vasso smiled. Everything was a game to him, Tess saw, and the score was kept in dollars and cents. He didn’t believe in anything-Democrat or Republican, pro-life or pro-choice, right or wrong. Pay him, he was yours. If the American Cancer Society threw more money at him than the cigarette industry, he’d carry their water, fight for their bills. He could lobby for any side of any issue, as long as he was paid to do it. What some people called a devil’s advocate.
“It slows you down,” he said, “caring too much. You’ve got a case tied up neat as a Christmas package. Henry Dembrow confessed to killing that girl. You found out who she was, and now everyone thinks you’re a fucking genius. A fucking genius with a nice rack. You should be out getting corporate accounts, not wasting time on looking for explanations that don’t exist. But I’ll tell you this much: I don’t know anything. I make it a point not to know anything I don’t need to know. Which is what makes me so smart.”
He walked back into the Senate gallery. Tess caught a burst of oratory as the door swung open. Words, words, words, words, words. Everyone was so full of words down here.
Tied up neat as a Christmas package. She wished Vasso had used a different image. Now she was reminded of Gwen, in the crime scene photo, that piece of rubber tubing tied in a bow at her neck.
Like someone’s present, Tess realized.
Tied to someone’s past.
chapter 19
YOUR FATHER KNOWS ALL ABOUT FAVORS .
Tess started to call Pat from her cell phone, then thought better of it. Vasso was full of shit, throwing out her father’s name with the same instinct that caused some street kid to insult your mother. Vasso was an old chauvinist who thought Tess’s daddy could boss her around. There were favors, and there were favors. The liquor board had a less-than-illustrious history, but her father had never taken a dime from anyone, never bent the rules for anyone. Well, maybe for Spike, here or there. But that was different. That was family.
She felt as if her car were heading up 97 on its own. The Toyota seemed full of purpose, as if it always knew where it was going, while she felt lost and confused. Vasso’s words were like a slow-working poison moving toward her brain.
Your father knows all about favors.
The Toyota headed up Martin Luther King, but hung a left instead of a right, heading into the Hollins Market area. Winter light wasn’t kind to the neighborhood. She had to park several blocks away from Domenick’s, but she found a space on a small alley street. When she walked in, it was as if no one had moved in the days since she had first visited. Same bartender, same two young blond guys playing pinball, same old men in the booths, same lone woman in the corner.
“I need the owner,” she told the bartender.
“Not here,” he said.
“Gwen Schiller worked here,” she announced to the room at large. No response. “Gwen Schiller, the girl who was killed by Henry Dembrow in Locust Point last year. Before she died, she told someone she worked here.”
The only sound in the room was a pinball, rolling down the length of the table and past flippers, flippers that were not engaged. She had everyone’s attention.
The woman in the corner lowered her newspaper and spoke. “People say lots of things. That don’t make them true.”
“You the owner?”
“I run the place.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name is for my friends. You going to be my friend?” Tess didn’t say anything. “I’m Nicola DeSanti. My husband was Domenick DeSanti.”
“So you’re the real owner?”
“I run the place,” Nicola DeSanti repeated, and Tess wondered how she was defining “place.” The bar, the neighborhood, the precinct, the ward, Southwest Baltimore?