Today, he had left Annapolis at three, but he had been here, sequestered in the district office, since arriving in Baltimore. A man and woman had been waiting for him. Constituents, small business owners, judging by their simple, neat clothes, and cheap briefcases. They probably needed a law tweaked in the next session.
Her cell phone rang.
“I’m bored, Tesser.”
“Welcome to detective work, Whitney. I hope you’re not calling me from headquarters.”
“I’m on a pay phone, outside a Royal Farm. I volunteered to make a soda run. You know, we probably shouldn’t be talking on a cell phone. It’s not a secure line. It can be picked up by shortwave radio.”
“Whitney, you called me.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Have you found out anything?”
“Only that the money is pouring in. Dahlgren himself came in and dialed for dollars for a few hours this afternoon, then took off for some Christmas party. He asked me if I wanted to come with him.”
“The happily married senator asked the young blond volunteer to go to a Christmas party with him? That’s interesting.”
“Actually, it’s not. Dahlgren’s only passion is money, far as I can tell. He thought I could help shake some loose just by standing there, eating hors d’ oeuvres. You know how some men mentally undress you with their eyes? Dahlgren makes me feel as if he’s assessing my jewelry. It’s my mother he really wants. Not very likely, given his voting record on AIDS programs. Give Mother her due-she still believes it’s respectable to be a liberal Democrat.”
Tess was only half listening. The lights in the office had gone out, the couple had left, and now Adam Moss was locking the door behind him.
“Gotta go,” she told Whitney. “Work hard, and maybe you’ll be promoted to answering phones before the week is out.”
She followed Adam Moss’s car up Light Street. Do cars give any insight into character? Adam Moss, who looked as if he should be behind the wheel of a sports car, drove a Geo, the American-made cousin to Tess’s Toyota. The navy blue car was clean, outside and in-Tess had crept up to its windows the night she waited outside his house. There was nothing inside, not even a road map. The radio was a good one, the high-end kind with a detachable face. He had a Club, but almost everyone in South Baltimore did.
He took her past the harbor, onto President Street and the JFX beyond that. He turned off at the Falls Road exit, heading into the heart of Hampden, a working-class neighborhood enjoying a burst of popularity in the city’s suddenly, inexplicably hot real estate market. Here, yuppies and rednecks coexisted peacefully. Most of the time.
He parked around the corner from Café Hon, a place where Tess indulged her frequent need for comfort food. She found a parking spot a block up, then sprinted toward the Avenue, as 36th Street was known here. Adam Moss’s tall figure was on the south side of the street, heading east, his navy wool coat open despite the chill in the air. She let him stay a block ahead, trying to look as if she were window shopping, then trying not to be distracted by the Avenue’s wares. Antiques left her cold, but how she yearned for a painted screen scavenged from one of her East Baltimore neighbors, or one of those old tins from the sausage company that shared her dog’s name. It would be even better than a neon sign that said Human Hair. But $75 seemed a bit high just for the honor of owning an Esskay can that boasted its contents were made with pure lard.
Adam Moss was not a window shopper. He walked purposefully, without a single sidelong glance for the people or places he passed. He was almost to Chestnut Street before he turned into a small shop, one of the galleries that had begun springing up in the neighborhood. In Tess’s experience, a neighborhood could not pretend to hotness until galleries began to open there. This gallery had no name, not that Tess could see, but it was brightly lit and its front windows had two large, abstract oil paintings on display-angry, red-hued triangles that reminded Tess vaguely of mountain ranges. Or knives.
She crossed to the other side of the street and found a convenient bus stop bench. People still waited for buses, didn’t they? Plus, she had the advantage of being in shadow, while the gallery was so bright it was like peering into a diorama. It was empty, except for a striking young woman. Thin, confident enough to wear her hair cut close to the scalp, like a feathery cap-together, she and Adam Moss were almost unbearable in their pulchritude. Yet there was no sexual buzz between them. The kiss Adam gave her was light, almost fatherly. And while they stood very close as they spoke, their body language revealed only matter-of-fact comfort.
They talked for no more than five minutes. Another light kiss, and Adam was gone, heading back down the Avenue. Tess was torn. She had intended to follow him as long as he was out. Yet here was a lead, someone who knew him, and had no idea who she was. What if the girl wasn’t there when she came back another day? It would be much harder to track her down outside the gallery, without giving herself away.
Time to become an art lover, her gut told her.
She waited a few minutes, giving Adam time to find his car and leave the neighborhood. She tucked her braid down the back of her coat. Later, if this visit got back to Adam Moss, she could imagine him asking: “Did she wear her hair in a pigtail?” Tess knew people were not naturally observant, because she was still learning how hard it was to get details right. The woman she was about to meet would remember Tess’s hair as being collar length, or short. She also would remember Tess’s tortoiseshell glasses-she had a pair with clear glass that she carried with her, for moments just like this.
Instead of a bell, the gallery door had a rainstick attached, so it made a soft, whooshing sound when Tess pushed her way in and began browsing.
For all Crow’s tutelage, she was still the sort of museum goer given to tiresome pronouncements that she might not know much, but she knew what she liked. The abstract and minimalist work here struck her as worthy of admiration, but it didn’t engage her emotionally. Everything-the paintings, sculptures, the jewelry in a small glass case at the front-was cold and metallic, perfect yet mildly cruel looking.
As was the proprietor, close up. No one that young should look that hard, Tess thought. Her face was like a well-cut diamond, with sharp cheekbones, pointed chin, and eyebrows waxed into stiletto-thin arches. Amber eyes and a full lush mouth gave the face the flashes of yellow and red that diamonds sometimes have, but added no warmth.
“May I help you?” she asked, in a tone suggesting Tess was beyond anyone’s help.
“I’m in this neighborhood all the time, but I never noticed this shop before,” Tess said. “Couldn’t help wanting to check it out.”
“The gallery has been open only a month,” the woman said.
“Are you the owner?”
The question threw her, but only for a moment. “I’m in charge, I make all the selections.”
“I have a friend who owns a gallery in San Antonio. Carries all this wild Day of the Dead stuff. It’s creepy, until you get used to it.”
“Day of the Dead? Oh, you mean folk art.” Her tone was derisive.
“What do you call this place? I didn’t see anything outside.”
“It doesn’t have a name,” the woman said. “Names are essentially phony. I won’t carry artists who insist on naming their work.”
Tess looked around and saw the art was all labeled by numbers. Not sequentially, of course-that would have been too easy. The numbers appeared to have been chosen at random, although Tess supposed the proprietess would insist the #17 canvas could never be, say a #9 or #131.