"No Good Deeds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lippman Laura)

PART TWO. MOBTOWN

MONDAY
12

“Tess, I don’t know what to tell you. I edited the story myself and baby-sat it every step of the way through that first edition. I checked midday Saturday to see if anything had cropped up, if the top guys were second-guessing so much as a comma. Sunday editor told me everything was okay. Even so, I had my cell phone on every moment, and no one called me.”

Tess almost felt sorry for Feeney, who was so upset that he couldn’t be bothered to sip the martini in front of him. But Feeney wasn’t the one who had to move out of his own house Sunday morning and go into semi-hiding. Feeney was going home to his own bed tonight.

“So how does my name end up above the fold and before the jump? It might as well have been in neon.”

“Hector called Marcy at home at six P.M., began badgering her. Said one anonymous source was pretty thin, and couldn’t we source it at all? She only told him about your role to buttress the case that the source was trustworthy. He didn’t tell her that he was going to put it in the story, just turned around and called the desk himself. That’s why it reads a little stilted.”

“How could he do that without talking to you first?”

“As an assistant managing editor, he outranks me. He doesn’t need my permission to do anything.”

Neither one of them mentioned the obvious fact-that the AME might not have been so quick to insert Tess’s name in the story if she hadn’t pissed him off earlier in the week. Her mother had frequently told Tess that there was a cost to speaking one’s mind, but Tess had never imagined that it could be jail time. But that would be the outcome if she was brought before a grand jury and refused to testify.

She chewed her lip, found that unsatisfactory, and decided to try the olives the restaurant had provided. Baltimore had discovered tapas, or vice versa, and the city was now thick with variations-Greek, Spanish, Middle Eastern. Tess and Feeney had agreed to meet at Tapas Teatro because it was reliably chaotic, the kind of place where no one attracted attention and even the most determined eavesdroppers were thwarted. Plus, it had windows on the street and several exits through which Tess could flee if any official types showed up.

“I promised Lloyd. I gave my word that I wouldn’t tell the police his name. You did, too, but you’re covered by shield laws.”

“Only on the state level, although I’d never reveal an anonymous source. But what’s Lloyd got to lose by coming forward?”

“He thinks that the police won’t believe he’s told all he knows, that they’ll hold him as an accomplice to the homicide until he’s revealed the name of his contact-and he doesn’t have it. He’s given us everything he’s got.”

“Can you argue that your position in this is privileged, that Lloyd falls under the attorney-client exemption?”

“Lloyd’s not a client, and he didn’t sign the usual paperwork. Tyner’s never heard of him, and I can’t ask an attorney to lie about that.”

Tess drained her sangria as if it were fruit punch and looked around the restaurant. So many happy, normal people with such uncomplicated lives, chatting about the films they had just seen at the Charles Theater next door, eating with gusto and joy. Not a single one of them under the threat of federal investigation.

Actually, neither was she. Yet. For the past thirty-six hours, only the Howard County detectives had been trying to find her for questioning, sending increasingly urgent messages via Crow, then her lawyer Tyner, who was able to say truthfully-and, because he was Tyner, loudly and brusquely-that he didn’t have any idea where she was. No one did. She had packed a bag, turned off her incoming cell phone, and checked into a nightly rental at a North Side high-rise. Even some of the residents didn’t know about these by-the-day rooms, so Tess was confident that she had bought herself a little time. Very little.

“They’re saying you did it for the reward money.”

“What? What they?”

“The feds. It will be in the paper tomorrow. The U.S. attorney says if you’re a good citizen, you’ll cooperate with the investigation. But then she floats the possibility that you arranged for the interview to get part of the reward.”

“I didn’t even know there was one.”

“There is, and it’s hefty as these things go, a hundred thousand. Hey, maybe that would be enough to get Lloyd to come forward voluntarily.”

“Maybe. But it’s not a sure thing, right? You usually only get the money upon the conviction of a suspect. Lloyd’s not going to have the patience to play those odds. And Crow won’t forgive me for betraying Lloyd.”

“Even if it comes down to you being jailed for contempt?”

“Crow idolizes the Catonsville Nine and some group called the Baltimore Four. He expects me to live up to their lofty example.”

“The Baltimore Four? Crow expects you to have twenty winning games as a pitcher?” It made Tess feel better that Feeney’s brain also jumped to the Orioles, not some long-forgotten incident at the Customs House.

“Have you been paying attention to spring training? I’d have a shot at the number-five spot in the Orioles rotation.”

Tess chewed an olive pit. She had no appetite, and there was no better barometer to her mood. She was in very deep shit. She never got herself in more trouble than when she was being clever.

The thing that killed her was that Lloyd was wandering clueless through the city, with no inkling of what he had set in motion. Ignorance was bliss.

At the relatively advanced age of fifty-seven, Bennie Tep was still in the game, but he had been trying to grow the legal side of things, rely less on the game itself, which was so volatile. He planned to enjoy his old age, retire like any citizen, although he wasn’t going to play fuckin’ golf. Last thing he wanted at this point was another homicide on his calendar, but once it was explained to him, he understood. The boy had talked, the boy had to go. Okay, so he’d been clever enough not to throw Bennie’s name around, or so they assumed, because the cops hadn’t dropped by to talk to him yet. It was only a matter of time. They would get to the boy, and the boy would give them all up. The newspaper might not know or care who’d given the order, but the investigators most certainly did. The boy had been given a job, and he not only screwed it up, he had talked. The consequences for the second were more dire than for the first. And it wasn’t like it was the first time this kid had fucked up. Bennie understood why it had to be done. But his heart wasn’t in it. Heart wasn’t in it, and his hand couldn’t be anywhere near it.

Toad wasn’t crazy about being the triggerman, but disloyalty pissed him off, so he took on the job. Toad could be trusted. Tell him to do a thing and he did it. No muss, no fuss. Thing was, they could have done it this way in the first place, just popped the guy on a downtown street. Bennie didn’t believe in making things more complicated than they had to be. If the lawyer needed to die, he needed to die. But why all the to-and-fro? The whole plan had made Bennie’s head hurt. Bennie already knew how to commit the perfect murder. He had done it many times over, coming up. Shoot the guy. Make sure there are no witnesses. Get rid of the gun. Doubt his system? Well, he was here, in his own house-titled to his aunt, but his house nonetheless-fifty-seven years old and forty years in the business, and they’d never even gotten so much as a felony indictment against him. There were men in so-called legitimate businesses who couldn’t make that claim.

Bennie puttered around his kitchen looking for something he was allowed to eat or drink. This was usually the time of night that he liked to have a little cognac, but his doctor was down on that. Said his liver was fatty, although Bennie himself was lean, just a little paunch. Apparently he was like that guy on the commercial, the cut one who belly-flopped because his cholesterol was so high. Wine with dinner was okay, he had been told, but wine was something you wanted with a steak, and he wasn’t allowed to have that either. He looked at the doctor’s diet suggestions, taped to the side of the refrigerator. Fish, but not fried. Chicken, no skin. Nasty. The usual rabbit food. He could have some low-cal microwave popcorn, but his dentist looked down on that. Bennie’s heart was simply on notice, but his gums had crossed the line to rotten. He could have popcorn or nuts only on the night before a trip to the periodontist, but he was so sick with dread about the pain the night before that he didn’t have the appetite for much.

He settled for a York Peppermint Patty, a mini, only fifty calories, low-fat, and no trouble for his teeth. With a cup of hot tea, it was almost as good as a real dessert. Almost.

Waiting for his water to come to a boil, he turned on the late news. Slot machines-shit, he hoped they didn’t come to town, the legal numbers were bad enough-something else about the governor. Had Toad missed his chance? But when the news came back from commercial, the anchorgirl had on her serious face, signaling a sad story. That meant a homicide, a fatal car accident, or something about an injured pet.

“We’ve just gotten word that police have been summoned to the 2300 block of East Lombard Street for what appears to be a drive-by shooting. A young man was shot multiple times while standing on the corner there. Police say there were no witnesses. Those with information are asked to call…’’

Bennie winced, poured a little extra sugar in his tea. The boy was so young. Bennie hadn’t even started at sixteen, and here was a young man already dead. But it had been a different business in Bennie’s day-more time to learn on the job, get some savvy. The young ones today were too impatient, hotheaded, wild to use their weapons. Plus, no one diversified anymore. Bennie, for example, still carried some gambling action, a daily street number and some sports book from time to time. Now he had the real estate and the sub shops, although those were wearing him out. Damn health department. They were more formidable competition than the New York boys, citing a man for every little thing. It was the ghetto. Of course there were roaches and rats.

Damn. He felt bad for the kid. If they had done things Bennie’s way to start, none of this bullshit would have come to pass. He hated fancy shit. All that hoodoo with ATM cards and bank machines and surveillance cameras, and they weren’t any more in the clear than if they had just shot the guy in the head and left him in Patterson Park. Everybody had to be so got-damn smart all the got-damn time.

But it was over. Now only two of them knew what was what, and they would never tell. They both had too much to lose.