Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman

smiling as if he were an old friend. Frightening, the intimacy television created with strangers. This time Abramowitz gave her a long, hard look. Tess wondered if he thought she was a chronic litigant, hurling herself into well-dressed people in hopes of a lucrative settlement. He said nothing, however, just turned and walked toward the elevator. He was an absurdly small man, except for that giant head, and Tess thought he must get tiredcarrying it around. Not even Rock’s body could support such a gargantuan head.
    The thought of Rock set off a series of small explosions in her brain. Abramowitz, Ava’s boss. Ava. Hotel lobby. Abramowitz and Ava. Not in the lobby, but upstairs somewhere.
    “But he’s so ugly,” she said out loud, drawing a harsh look from a young woman sitting nearby, a baby in her lap. The baby, a little boy in a white lace gown and cap, was not, in fact, particularly good-looking. Tess turned away quickly so the woman could not see her face, red with mortification and laughter. When she had contained herself she walked back to the bank of phones near the entrance.
    She considered what she had seen. Ava and Abramowitz. It was tempting to jump to the conclusion that they were here together on some illicit business, but what proof did she really have? For all she knew they were meeting a client in one of the suites upstairs, some Sims-Kever executive who still traveled in style, even as he cried poverty to his victims.
    Pulling out the crumpled sheets Rock had given her a week ago, Tess dialed Ava’s office and asked for her secretary. A woman with an English accent came on the line. Interesting touch for a firm founded by three micks, Tess thought.
    “Miss Hill, please.”
    “She’s not available. May I take a message?”
    Tess began stammering, which was only partly an act.
    “Oh, wow, shit—I mean, sorry, but do you happen to know where she is? This is going to sound really spacey, but I’m this old friend of hers from, like, grade school, and we made these lunch plans and—would you believe—I forgot where I’m supposed to meet her. Could you check her calendar and see if there’s anything that might give me a clue?”
    The secretary sniffed disapprovingly, then shunted Tess into the vacuum of “hold.” She came back on the line a few seconds later.
    “Are you sure it was today? Her lunches are blocked out all month, from noon to two.”
    “I must have really screwed up. Does she have anything tomorrow? Does she have anything about meeting…Becky for lunch?”
    “No, nothing written down. Shall I have her call you?”
    “What? What? I can’t hear you. I must be in a bad cell.” Tess hung up the pay phone and picked up the house phone next to it.
    “Front desk.”
    “Hi, it’s me in the kitchen.” She figured the front desk attendant wouldn’t want to admit he didn’t recognize the voice of a fellow employee. “Hey, what room is Mr. Abramowitz in this week? I can’t read it on the room service slip and you know how he is if his food is cold. He always threatens to sue!”
    “He’s in 410. And you better get it up there fast. You know he expects the food to arrive no later than twelve-thirty. He doesn’t like to be interrupted.”
    Not enough, Tess thought. Not enough information with which to ruin your friend’s life. She took a deep breath and said: “So he can have dessert by one, right?” She barely recognized the coy, snide laugh she produced on cue.
    The front desk clerk snorted, then recovered. “Just get the food up to the room. They’re both here.”

Chapter 6
    T hat night, Tess ran her hardest route.
    She ran along Boston Street and into Canton. Past the expensive condos thrown up along the waterfront when Canton had been touted as the next hot neighborhood. It had never quite happened, so only a few high rises squatted among the row houses, Gullivers in Lilliput. It would be sweet, Tess thought, if the residents awakened one day to find their expensive