Charm City Read Online Free PDF

them,
symbolizing the ultimate surrender.
    Tyner smiled ruefully. "The city
doesn't make it easy for a taxpayer to stay here, Tess.
Especially after this winter. My street wasn't plowed or
salted even once. Every time it snowed, I was stranded."
    "You don't have to tell
me. Remember, I was the one who drove out there five times, using
cross-country skis to get up your street. You always acted as if it
were a terrible imposition, having me show up with groceries."
    "I wanted brandy, not food.
You'll never make it as a St. Bernard, Tess."
    St. Bernard .
Tess's mind jumped from the past to the present,
free-associating. Dog. She should call that greyhound rescue group
Steve had been blathering about.
    Leaving Tyner to his usual grumpy funk, she
went back to her desk and flipped through the phone book until she
found a listing for Greyhound Pets of Maryland.
    "Greyhound Pets." The
breathless person on the other end was a woman with a sweet, throaty
voice. Dogs barked frantically in the background. Tess had an instant
image of someone in blue jeans, covered in dog hair. Yech .
    "Hi. I seem to have inherited a
greyhound from my uncle and I'm trying to find out what I
need to do for it. Food, exercise, routine, that stuff."
    "How long has your uncle had the
dog? I mean, is he a recent adoptee, or has he had him some time?
How's he doing?"
    Tess became confused, thinking
"he" must be her uncle. Then she realized the woman
was referring to the dog. "Um, pretty recent, I guess. She
didn't know how to go up stairs."
    "Is he from here?"
    "The dog? I don't
know."
    "Your uncle. What's his
name?"
    "Spike Orrick."
    "That name doesn't ring
a bell, and we do most of the placements in the Baltimore
area." The woman's voice suddenly sounded much less
pleasant. "Are you sure he adopted this dog through proper
channels? Has he gotten her fixed? You have to get them spayed or
neutered, you know. It's part of the agreement. Is the dog
with you now? We do have an identification system, and if
you'll just…"
    Tess placed the receiver back in its cradle.
Who was she kidding? Spike had never gone through proper channels for
anything. If only Esskay could talk. If only Spike could talk.
    But a call to St. Agnes dashed those hopes:
Spike was in a coma now, prognosis uncertain.
     
    "What is so rare as a day in
spring? What is so rare as a Baltimore day in March when the sun
actually shines?" Tess muttered to herself, climbing the
stairs to the Brass Elephant bar that evening, her mood a strange
muddle of anxiety and anticipation—worry over Spike, delight
at spending time in her favorite bar, with one of her favorite drinking
companions.
    The Brass Elephant bar was a well-kept
secret and the regulars conspired to keep it that way. An inexpensive
hide-away above an expensive restaurant, it had been an essential place
to Tess when she was unemployed, a refuge where she could feel
civilized, pampered, and well fed for as little as fifteen dollars. The
lights were low, as was the volume on the stereo, with Chet Baker,
Johnny Hartman, and Antonio Carlos Jobim murmuring their songs of love
so quietly that one caught only an occasional rhyming whisper of
love/above, art/heart, or sky/thigh. There had been an ugly scare a few
years back, when a new bartender had begun playing a jazz version of
the hit ballad from the latest Disney cartoon musical, but someone had
quickly set her straight. The Brass Elephant survived good and bad
fortune, from Maryland's peripatetic economy to those
best-of-Baltimore ratings that stumbled on its martinis, creating a
brief flurry of interest among people who didn't necessarily
like martinis, but liked to say they had tried the best.
    Good, her favorite bartender was here. So
was Feeney, settled deep in the corner banquette, fingers pinching the
stem of his martini glass, a telltale mound of toothpick-skewered
olives on the white tablecloth in front of him. Tess pointed to
Feeney's glass, signaling she wanted the same, and