Charm City by Laura Lippman Page B

see…Joe."
    "Oh yeah, we're real
anxious." The man smiled at her, and the car roared off. She
watched them head north as she had instructed, then made her way to the
closest pay phone. Spike was in intensive care, the nurse reminded her.
No one but family was allowed to visit, and no one but Kitty and her
parents had tried.
    Tess wasn't reassured. A call to
admitting told her what she suspected: no Joe Johnson had entered St.
Agnes this week.
    Adrenaline pumping, she quickly thought of
someone who could help her out. And best of all, she could work out
while consulting him.
     
    Durban Knox had owned his eponymous boxing
gym in East Baltimore for almost forty years. When the neighborhood had
been infiltrated by the upwardly mobile in the 1980s, he had tried to
cash in by adding fancy weight machines, Lifecycles, Stairmasters, and
Star-Track treadmills. The club had caught on, but not because of the
new equipment. Instead, doctors, lawyers, and stockbrokers came to box
alongside the regulars, usually within days of some newspaper article
announcing that boxing was the newest workout for doctors, lawyers, and
stockbrokers. The most recent version of the boxing-is-back story had
professional women taking up the sweet science. Tess was not tempted.
With everyone else in the ring, she enjoyed almost exclusive title to
most of the non-boxing equipment. And as Spike's niece, she
also enjoyed the almost exclusive protection of Durban, who made sure
the male patrons left her alone. Even if she had wanted one to talk to
her, he wouldn't have dared, not under Durban's
watchful eye.
    But now it was Spike who needed protection.
    "Yeah, I know some guys who could
keep an eye on him," Durban said, after hearing about
Tess's encounter on Saratoga Street. "Better do it
that way, instead of going to the cops. Spike wakes up and finds some
cop outside his hospital room door, he ain't going to be very
happy with you."
    "I don't know how
I'll pay them—"
    Durban flapped his hand in front of his face
as if he smelled something bad. "We'll talk about
that when Spike wakes up. Now, stop wasting time and get cracking.
Tyner told me you gotta lot of work to do to get ready for the rowing
season. I'm suppose to make sure you don't dog
it."
    Although it was above freezing, warm enough
to run outdoors, Tess opted for five miles on the treadmill, jogging
until she had the sweet, rubbery feeling only an overheated gym can
provide. Imagining Colleen Reganhart's bright blue body
beneath her feet, she pounded out her last mile in under 7:30, the
treadmill's top speed.
    "I'm watching you,
Tess," Durban called across the room, pointing to the clock.
"Seventy-five minutes on aerobics, Tyner said. He also says
you gotta do more weight work."
    "Fine, I'll do the bike.
I've got Don Quixote to keep me company."
    "Yeah, well get him to spot you on
some bench presses, too. Tyner said ."
    Tess settled on the stationary bike with her
book propped on the control panel. After a few minutes, she barely
noticed the gym's sounds around her—the throb of
the speed ball, the duller tones of the heavy bag, the muted thuds of
colliding bodies. In its own way, Durban's was a serene
place. She always felt safe here.
    A sudden breeze swept through the room,
changing the pressure like a cold front coming through town. An
entourage had arrived, and the bright white light of a television
camera was capturing its every movement. What was the fuss? Durban had
trained a few moderately successful boxers in his time, but no one who
could generate this kind of heat. Tess saw the silver-haired anchor
from Monday night's rally, unnaturally pink in his makeup,
schmoozing with Paul Tucci, still walking stiff-legged but no longer
using a cane. The Tucci money seemed to promote that kind of reflexive
brown-nosing. The rest of the group looked like bankers and Chamber of
Commerce types, blue suited and bland.
    The suits parted and Wink Wynkowski emerged,
shockingly scrawny in a gray wool