Free Baltimore Noir by Laura Lippman Page B

Window as severance before leaving my job at the emporium.
    “She’ll sell,” Carpenter Hands says.
    “Over my dead body.”
    I walk out, past the Broadway Market and Crabby Dick’s and toward my favorite Fell’s Point bar. I’ve always wanted to say “over my dead body,” but I now feel under some sort of obligation. I stand at the railing by the water taxi landing and stare at the brown harbor water. It’s high tide, the trash is out. The Moran tugboats, with their Goodyear tire whiskers, are all tucked in for the night alongside the Recreation Pier. The briny wind, the drinking people, the subterranean sin—Fell’s Point is feeling and looking one quarter French Quarter. Inside Casey’s, I hear Tongue Oil close its first set with Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song.” Lori’s six, seven customers are speechless, immobilized. One might be weeping.
    “Ah, the unbridled power of rock and roll,” I tell Lori.
    “Why no, that’s just my shitty house band.”
    “I quit my job at the emporium.”
    “I like that decision,” Lori says. “Work here. Help me find good music. Please, help me find good music. You heard what they did to ‘The Immigrant Song.’ Michael, musicians will listen to you—you’re old.”
    When Lori gives you a Bass Ale on a New Yorker coaster, when Lori uses your full first name, when Lori offers you a job working with Lori, you don’t need a day to think about it. She tells me to start immediately by advising the management (i.e., drummer) of Tongue Oil that a second set and any future first sets will no longer be necessary. During the transitional period, I insert a pressed dollar into the jukebox to hear Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” and “She’s the One.” Lori reimburses me for the money, a gesture far more intimate and sweeter than having your eyebrow groped. I know she’s scared to sell, scared not to sell, scared of him. And who knows what happened to Carpenter Hands’s girlfriend? Maybe Mel has given topless cleaning another chance; she just needed the right boss.
    “Lori?”
    “Yes.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Thirty-one. Now help me close up.”
    The Fell’s Pointer office is on the second floor of a Fell Street rowhouse. Barry Levinson filmed a scene from Diner here, but there’s no plaque commemorating the moment. It’s the second Friday in August. I’m using one of the office’s three Dell PCs to do my listings: The Fell’s Point Antique Dealers’ Association, the Fell’s Point Citizens on Patrol, and the Fell’s Point Homeowners’ Association all have meetings coming up. I also need to remind readers again to have their recyclables out by 7 a.m. on collection days.
    But I don’t feel like reporting. I’m exhausted from a late night. I met someone and we ended up drinking, then arguing. He drank way too much, and I don’t know if he ever got home. His girlfriend showed up and that was stressful. I left them at the Rec Pier, him still talking his shit. He was one of these cocky dudes—you know, the kind who thinks he owns the place, the kind who would never buy a beer at Casey’s. Anyway, the night ended poorly.
    We have the windows open in the office because it’s so damn steamy. We first heard the sirens at 8 a.m. and now the Baltimore City Police, three patrol cars, are at the Rec Pier. EMT people are here, too. Traffic is stopped, even the Duck Tour had to somehow brake.
    “Go see what that’s about,” my editor says. Paulette means well, but she knows how I feel about covering news. News is stressful. It lacks jazz. “Go,” Paulette says. It’s a short walk along Thames. It’s ninety minutes past low tide but the harbor water is still receded and it’s shallow enough to see dismembered crabs swaying in the flotsam. At the water taxi landing, a city garbage skimmer has anchored—its chop-sticked wings have locked and apparently stalled on a particularly bulky piece of trash. I’m supposed to be asking questions and taking