"You live with her, don't you?"

"When I wanna. When I have to. Her place is nice in the winter. Other times, I'd rather be on my own."

"What about your sister, Destiny? Does she live there, or here with you?"

"Destiny's gone."

"Gone where?"

"I ain't seen her, but she'll be back soon, and then everything will be all right. That's what she told me, everything going to be cool. We gonna get our own place as soon as she gets back."

"Where'd she go?"

"Dunno." A giggle. "I think she went to Burma."

"Burma?"

"Or maybe she dug all the way to China this time. Yeah, maybe that's it." More giggles.

Junkie humor. An acquired taste. Then again, Tess had always found herself hilarious when stoned.

"When is she coming back?"

"When she done."

"How long has it been since you've seen her?"

Treasure held up his hands, as if to count the days off on his splayed fingers. Instead, he began to laugh again, as if he had glimpsed something hilarious in the palms of his hands. Maybe it was his lifeline. Then he held up his palm, flat, like a traffic cop, and looked over his shoulder, holding the pose for quite some time.

"Treasure?"

"I'm doin' the Heisman."

"What?"

"Doin' the Heisman. You know, like in football." He repeated the movement, and Tess understood then that he was suppose to be the trophy, straight-arming his way through life. "I could run. Man, I could run. I could have had me a scholarship if I wanted one."

"I was asking you about Destiny. I thought twins were close, closer than ordinary siblings."

Treasure just stared at her blankly. "We're close. We're real close. Destiny 'n' me, we always stick together. Look, you want me, or you want my sister? What you doing here, anyway?"

A good question. What could Luther Beale do for Treasure Teeter, besides buy him more crack, perhaps set him up in a nicer place to smoke it?

"You interested in kicking your habit, maybe getting your GED? I know someone who will help you if you are."

"Man, I knew you were full of shit. You're from that clinic, ain't you? The one that sends those social workers out on the street to bring people in. Everybody knows there's no slots for detox now, even if you want to get clean. The state waiting list just goes on forever. 'Less you're a vet. Then the VA has to take you. But I'm no vet. Not officially, anyway." He giggled. Yes, Treasure Teeter sure could crack himself up. "I'd go to war, if they wanted me to. It can't be any tougher than where I been. Yes, ma'am, I'd go to war any time they want me to."

"I could get you in a private hospital. I know a…program that will pay the full freight. If you're interested. Private room, good food. Not a state hospital."

Treasure propped his chin on the windowsill. He actually seemed to be thinking about her suggestion. Then he was distracted by a centipede inching its way along the flaking paint. He held out his finger and let it crawl onto his nail, pulled his finger close to his face, staring at the centipede until he was almost cross-eyed. Then he shook his finger, flinging the bug to the ground.

"Naw, that's not for me."

Tess handed him a business card. "If you change your mind, call me. The offer will stand, at least for a while."

Treasure took her card and began picking his teeth with it. "That pie sure was good," he said. "I wish I had taken me two."

Kitty was preparing to open the store when Tess and Esskay arrived home. The dog, who hadn't had the benefit of a homeless man's orange soda, slurped ravenously from the bowl Kitty kept behind the counter, displacing more water than she actually consumed.

"Do you ever feel like there are two Baltimores out there?" Tess asked her aunt, trying to mop up after Esskay's sloppy drinking.

As usual, Kitty understood what Tess meant, even if Tess wasn't quite sure. "More like three or four, maybe five. But it's always been that way, Tesser. Rich Baltimore, poor Baltimore. Black and white Baltimore. Old Baltimore, those folks who can trace their blue blood all the way back to the Ark and the Dove, and immigrant Baltimore."

"I just never thought I'd feel like I was in a foreign land less than a mile from my own apartment. I was scared today, Kitty. Scared of an old man who wanted to do nothing more than give me a soda. Scared to stand in front of a vacant house on Chester Street and talk to some stoned kid inside. The city's dying. It's not going to exist a hundred years from now."

"You're too young to be so disillusioned, Tess. Once you start to think like that, there's no turning back. Remember, in last year's nests, there are no birds this year."

"Say what?"

"You still haven't finished Don Quixote, have you?"

Reminded of her literary bête noire, Tess scrubbed harder at the floor, although she had soaked up most of the water spilled there. "I finished the first part. It took Cervantes another decade to write the second, so I thought I might take a ten-year break before I read it."

"It's the second part that really matters, more than all that tilting at windmills stuff in the first." Kitty unlocked the store's double doors, where some of the Sunday regulars were already lined up, cups of coffee in hand. These were her devoted customers, the ones who waited until noon each Sunday to buy the out-of-town papers here and then settle into her faded armchairs to read them. Few of them managed to leave without picking up a new book that Kitty had pressed into their hands. Kitty Monaghan, queen of the hand-sale.

"You know, I'm wrong," she said suddenly, straightening a pile of Anne Tyler paperbacks on permanent display by the cash register. It was Kitty's quixotic quest to lure the reclusive local writer to a signing at the store. It hadn't happened yet, but Kitty's hopes never flagged.

"You were wrong about something? Alert the media, I don't recall ever hearing that particular statement come out of your mouth before."

Kitty ignored the dig. "It's not illusions you lack, Tess. It's a Sancho. With Whitney in Tokyo and Crow in Texas, you need a sidekick. There is no Don Quixote without Sancho Panza, you know."

"Whitney will be back. As for Crow-I never think about him."

"Liar."

"Probably. At any rate, Esskay is all the Sancho I need."

The dog looked up at the sound of her name, jowls dripping, chest heaving, tongue lolling from her mouth in an antic grin. One ear stood straight up at attention, while the other flopped forward at half-mast.

"She'll do," Kitty said. "Until the real thing comes along."

Chapter 12

"I think coffee is getting better," Tess said, sipping a cup as she and Jackie waited for the Adoption Rights meeting to get under way. "When the prices were raised-when people became accustomed to paying two, three dollars, expectations went up, too. Now places that used to serve that overscorched, underbrewed crap have to offer something decent. Even places like this, where it's free."

Jackie said nothing, just wrapped her arms tighter around her middle and shoved her long legs backward beneath her plastic chair.

"Then again, there's this whole instant coffee mystery," Tess kept prattling, hoping it might calm Jackie down. "I read in the paper that the vast majority of people who drink instant are senior citizens. When asked why they drink instant, they said it takes too long to brew a fresh pot. Takes too long! Like, they have something better to do than wait the ten minutes it takes to make real coffee."

Jackie bent forward at the waist. She now looked like someone with severe abdominal cramps. Tess was beginning to think Jackie wanted her here in case she lost her nerve and bolted from the room. Then again, the Columbia Interfaith Center made her stomach ache, too. The ecumenical, all-religions-welcome-here place of worship was part of the original Columbia vision and the building still had a touchy-feely vibe.