Crow didn’t have the heart to point out that Lloyd had helped. In trying to protect his contact, he had only made him more vulnerable.

“But Le’andro was involved in dealing drugs, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you said he was shot to death on a corner where there have been disputes over territory. It could be unrelated.”

“There ain’t been no quarrels over that corner for at least three weeks. That thing was settled when Buck Jackson was locked up.”

Three weeks didn’t seem like a true truce in a drug war, but perhaps Crow didn’t understand how time was calculated in Lloyd’s world. Perhaps three weeks in East Baltimore was three years in Iraq.

“So if they killed Le’andro, you’re off the hook. They think the informant is dead.”

“Yeah, but your people”-Crow was charmed despite himself by the concept that he had people-“have to make it official, tell police that Le’andro was the one they talked to. That’s the only way I can be safe.”

“They can’t, Lloyd. Not if they get hauled in front of a grand jury. Perjury is a big deal.”

“Yeah,” Lloyd said. “They got Lil’ Kim on that, but Baretta and his parrot go free on murder. World is fucked up.”

Crow couldn’t disagree on that last point, although he remained as mystified as ever by Lloyd’s cultural markers. A hip-hop star like Lil’ Kim, sure, but how did he know about Baretta? Then again, even the poorest homes in Baltimore were usually wired with premium cable, and why not? Crow couldn’t find it in him to begrudge the poor any luxury, no matter how shortsighted it seemed.

“Tess told me that the reporters who know your identity can invoke state shield laws,” he said. “If brought before the grand jury, they’ll testify that everything in the story is true, but they can’t be compelled to say anything else. Not under state law. And Tess is trying to figure out a way to avoid being interviewed at all, because she has no privileged status. Maybe if police assume it was Le’andro…”

But even ever-optimistic Crow couldn’t see how this would happen. They would demand that Tess verify that Le’andro was the source, and Tess couldn’t risk lying to local investigators when the stakes were so large.

“Lloyd, here’s the thing: If you stay with me at the house, someone’s going to put it together really fast that you’re the source.”

“Why?”

“Well, because, it’s just that…”

Lloyd laughed at his discomfiture. “I was just messin’ with you, man. I know you got no black friends.”

“That’s not true. That’s absolutely not true.”

“Yeah? So who you hang with who’s black?”

“Well, Tess’s friend Jackie and her daughter. And I sometimes have lunch with Milton Kent, the talk-show host.”

“On 1010 AM?” Lloyd looked impressed. The station was the only talk channel in Baltimore programmed for a black urban audience. Crow sometimes toggled between it and the all-conservative WBAL, marveling at the wide world of conspiratorial thinking.

“No, the NPR affiliate.” Lloyd was no longer impressed. Meanwhile Crow was reeling inside his own head. Of course he had black friends, he must have black friends. There was, well, Seth, back at college. They had been tight. And some musicians, from his days as the lead singer of Poe White Trash. Certainly he had never made a conscious choice not to have black friends.

But this was Baltimore. Sixty-six percent black, and most of its white citizens lived inside an all-white bubble. Just walking through the park, Crow and Lloyd had drawn more than their share of odd looks from the stay-at-home mothers who speed-walked at midday. That’s why he knew he had to get Lloyd out of Roland Park as soon as possible.

“Lloyd, you have to go to the police. Tell them the part about Le’andro, and they’ll understand you’ve got nothing more to tell. Tess will do everything she can to keep her promise to you, but you can’t expect her to go to jail to protect your identity.”

“I never asked for this trouble. She made me do it. She was just looking out for her own self. Now I’m looking out for me.”

This was all too true. Not particularly noble on Lloyd’s part, but true. Tess, driven by insatiable curiosity as sure as Kipling’s elephant was, had dragged Lloyd into this, not the other way around.

“But it’s the only way you’ll be safe. Once you talk to the police, they’ll do everything they can to protect you. You can’t get in trouble for giving a dead man’s name.”

“Yeah, right. You know how many witnesses been killed in my neighborhood? Even locked up, you’re not safe. They want you, they get you. Besides, if I say Le’andro, they gonna go to Bennie Tep and he’ll have me killed. Snitchin’ don’t play where I’m from.”

They had come full circle, in the conversation and in the walk. Lloyd was right. Well, not right exactly, but logical in his own way. Outing himself would achieve nothing. Lloyd had already told everything he knew. True, he had omitted a key detail, Le’andro as middleman, but now that Le’andro was dead, Lloyd truly had nothing more to offer. Police would charge him and hold him. Worse, they might release him to streets where he, too, would be hit. Meanwhile Lloyd couldn’t stay with Crow, because even Barney Fife would quickly ascertain the identity of the black teenager who had suddenly taken up residence in Tess Monaghan’s North Side home. He needed to get away, somewhere safe.

Why not take a page out of Tess’s playbook? If Crow and Lloyd disappeared, she could then say in all innocence that she didn’t know where her source was. He’d have to work it out with Pat-no, let Tess explain to her father why Crow was on the lam and couldn’t come to work. On the lam. He couldn’t help finding the idea somewhat romantic. He and Lloyd would take off today, disappearing into the city. He’d need cash to avoid leaving any trail, but cash was never a problem. They would use disposable cell phones, the kind available from every convenience store now, to stay in touch with Tess; he had learned about that scam from watching HBO. No, no, he wouldn’t call at all. If Tess’s phones weren’t already tapped, they would be soon. He’d have to buy pairs of cell phones, send one to Tess in the mail.

“Lloyd, are you sure no one knows that Le’andro handed the card over to you?”

“Absolutely.” His answer was swift, emphatic. Perhaps too much so.

“Lloyd?”

He sighed, put-upon by his own unreliability. “I got a friend.”

“The kid you run the tire scam with?”

“Uh-huh. But he’s good people. You don’t need to be bothering with him.”

“What if he tells someone?”

“He won’t.” The swift conviction was sincere this time.

“How much does he know?”

“He knows Le’andro gave me a chance to make some money last Thanksgiving. And he was with me when I used the card, out at the mall. I bought him something, too. But he don’t know I talked, and I don’t want him to.”

“Lloyd-you were supposed to tell the reporters everything. That was the deal.”

“I told ’em about what I bought myself. The DVD player was for him. He likes movies, and it got a battery pack, so he can charge it up at the library, watch it in the night.”

Crow remembered the pile of DVDs he had found on the floor of the spare bedroom the day after Lloyd’s memorable first visit, the copy of Throne of Blood in the Volvo.

“You steal the Kurosawa movie for him?”

“What? Oh, no, I just thought it looked cool.”

“It is cool. If we had time, I’d let you watch it.”

“Where we going?”

“To hide in plain sight.”