WEDNESDAY

15

Crow had thought he would find it easy to spend a night in a homeless shelter-after all, he’d been working with various soup kitchens and shelters for the past three months-but he was wholly unprepared for the difference between life as a come-andgo-as-you-please volunteer and the lot of a client. Or guest, as this Southeast Baltimore shelter called the twenty-odd men it took in every night. It wasn’t so much the smells or the sounds that threw him, although those were plentiful and strange. It was the lack of autonomy, from when the lights were turned out to when the men themselves were turned out onto the streets the next morning. As a benefactor Crow had power. As someone in need of the shelter’s services, he felt at once meek and surly.

It was a safe haven, however, and he had planned to return there for a second night until the director pulled him aside after breakfast.

“Look, I’d do anything for you,” said Father Rob, short for Roberto. A Lutheran minister, he had convinced his church to let him use the parish hall as a shelter as the congregation’s neighborhood members dwindled over the years, replaced by yuppies who thought churches were only good for condo rehabs. “But if you’re trying to hide, this isn’t going to work for you.”

“Why not?”

“You stick out, Crow. I mean, Lloyd-sure, we could keep Lloyd forever and no one would give him a second look, although he’s a little young. But Lloyd’s not going to put up with that. He’s going to go back to his own neighborhood the minute he gets bored or frustrated.”

“His life’s in danger. He’s the one who came to me, the one who sought my help.”

“I know Lloyd, Crow. I’ve known him a lot longer than you have. You think this is the first time he’s slept here?”

“I thought you didn’t take teenagers.”

“We don’t-officially. What would you do if a kid showed up on a snowy night?”

Buy him a meal, Crow thought. Take him into my own house. Wreck my girlfriend’s life.

“Anyway, Lloyd’s ideas don’t have a lot of what I’ll call staying power. Yes, he’s scared now. But the fear will pass. It has to pass. His part of East Baltimore might as well be the Middle East. There’s so much violence he’s numb to it. This isn’t his first friend to be killed. It won’t be the last. He’ll persuade himself that Le’andro’s death doesn’t have anything to do with him after all. Or that he’s cool as long as he doesn’t talk to the police. Once out of your sight-and he’ll try to lose you, sooner rather than later, no matter how many good meals you buy him-he might go to the very drug dealer he fears, beg for some kind of clemency.”

“So I should take him to the police.”

Rob hesitated. “The good-citizen part of me says yes. The part of me that knows this city-Crow, a man was beaten to death in jail this winter. By the guards. So if I’m honest, I can’t tell you there’s a way to guarantee Lloyd’s safety. Yet you definitely can’t control him as long as he’s in Baltimore. Two days from now, he’ll be chasing a sandwich or a girl, forgetting all about how scared he was. You need to get him out of town for a little while, figure this out from a safe distance.”

Crow studied Lloyd, slumped in an old plastic chair in the shelter’s foyer, his posture and attitude radiating the typical adolescent sullenness. What would Crow do with him all day in Baltimore? He’d thought they could go to the library, a prospect that had filled Crow with joy. A day to read and think, hidden away in the gracious main library’s nooks and crannies. Then down to the harbor for lunch, maybe a long walk for exercise, back to the library until closing time, dinner somewhere in Canton, and here to sleep. Given the circumstances, Father Rob had even agreed to hold two beds for them, waiving the usual first-come, first-served rule out of gratitude for the favors that Crow had done the shelter.

But Crow saw now how delusional he was. Lloyd would never spend a day in a library, much less see the point in taking a long walk on a cool spring afternoon. He would fight Crow every step of the way.

“Where should we go?”

“I don’t know, Crow.” Father Rob gave him a rueful smile. “I really shouldn’t know, should I?”

“If anyone comes here asking after us, even someone who knows me-”

“Crow who? Lloyd who? Vaya con Dios.”

Before Tess’s father had taken over the Point, it had belonged to Tess’s uncle, Spike. At least she called the old man Uncle Spike. The nature of his relationship to the family remained vague. No one even seemed sure if he was a Monaghan or a Weinstein. There was also the hint of some scandal about Spike, a criminal past that the usually voluble Tess skirted in conversation. Whatever Spike had been, whatever he had done, he was now a proper retiree, living in a condo in South Florida and going to the greyhound tracks. Not to bet but to monitor the treatment of the dogs. It was Spike, in fact, who had rescued Esskay, although he always insisted that Esskay had rescued him.

From a sub shop in South Baltimore, a place with a video game that would keep Lloyd occupied as long as there was a supply of quarters, Crow called Spike on the cell phone he had just purchased, a twin to the one he’d overnighted to Tess.

A man of few words, Spike listened to Crow without comment or interruption, reason enough to be fond of him.

“There’s a man,” Spike said. “Friend of the family, will look after you for a while. Edward Keyes.”

“Isn’t he the former cop who signed off on Tess’s paperwork so she could get licensed?”

“Yeah. Good people. He lives down the ocean.” Spike may have retired to South Florida, but his Baltimore accent had not diminished at all and he pronounced this phrase with the classic Baltimore o sounds: Downy eaushin. “I’ll call him. I’ll also call a guy in Denton, who will swap out cars for you. Give you something nice and legitimate, put yours on a lift for the duration. But look, Fast Eddie-”

Spike, despite being Spike, did not approve of Crow’s nickname and had settled on “Fast Eddie” as a suitable substitution.

“What, Spike?”

“You got enough cash? ’Cuz I’ll front you, wire some to Keyes.”

“I have all the cash I need, Spike,” Crow said, knowing that Spike would not ask how that could be, bless him. Spike was a great respecter of secrets, having had a few himself. “Enough to last for weeks, if necessary, especially with the accommodations you’re arranging.”

“But what you’re doing, it’s short-term, right?”

“Probably no more than a week or so. Just until we figure some things out.”

Even over the telephone, Spike was capable of eloquent silences. This one was skeptical.

“I need Lloyd to trust me,” Crow rushed to explain. “Once he trusts me, he’ll understand that I have his best interests at heart, and he’ll come in voluntarily, do what he has to do.”

“You don’t think he’s told you everything.” Said flatly, a question and a statement. Spike had his opinion, but he still wanted to know what Crow thought.

Crow glanced over at Lloyd, whose every cell seemed focused on the game in front of him. He held on to the controls, swaying side to side, his right hand darting out to pound the button that unleashed his artillery. His grace, his dexterity, his rapt concentration-what could Lloyd accomplish if those gifts could be directed elsewhere? But how could anyone persuade him to redefine the future as something more than the next four to six hours?

“No,” Crow admitted. “I don’t think he’s told me the whole story. But I also think he’s right that his only choices just now are being killed or being locked up.”

“Don’t lose sight of that,” Spike said.

“That he’s in danger?”

“That he’s a liar.”

“That’s harsh, Spike.”