Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [11]
“What are you drinking?” Ty asked.
“Jack Daniel’s,” Tommy said. In Los Angeles these days he mostly drank juices or fizzy water. But here in Charm City a man still had to drink hard whiskey.
“Jack it is,” Ty said. “You look good for your age, Tommy. California must agree with you.”
“It’s all right. I’ve been doing fine.”
“Oh, come on,” Ty said. “I’ve read all about you in the Sun, and I’ve seen your movies. You specialize in action stuff. Tough guys.”
Tom felt his face redden. “Yeah, well … that’s how I got pigeonholed. Just The Business.”
“Sure,” Ty said. “I understand. But some of the old crowd might not get that. I’ve talked to guys who … actually think you’re representing yourself as a tough guy.”
Tommy winced. This was getting to be a drag. “Not me. I’m just a humble scribe doing a job of work.” He took his shot of Jack from the barmaid and downed it. It burned his throat and he had to repress a cough.
“Yeah, well that’s what I told them,” Ty said, looking at his watch. “Funny thing, out there you’re pigeonholed as a tough guy, and back here as an academic kind of dude. The many lives of Tommy Weeks.”
Tom signaled to order a second drink. “Who’s been saying that kind of lame shit about me?”
“Just some jerks,” Ty said. “Mouse Wiskowski and Bobby Hamm.”
Tom felt a sudden rush of sadness. Though he hadn’t seen either of them in twenty years, he hated the fact that they thought him a phony. In a weird way it mattered more to him what they thought about him than anyone he’d met in Los Angeles.
Now Ty reached over and massaged his stiff neck muscles. “You’re getting all tense back there,” he said. “I should never have mentioned it. Those guys don’t matter at all. I can tell you one person who’s said nothing but nice things about you. Ruth Anne. Those guys start in with their ‘He’s gone Hollywood’ crap, Ruth Anne takes up for you every time.”
“Is that right?” Tom said, taking another hit of the Jack Daniel’s. He tried to keep his voice level, as if this information was of no more interest than an Orioles score, but his breathlessness betrayed him.
As as kid, Ruth Anne had lived around the corner from him on Craig Avenue. Black-haired and green-eyed, she’d been the neighborhood darling before she became the homecoming queen at the University of Maryland. Every boy who ever met her fell madly in love with her, and Tom was no exception. But he had never gotten beyond “friend” status before. Now, even after all these years, the thought that she might actually think of him at all, much less argue among the old timers that he was still a true blue Baltimore guy (even if it wasn’t really true), cheered him up immeasurably.
“You still see her?” he asked now, not even trying to keep the surprise out of his voice.
“Sure I do,” Ty said. “She just recently came back to the old neighborhood. Lives only a few blocks away from me over on Chateau Avenue.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I am not,” Ty said. “Been through a lot of tough stuff, kiddo. Got divorced and ended up limping back to town. But she still looks great.”
“She does?” He knew that he sounded like the hopelessly smitten teenager he’d once been, but after his third Jack Daniel’s he didn’t care.
Ty smiled and rubbed his shoulders again.
“I promised you a surprise, old buddy, and that’s it. Ruth Anne’s having a party tonight and she absolutely insisted you come.”
“Hey, that’s great,” Tommy said. His head was spinning and he suddenly felt another rush of pure affection for Ty. Why had he been so worried about meeting Ty? It was crazy, really, his old paranoia still informing his life. Why, Ty was an adult now, and so was he. They could be friends, without all the old one-upsman bullshit.
Ty looked at his Cartier watch and squeezed the back of Tom’s neck again.
“Hey, the party’s already started. Let’s get over there before all the food