Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [39]
She hadn’t called his references.
Angie lived life on the edge.
Parents: Please do not allow your chil—
Someone pulled the plug on the recording, thank God. Angie joined the crowd around the outdoor pool as aquarium staff prepared to feed Ike and Lady, the gray seals who lived there. She rested her forearms against the railing and watched Ike flounder onto a rock, snap up the fish tossed his way, and honk appreciatively for the crowd.
When feeding time was over, Angie strolled along the seawall, past the grinning black hulk of the USS Torsk permanently tied up there, wondering where the hell Jack Daniels had gotten to. He was coming from Annapolis, he said, so she’d timed their meeting carefully, taking the crowds into consideration. Maybe Jack was already on island time.
So she wouldn’t mess up her cutoffs, Angie selected a relatively clean spot and sat down on the granite wall, her legs dangling over the water. Her feet ended in Docksiders. No one could say she didn’t dress like a sailor.
The water taxi came and went, its canopy flapping as it chugged through the still, humid air. Motorboats flitted about the harbor, weaving around the fleet of paddleboats that puttered around like ducklings. Sailboats bobbed quietly at anchor, suddenly swinging wide, facing into a puff of wind that rippled a path along the water.
“Stevie! Stay away from the water!” A woman’s voice, screeching. When Angie turned her head to check out the kid, she saw it: a Sabre motoring in under bare poles, its blue hull bright against the greenish-brown mound of Federal Hill. It would be ten, twenty minutes maybe, before the captain found a spot to anchor amid the sea of tethered vessels.
Angie extracted a digital camcorder, smaller than a paperback, from a plastic bag in her tote. She flipped it open and centered the sailboat in the viewfinder. She zoomed in, waited for the cam to focus. No mistake. Windwalker was stenciled in gold letters on its hull; an inflatable dinghy bounced along in its wake.
She panned aft to where the captain, his features indistinct in the shadow of a baseball cap, manned the helm, then forward along the life lines. Well, that’s a surprise. Jack Daniels had crew. A young man in chinos and a blue polo shirt stood on the bow, his foot resting lightly on the anchor chain as it screamed over the windlass and snaked into the water, pulled along by the weight of the anchor as it sank into the muck at the bottom of the Patapsco.
When the anchor was secure, the two men piled into the dinghy, cranked the outboard to life, and motored to the dock where they jostled for a spot, bouncing off the other inflatables like oversized inner tubes.
Through the viewfinder Angie watched the men disembark, watched the young guy shake Jack’s hand, watched as he seemed to be saying goodbye. Good, she thought. One less Y chromosome to worry about.
From behind the camera, Angie stared, comparing the man coming toward her to the photo from the e-mail attachment. The man in the photo had darker hair, a wider nose, a less prominent chin. Angie sat on the seawall, puzzled, her knees pulled up, hugging them, studying the man with the salt-and-pepper hair who had to be Jack from under the brim of her hat. Son of a bitch knew he was late, too, hustling along the pier, glancing at every female face, probably wondering if she’d given up on him. Let him sweat. Angie had the advantage, after all. She hadn’t sent Jack a picture—only a description. One couldn’t be too careful.
Jack reached the end of the pier and stopped to gaze out over the water, big hands hanging at his sides. She stuffed the videocam into her tote bag, stood, and followed.
“Jack?” she called, settling the strap of the tote comfortably against her shoulder.
He turned. His sunfrosted eyebrows lifted. “Mandy?”
“That’s me.” She smiled ruefully. The name sounded strange pinned on her, rather than on the drugged-out