Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [75]
Branko’s expectations took another hit at the Hertz counter. Instead of a Crown Vic he got a Ford Focus. An upgrade to make things right would have cost $39.50 a day, and Krulic wouldn’t have approved. So he grabbed the keys, bought a map from a newsstand—at $6.95, it was obvious his $50 wasn’t going to last long—then plotted a course for Fells Point.
At first, the drive into town only depressed him further. The procession of colorful trees continued, straddling the highway. There was even a welcome sign, painted on the sort of rustic timbers you normally found at alpine retreats.
Then he reached the fringes of Westport, and his spirits began to lift. He got only a glimpse, but it was enough. To his right, battered rowhouses were bunched like the cars of a derailed train. To his left was a small slag heap. Just ahead, a lane was shut for repairs, lined with unsightly orange barrels. The pavement seemed to have suddenly gone to hell, rippled and rutted and scarred. This was more like it. His mood brightened at every alarming jolt of the axle.
The clincher was a huge factory-like building that reared up suddenly on his right, just as the downtown skyline came into view. He slowed for a better look. It was sheathed in brown corrugated metal, at least a dozen stories high, with three chimneys belching steam and a fourth, taller and thicker, pouring white smoke a good half-mile into the blue. But the best part was the sign out front. Someone had actually had the balls to tout this monstrosity as an “Empowerment Zone.”
Well, Branko certainly felt empowered now, and he drove onward with spirits revived, unflagging even as he skirted the touristy attractions of the harbor—that damned tall-masted ship again and those long pavilions with cheerful green rooftops.
It took only a mile before he was back in his milieu. Crossing Central Avenue, he entered a gloomy block of low-slung homes built of dark brick. Their flat rooftops and barred windows made them look like prisons. Yet children played in the streets, and the homes extended for blocks. Could this, perhaps, be “the projects”? His pulse quickened in excitement. He half expected to come upon a bleeding body at curbside, surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape. Then a cruiser would round the corner, and Bayliss and Pembleton would leap from either door. Okay, okay, he knew they were just actors, so he accommodated reality by also imagining a film crew. Lights, camera, action. A cameo of Branko in profile, idling by in the car, a first and ominous sighting of the mysterious man in black from the Balkans.
“Stay in your lane, asshole!”
A honking horn ended his reverie and he swerved to let a Jeep Cherokee roar past, some white guy on a cell phone who flipped him the bird. Branko was out of the projects now, but fortunately the view was no happier. Over the next several blocks, in fact, the nicest house to be seen was a mural of a house painted on the side of a vacant one. As if on cue, a police helicopter throbbed past overhead. Perfect.
In his growing enthusiasm, Branko missed the turn for the shelter, so he doubled back after heading north on Broadway, reaching his destination a few blocks later. Krulic had instructed him not to park too near the shelter, lest anyone realize he was an impostor. His contact, a Balkan émigré whose name had not been revealed, arrived within minutes of Branko’s call from a pay phone. They met on the shelter’s front steps.
“You’re good for two nights here,” he said. “I told them your name is Bob King, and did the paperwork for you. They think you’re out of a job, so act depressed. Here’s the gun.”
The bag seemed ridiculously small, no heavier than a couple of potatoes. Branko started to peek inside.
“Not here, stupid! They’ll kick you out before you even get inside. The doors open at 6, in twenty minutes. Here, put it in your overnight bag. It’s already loaded—one clip,