Baltimore Noir - Laura Lippman [76]
Branko handed it over.
“Don’t call me again. You’re finished with me, and I’m finished with you.”
“But …”
The man was already walking away. Branko watched him go half a block before climbing into a huge pickup truck and driving away. He had yet to see anyone at the wheel of a Crown Vic.
By the time the shelter opened there was a line to get in. He sauntered upstairs and settled on a camp bed, everyone calling him “Bob” as he opened the city map on his knees. The overnight bag was tucked between his feet. He had already stuffed the bag with the gun into a pocket of his jacket, but not before a peek inside. It was a Glock. He’d heard of them, they were mentioned often on Homicide, so he didn’t feel so bad anymore about the size.
He ran an index finger along the grid of the map until it rested on the location of Flip’s, at Aliceanna and Wolfe. It was a good twenty blocks from here. There was still more than an hour to kill, so he decided to drive into Fells Point for a look. He would take a stroll, loosen his limbs for the kill. His stomach growled. Better have dinner too.
Parking was tougher than he had expected, and he ended up forking over a precious fiver at a small lot near the waterfront, a few blocks east of Broadway.
Fells Point was a puzzle to him. He traversed a block on the upper end that looked dilapidated, yet the next few were downright beautiful, disgustingly so, with gas lamps and flower boxes, and bars that were far too cute and proper for a man in a black leather jacket with too many silver buckles. He passed a few restaurants, but the prices posted on the menus made him weak in the knees.
Just when he thought he had figured the place out, he rounded a corner to see a drunk covered in tattoos and a three-day beard, swaying on a cloud of malt. In the next block, he passed a junk shop. He spotted a Latin dance bar, then a nice boutique. Across the way he saw a ratty-looking bridal shop, and something called the Polish Home Club. He wondered vaguely if there might also be a Bosnian Home Club, which produced a spasm of panic. What if the show had already filmed an idea just like his, and it had yet to air? The possibility had haunted him to some extent ever since prosecutor Ed Danvers had joined the cast. The actor’s name had leaped out from the credits: Zeljko Ivanek. Possibly Russian, not Balkan, but he couldn’t be positive.
At some point in his wanderings, Branko ended up on Lancaster Street heading west; he was about to cross Broadway when a familiar sight caught his eye. It was the green oval sign for Jimmy’s Restaurant. His spirits soared. He’d seen them eating at Jimmy’s on Homicide. One block further to the right was the waterfront, which meant that somewhere nearby was the locus, the Mecca, the center of his universe—Baltimore Police Headquarters, home of the homicide bureau, the place where they did so much of the filming. His pulse quickened, yet he also felt uneasy. He had an illegal piece in his pocket and murder on his mind. Correction: homicide on his mind. This was no time to be bumbling into a policeman.
Jimmy’s was another matter, seeing as how he was hungry. What were the terms the Americans used for such places? Diner. Greasy spoon.
It was crowded and Branko settled himself to one side of a partitioned table for four, set apart from two men at the other half by a red slab of wood running down the middle. Everything was familiar—the long counter, the sizzling griddle, the huge urns of coffee—right down to the red-checked tablecloths, although he was disappointed to discover that they were plastic.
The menu baffled him. Too many choices across too many groups of food. He was about to settle for a burger when the word “scrapple” caught his eye. Hadn’t someone ordered that once on the show? Bayliss? Meldrick Lewis? Or maybe Crosetti, the one who offed himself? Whoever it was, Branko had to try some. He even liked the name: scrapple, like a piece of food that had been in a fight. He had no idea what it