"Does this have anything to do with the man you killed?"
"That one? No. Trust me on this, no one's ever missed that man, not even his own mother." This matched what Tess had been able to learn. Boris Petrovich's victim had apparently been an unsavory type, a small-time criminal who had quarreled with Petrovich.
"I can always go back to Lana, ask her what's going on."
"She's tough, tougher than any American girl. She won't answer your questions."
Tess had a moment of wanting to impress Petrovich with just how tough this particular American girl was. She couldn't show him her gun-the prison had been quite adamant about holding that for her-but she could yank up her pant leg and display the scar on her left knee, still purplish and a little swollen three months after she fell on that broken bottle, the night she was almost killed. She could tell him what she had found the will to do, when she had to choose between her life and someone else's, the reserves of strength and violence she had discovered in herself. The nightmarish memory had faded somewhat over the past three months, so it was now bearably surreal-a flash of silver finding its target, her victim almost robotic in his agony, like a machine run amok. But the image was never far away when she was angry or upset.
Instead of saying or doing any of these things, however,
Tess willed her adrenaline to ebb. Her instinct had always been to run straight at things, but her instincts were far from reliable. That, too, she had learned the hard way. She needed to be quiet, still, disengaged. Direct questions wouldn't work with Petrovich.
"Hey, do you miss the other men?"
"What other men?"
"The ones from the group."
"I wouldn't call them friends."
"Still, they're back in Jessup right, and now you're here. That's kind of a burn."
He shrugged, indifferent to the topic, seeing no profit in it and therefore no point. "Most of them are gone from Jessup anyway, their time served."
"Right. I hadn't considered that fact. After all, there were only five or six."
"Eight to begin with."
"Right, eight. And you're the only one still inside."
"Me and Yitzhak. The others are all long gone."
"Yes," Tess said. "The others. Remind me of their names. There was you, and Yitzhak, of course, and Abraham."
"Amos, you mean."
"Amos and… Andy?"
Petrovich scowled, furious that she had tricked him into yielding any information for free. "I won't tell you the others' names."
"I don't need you to. Someone-the DOC or the Associated-has to have a record because Mark Rubin and my Uncle Donald were put on a visitors' list, just as I was with you today. Or Mark will remember their names. It simply never occurred to him to connect anyone in the program to Natalie's disappearance-and it didn't occur to me until you said you had another buyer. Thanks a lot, Boris. You've been a huge help."
"You don't know anything. You haven't learned anything. You're on the wrong track."
Perhaps because he was frustrated and angry, Petrovich stood abruptly, and the guards stationed throughout the room took notice. Tess was reminded that the man before her had committed a crime of passion, killing another man in a quarrel. But she wasn't scared.
She wasn't scared. The realization was akin to noticing that a toothache had disappeared, or that one's head had finally cleared after a long, miserable cold. She stood, too, feeling as if she had reclaimed a piece of herself-the chunk of skin carved from her knee, the long braid sliced from the nape of her neck the same night. Her "noive," as the Cowardly Lion would have it. There was no reason to have recovered those things here, in the drab visiting room at ECI, yet she had. Seeing through Petrovich had reminded Tess how much of the world was run on bluff and bluster. She might not be as strong as everyone she met, or as fast, or even as smart. But she could bullshit with the best of them. Combine that quality with a license to carry, and a girl could more than get by in this life.
"It's been a pleasure not doing business with you, Mr. Petrovich."
"You know nothing," he called after her. But Tess knew enough.
Chapter Twenty-one
STEREOTYPES PERSIST FOR A REASON, TESS DECIDED ON her way back to Baltimore, and it wasn't wrong to rely on them when they were helpful. On her cell phone, she called the Associated, a nonprofit umbrella group of Jewish charities, assuming it was far more likely to keep complete, accessible records than the state Department of Corrections was. Perhaps this was unfair to state government workers, but her generalization paid off in this case. The names and addresses Tess wanted were arriving at her office via fax machine before she crossed the Bay Bridge.
Eight men had been given permission to participate in the prison outreach program when it started twelve years ago, and-give Boris credit for telling the truth here-he and Yitzhak were the only ones who were still guests of the state. Of the remaining six, four had Baltimore addresses, while one was in Grantsville, and the sixth, Nathaniel Rubenstein, had no address at all listed with parole and probation. Still, it was the Grantsville address for Amos Greif that puzzled Tess. The town in far-western Maryland was best known for its model Amish village and the blueberry pancakes at the local restaurant. It seemed a strange choice of residence for a Jewish ex-con who specialized in grand theft auto.
"Amos was from Cumberland," Mark Rubin said, studying the list. He had come straight to Tess's office from work, so he was wearing his usual dark suit, although the days continued almost Indian-summer warm. Tess recalled he had been wearing a crisp white shirt and khakis with a knife-sharp crease while hanging around the house Saturday night. She wondered if he even owned a pair of blue jeans. Was his formal dress the result of his religion or his work? Could God really care what anyone wore? Adam and Eve had started out naked.
"Cumberland, Grantsville, it's still more West Virginia than Maryland. And it's not a place you expect to find a Jewish car thief."
"Cumberland had a… I wouldn't say thriving, but important, close-knit Jewish community going back to the nineteenth century. The local department store, Rosenbaum Brothers, was the biggest store of its kind between Baltimore and Pittsburgh."
"You're kidding me."
"We didn't all live in crowded ghettos, Tess. The joke about Jews in small-town Maryland is that they settled wherever the mule died. Remember Louis Goldstein, the former comptroller? When Louis was born in Prince Frederick, the mohel had to travel to the bris by ferry from Baltimore."
"Point taken," she said, trying not to yawn. "You can find Jews anywhere in Maryland. In small towns and big cities. In prisons and the state's highest political office. Hey, thanks to Marvin Mandel, we know that Jews can achieve both in the same lifetime."
"Marvin was pardoned," Rubin said, a slight defensiveness creeping into his tone. "And he was no more a crook than the governor before him, that Greek Agnew."
"Well, maybe someone will get around to pardoning these gents one day, and then they, too, can find new careers as lobbyists and lawmakers. Meanwhile, I'm more curious to know if you think there's one man on this list that I should be focusing on for any reason."
Rubin perched on the corner of the office sofa that Esskay was willing to allot him. The dogs had begun to warm to him, a somewhat reliable assessment of a person's character. Of course Esskay was a biscuit slut, falling for anyone who gave her a treat, but even the more reserved Miata perked up when Rubin came around.
"Amos was an interesting case. He was born to Jewish parents but orphaned as a teenager and raised by a local farmer. No religious education whatsoever, but a real head for business. If he had applied his corporate model to more legal forms of revenue, he'd probably be running a Fortune 500 company today."