"I guess I should have seen that coming." Then again, my perceptive powers haven't been 100 percent lately.

"I suppose you listen to opera," Crow said. "Cain did."

"Crow, I like reading Cain. I don't want to be him. I'm a word person. I like old songwriters-Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern-because of the lyrics. I like Bob Dylan and those folksy, waifish bands on 'HFS. Stephen Sondheim is as close as I get to opera."

"He writes for gay men," Crow said matter-of-factly.

"I thought colleges today gave demerits for remarks like that. Who cares if musical theater appeals to gay men? They have the best taste of anyone; that part of the stereotype is true. And don't gay men like opera, too?"

"I have a theory about this. Gay men like things in code, and maybe that's justified, given they historically have been forced to live in hiding. They like musicals because they're camp. They like Sondheim because so much is hidden in his lyrics. So a Sondheim musical is for people who like hidden meanings and thick layers."

"What's your point?"

"In opera, if you don't know the language, you have to listen to the music. You have to leave words and cleverness behind. Cleverness is the last refuge for smart people. That's your problem, Tess. You're too clever. You're listening to the words instead of the music."

"Is there something wrong with cleverness?" Tess asked sharply, uncomfortable with Crow's attitude. He was suppose to be her Sancho, servile and worshipful, not a hectoring Henry Higgins. "We're about to embark on a potential felony in which cleverness will be our only protection."

"If you say so."

They parked on a side street to the west of the Lambrecht Building. There was no home game tonight and, once one got past the Inner Harbor, downtown had its usual ghost town feel. There are a lot of things one can do to make a city look good, and Baltimore had done it all. But they couldn't put its heart back. Downtown was hollow at night.

Joey Dumbarton was at the guard station, beating on the desk to whatever head banger tune ran through his headphones, played at a volume loud enough to make normal ears bleed. At night, under fluorescent light, he was exceptionally pale, like one of those white catfish living deep in an Arkansas cavern. Evolution and history had passed him by. A generation ago he might have been a steelworker, making good wages with his high school education, set for life. Now he was a minimum wage rent-a-cop. At least he didn't have to worry about asbestos or environmental hazards. If he was lucky he'd get shot in the leg before he was thirty and retire on workman's comp.

Tess whipped out her driver's license, flashing it past him as if it were a badge. "Remember me, Joey? I need to go upstairs, check out Abramowitz's office. You can let me in, right?"

"That's against regulations."

"Honestly, Joey. You know I'm a private investigator working for a lawyer. What's the big deal? We're only looking for something the cops might have overlooked."

"I could get in trouble," he said, a dent appearing above his nose, a sign of deep thought.

"Hey, I'm going to sign in. So is my buddy here." Crow gave Joey his most dazzling grin. "And we're going to sign out. What I'm not going to do is give you a twenty dollar bill, the way some visitors do."

Joey may have been dim, but he knew a threat when he heard one.

"I only did that a few times. And I didn't do it the night you're worried about, I can tell you that."

She didn't say anything, just kept staring at him.

"OK, OK. I'll let you up."

To her surprise Joey left the front desk empty as he took them up to the Triple O offices. Certainly this was not in the Minutemen manual, either. Something else to tell Tyner.

The Triple O offices were dark and empty, as Tess had hoped. Joey let them in, then lingered, as if he intended to supervise.

"If we pull the door to when we leave, will it lock?" Tess asked.

"Oh, sure. Yeah. Just pull the door to." And Joey headed back to his desk and his Walkman.

Once he was gone Crow took his post by the receptionist's desk and Tess let herself into Abramowitz's office. The police tape was long gone, as were any stains left behind by his demise. But no one had rushed to claim the office, despite its panoramic view and lush appointments. Apparently lawyers were a superstitious lot.

She went to the obvious places first. In Tess's experience people weren't creative when it came to hiding things. Certainly she wasn't. If the cops ever raided her apartment, it wouldn't take more than five minutes to find the box of marijuana under the bed. Burglars would need less time to find the coffee can in the freezer, where she kept a few pieces of good jewelry and loose bills. She pulled open desk drawers, searched behind the legal books. Nothing. If the police had found the gun, it should be on an evidence list. If the Triple O had done its own sweep, for whatever reason, there would be no gun. Or could Abramowitz have taken it home?

She was trying to jimmy open a file drawer with a Swiss Army knife, without much success, when she heard Crow's voice in the hallway. "Hello there, sir. May I help you, sir? Sir? Sir?" She crouched under the desk and listened to footsteps drawing closer.

"Can I help you, sir?" Crow's voice, insistent and panicked.

"I don't think so, young man," a familiar voice said. "I don't think you're supposed to be here at all."

Tess peered around the desk. Crow was in the doorway, trying to keep the custodian, Frank Miles, from entering the office. The weekend custodian. Their visit coincided perfectly with his shift. Sighing, Tess crawled out.

"Hey, Mr. Miles. I'm just looking for some things that might be relevant to the case."

He looked at her knowingly. Not suspiciously or meanly. Just knowingly. "Then why do you have to come sneaking around at night?"

"Mr. O'Neal isn't kindly disposed to my boss or his client these days."

Mr. Miles continued to take her measure, sober and thoughtful. It was the kind of face you saw when you tried to sneak in past curfew, Tess thought-wise, beyond bullshit. He may never have been a father, but his years as a custodian in the school system apparently had taught him everything he needed to know about a young person's cunning. Tess knew he wasn't fooled, that he was deciding whether to throw them out or call the cops.

"We won't be long," she promised. "It's not our fault we had to sneak in. Frankly Mr. O'Neal's being a prick, if you'll pardon the expression."

He smiled at that. "Have it your way. But I don't know what you expect to find. I cleaned that carpet myself after the police were through. I guess you just had to see for yourself. You really are conscientious, Miss Monaghan."

He pushed his cart down the long hall to an office in the southwest corner. Tess realized he was making a point of trusting them, of not watching them too closely.

"Cool guy," Crow breathed. "I love his voice."

Now that Mr. Miles had given his tacit consent, Crow helped Tess go over the room one more time. It was an impersonal room, without a trace of Abramowitz in it. She had expected he would be the type to put his clippings on display, matted and framed. Or, failing that, some silly, in-your-face piece of art, a raucous poster or obscene sculpture. There was nothing to suggest Abramowitz had ever been here. Even the calendar on his desk was snowy white, devoid of appointments. She noticed it was still on April, almost six months behind. She ran her hands over the paper, marveling at its virgin state. There were no indentations, no sign that the previous months had been any less pure. But something at the center felt odd. Puzzled, she pressed down again. It wasn't her imagination; there was a thin, square shape in the middle. Flipping the calendar over, she found a computer disk taped to the inside of the cardboard backing.