Rule #1: Trust No One

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

This old part of Baltimore was basically small row houses that had been there since the last century. There were still little corner shops that sold milk, bread, cigarettes and staples of everyday life, never anything too expensive or very gourmet, just the necessities. Every now and then there’d be a bakery or a restaurant that had good food for a reasonable price. And every other corner had a bar or tavern that served the local folk, to help them forget the rigors of their lives.

The Canton district was a blue-collar neighborhood. The houses, with their faded brick, showed the wear of time. Some of the cement and bricks around the entrances were cracked or chipped and the sidewalks were uneven from shifts beneath the pavement. A few of the houses had been turned into small stores or businesses. Owners who tried to keep their property in shape had refurbished most. Many were still occupied by the same families who’d owned them for years. They were older couples whose children had grown and moved away or young couples who’d inherited them and couldn’t spend more to move and still afford to raise their two or three children.

The apartment that Cam’s best friend, Paul Tarelli, had found for her was only one bedroom but just a few blocks from Patterson Park. It was a small, second-floor place; just a small living room with a kitchen alcove and the bedroom with a tiny bathroom. It didn’t measure up to the airy apartment she’d had before this all started; it had been in the Bolton Hill neighborhood where gentrification had turned old mansions and coach houses into expensive apartments.

It had been her home, but now that apartment was Pauly’s. It wasn’t a place that an out-of-work paroled ex-convict could afford. And even though she knew that there was money in that secret account, moving to a neighborhood that was suspected to be a channel for drugs was more important. Someday, she knew, there’d be time and money for a place that was much more safe and comfortable.

This new apartment was within walking distance of several of the neighborhood cafes and bars. The landlord and his wife lived on the ground floor. It was the same type of two-story building as most that lined the block. The entryway for the upper apartment was separate from the entrance to the main apartment on the first floor. The hallway and stairs leading up were small and old, but the landlord kept them swept clean and painted in a light, bright color.

Cam opened the door to her new place.

“Where you want this stuff, lady?”

Cam held the door open. Pauly stood there, his arms full of boxes. The tired look on his face told her that enough work had been done for the day.

“Just put it on the ceiling and be quick about it.” Cam laughed. The box in his arms looked like it was getting heavy. This was the umteenth trip that they’d made up the stairs today.

Paul Tarelli laughed as he set the box down on top of others they’d carried up earlier. Then he stepped aside so that Roger could set down the box he held, too.

“I think that’s enough for today, guys.” Cam sighed, as she sank into the large overstuffed chair they’d struggled with earlier.

“I think it’s enough, period,” Pauly said, walking to the refrigerator and grabbing three bottles of beer. “You’ve got a bed, a chair, a few pots and pans and some clothes. How much else do you need?”

“God, I helped my sister move last spring and she had three times this much in a studio apartment,” Roger added as he opened the long neck Pauly handed him.

Cam reached out and took the third bottle from Pauly, opened it and took a long swig. “I could have more but I hope I’m not going to be here for that long. I left a lot at Maggie’s.”

“There are still a couple of boxes in storage at my place,” Pauly added as he walked to the window, rolling the bottle across his forehead to cool his temperature.

“Leave them there for now. If I need something, I’ll come over and get it.”

“Anyone hungry? There’s a diner about five blocks from here that makes great hamburgers. I’ll walk over and get take-out if you want,” Roger offered.

“That’d be great, hon.” Pauly smiled at his lover. “I don’t think I could do those stairs another time.”

“That’s what you get for sitting in a patrol car all day; you need more exercise,” Roger retorted.

“It hasn’t seemed to bother you before.” Pauly smirked back at him, a loving look in his eyes.

Cam reached into her pocket and took out a wad of bills.

“Here,” she said, handing Roger three ten dollar bills. “My treat. Will this be enough?”

“Plenty. Hamburgers, fries, anything else?”

“That’ll be great,” Cam said quickly.

“Make those cheeseburgers. And onion rings if they have them,” Pauly added.

Cam nodded and Roger saluted his agreement. “I’ll be right back, then.” He turned his six-foot two body around and left the apartment. They heard his heavy steps descending the stairs.

“He seems like a nice guy, Pauly. Where’d you find him?” Cam asked when they were alone.

Pauly sank down onto the floor and leaned back against the wall. “I met him at the community center. It’s going real well. We’re taking it slow, though, no moving vans yet.”

“Does he know about your other job?”

Pauly shook his head. “No. He thinks I’m just a Baltimore cop. I can’t tell him that I also work for the Federal DEA.”

“Does that create problems?” Cam was concerned. She and Pauly had been friends since they’d trained for the police department together. He was her best friend and neither kept secrets from the other. Pauly had also become an undercover agent, against his better judgment, to help her in her first case. He was someone, contrary to Charlie’s rules, who she knew she could trust. While she’d been in prison, he and Maggie had been her links to the outside world. Now she would need him again on this assignment.

“Well, I try not to lie to him and it hasn’t created a problem yet. We’ll just have to play this one by ear.” Pauly set his beer bottle on the floor and sat forward, his arms around his knees.

“Good. I’ll try not to get in the way.” Cam took another swig from her beer.

“How’s Michael? Have you heard from her since she went back to Canada?”

Cam smiled broadly. The slightest thought of her real lover, Michelle Gauchet, always did that to her. Michael, as Michelle preferred to be called, had been her trainer when she first got into the DEA. Michael was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and taught self-defense and other physical fighting techniques to the RCMP forces. She had a multi-leveled black belt in some discipline or other. Cam was never sure which one.

“No.” Cam sighed. “She’s off doing her workshops. She’s usually gone two or three weeks at a time.”

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” He wanted her to reassure him, “I never realized what this could do to a relationship. At least Michael knows who you really are. There are times when I want to tell Roger, but I have to keep it to myself, for everyone’s safety.”

“I understand, Pauly. I really understand.”

“How are you doing? I haven’t really talked to you since you got back from the funeral.”

“It was hard, Pauly. Aunt Carrie and Lori were devastated. It took all of my resolve to get through it.” She got up and walked to the window.

“Well, I was thinking of you. Maggie told me. I wish I could have been there for you.”

“That’s okay. There was no need. I survived it.”

“I almost sent a Mass card, but I didn’t think your family was Roman Catholic.”

Cam turned back to him and smiled. “I don’t think anyone in the family would have known what it was. We were brought up Congregationalists. I don’t think anyone knows much about the Roman Catholic Church practices. We’re a real White Anglo-Saxon Protestant family. At least those that go to church. Grandma Chris was a real believer. She was a Methodist. She knew in her heart that Papa Jon, my dad, and my brother were waiting for her in heaven.”

“And you don’t believe that?” Pauly asked.

“I don’t not believe. I just don’t think about it. I figure when the time comes, I’ll find out for sure.”

Cam turned to take a look out the window. Neither said a word for several minutes, Cam lost in her own thoughts.

Cam’s mind fell back to the last time she’d visited her grandmother in the hospital. Chris had just had her second heart attack and Cam wanted to let her grandmother know what her life was really about. Even if she couldn’t give up her “convict” persona which she’d worked so hard to set up, she still hadn’t wanted her grandmother to die.

The lights were low in room 334. Cam hardly recognized the figure in the bed. The IV dripped slowly and the monitors pulsed strongly. The tubes attached to her nose made an eerie shadow across her face.

Cam couldn’t decide if she should wake Grandma Chris and sank into the chair at the bedside. The frail woman in the silk robe didn’t look like the grandmother she remembered.

She took the pale hand in hers. The skin was transparent, almost brittle, like parchment, and veins and muscles showed clearly. The fingernails, as ever, were perfect. Grandma Christine Cameron Andrews had had the forethought of having a manicure before having a heart attack.

“Gran?” Cam whispered. “Gran? Can you hear me?”

Chris’s eyes fluttered weakly.

“Cameron?” she said as she woke. “Cameron.” Chris’s eyes shone with happiness at seeing her elder granddaughter.

Cam leaned over the bed to hug her grandmother. She was amazed at how small the woman felt, just skin and bones.

“How are you doing, Gran?” Cam asked, not knowing what else to say.

Chris reached out and ran her hand down Cam’s face. “A lot better, now that you’re here.”

“I would have come sooner…” Cam started,

“Never mind that. You’re here now. Help me get this bed to sit up. Is the control there by you?” Chris seemed to take on a new life.

Cam picked up the control pad and pressed the buttons to make the head of the bed rise and lift Chris into a more upright sitting position. Cam adjusted the pillows and blankets until Grandma Chris was comfortable. Even then, Chris smoothed the blanket across her lap before she spoke.

“Thank you.” Chris smiled. “Let me look at you for a moment. Stand up.” The voice was weaker but it was still Grandma Chris.

Cam stood and turned to model herself for her grandmother.

“You look good, thinner, but good,” Chris affirmed. “These undercover assignments must be good for you.”

Cam looked at her grandmother in awe.

“I never said…” Cam started to object.

“You don’t have to. I just know. Grandmothers know these things. And I haven’t told anyone, so your secret’s still safe.”

Cam sat back in the chair. She was amazed. How long had she agonized over this?

“How…?” she started.

“Because I know you. Did you think for a moment that anyone who knows you would believe you were a crook?”

“I’d hoped so,” Cam admitted.

“Well, no one can tell that to a grandmother. Look at you! You’re the picture of health. No one doing what you’re supposed to have done can ever look that healthy. Did you get your jobs accomplished?”

“Yes,” Cam nodded proudly. “I did well.” The immense weight that had lifted off her shoulders almost made her dizzy.

“And now you’re off on another one?”

Cam nodded again.

“Then I can die happy.”

“Grandma! You’re not going to die!” Cam objected.

Chris smiled at her.

“We’re all going to die, Cameron, you know that.”

“But not now!” was the response.

Chris patted her hand. “Soon, I think. My boyfriend’s getting impatient for me.”

Cam gazed down at her hands that still held Chris’s. Had Chris always referred to Grandpa Jon as her boyfriend? Cam couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t.

“Don’t look so glum, child. Your grandfather and your father and your brother will all be there to meet me. Your mother, too, God bless her. It’s not a nice thing to outlive your children and grandchildren. It’s a very hard thing to have to go through.”

Cam nodded.

“Now, I know that Loring will be all right. David and the boys will pull her through.

Your Aunt Carrie will, too. She has her golfing friends and gardening buddies. She’ll make it through. But what about you? You’ve had to deal with a lot of deaths for someone your age.”

“I’ll be fine, Grandma.”

“Spoken like a true Cameron, stoic to the last.” It seemed to make Grandma Chris happy. She sat back with a very satisfied look and squeezed Cam’s hand. Cameron had been given Chris’s maiden name when she was born. Softly, Chris continued, “You know, Anne always takes credit for you, because you’re strong-willed and brilliant. And she had a college education; I didn’t, you know. I’m self- taught and I read a lot. But I’ve kept my mouth shut because I don’t want to hurt the poor dear’s feelings.”

“I’m not sure that anyone can get through to her to hurt her feelings,” Cam admitted.

“Well, we can all be hurt, dear. It’s just being careful how much.”

“But sometimes I’m not at all sure she’s listening when other people talk.” Cam explained.

“Now don’t sell her short, dear.” Chris smiled. “You’d be surprised what someone hears. I used to think Jonathan wasn’t listening to me. Then he’d come home with exactly the thing I’d been talking about. You never know.”

Chastened, Cam looked down at their entwined hands. The difference in skin color between hers and her grandmother’s was astounding. She finally looked up to see Chris studying her intently.

“You are the essence of my mother,” Chris finally said.

“I am?” Cam asked. She had no idea what her great-grandmother had looked like.

“Yes. I’ve never spoken about her but you should have known her. She raised half of the town, fought for suffrage, and still educated herself and her own children. We didn’t go to the town schools. She taught us herself.”

Cam was shocked. “I didn’t know that, Gran.”

“There are some things that we’ll never know. I think you’re more like her than you realize.”

“How so?” Cam’s curiosity was piqued.

Chris leaned her head back and sighed slowly. It seemed that she couldn’t quite phrase what she wanted to say.

“I remember that she was always very loyal and loving to my father. Growing up, it looked like the ideal marriage. But thinking back, they never slept together. It was always that my father snored too loud or he tossed too much, but they had separate bedrooms. My mother had a girlfriend, Marian, that she went everywhere with. Marian even slept over from time to time.”

“Are you saying that your mother, my great-grandmother, was a lesbian?”

“No. I’m just stating the facts as I saw them. We’ll never know for certain, but it is a possibility. For a while I thought Carrie might be a lesbian, but she’s too afraid to make the effort. That’s why I wasn’t really surprised when you realized you were. They say it skips generations.”

“I had no idea!”

“Things like that were never talked about. They happened, but they were swept under the rug. They referred to them in genteel terms like “my companion” or “my friend.” Not “my lover” as you say now. It was never that blatant.”

“I never knew.”

“No one did. You’re the first I’ve ever told.” Chris seemed to be getting tired. She leaned her head back again and closed her eyes.

“Do you need to rest? Should I leave for a while?” Cam offered.

“No, no,” Chris objected, squeezing Cam’s hand. “I want to have you here for as long as I can. I’ve been waiting to have this time with you. We haven’t had time together in such a long while.”

“I’m sorry…” Cam started but Chris raised her hand to stop her.

“You’ve been doing what needed to be done. That’s the important thing. The Lord willing, someday we’ll have eternity to spend together.”

Silence settled over them for a few minutes and Cam thought that Grandma Chris had fallen back asleep. She was amazed when she heard “Do you think you’ll ever move back here?”

“Back here? To Massachusetts? I don’t know. I really don’t know. Why?”

“When, or if you do, there’s a house in your name. Carrie has the right to live there until she dies, but then it’ll be yours.”

“But Grandma Chris! Shouldn’t it go…?”

“To someone more worthy?” Chris chuckled. “Carrie will never have children and Loring is set with that big house of your father’s and a husband that can afford to take care of it. This should be yours. I think my mother would have wanted you to have it. I was born there, you know.”

“That’s something I’ve heard.”

“My boyfriend wanted me to sell it and move closer to the city but it was mine. It was the one thing I owned. I know he wanted to be closer to the university so he could bring his students home but I wouldn’t move. It’s important for a woman to have one special thing that is all hers.”

“I didn’t realize you were such a feminist, Gran.” Cam smiled.

“Yes, there were feminists even in the old days! We just didn’t know what to call ourselves.”

Cam and Chris stared into each other’s eyes, as if they finally knew each other for the first time.

“You know, Cameron, I wouldn’t want Lori to hear this, she’s such a darling, but you have always been my favorite. I’m very proud that you were the one who got my name.”

Cam leaned forward and laid her head on Grandma Chris’ hand. “I love you, Gran,” she whispered. “I wish we’d done this a long time ago.”

Pauly looked up at her. “So, what will you need from me on this one?” he finally asked. She’d told him a little about the assignment but, he suspected, not all the details.

“Just eyes and ears right now. And maybe a shoulder.”

“I’m here for you,” he pledged. “When you first roped me into this, I thought you were crazy, that you’d get us both killed, but it hasn’t been that bad. Yet.”

“Good.” She grinned at him. “What do you know about the bar and restaurant over on Richmond? It’s owned by Maurice Gardiner.”

“Not much. It’s a quiet place. No problems. A scuffle every now and then, but the neighbors never complain about the noise or anything. Why? Is that your assignment?”

“Dickie C. seems to think it’s a starting place. That, and the pagoda in Patterson Park.”

Pauly nodded. “Watch out for the pagoda. There’s a lot of activity in there. We can make two or three arrests there every weekend. The college students seem to think it’s a great place to get their drugs.”

“I keep forgetting that your precinct is just the other side of the park.” Cam shook her head in relief. “Try to let me know when there’s a bust gonna happen. I’d hate to end up in the slammer again. I’m surprised Dickie didn’t put you on this case.”

“Oh, no.” Pauly shook his head vehemently. “Not me. I’ll stay on the police force until I get a retirement pension. And I’ll save your butt a couple times if I have to. But I’m not gonna run an assignment. No! Nope, nope, nope. Not me.”

“Well, son, you’d better do a great job of butt-saving or we’re both out of jobs!”

“I can only do so much, shweetheart,” Pauly growled, using his best impression of Humphrey Bogart. “You’re not the easiest person in the world to look out for, not with your death wish!”

Cam laughed at his terminology. When had he started using that term, shweetheart? When they’d watched an old Bogart film together? How many years ago had that been?

“So how do we do it this time? It was always easy to know where you were when you were in prison, but you could be anywhere around here. I don’t think you’d want a cop visiting you every day.” Pauly always wanted to know just what to expect.

“Well, we’d better work out a signal system, I guess.” Cam wanted to laugh. Her grin said she was having fun with this. “Did you ever have secret codes or signs with your friends so you didn’t have to talk?” she asked. “I remember what my brother and I would do. If Mom was angry, we’d hang a towel out our bedroom windows so the other one of us would be prepared. It sure saved a lot of hassles. If I hung a towel out, Benny would always go and get some flowers or something to bring home. I’m not certain that Mom ever figured out how he always knew when he was in trouble!” She laughed heartily.

Pauly laughed, too. “Well then, if you need to tell me something, hang a towel out your window and I’ll be here as soon as I can.”

“That may not be a bad idea. But how will I know if you need to talk to me?”

“Well, let’s invent something.”

“Pauly—” Cam was suddenly serious, “—we’re not playing spy games. This is the real thing. There’s no oops on this one.”

“I know. I guess we’ll have to go through Maggie again, won’t we?”

Cam nodded thoughtfully.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, each thinking his or her own thoughts. It was a comfortable silence. They had a friendship that had survived breakups of many relationships, moving, deaths of loved ones and time. Each felt that this relationship could be relied on in any situation.

Finally, Pauly broke the silence. “What do you think about the date Dickie set up for us?” he asked.

Cam laughed.

“Sorry, son, but it was me who suggested it.” Cam admitted. “I needed a way to get a look at the staff in the mayor’s office without making a big deal of it. The mayor’s fund-raiser seemed like a good idea.”

“Yes, it is. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“I know. But if I showed up with another woman, I’d be noticed right away. I figured that if you and I were together, I could blend in with the rest of the crowd.”

Pauly nodded. “It’s a good idea then. It’ll be nice to go out without my uniform. I won’t know what to wear!” Pauly was back into the “gay queen” persona he donned to make fun of stereotypes.

“Yes, but it’ll be harder for me than for you!” Cam protested, “I have to wear the high heels and makeup!”

“I was going to wear high heels and makeup!” Pauly glanced up at Cam with a wicked grin.

Cam just shook her head and reached into her pocket for a cigarette.

“It’s all right, shweetheart,” Pauly assured her, “We’ll be the best-dressed couple at the ball.”

“Well, I still have to find something to wear. Maggie said she’d take me shopping tomorrow. And then we’ll have our break-up.”

“Yes, and I should bring my tux to the cleaners.”

“You own a tux?” Cam was surprised.

“Of course. Every gay man has one. It’s standard issue,” Pauly chortled proudly.

Cam sighed. “I wish lesbians had something like that.”

“Girlfriend.” Pauly grinned. “Standard issue in dykeland is a flannel shirt and jeans.”

“Is not!” Cam pouted.

“Is too!” was Pauly response.

“What are you children fighting about?” came a voice from the door.

They turned to see Roger standing there, laden with bags of food.

“She gets to wear high heels!” “He gets to wear a tux!” they said at the same time.

Roger set the bags down on the chair. Without looking back at them, he said, “I see I can’t leave you two alone for a minute!”