“Here we are again,” Dodds said. “The three musketeers.”
“Let’s hope it’s a little easier this time,” Cheryl Beth said. “Last time, we were trapped in the basement of the hospital, nobody knew where we were, the killer had knocked you out, he was beating the crap out of me, and Will, who was stuck in a wheelchair, had to save us.”
“Details, details,” Dodds said.
Cheryl Beth prided herself on a professional steely calm, hard won in the five years she had spent working in the emergency department. But that was a controlled environment compared with this, even when a gang member would try to barge in and finish off the guy he shot an hour before. She hated to admit it: she was over her head. She stuffed her shaking hands into her lap. Her emotions roiled in a wild bundle of fear and adrenaline, some anger was down in there, too. The son of a bitch had nearly killed Will and he got away, almost as if he were a ghost. The city seemed bathed in an invisible evil.
Will stopped at Central Parkway and Vine, where he pointed to the grand mural on the building on the southwest corner. It looked like a statue standing inside a temple.
“Cincinnatus,” he said. “The entire face of the building is blank, and everything you see is a trompe l’oeil painting. ‘Trick of the eye.’ Done by Richard Haas to mark Kroger’s centennial.”
“I like the statue of him down at Sawyer’s Point better,” Dodds said. “Looks like a real bad-ass. He saved Rome, refused to be dictator for life, and went back to his plow. If it hadn’t been for Cincinnatus, we’d be called Losantiville.”
“Well, technically, we were named after the Society of the Cincinnati, the Revolutionary War veterans,” Will said.
“Okay, know it all,” Dodds said. “What was that building called?”
Will shrugged.
“The Brotherhood Building,” Dodds said. “Which is appropriate as the gateway to Over-the-Rhine, where all the brothers are hoods.”
Cheryl Beth felt her face smile. That was a start, at least, to feeling human again.
Will turned north onto Vine and began an impromptu tour of Over-the-Rhine. A turn of the wheel, and they entered a different world. He pointed out this building in the Italianate style, that one in federal, a hidden garden behind another, and the commercial buildings with their cast-iron fronts. Renaissance revival, Romanesque, Queen Anne. Some had been restored, most had not. She thought the neighborhood was stunning, despite its problems. It held an intimacy and living history that appealed to her. Its streets were meant to be walked to be really appreciated, but the slow drive with Will’s narration was the next best thing. He wore his knowledge lightly and it was coated in the sweetness of his joy of the place.