Marcus "Mark" Henley's Questionnaire

I live in Baltimore because this city and I deserve each other. Could've moved after the divorce, started fresh somewhere clean like Annapolis or Frederick, but that would've been lying to myself. Baltimore's honest about what it is—a port city where everything's for sale and everyone's got a price. The corruption here isn't hidden behind boardroom handshakes and country club whispers like in D.C. It's right there on the street corner, direct and transactional. I understand that. I can work with that.

My place is a one-bedroom in Hampden, third floor of a converted rowhouse that's seen better decades: a keepsake from another life where I thought real estate would be a pathway to a safe retirement. I can somewhat manage the upkeep after alimony and keeping the PI license current, but the radiator clanks like a dying thing, the neighbors play music too loud, and the stairs creak in a way that announces every visitor. It's got good sight lines to the street, two exits if I need them, and the residents doesn't ask questions about why I keep odd hours. The furniture's whatever I could afford after Sarah took everything that mattered—a couch from Goodwill, a kitchen table that wobbles, a bed that's comfortable enough for someone who drinks himself to sleep most nights. There's a desk by the window where I do my real work, looking out at the city that taught me how the world actually operates.

Money comes from three streams these days. The legitimate PI work pays the rent and keeps the license active—insurance fraud cases, cheating spouse investigations, the occasional missing person. Boring but steady, maybe two grand a month if I'm lucky. The real money comes from what I call "consultation services" for Baltimore's import-export community. Somebody needs to know if their new partner is reliable, or if a shipping route's compromised, or whether that dock supervisor can be trusted with sensitive cargo. Five hundred here, a thousand there, sometimes more if the stakes are high. Then there's the document work—bills of lading that need creative interpretation, customs forms that benefit from professional review. That's where the serious money lives, but it's also where the serious risks start.

Spend most of it on staying operational. Alimony takes a solid chunk, then there's car payments, insurance, the gear I need to do the job right and other living expenses. What's left goes to bourbon and coffee — good stuff, not the rotgut I used to drink as a cop. If you're going to pickle your liver, might as well do it with some dignity. Occasionally I'll buy something useful, surveillance equipment or better locks for the apartment. But mostly I live lean. Hard to justify expensive tastes when you're not sure which client might decide you know too much. One of these days I'll splurge on a good mattress and an office chair.

I want to be the man who decides which violence matters. Not some street thug waving a gun around, not some politician making speeches about law and order while taking bribes in the back room. I want to be the invisible hand that reaches into Baltimore's chaos and imposes actual consequences. The kind of power where a word from me means a problem disappears, where the right people sleep safely and the wrong ones don't sleep at all.

Right now, I'm just another middleman helping cargo move through the port, another small-time operator in someone else's game. But I see how the real power works in this city—it's not about territory or colors or even money. It's about information, leverage, and the willingness to use both without hesitation. I want to build a network where nothing moves in Baltimore without my knowledge, where every major player owes me a favor or fears what I know about them.

Would I kill for it? Already have, though nobody calls it murder when you feed bad intelligence to people who were going to die anyway. Would I risk death? Every day I stay in this business brings that risk closer. The difference is, now I'm gambling for stakes that matter. I'd rather die building something that could actually impose order on this chaos than live another thirty years watching innocent people get ground up by a system that protects monsters. At least if I don't make it, maybe someone else will learn from my mistakes and finish what I started.

The night everything broke was a Tuesday in October, three years ago. Domestic call on Eager Street—Melissa Santos, twenty-six, two kids sleeping upstairs while her boyfriend Ricardo Reid put her in the hospital for the fourth time in eight months. I'd been to that address before, written the reports, watched her refuse to press charges while Reid smirked from the doorway. This time was different. This time she was ready to talk.

I spent two hours in that hospital room, getting her statement, photographing the bruises, building a case that would finally stick. Broken orbital bone, three cracked ribs, internal bleeding. Reid had connections—his uncle ran numbers for some connected people—but I had evidence. Real evidence. I was going to make it count.

Reid walked on a technicality six weeks later. The prosecutor said my photos were "potentially prejudicial" and the hospital records got lost in some filing error. But that wasn't the part that broke me. The part that broke me was my lieutenant calling me into his office the next day to tell me I was being "reassigned" because I was "too emotionally invested" in domestic cases. Said it with a straight face while Reid's uncle's campaign contribution check was probably still clearing in the mayor's account.

Melissa Santos died three months later. Reid got manslaughter, served eighteen months.

Sarah left me six months after the funeral. Said I'd become someone she didn't recognize, that the job had poisoned me. She was right, but not the way she meant.

Doris Kleiner - Records analyst at Baltimore PD, my closest friend and maybe the only person left who still sees something worth saving in me. She's been with the department twenty-three years, watched half the force come and go, keeps pictures of her sister's kids on her desk like they're her own. Doris knows exactly what I've become but chooses to believe I'm still the rookie who used to bring her coffee during late shifts. She runs background checks for me, feeds me information about investigations getting too close to my clients, and pretends it's all just favors between old colleagues. We have lunch every few weeks at this diner on Eastern Avenue where she updates me on department gossip and I pretend I'm not pumping her for intelligence. She's the closest thing I have to a conscience these days.

Tommy Kowalski - Longshoreman, Local 333, works the night shift at Dundalk Marine Terminal. Been moving cargo for thirty years, knows which containers get the light inspection and which supervisors look the other way for the right consideration. We have a clean, professional relationship—I pay him for information about shipping schedules and customs patterns, he gives me reliable intelligence about port security. Sometimes we'll grab a beer after his shift and complain about the Ravens or argue about whether The Wire got Baltimore right. He's got grandkids and a mortgage, I've got problems that need solving. We both benefit from keeping it simple.

Angela Morrison - Forty-one, divorced thanks to photos I took of her husband with his secretary at the Harbor East hotel. What started as a follow-up interview about her settlement became something else when she showed up at my apartment with a bottle of wine and no illusions about what we both needed. She's got her own damage—fifteen years of marriage to a man who made her feel invisible—and I've got mine. We meet every few weeks, sometimes at her place in Federal Hill, sometimes at mine. It's physical comfort without the pretense of healing each other. We both know we're too broken for anything resembling love, but sometimes broken people can fit together just right.