From Herring to Eternity (2 page)

Lippy looked at me blankly. He was not a political scientist; he was a horn-playing high school dropout who left Hawaii, he once told me, to seek fame in Music City. After all the years here, he was still performing at local bars, at funerals, and on street corners.

“We changed it on the menu,” I added, reaching for one from the metal holder.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t look at the menu. I always order the same thing.” He looked pained. “I’m really tapped out,” he said quietly, apologetically. “I’ve got enough for the old price and a small tip.”

“I see,” I said. “Not a problem.” I took the pen from behind my ear, plucked the check from his bony fingers, leaned on the counter, and scratched the number out. “Old price for today. I also adjusted the tax down. When you pay, if Thom gives you a hard time, let me know.”

“Whoa! You did that in your head?”

“Simple economics,” I said. The Wall Streeter in me had skills that sometimes frightened the staff and clientele alike.

Lippy sighed. “Money isn’t simple.”

“No, but it makes the world go ’round, world go ’round,” I Joel Greyed him—instantly regretting it, because now the song would be in my head for the next dozen hours or so.

“Money is necessary, but there are more important things,” he said. “Like music. Like health.”

“You can make yourself sick without money, and then you couldn’t play,” I said.

“I can always play,” he said, caressing his trumpet case with a little smile.

It was time to move on. I sidestepped Raylene, who was coming around with coffee refills, then turned like a swinging door to make way for A.J., who was moving extra fast to make up for not waiting on the tattooed Wiccan, before finally making my way behind the counter to place Mad’s order.

Luke snickered as he set a breakfast melt—egg, cheese, and corned beef on a roll—under the heat lamps and dinged the service bell twice for Raylene.

“That’s kinda cool,” he said, looking at the check. “Remember when Rocky had raw eggs for breakfast? Maybe that’s where she got the idea.”

“She doesn’t strike me as the movie-going type,” I said.

“Unless it’s a brain-eating zombie movie,” Raylene said as she picked up her order.

“She didn’t order brains,” I pointed out.

Raylene made a face. We didn’t serve brains, but sweetbreads and tongue were both on the menu. They were two things she refused to serve. I didn’t know this for certain, but I suspected I had the only waitstaff in the state that had the temperament of artistes. No one but my uncle Murray—and now me—would have tolerated it.

A man at the counter called my name. I turned. It was Robert Barron—“Robber” Barron, as the waitstaff called him. The six-foot-three former Marine was a treasure hunter who trawled through World War II naval graveyards, hunting for relics to sell online. These included dog tags of sailors who had gone down with their ships. His actions were protected under maritime rules of salvage and “prize laws,” the recovery of booty resulting from conflict. He was very unpopular among veterans and with families who were forced to buy back the belongings of loved ones.

“Morning, Robert,” I said politely, but no more.

“How are you, beautiful?” he asked, pulling little iPod buds from his ear.

“‘How art thou, Romeo?’” I replied.

“What did you call me?”

“I wasn’t calling you anything,” I said. “It’s a play on what you said . . . never mind.”

“Yeah, my schooling in the classics isn’t so great,” he said. “But here’s something for you. Did you know that witchcraft is a religion? Officially, I mean.”

I shrugged. I thought of quoting
Macbeth
but decided not to.

“They’re tax exempt and even protected against hate crimes,” he said. “I learned that when I was diving off Hawk Channel, south of Key Biscayne, in waters claimed as sacred to local Santería practitioners. I sent ’em an offer of money and when that was turned down, I blasted out a few angry e-mails. I got quick reprimands from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service
and
the Civil Rights Division.”

“The law protects all kinds of folks,” I said pointedly.

He nodded in agreement, my harpoon having missed its target—a man who plundered the final resting places of pirates and American servicemen without distinction. He gathered up the bags of supplies he’d bought in town and got up to pay, rolling his tongue behind his upper and then lower lips for unchewed treasure.

“It sure do. That applies to voodoo, too,” he said. “Practitioners can cut the throats of baby calves and let them bleed out without PETA being able to do a thing about it.”

“That smoked brisket apple sausage you just ate was glatt kosher,” I told him. “The animal was restrained and bled before carving.”

“Nashy, that wasn’t a value judgment,” he laughed. “I’m the last one to criticize you people. I’ve hauled tuna on deck and gutted ’em alive, ate fresh sushi while they were still wriggling. I was just sayin’ is all, seein’ as how you was talking to the witch.”

“Make sure you come back when there’s a ten percent discount for sharing,” I said, moving away.

“You people and discounts,” he replied, shaking his head. “Come and see me sometime. I’m at Oak Slope. I’ll show you the river.”

I didn’t answer; it wouldn’t have been Shakespeare that came from my mouth.

You people
. That was another expression that rolled hard knuckles up and down my spinal column. I had to stop myself from turning back and hitting him with his own plate.

I reached the kitchen as he reached the cash register. I thanked my Hebrew God that Thomasina was working out front so I
could
walk away. Another few seconds and I would have reached over to the grill and hit him with a hot metal spatula.

Any hash browns you lick off your face are free
, I thought as I played the scene out in my head.

Mad’s toast popped and I took her order out to her.

“That man has a dark aura, bad juju,” she said gravely.

I knew she meant j-u-j-u. “He’s a charmer,” I agreed.

“I’m a charmer,” she said.

“I meant he’s not very appealing.”

“No.”

I set her meal before her. She had not looked at me the entire time she was talking.

“That man is a reason the planet is cross,” Mad said. She leaned forward to pick pinches of salt from the dish I’d brought. “Something must be done.”

Mad’s soft voice matched the strange, ethereal quality in her expression. If she weren’t so fragile-looking, I might have considered her dangerous instead of eccentric.

“Is there anything else?” I asked.

“This is all very well, thank you.”

I left the check. Mad was Thom’s responsibility now.

The breakfast rush was waning. Returning to the kitchen, I made sure that Luke had things under control—as much as the young man ever did—then went to my office.

My cubby, my sanctuary, was in the back of the deli. I shut the door and plopped into the swivel chair. So much of it was just the way my uncle had left it. His yellowing handwritten notes for firing up the fryer and dismantling and cleaning the slicer were still on the bulletin board. The old plastic photo cube with pictures of him and my father and me—as a little girl—still sat on the desk, next to the Coney Island pencil holder. In it were pens that celebrated the fifth anniversary of the deli.

The chair cushion still bore the impression of where my dad sat. The vinyl had split in front and I could see where he had picked at pieces of foam. I’m sure if I looked, I’d find them somewhere under the desk or behind the filing cabinet.

The only thing that was really mine here was the laptop. And the memories.

Most recently, there had been the discovery that my father had a mistress down here, Lydia Knight. The crazy lady was in prison now, but she had put a pair of scissors into my arm right here, in this little room. What Mad said Robert Barron had done to the earth? That’s what Lydia had done to this office. She’d made it an unhappy place. If not for the quick action of her daughter Stacie, the stab would have done more than five stitches’ worth of damage.

I looked around. “Oh, Uncle Murray—you’re here less and less every day,” I said wistfully.

No sooner had I sat down to go over the inventory than I got a call from Stacie, Lydia’s daughter. She had come to work here briefly after her mother was arrested, but the memories of the confrontation got to her worse than they did me. Plus, there were other people Stacie didn’t want to see again. She’d decided to relocate to Southern California with her fiancé, Scott, who was recovering from injuries suffered at the hands of bikers. I had leaned on one of my old Wall Street connections to get her a job as a teller.

“How’s San Diego?” I asked.

“It’s got a lot of ocean,” she said. “I’m driving to work, looking at it now.”

“Nice. I’m looking at a stapler.”

“Then come out here! I’d love to show you around. Thomasina can run things for a few days.”

“True, but cruel. My conscience would give me tics.”

“You’re strange.”

“I know. How are Scott’s relatives treating you?”

“Couldn’t be nicer,” she said. “They live about forty minutes from Mexico. I’m learning Spanish just by working at the bank.”

“Just don’t mistake dollars for pesos,” I cautioned. “What are they worth, about eight cents?”

“Seven point three,” she answered without hesitation. “I check the exchange rates while I’m having my coffee.”

I smiled. This kid was going to be all right.

I was about to order potatoes—for some reason, our
latkes
had been selling like hotcakes—when there was a knock at the door.

“Yes?”

“Nash? We got a situation,” Thom said.

Thom’s mouth had the wide, rippling aspect of a volcanic caldera. If she were calling for backup, it had to be serious.

“What is it?” I asked.

“
It
is in the bathroom,” she said. “
It
wants to see you when
it
gets out.”

I went and opened the door, wondering what the hell could have gone haywire in—what, five minutes? Less? Thom was already charging back to the dining room. I followed quickly. As I did, I noticed Mad sitting at her table, wiping her egg bowl with toast. She was still looking ahead but raised her left hand, pointed her index finger toward me, and sketched an arc in the air, points downward.

An unsmiley face.

The earth is not happy.

There was a man en route from the bathroom. He was about five-six, bald, African American, and wearing a thick, tan camel-hair coat. He stopped at the cash register where he immediately began drumming the little spoon on the bowl of mints. He carried a thin Italian leather briefcase, also tan. My guess: a lawyer.

“Who is that?” I asked.

She passed two halves of a business card over her shoulder. The first half of the card said:

A
NDREW
A.
A
TTORNEY-AT

The second half said:

D
ICKSON
III
-LAW

I put the card pieces in the back pocket of my jeans. “So, who is he?”

“The evictor,” she hissed as we reached him.

He put down the mint spoon, offered his hand, and smiled. “Andy Dickson, and I’m hardly that.”

“You’re hardly
human
!” she snapped, fixing her dark eyes on him. “Someone needs eminent domaining done? He’s your hatchet man. You want some prehistoric bones that rightfully belong to my brother ’cause they’re under his gas station? This Mayflower Man will relocate you.”

That explained it. This was personal. “Why don’t you take a break,” I told her.

“No, I want to hear this,” she said, her eyes still pinned to him like gun sights. “You ain’t here to rip up the street for a new water main, are you?”

“May we speak in your office, Ms. Katz?” the attorney said.

“I’m not sure your coat will fit,” Thom said.

“Out here is fine,” I said. “Besides, I may need my advocate.”

“As you wish,” he said.

Oh, this was an “as you wish” visit, not a shrug and an “okay
.” That meant he was here to present me with a fait accompli. I had no idea what this was about, but I was ready. Hot, molten New York steel poured down my spinal column and hardened instantly.

“Actually, Ms. Jackson, you might find yourself in support of this project,” he said as he removed a folder from the leather satchel.

“Anything you’re for, I’m against.”

“Ms. Katz, I do a lot of work for historic recovery enterprises, not just locally but nationally,” he said. “You may be aware that I began discussions with your uncle two years ago regarding the possibility that his home on Bonerwood was atop a suspected historical site of what is called significant importance.”

“That’s news to me,” I said.

“I see.” He snapped the case shut but did not hand over the folder. “Perhaps you’re familiar with our local historical landmark, Fort Negley?”

“I’ve been meaning to take the tour,” I said truthfully. That was something my former beau, Detective Grant Daniels, had suggested. It was about two miles from the center of Nashville; that was the entirety of what I knew about the place.

“The fort was built during the War Between the States, the largest inland fortification constructed during the war,” he said with the practiced tone of a tour guide. “It was built in large part with the skilled hands and able backs of African American laborers. A diary discovered in 2003 suggests that these Nashvillians camped on what is now your property. Your uncle was alerted to that fact. He seemed quite pleased. At the recent Thirty-second Nashville Conference on African American History, sponsored by the Metropolitan Historical Commission and Tennessee State University, papers were presented with new research to support this claim. As a result, the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency has agreed to grant Professor Reynold Sterne access to your property.”