From Herring to Eternity by Delia Rosen Page B

in.
    “Rather not,” he said emphatically.
    “Why?” I pressed. “You trusted me with your Russian warship—”
    “This is different,” he insisted. “Sorry . . . just a sore topic. Actually, Nash, Yutu and I should probably get back to work. He has to get back to the Great White tomorrow. If you want to visit after that . . . ?”
    “Sure,” I said. I was trying to think of some way I could bump or lean on the table top, knock everything over to get a better look at that other map. Screw it , I thought. I reached for where he had tucked it, found the corner, pulled it out. “Hey, there is just one thing I wanted to ask about this—”
    Barron slammed a thick palm down on the map as the edge emerged. “Stop, dammit, you pushy J”—he caught himself and said more quietly—“jerk.”
    I smirked knowingly—there was nothing to add; he had shot his own fat foot—but I kept my eyes on the document to take in all there was to see. I saw a faded image on yellowing paper, a splotchy stain about an inch across, and a stamp of some kind, the first two letters of which were F–I.
    Barron self-consciously neatened the pile, pushing the Fiji map back. He looked from me to Yutu. “I’ll talk to you about this later,” he said, and then his eyes snapped back to me. “I’m just under a lot of pressure right now. You probably should’ve called.”
    “Apparently,” I agreed. “Sorry.” I turned to Yutu. “Lovely meeting you.”
    “And you,” he said with a polite bow.
    I smiled thinly at Barron. “Next time you come in, breakfast’s on me. That is, unless that’s too ‘pushy.’”
    “No, it’s very kind—you needn’t have. I’m sorry. Thank you.”
    That was a fumble-mouth bunch of words befitting a ham-fisted grave robber and likely anti-Semite. I left, trying to ignore the low burn in my stomach. The fresh lake air helped a little. Thinking about that map helped a little more. Fiji isn’t exactly around the corner from Hawaii, but it’s in the same South Pacific part of the world. There were probably a lot of ways over many years that map of that region could have made its way to Oahu. From Oahu to Nashville, Tennessee? Not so many.
    Most importantly, why was the big lug so anxious about it?
    I thought about those tunas Barron was telling me about at the deli. How many would he have to catch and drain to get enough mercury to kill someone? Could you even do that to a tuna? Was it like draining the oil from a can of sardines? Or did you run it through a press, like one of those old-time laundry ringers. Was there something in the nautical world that required mercury, something that would justify Barron possessing it? That would be easy enough to find out.
    Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do that research now. I had a text message from Luke:
     
THOM WAS JUST ARRESTED

     

Chapter 10

    I Bluetoothed as I drove.
    Luke answered the phone. “Murray’s Deli.”
    “What happened?” I asked.
    “That lawyer came in and Thom hit him,” he said.
    “You mean a slap? With her hand?”
    “Side of the head with a bottle of Windex,” he said. “The big full one for the front door.”
    “Aw, jeez. How are you guys holding up?”
    “The girls are bussing their own tables—I’m on checkout,” he said. “We called Dani to come in. I run back to do dishes when I can.”
    “Can you handle it?”
    “If you don’t care whether the bill drawer is a little screwed up—”
    “I’ll stop there first, help until Dani gets there, then bail Thom out,” I said.
    “They cuffed her,” Luke said. “She was pretty badass, though. She was still yelling over her shoulder as they hauled her out.”
    “Where’s the lawyer?”
    “Gone,” Luke said. “I think he was afraid A.J. would come after him next.”
    I hung up, hit the gas, and got there before the rush descended. The place smelled of Windex. Whether she’d whacked him hard enough to pop the top or to split the plastic bottle, that would