LITMIR.BIZ

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      I halted with my fingers around the doorknob, glanced over at her.

      “One thing’s for sure, Caz…this isn’t my usual day,” I said, telling the absolute truth.

      Chapter Four

      Around eight o’clock that morning, I was at the deli heading downstairs from my office, the Passover photo of Uncle Murray and me tucked under my arm, a hammer and box of nails in my hand. I’d found the hammer in the top drawer of my desk and the nails in its paper clip organizer.

      I was sure Murray could have found a better place to keep them, but you didn’t see many bare-chested Jewish Mr. Fixits with low-slung tool belts around their hips. Of course, Jewish country-and-western performers were even less common sights, and my uncle had shown plenty of chutzpah and determination bucking that particular stereotype.

      Meanwhile, I guess that I still had Lucky Charms on my brain, because I’d removed the picture from the wall thinking I needed some kind charm to reverse my karma. I had a new location in mind that seemed just right. It would be far more potent—and appropriate—there than a green marshmallow shamrock.

      Though I’d entered the building through the side entrance, and hadn’t yet stepped into the dining room, I had known Newt and his kitchen staffers were hard at work…and would have been long before my arrival, since they always came in early to prepare for lunch. Not even the tin ceiling under my floorboards could keep the aromas of knishes baking in the oven, chicken matzo ball soup on the range, and especially our traditional Saturday cholent from wafting up to my office.

      For a while, I had sat there just sniffing and savoring the delicious smells. A house specialty, the cholent was a Jewish version of poor boy stew developed in fifteenth-century Eastern Europe using readily available ingredients—beans, barley, potatoes, onions and beef, simmered with garlic, paprika, and other seasonings. As Murray had told me once upon a time, observant Jews were prohibited from lighting cooking fires on the Sabbath under religious law, so they’d gotten imaginative and developed a warm winter meal they could start before sundown on Sabbath Eve and let stand overnight on a low flame.

      The secret of Murray’s cholent was a secret combination of added herbs and a unique cooking method that went back hundreds of years to the dish’s peasant beginnings. Far as I knew, he’d shared the full recipe and process with only two people—Newt and me. That meant not even Thomasina was privy to it.

      Right now, its scent had imparted a sense of inner calm that I hadn’t felt since my plunge into Kosher Karaoke night hell…or possibly since the coming of its wicked messenger, Crispy the Pig. It had also stirred my appetite despite the expanded clumps of Cocoa Puffs in my tireless tummy. As the originator and sole devotee of the Gwen Silver Smoker’s Diet, I knew the cigarette I’d had while driving in would have accelerated my metabolism—and thus my caloric burn rate—enough to allow for a forkful or two of the cholent, and perhaps a wee sampling of chicken soup. It would be a personal act of defiance, refuting the whispers of possible food contamination A.J. had heard from Lover Cop. And hey, if I could make stuffing my face a matter of principle, why not? Was there ever a better cause for rationalization?

      But first things first. I had wanted that picture from my office hung in its perfect new spot.

      I was about to push through the double doors into the restaurant when I heard someone singing along to the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar. After a split second, I recognized Luke’s voice.

      This I hadn’t expected. My lunch servers wouldn’t arrive for at least another hour, and Luke had been scheduled for the dinner shift. Also, we didn’t offer entertainment with our food, karaoke night being the lone, currently lamentable, exception. Luke’s singing and guitar strumming, if not his stone-washed denim butt-huggers, were reserved for club gigs and auditions. All of which were gyrated—ah, I mean, performed—on his own time.

      I opened the door partway and stood listening to him.

      A self-made man wearin’ bootheels of leather,

      Come up from nowhere on roads windin’ an’ weathered.

      Died too young, but stayed true to his song,

      Till he dropped down dead ’fore anyone knew what was wrong.

      Now I’m standin’ outside his big truck ’n auto lot,

      A wonderin’ how many more tomorrows it got.

      There’s a lonesome Dodge pickup with a dusty tag in the window,

      A slick Toyota hybrid sittin’ in limbo.

      Buyers and sellers, I watch ’em all grieve,

      Then after a while, see them turn round an’ leave.

      It’s hit ’em where it hurts, hit ’em hard one by one:

      Without good ol’ Sarge givin’ orders, ain’t no sales gettin’ done.

      Lord, my heart’s a V8 engine, and its cylinders are achin’,

      There’s an emptiness inside like a parkin’ spot vacant.

      All them rubber tires gone still, them quiet chassis of steel,

      How’re they gonna get sold without Buster’s fair an’ honest deals?

      “Enough!” I pushed open the doors from the kitchen and saw Luke sitting on a chair near one of the tables, the guitar across his lap. “What’s that song you’re playing?”

      As he glanced up from his fret board, I realized the kid was in the same clothes he’d worn the night before. And that he hadn’t shaved or combed his hair.

      “’Morning, Nash,” he said. “I’m almost done with a new ballad. Figure I might call it ‘Salute to the Sarge.’ Or somethin’ simple like “Good-bye Buster.’ You care to hear the rest?”

      “No.”

      Luke just stared at me. He seemed totally blind to my look of prune-faced annoyance. Maybe it was the eyelid lifter and super concealer. “I sure could use your opinion. They’re holdin’ open calls for Nashville’s Hottest, that new singer-songwriter contest they got on television. I figured the tune would show my sensitive side so people can see I ain’t just a shakin’ hunk of beefcake. And bein’ topical, it could give me an edge over the competition—”

      “Don’t you dare even consider it, Luke.”

      “You thinkin’ the song’s no good?”

      “Never mind,” I said. “What’re you doing here at this hour anyway?”

      “Stuck around until the police finished their work and I could lock up,” Luke said. “By then it was past two in the morning. I felt too pooped to drive home and decided I’d crash here.”

      I abruptly regretted my snippiness. It had occurred to me that Luke probably hadn’t spoken to A.J. since last night, and had no idea why the cops had taken their food samples. He wasn’t dumb. Immature, yep. Prone to recurrent bouts of self-absorption and madly in love with his mirror, check. But I didn’t know anybody who was quicker to do me a favor…and his staying behind to close the place had been a huge one.

      “I don’t think cylinders really ache,” I said contritely. “And the line about your heart being an engine with an empty parking spot’s a mixed metaphor.”

      “A what?”

      “I’ll explain later. Meanwhile, follow me…I need a little assist.”

      I led the way up front and around the counter. On the wall behind the cash register—mounted slightly to one side—was a collection of rave newspaper and magazine reviews of the deli, a clear acrylic block showcasing the first bill that Uncle Murray took in, our liquor license, and the obligatory health department notices on the Heimlich maneuver and drinking alcoholic beverages during pregnancy. I looked at the diagram and momentarily imagined Buster Sergeant’s face superimposed on the figure

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