“Sure.”
“Plain drip or espresso?”
“Plain drip’s fine.” A steaming mug appeared beneath his nose and Jeff went back to drying and stacking glasses.
The coffee was good, hot and strong and tasting like coffee and only coffee. Nowadays too much of the brew tasted burned or, horrors, was flavored with chocolate raspberry or salted caramel. He shuddered.
Jeff noticed. “What? Do you need me to brew up a fresh pot?”
“No, it’s fine. Perfect.” Liam took another swig. “You don’t flavor your beer, do you?”
Jeff looked appalled. “Christ no.”
“Because I was loading up on supplies at Safeway yesterday and they had a grapefruit-flavored beer on sale.”
“Probably the only way they could get anyone to buy it.”
“I know, right? Lime in a Corona is one thing, but…” Reassured, Liam drank more coffee. “There was a parade as I was coming down Sourdough Street.”
Jeff rolled his eyes. “Yeah, get used to it, you’ll see at least one march every month at this point. And a corresponding parade in opposition.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The left marches with signs. The right parades with flags.”
“What are they demonstrating for?”
“Oh hell, take your pick. Today’s Labor Day, so probably unions. Traditional, okay, but tomorrow it might be the Tea Party, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, hashtag MeToo, save the sea otters or the whales or what the fuck ever. This is the wokest town in the state.” He brightened. “But marching is thirsty work evidently, because most of both sides show up here afterward.”
“Silver lining.”
“Yeah.” Jeff racked a tray of glasses and started on another.
The door opened. “Hey, Jeff.”
“Hey, Erik. We aren’t open yet.”
“I know, but I was hoping you could sell me a growler of Cockloft without sending the ABC board into convulsions.”
“That I can do. Wait one.”
A man about Liam’s age, tall and rangy with thick, wheat-blond hair and sea-blue eyes leaned against the bar. He nodded at Liam. “Hey. Erik Berglund.”
Liam nodded back. “Liam Campbell.”
“Archeologist.” Berglund volunteered the information like he expected a fanfare of trumpets in response.
Liam was interested, though. “Oh yeah? Here on the Bay? What have you found?”
“Save yourself, don’t get him started,” Jeff said, reappearing with a brown ceramic jug that would have been more at home at an Appalachian hootenanny.
Erik grinned, unabashed, and handed over his card. “Harpoon heads, arrowheads, axe heads, fish hooks, a bone drill, frames for dip nets, stone oil lamps, and what I think are the pieces of a snare.”
“A snare for what?”
“Fur-bearing animals, I think.” Erik shrugged. “I’ll know more once I manage to figure out how it goes together.”
“How far back do they date?”
Jeff groaned, handing Erik his card and receipt. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to take back that question.”
“I will make you eat those words, Ninkasi.”
“Will you make Domenica Garland eat them, too? Because you’ll have to.”
Erik winked at Jeff. “She’s already given it her best shot. She didn’t leave happy.”
“Oh, man, you turned that down? Hell, I’d tap that!” Jeff cast a nervous look at the ceiling. “I mean, I would if I wasn’t married.”
“Uh-huh.” Erik tucked the jug under one arm. “Also, not what I said.” He grinned when Jeff’s eyebrows flew up. “Come see my dig… Liam, right? I’m up the Bay twenty miles, on the Bay side of the road. It’s a steep climb down but I promise it will be worth your time. Thanks, Jeff. Later.” He was out the door with a backwards wave.
“Oh, shit,” Jeff said.
“What?” Liam turned to see Erik pause briefly before another figure, also a man. “What’s wrong?”
Jeff came out from behind the bar fast and hit the door before it had closed fully behind Berglund, Liam right behind him. By the time he caught up with Jeff, a third person had pulled up in what looked like Lincoln’s ne plus ultra version of a Navigator, black in color. The woman that slid down from the driver’s seat was a looker, medium/medium, but with her weight distributed in a manner that would have made Rubens weep. Her waist-length hair was nearly the same color as her vehicle and she wore jeans and T-shirt to match her vehicle and so tight that you could eyeball her pulse through the cloth. As much-married as Liam was he was also a man and it was difficult to drag his eyes up to her face. When he did manage it his gaze was caught and held by a pair of large, dark, widely spaced eyes whose initial Disney-princess look was belied by an intelligence so sharp it might draw blood. How much was up to her, and if you got in her way.
“Dom,” Jeff said in a resigned voice. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Just starting the day off right, Jeff.” She made even that innocuous statement sound seductive. She strolled over to stand next to the man confronting Berglund. A more unlikely couple would have been impossible to find. She was perhaps in her early forties and he looked at least twice her age and a quarter her weight. She stood erect, shoulders back, those amazing breasts thrust out in front of her like bazookas taking aim, skin glowing with health and vigor. He was thin to the point of emaciation, stooped over a chest caved in by age, all exposed skin freckled with liver spots, only wisps of colorless hair remaining in the barest fringe above his ears. His eyes were red and watery with swollen lids and his right hand was curled arthritically over the head of a massive diamond willow cane with a braced handle that looked as if it weighed as much as he did. His remaining energy was directed in what could only be described as a homicidal glare at Erik Berglund. His voice was high and raspy and vicious. “You ignorant lout, you puppy, you—you—” Spittle flew as the old man spluttered to a halt.
“Hey, old man,” Berglund said, impervious. He gave the woman a long look, head to foot, and his mouth curled up on one side. “Domenica. Looking good,
