“Okay,” I said, “Sounds like we’re making headway. Barring any more ghosts or superheroes, we’re on target for winning our cases.”
“What makes you so sure?” Vicki teased.
“My psychic told me,” I said.
“Well, then I guess we’ve got it all wrapped up and in the bag,” she replied.
“I guess so,” I said.
“Good,” she replied, “then that means you can go pick up lunch.”
“That,” I said, “I can definitely do.”
“Good,” she said, “because I just placed an order at Jitters. Can you go get it?”
I nodded. Jitters was our coffee shop down the block. Vicki and I were both terrible cooks, and ate on the run most of the time, save for the occasional Martha Stewart phase that Vicki goes through for a few days every two or three months.
She’ll watch that Julie and Julia movie; the one where the cynical New York career woman finds new life by making all these Julia Child recipes and blogging about it. So, this viewing sets off a whole phase where Vicki will YouTube all these complicated dishes. She’ll make some decent food, I’ll give her that. But she’ll spend more time cooking than it would take to drive to a restaurant, order, eat, and come home.
I have to find things to do that week, because if I stick around, she’ll make me help her, and the last thing I want to do is get caught up in an emotional pitfall because her stringbeans don’t look like the ones in the video.
Last time I tried to console her by telling her she could just buy them already cooked by professionals. As I found, pissing off a woman with a butcher knife in her hand, is not a very good idea. So now I stay away from the Julia Child experiment. I also hid her DVD.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’ll go pick it up. I need the fresh air anyway.”
I always loved the stroll from our office to Jitters. Just a block down, it’s more of a pain to drive than it is just to walk. In early May, the spring air was brisk and cool, but with the impending excitement of summer just around the corner. I passed a hipster playing bongos for change. A few office workers sat on benches eating lunch and enjoying the music.
The bongo player launched into a long and involved beat once he saw me. I snickered and tossed a five into his case. He nodded and kept drumming as I walked on. For a drummer, he was alright. But, I was jaded. I knew too many professionals.
Jitters was a locally owned shop, and in my opinion, had the best coffee anywhere. During my L.A. years it was one of the things I really missed about Sedona. They have their own brand, and they grow it on a farm out here. I turned Vicki onto it, and now it’s the only coffee we drank.
Jitters was always crowded, and the scent of Arabica hit me full in the face as soon as I arrived. In the way of coffee shops, it didn’t have much of an original look. The typical browns and deep maroons and stuffed chairs.
“Order for Vicki Park,” I said once I reached the counter.
A young female barista, drowning in eyeliner and cynicism went to find my order. While I waited, a man approached me.
“Hey,” he said. “I know who you are.”
I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t know who he was. He was a burly man, looked a little older than me, mid-thirties perhaps. He was shabbily dressed in an oversized blue t-shirt and faded jeans, and wore a blue and white trucker hat.
“You’re Henry Irving,” he said. He edged up too close to me, and his aggressive tone put me on the defensive.
“I am,” I said as I looked around for the barista. She was handing another customer a coffee.
“You’re defending the lady that murdered the naked dancer,” he nearly shouted, even though I was mere feet from him. “You’re in bed with Marvin Iakova, now, too, aren’t you?”
It was clear the question wasn’t directed at me, but to somehow “out” me to everyone within earshot. I’d had enough.
“Excuse me,” I said, and I moved away from him toward the barista. “Ma’am, my order, please?”
“Do you know that Marvin Iokava supports an expansion of media law that would effectively have no censor on false information?” the man shouted across the shop to me. “He wants to allow people like Holocaust deniers to have their say in the media.”
I grabbed the bag and tossed the barista a tip and turned to walk out.
“That’s what he supports,” he yelled to my departing back. “Do you support that? Do you believe in the Holocaust sir? Sir, sir, do you think it’s right that the Holocaust deniers can be represented in media? Or that people that are spreading fake news should be allowed to exist?”
I finally addressed him. “I can’t speak for the business practices or political opinions of Marvin Iakova. But I can say that this coffee shop has great deli sandwiches. You should get one while you’re here. Support local business.”
There was a loud cheer, and on that note I left the shop. I hit the sidewalk and the bright sun glared in my eyes so I slipped on my shades. It had been an odd week, and I had had enough of aggressive protesters for a while. Suddenly I heard shouting behind me.
“Hey, hey,” the man yelled.
Shit. He was following me. I walked faster. He caught up to me and came at me from the side. He was now carrying a video camera.
“Jerry Steele, Steele Productions,” he filmed from the front as
