From Herring to Eternity by Delia Rosen

both went silent. He was quick on the recovery, I’ll give him that.
    “Now that the pleasantries are out of the way,” he went on, “why don’t we look for a way out of this impasse.”
    “ A way,” I repeated. “Is there more than one?”
    “There’s always more than one choice,” he said. “At minimum, there are two—a good one and a bad one.”
    “I hate you,” I said.
    “Understandable,” he replied affably. “Nonetheless, how do you want this to go? And I mean realistically, not the ‘good for me, bad for you’ repartee of which you seem to be so fond.”
    I hated him even more right then. He wasn’t just a bastard, he was a controlling man who had control over me like I was one of his damned students. It was tough to push that aside and think of Thom.
    “You name the terms, I’ll agree to them,” I said.
    “Wow,” Sterne said. “That’s frankly more than I hoped for—”
    “With one provision,” I added. “If your putz of an attorney shows up at the deli again, Thom is immune from prosecution for any harm that may befall him.”
    “Thom is a grown woman. She should be able to—”
    “Hit the guy who did dirt to her brother, even if it was legal?” I said. “I agree. I want it in writing.”
    “What if he comes to your award-winning deli for lunch?”
    Now the guy was just being difficult. “Then I might poison him myself,” I said, hoping that Dickson didn’t, in fact, subsequently go the way of Lippy and Tippi. I’d be in a pretty tough spot then.
    “Ms. Katz, I don’t know if we can indemnify Ms. Jackson against a murder—”
    “Fine. Attorney Dickson does not come here, ever, for any reason,” I said. “And I don’t want him at my home, either. Those are my terms.”
    “I’ll talk to him—”
    “Your word, now,” I said. “I’ll futz around with witches to protect my property, but you mess with my friends, we’re at war. I will go down to my basement and take a pickax to the floor before you ever get near the place.”
    “Don’t,” he said. “Please. I agree. You’ll never see Dickson again.”
    “Bring whatever you need me to sign to my house, tonight,” I told him. “Eight o’clock. That includes a promise that Thom won’t be prosecuted for what happened this morning.”
    “I don’t know if I can make—”
    “Come eight-o-one, I won’t hear the door because of all the chopping.”
    “I’ll be there,” he promised.
    I hung up feeling good for having stood up to the guy, but bad for what I had just committed to let them do. I decided to leave the rest of my e-mails till later and figured, as far as the dig was concerned, that was that and I’d just have to live with it.
    But in the life of any human being, when is “that” ever really “that”?

Chapter 11

    I worked in the dining area the rest of the day and left after making sure that Thom wasn’t going to suffer a delayed reaction to the traumatic events of the morning.
    “I’ll be okay,” she assured me. “Me and Lord Jesus have a good working relationship. I pray to Him and He supports me when I’m uncertain. In fact, I spoke to Christ in jail—along with my cellmate, Françoise Shabazz.”
    I commented on the unusual combination of those names and Thom said she was a French African woman being held for a visa violation. It made sense, but it still sounded strange.
    Since Jesus seemed to have things well under control, and the camaraderie of the staff seemed to buoy Thom, I felt all right when they left—Dani and Luke, who were an item, taking her to a new frozen yogurt shop for a shake or two. I quietly prayed that Dickson didn’t have a similar craving.
    I made a pastrami on rye with mustard to go, got home around seven-thirty, fed the cats, and was just sitting down to eat when my “that was that” got flipped on its ear.
    It wasn’t Robert Barron or Grant Daniels or even Andrew Dickson who showed up at my door—adversarial people and one annoyingly neutral person who