It Takes Two by Judith Arnold

Author:Judith Arnold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Judith Arnold

Chapter Ten

Gus could really use some assistance. The tavern was packed, the noise level high, the servers swooping back and forth like seagulls above the ocean. Manny had gone down to the basement to fetch another case of vodka, and he still hadn’t come back upstairs. It didn’t take ten minutes to fill a case and haul it upstairs.

She knew she shouldn’t depend on Will, who’d been helping her behind the bar only on a temporary basis. But there he sat, at a booth with Ed and a woman—the woman who’d been in the tavern yesterday, nursing a glass of white wine and leaving most of it behind. The three of them huddled, their heads close together, talking about God knew what. So near and yet so far. Too far away to help her.

She was going to have to hire another bartender, once Will left for Seattle. Someone who wouldn’t pester her about adding exotic cocktails to the menu. Dark-and-Stormy? Forget it. It would take too long to mix those drinks, and on busy nights like this, she didn’t have a spare minute.

Where the hell was Manny?

She poked celery sticks into the two Bloody Marys she’d just prepared and set them on a tray. Turning, she spotted Manny entering through the kitchen door, lugging a carton. Finally. “What took so long?” she asked.

He set the carton down on the back counter, the bottles inside it rattling, and nodded at the server who’d shouted for a pitcher of Harpoon IPA. “Something’s screwy with the inventory,” he informed Gus as he grabbed a clean pitcher and held it under the Harpoon tap. “The numbers for Stoli and Absolut were all screwed up. I know we entered them right when the shipment arrived.”

“How could they have gotten screwed up?” Gus asked. “The bottles come in, we enter them into the system.”

“I don’t know. Software snafu, maybe?” He handed the pitcher and a bowl of beer nuts to the server, who was busy stacking a half dozen beer mugs on her tray. “Ask your kid. He’s the software genius.”

“I would, if he’d get his butt over here,” Gus grumbled. What on earth was he discussing so intently with Ed? She was glad her son and her boyfriend got along, but she doubted Will could be all that interested in hearing about whatever business Ed had pursued today. No major crimes had been committed in town, as far as she knew. Ed was mostly occupied with older cases these days, finalizing the files and sending them on to the D.A.’s office. At least, that was what he told her. Surely Will didn’t need to hear Ed launch into one of his rants about tedious paperwork.

And why was that woman with them?

She’d ordered a glass of wine again, but tonight she appeared to be drinking it. She was pretty, and Will’s eyes glowed whenever he looked her way. They’d heard a song on the jukebox yesterday, Gus recalled—but Will was on his way out of town, and unless he was planning to bring the woman with him, nothing was going to come of that.

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