Huh. Liam rocked back on his heels; whatever he’d been expecting, that hadn’t been it. “I didn’t realize you knew the Ivanovs,” he said, trying to figure out if he believed this any more than he did her previous story.
“I don’t,” Baba said in a calm tone. “But I like Belinda, and I want to help.”
Liam was confused. “Are you some kind of private detective?”
“Not at all,” she said, gesturing at the table and the cue he was holding. “I’m a professor and an herbalist. Were you going to take another shot anytime soon?”
He drew in a deep breath through his nose, trying to curb the impulse to strangle her with her own flowing locks. Odd, mysterious, and infuriating. The woman was going to drive him insane. Even when she was telling the truth, he couldn’t get a straight answer out of her.
He bent over the table, and said without looking at her, “You need to stay out of police business, Professor Yager. Stick to your herbs. I’ll take care of Belinda and her family.”
“Really?” Baba drew out the word in a voice that lowered the temperature of the room about twenty degrees. “Because it seems to me that you can use all the help you can get. Since, as you yourself said, you have nothing.” The last word was squeezed through gritted teeth, and the sharp edges of it caused his fingers to slip on the cue, sending the cue ball bouncing uselessly off empty air.
Baba stared at him for a moment and then took her shot—and all the ones that came after, dropping striped balls into the pockets with the precision of a surgeon.
“Three days,” she said, emptying her beer bottle and setting it down on the side wall ledge with a decisive click. “Had enough yet?”
Liam shook his head and plucked the white plastic triangle off its hook, arranging the balls in silence. He fought back fury at her implication that he couldn’t protect his own people. More because it felt true at the moment than because it wasn’t. Around them, laughter and petty quarrels echoed from the other tables where people played for fun and not in a battle for . . . whatever it was they were battling for. He wasn’t sure either of them knew.
A bright green ball slid into dingy white netting. Dozens of questions vied to be next, but what came out of his mouth was, “Are you married?” He could feel the tips of his ears burn. For once he was thankful he still hadn’t had time to get his hair trimmed.
Baba’s eyes widened in surprise. That was some consolation.
“I mean, do you have a significant other? You know, someone I should contact in case you get into trouble with the law?” Something he was almost completely certain would happen sooner or later.
She opened her mouth to answer, but whatever she was going to say was drowned out by the sound of roaring as a bevy of motorcycles glided by the window, shaking the brick walls so hard, Baba’s empty bottle fell over and rolled onto the floor.
Over by the back door, kept propped open for air and so the smokers could run outside for a quick puff between games, a waitress named Ellie peeked her head out cautiously and withdrew it, looking for all the world like a startled turtle.
“Oh my god!” she squeaked, almost dropping the tray of glasses she carried. “We’ve been invaded by a motorcycle gang!”
Liam walked over and looked out the door himself, Baba and most of the others in the room peering over his shoulder. He saw three bikes gleaming in the light from the solitary street lamp: a luminous white Yamaha, a hulking black Harley, and between them, looking like a thoroughbred between a show pony and a Clydesdale, a low-slung red Ducati. There was no sign of their riders, who had undoubtedly walked around to enter through the front of the bar.
Liam rolled his eyes and suppressed a sigh. “Three motorcycles is hardly a ‘gang,’ Ellie,” he said. “There are more bikes than that parked in the front lot; I’m pretty sure I saw the Kirk brothers come in on theirs, and plenty of folks around here ride.” He gave the crowd his professional “move along, nothing to see here” smile.
Ellie scowled at him, her thirtysomething face already looking middle-aged after a decade of dealing with rowdy drunks and too many late nights.
“I’ve never seen those motorcycles before, Sheriff. And three may not be a gang, but it sure as hell can be trouble.” She sniffed, empty bottles and abandoned glasses clinking together on her tray as she slammed them down on her way out of the room.
“I guess I’d better go see what the cat dragged in,” Liam said, leaning his cue against the wall in resignation. “I’ll be back in a minute.”