Page 17 of The Dreidl Disaster

His stomach was rumbling, and the friend who, under pressure, had not only promised him lunch but also promised him information was late.

Leo.

He’d known the man since they were ten, and he was trying not chop off his nose to spite his stomach. So as his friend walked toward him, Artur shook his head in admonishment. “I cannot believe I heard about your restaurant’s good behavior from someone else.”

Leo, of course, shrugged, seemingly unrepentant. “Well if you had told me you needed contacts here, instead of making Abe tell us you were skipping our sacred dinner because you need to prepare to come on an assignment here, I would have mentionedthings.”

He raised an eyebrow. Leo was not cagey, not usually. But this time he was, holding back a bunch of random information and it was absolutely herring. “And if I’d asked, you would have told me you gave Paul Levitan the lead on the deli location?”

Leo shrugged. “Nobody wants that information because nobody in this town likes to mention the very quick demise of McManus’s Pub after the last Briarwood mayoral election.”

Pay dirt.

What the heck was going on in Briarwood? What was the story with McManus’s? But all he said was simply: “What?”

Leo shook his head. “Not here,” he said. “We’ll talk tomorrow night at dinner. Remind me.”

He would, but Leo would probably forget halfway through dinner on Thursday night. Either way, he followed his friend into the Pasta Station.

“Leo…”

And then it was sudden silence as the guy who’d initially greeted Leo so warmly turned slightly. “Him?”

“Stop being a buffoon, Maricelli,” Leo said with a shake of his head. “I’ve known this guy since he was ten and if you have trouble with him, you have trouble with me.”

Which was definitive and weird and…

“But you were with the mayor on Monday. Being…public with her.”

Leo raised an eyebrow as scenes from Monday afternoon ran through Artur’s head; had the guy who was glaring at him been part of the crowd who stared as he and Liv walked through the square, or was he one of the people who had to be dragged away?

“Am I in fifth grade again or have I walked into an alternative universe?” Leo interjected, incredulous. “The man isworkingwith the mayor.”

“Artur Rabinovitch,” he said, deciding to introduce himself. “Rivertown High Graduate, friend and man hired to fix the mess made of the Hanukkah event here in Briarwood.”

The gentleman raised an eyebrow and looked back at Leo. “This guy? This guy is…”

“The manis good at his job,” Leo said, clearly ready to brawl right in the middle of Briarwood. “And if you’re not letting us in, Frank, then I’ll just leave and go back to Rivertown.”

“No,” Frank said, as if he’d suddenly been reminded of the stakes of the situation. “No. I’ll reserve my judgment of your friend’s job skills until tomorrow’s meeting. But now?” he said. “Let me feed you lunch.”

And as they headed to the back of the Pasta Station, Artur found himself more curious about McManus’s Pub and it’s connections to the town, as well as why Frank Maricelli was so concerned about what he’d been doing with Liv…the mayor, on Monday.

*

Liv caught aglance of the clock on the wall and groaned at the time when she lifted her head from the pile of work she’d been handling. The time had flown and she needed to make a phone call.

Immediately.

Which meant she had to dig into the email she’d received from John Stevens and the chain that followed, alerting her to Artur’s arrival.

Nine numbers, a deep breath and then…

“Artur Rabinovitch.”

It sounded like he was in the middle of a wind tunnel, and there were random noises every so often.

Was he going somewhere?

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