“Well, yes,” said Mrs. Tompkins, “but not yet. I was going to hit him with the artichoke hearts, but it’s an awfully big jar-did you want to see?”

“Absolutely,” Liam said.

“Oh, fuck me, man, do I have to sit here and listen to this?”

“Shut up, Harvey,” Liam said.

Harvey shut up. He was the bouncer at the Bay View Inn and he and Liam had already met professionally.

Mrs. Tompkins dove headfirst into one of the four plastic shopping bags clustered at her feet. She upset her purse on the way down and a couple of coins rolled out. She pounced on them, holding them up to the light and squinting at them. She frowned. “No good,” she said, and caught Liam’s eye. “Except to spend.”

She dove back into the shopping bag and emerged flushed and triumphant, jar of artichokes in hand. It was a big jar, Liam noted with respect, forty-eight ounces, and always assuming it hit its target, would have put a hell of a dent in Harvey’s head. Funny how Harvey didn’t look grateful for the reprieve.

“It was too big, I thought,” Mrs. Tompkins said with the air of a woman who had right on her side and who knew it. “I mean, I didn’t want to kill him; I just wanted to protect my property.”

“Of course.”

“There he was, breaking into my car, and that car’s my property.”

“Certainly.”

“And I really didn’t know how else to stop him.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Liam said. “So that was when you hit him with the sun-dried tomatoes.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Tompkins, and fluttered her eyelashes. She was as taken with Liam as he was with her. “I was going to use the olive oil, but it was a plastic bottle. I figured it’d just bounce off, and then he’d probably hit me.”