“We?”
“Those of us with terminal cancer. I never told you why Rita left, did I?”
“No sir.”
“I got diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. Thought I gave up smoking in time, but apparently not. She said she couldn’t go through watching me die and I didn’t want her to. So we split. We’re still married so she’ll get my pension and all that. She knows what’s coming for me, who's coming, and wants to stay out of his way. Our cabby's right, Anderson, sometimes even gods make mistakes and if she’s around when he comes for me, he might take her too. Although, I hope he’ll let me take my cat to the underworld. He does that, you know?”
“He who?”
“Anubis, you idiot. When it’s my time he will come to guide me to the underworld. I’m scared a bit, but going with him willingly is like having someone hold your hand through a scary movie. The cabby fought it, tried to outwit a god and that’s why Anubis took him the manner he did.”
“So, in a way it was suicide?”
“I tried to tell you.”
“I’m sorry, Sarge. I shouldn’t have played the tape. I didn’t mean to dredge up bad feelings.”
“No, Anderson, thank you.”
“For what?”
“I’m scared to die. Most people are, I’m sure. And I’m not ready. I’m only fifty-seven. I want to do more, see more, be with Rita more. So I thought of trying to avoid Anubis. I thought maybe it was just a legend. Why would anyone believe a creature with a jackal’s head was wandering around taking Egyptians to their death? I certainly didn’t. When this case came in though and I saw your transcription I thought perhaps the legends were true, but I still wanted to run to escape my fate. But the tape, you’re right, the sounds are terrible. I don’t want to face that. I’ll let Anubis guide me when the time comes. It’s the better way. I know that now. Thank you.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was on the verge of tears myself.
“You still there, Anderson?”
“Yes sir,” my voice choked.
“You remember what I said?”
“About what?”
“Never bring this up again. We don’t like our secrets to get out and don’t want people investigating this or turning it into some cult. If you talk, if you spread this around, he will come for you too. Got it?”
“Yes sir.”
***
The next day the Sarge didn’t show up. He was declared dead of natural causes with death likely occurring between three and five in the morning. Forensics went to the apartment out of formality and I asked to tag along. Near the Sarge’s bed I noticed marks as if four parallel knives had been pushed across the wood floor. I didn’t point this out.
We never did find the Sarge’s cat.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
L'Uomo Cotto
"L'UOMO COTTO" POPPED out of my pen in a flash from a marathon of watching and reading Anthony Bourdain (Mr. B, if you ever read this, you'll notice your influence), my own obsession with overpopulation issues and, yet another, first line contest. Although you'll figure it out quickly enough, to not give anything away, I've kept the translation of the title until the end of the story. This story appeared in the 2011 anthology Soup of Souls.
***
Sam was a loyal employee. And cute too. Nico paused at his desk tapping the clicker of the ballpoint pen against his teeth then shrugged to himself accepting what had to be done. Damn shame, he'd miss the way her long blonde ponytail and tight ass swayed in motion together as she bustled between tables, but with the weekend rush, loyal or not, she had to be fired. He hated to do it, but he couldn't have her asking questions and, well, with times being what they were, it was the only way he could afford to stock the larders. He poured himself a drink, stared at the dropper bottle and waited for Sam's shift to end.
***
L'Uomo had been Nico's dream, hell, any chef's dream. After years of slogging away for other chefs, other managers and those damn owners who - despite never having stepped inside a professional kitchen - thought that they could start a restaurant because they whipped up a decent cassoulet, Nico finally took the plunge, shouldered the loans and opened L'Uomo.
Hopes and standards were high then. Customers sought sustainable and humane so Nico insisted on dolphin-friendly fish, local produce and free-range meat that met an ethical perfection even the clergy couldn't attain. It's not how he would eat, some of the stuff tasted like old dirt, but the richie riches in the affluent metro area dove in with pocketbooks gaping to gobble it up.
After hours the menu changed to his preferences and top local chef's honed in on L'Uomo to graze on oddities and rarities while imbibing Nico's range of Northwest microbrews, wines and – on those strange and somber winter evenings – absinthe. Upon his invitation, they flocked in like seagulls to scraps of bread. What higher achievement could he have asked for than other chefs choosing his place to hang out?
And one item - Nico's weakness – that kept them checking their email for his late night soirees was otolan: rare songbirds force fed to twice their healthy size, roasted in a cognac bath and eaten whole. None of the other chefs declined an invitation whenever this treat decorated the after hours plates at L'Uomo; they delighted in biting into the bodies as much as Nico did. There was something almost sexual, perhaps orgiastic, in the combined crunch of the tiny bones and harmonized sounds of pleasure as the juices filled their mouths.
"Ain't these things endangered?"
"Close to it, so enjoy," Nico replied.
"What wouldn't you eat, Nico?"
"Yeah, roasted any baby pandas lately?"
"If I cooked them, you know you'd like it," Nico said as he wiped his chin. "And if I said it was antibiotic and cruelty-free beef, my customers would pay $25 for three ounces of it."
"Hell yeah, I'd eat my grandmother if you cooked her, dude. She's still free-range, you know? Speakin' of weird, any of you think you'd ever eat human?"
"Just my girlfriend." A round of crude male laughter filled the room and all that remained of the ortolans' magic was the satisfied smacks as everyone licked their fingers.
Eight months. Eight months of success, hit reviews, loyal crowds and even a photo shoot for Cuisine Magazine. L'Uomo was hot. And then the economy flopped. Home sales plummeted, but optimists simply declared it a buyer's market. Problem was no one had money to be a buyer as the financial life of the city slumped, slouched and then dragged itself through the mud. Unemployment hit twelve percent and people stopped coming in droves to L'Uomo. They all claimed they loved the concept of eating organically, locally and ethically, but the empty wallets couldn't cough up enough greenbacks to pay for it.
Nico laid off most of his employees, keeping only his most loyal cooks. He even waited his own tables. The pricier cuts of meat vanished from the menu. The satisfying sound and smell of grass-fed lamb and pasture-wandering beef being fired on the stovetop grill no longer filled L'Uomo's kitchen. His menu now revolved around chicken. Ethically happy chicken, but still, just chicken. His cooks grew bored and surly with their culinary limitations and people were only willing to pay so much for something they could get at the Colonel's for a third the price.
By Nico's calculations, the restaurant had about seven weeks before his loans and cards would be maxed out trying to keep L'Uomo afloat. When the last two, the only two, customers left after lunch service he jabbed a cigarette into his mouth, lit it the second he was out of the building and strayed to the park joking to himself he better pick out a bench to sleep on for the eventual day his dream died.
He selected a bench and hunched over his lap dragging on the cigarette and watching the people. So many people. That was the problem, he mused to himself, there were just too many damn people. The number of humans swarming the planet disgusted him. They wouldn't need all this enviro-eco-sustainable crap if there weren't so many freakin' human mouths to feed. It's why people were so unhappy; even Nico with only one college biology class under his belt knew the more cr
owded an environment got, the more stressed and depressed its population ended up being. And here they were, miserable in an economic crisis, gang kids shooting each other, religious nut jobs killing anyone who didn't see things their way, diseases rotting people from the inside out and yet humans just kept breeding as if more people wouldn't cause more problems. Nico dropped the cigarette butt and smashed it out with his foot.
"I hope you're planning on throwing that away," a woman snipped. Nico looked up. She had that round on the way to fat look of someone who probably crawled inside an ice cream container every time she got upset. Three children followed her and twins babbled in a stroller. Nico observed the tell tale bulge of another bun in the oven and thought of that last ortolan feast.
"Yeah, lady, that cigarette butt is the problem."
He unfolded himself from the bench and walked away, determined to reinstate meat on L'Uomo's menu and turn his restaurant around. After all, meat was abundant and cheap if you knew where to look.
***
The help wanted sign Nico posted a week later brought in ten hopefuls the first day. Nico's easy manner led them to talk about a variety of things without him even asking. The happy, well-connected ones were passed over; they'd get jobs elsewhere more easily than the loners and introverts Nico hired on.
To fit more with the new direction of the restaurant Nico renamed it L'Uomo Cotto. And to remind people of L'Uomo's existence, Nico personally posted flyers at the houses and condos of his former loyal customers. The flyers promised lush meals with free-range meat, but priced to match the economy. Low prices, almost as low as the damn chicken. The first night, business was up by ten percent from the previous week. By the following week, it was nearly to the highest point he'd reached all those months ago.
People couldn't get enough. They smacked their lips on thin-sliced pancetta, delighted in the indulgence of crispy cracklin's and savored the porcine smell that reminded them of pork chop suppers and Christmas hams. Nico guaranteed his Jewish and Muslim clientele that the meat was not pig, just a common herd animal new to the culinary world.
Butchering the meat himself was hard work, but his training years ago with a seafood prep cook taught him how to cover every inch of a small storage room he'd cleared out and dubbed The Abattoir with plastic tarps to contain all the blood and funnel it into the room's floor drain. Once he separated the meat for the cooks, broke the bones for the stockpot and set aside organs for the more adventurous eaters, Nico rinsed The Abattoir in bleach and water and allowed it to dry. When the smell of chlorine greeted his cooks in the morning, they knew the larders would be filled again and looked forward to firing up the meat Nico called maiale lungo.
And, never bothered by not seeing the same wait staff more than a few times, the customers kept coming. Besides, everyone knew turnover was always high in the restaurant business.
Nico recalled the day Sam applied for a wait staff position. She was cute, smart, sexy in a meek sort of way and Nico couldn't believe she didn't have a boyfriend, girlfriend or any friends at all it seemed.
"I moved here for school and lost myself in books," she said in the interview. "I guess I didn't bother to set aside time to make friends or do stuff with other people."
"No family, sisters or brothers to keep you company?"
She shook her head no.
"Not even a cousin?"
"My parents died in a train crash on a trip through Europe when I was little. My grandma raised me, but she died last summer. That's why I thought I'd start over somewhere else."
She was perfect. Showed up on time, never talked back, respectful towards the cooks, but when he fired Katy, Sam started asking questions.
"Could you give me her number? I thought we got to be friends sort of and I'd like to keep in touch."
"I can't really give out personal information. If you want me to pass your number to her, I could do that."
When Katy didn't call, Sam started again.
"Why was she fired? She never did anything wrong."
Nico had a few standard responses this question. The cooks used to ask now and then when a waiter stopped showing up. They never pressed too hard though and eventually stopped asking altogether. They knew who commanded the kitchen and, as head chef, Nico's word was law in his own restaurant.
"She stole from the customers. Several times. One of the other wait staff noticed."
"I can't believe it."
"People have secrets in this business, Sam."
"But the other wait staff. No one seems to stay more than a couple months and whenever I ask your cooks they just say 'so and so was fired last night.' You do a lot of firing."
"It's how this restaurant stays afloat."
"But couldn't you give Katy a reprimand? A warning?"
"You're very defensive of someone who won't even call you."
"I just— She doesn't seem the type."
"Look, Sam, we need to start dinner service. Do you want to talk more about this after work?"
Sam's smile burst out from her fresh face. She never had anything to do after work.
"That'd be great."
Nico sat in his office clicking the pen, clicking the pen and staring at the dropper on his desk. Sam had to be fired. She was too smart. She'd figure it out eventually and then—
It'd be hard to prove anything he always supposed, circumstantial evidence sure, but rumor might get around and in a small city like Portland he'd be sunk on that alone. Nico refused to let his dream die. He'd brought L'Uomo back too strongly for it to collapse because of some college cutie. She had to be fired.
Sam knocked on the door.
"Come in." Nico took a sip of his whiskey to bolster himself. No matter how many times he did this, it didn't get any easier.
Sam entered. As she opened the door, Nico could see the lights were out in the kitchen. He indicated the chair opposite his desk. He took another sip of his drink.
"Want one?"
"Sure."
"Ever try absinthe?" Her eyes widened as if he'd just offered her heroin. She shook her head no and the ponytail swished back and forth along her neck. "Well, this will be my treat, It's distilled here in Oregon, you know?"
He set up the glass with a slotted spoon balanced across the rim, placed a sugar cube on the spoon's bowl and added a few drops from the dropper onto the cube.
"I've seen this in a Johnny Depp movie. It looked so cool and exotic."
"It'll change you, that's for sure."
He poured a small amount of water over the cube and the absinthe turned an opalescent green. Sam couldn't take her eyes off of it. With a flick of the spoon, the sugar plunked into the glass.
"There you go, enjoy."
Sam took a tentative sip and smiled. Nico never expected it, but she raised glass and tossed the entire contents back.
"Another?" he asked.
Before Sam could answer, she slumped forward, her head landing on Nico's desk with a thud. Nico pressed the intercom on his office phone. Silence. Everyone was gone and invitations to Portland's other chefs were never issued for the nights someone had to be fired.
Nico dragged Sam to the room at the rear of the kitchen and pulled out his key, the only key, to the Abattoir. He'd set up the plastic that morning. Meat stocks were low and someone was going to have to re-fill the larders. It was a shame it had to be Sam. Nico unlocked the door and dragged Sam in, her long blonde ponytail mopping limply behind across the floor. The knives glistened on the metal table ready to do their work. Tomorrow, when the grills fired up, Sam would be on them and the droves of paying customers would be satiated once again at L'Uomo Cotto.
***
L'uomo cotto = the cooked man
Maiale lungo = long pig
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About the Author
Tammie Painter worked for years in science before discovering her true passion in writing. Her fascination for myths, history, and how they interweave inspired the Osteria Chronicles series. When she isn’t (but probably should be) writing, Tammie can be found gardening, planning her next travel adventure, or wrangling her hive of honeybees.
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Other Books by Tammie Painter
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