“Come on,” Marcus smirked. “We’ve been doing business for years and with you that’s all it is—all business. Throw me a bone.”
I sighed. “What are you asking me, Marcus?”
He rubbed his chin, leaned forward and asked, “Why do you risk taking hard-to-unload scores from places with complicated alarms and all that security, but you don’t ever wait around for me to take bidders for the premium items?”
Having a personal relationship with your fence is never a good idea. I debated shutting him down, but the question struck something inside of me, and I felt compelled to answer, if only so he would stop gossiping on the street.
“You can circumvent alarm systems. You can run from a security guard. You can elude a patrol car. But you can never really keep a money trail from ending at your doorstep.”
Marcus gave a nod, but then cocked his head and said, “Come on now, you and I both know people who can wash cash, and it comes out looking legit.”
He was right. I wasn’t big time, but I certainly had connections who knew how to launder money. That wasn’t the issue.
“If I start thinking it’s acceptable to wait one month for a big payoff, then I’ll start thinking two months is fine.”
“So?” Marcus asked.
“Then why not wait three months for an even bigger score?” I asked, rhetorically. “How about six months for six figures? Next thing you know, one of us is sitting on a painting or vase for a year and collecting bids from a dozen people we don’t really know.” I shook my head and concluded, “The exposure is too great.”
The fence nodded, but I could see he wasn’t sure if I was serious about my precautions. It’s not that I couldn’t do the time if I got busted. I’d been in and out of juvie since I was 14 and did a couple of stints in county as an adult, but I always had a lot of motivation to avoid hard time. Pop had been getting sloppier and sloppier over the past few years, and it was just a matter of time until he got pinched and sent away. What would become of Jerrod if I was in the cage too? No, Jerrod was going to be the break in the cycle. His spark wasn’t going to be extinguished because of Pop getting careless or me getting greedy. Of course, I wasn’t going to explain all of that to Marcus. My walls weren’t going to show any cracks. My walls had to be fucking seamless.
“Here’s three K,” he said as he stuffed three thousand in 20s into an envelope.
We stood up, and I slid the envelope into my jacket. Our business concluded, he led me out of the back room and into the semi-legit portion of the pawn shop.
“Say ‘hello’ to your dad for me,” said Marcus.
I nodded and took another three steps.
“And to your brother too,” he added. “He’s a good kid.”
I stopped in my tracks and turned toward him as a chime sounded on the door, and a couple walked in carrying a box of junk they were undoubtedly looking to sell. Marcus immediately turned his attention to the customers and guided them to a counter where he would sort through the box and offer next-to-nothing cash for next-to-worthless trinkets.
I strode out onto the broken sidewalk and pulled my coat around me before turning and looking through the window of Marcus’ shop. He saw me and gave me a final wave, and I thought about how careful I had always been to keep our relationship professional rather than personal.
Marcus knew me because of Pop and knew Pop because of the business, but that was where it ended. For all my father’s faults, he knew how to separate the business side of things from most of the personal stuff. You don’t talk to your fence about friends, plans, jobs and certainly not about family. You might prep your fence if you were expecting to bring in a score that needed to be moved fast, but that’s about the only time you talk to him when you won’t be walking out with cash in your pocket. There is simply no other reason to be there.
So, how the hell did Marcus know Jerrod? I’d have to call my brother and try to meet up with him. We needed to talk.
72 hours earlier
Tuesday
My family doesn’t have many traditions, but I guess having a beer with your father in the living room is the closest thing we have to a ritual. I took a seat and noticed the hockey game flickering on the television. As usual, Pop grumbled about the Pens not playing up to his insane expectations. Pop had never laced up a pair of skates in his life, but over time he’d anointed himself a hockey expert. I grabbed a beer from the mini-fridge in the corner and took my usual seat. Pop barely glanced my way as I looked around the room, angling my head so I could see through the kitchen doorway.
“Where’s Jerrod?” I asked.
Pop pointed up, letting me know my brother was in his room.
Minutes passed before he said, “I’ve been hearing things about you.”
I didn’t say anything. That’s the thing about my father. If you stay quiet long enough, you can count on him filling the conversational void.
He shifted in his fake leather recliner and stroked an area patched with duct tape as he said, “The word is you’ve been making out real good on some jobs. Some people say you’ve been making out too good. Like you’ve been pulling jobs that attract attention but not getting paid like you should.”
“Marcus talks too much,” is all I said.
“It’s not just him,” said Pop. “Word is getting around. People are saying you’re not being patient enough or maybe you’ve got a habit to feed and need the quick buck. You hooked on something?”
“No,” I replied.
“So what’s the problem?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, and turned to pretend to watch the game.
I heard the chair groan under my father’s weight as he leaned forward.
“I don’t get you. You’ve got a decent head on your shoulders, and thanks to those technical classes you took, you know how to work alarms, cameras and fancy locks. But you don’t have one bit of sense when it comes to the business. With your skills you could be raking it in with no problems. I know people who can handle the merchandise and get you a fair cut.”
I took a sip of beer and tried to ignore him. I debated pointing out that he—with all his business sense—was still living in the same run-down house I’d grown up in and that he barely had a penny to his name, but we’d been down that road before. That conversational trail led to stories of imagined slights where he was the victim of bad deals, shady partners and poor advice. In reality, he was the generator of those deals, the partner who was shady and a terrible advisor. So I sat and drank my beer in silence.
“That’s the difference between you and Jerrod,” he said, getting my attention. “That kid’s going places. By the time he’s your age, he might be sending out his own crews to do the dirty work while he sits by a pool with a drink in one hand and a girl in the other. He’s got a brain to go with the talent.”
I put my bottle on the table and stood up.
“Pop, I’m going to make this very clear. If I find out you’ve got Jerrod pulling any jobs or running any cons, here is what I’m going to do: I’m going to walk in here with a shotgun, I’m going to pull it tight to my shoulder, aim it at your chest and pull the trigger. Any pain I feel from the recoil against my shoulder will be the sweetest feeling in the world because I’ll know I’ll be handing Jerrod a real future. Things will end for Jerrod and me in this city, but for you—they’ll end forever.”
I made him that promise on a Tuesday in November. And promises must be kept.
Petite Flambée
Adria J. Cimino
Wind whipped long, ginger-colored hair into her face as her fingers struggled with the lock and key. She shivered, huddled near the back door of the bed and breakfast in a small Brittany town at the water’s edge. Then a sliver of light, a hint of warmth, and Ronan’s voice, low and urgent. Sassafras followed him inside, guided by his flashlight, even though she knew her way around this kitchen with her eyes closed.
Tangy cinnamon, sweet orange, the sharpness of Grand Marnier; the scent overw
helmed her and then disappeared, to be replaced by the olfactory memory of last night’s coq au vin and a hint of cleaning product. Sassafras sighed and shook her head. Of course. The last time cinnamon had mixed with orange in this kitchen had been ten years ago—to the day as a matter of fact.
Ronan snapped on the lights, blinding Sassafras for a split second and heaving her out of her reverie. Closer now, she could smell him, a mix of soap and vanilla bean, the good stuff from Madagascar.
He thrust a perfectly pressed white chef’s jacket at her. “You’ll need this… if you still want to go through with it.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Her voice came out in a squeak, and her heart beat double time. But she wouldn’t be intimidated. She was fifteen, only two years younger than her kitchen companion, so if he could work in a kitchen she could too. Brusquely, Sassafras shed her outerwear, rolled her hair into a bun, donned the jacket, and relieved her frozen hands under a stream of hot water.
“Dunno,” Ronan said with a grin. “Maybe because you’re supposed to be sleeping in your warm little bed at boarding school right now instead of trying to do a chef’s job.”
She was about to stick out her tongue, then didn’t. She wouldn’t give Ronan the satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten to her—or give him an excuse to call her a baby. Plus, how could she truly be annoyed with him when he’d come in extra early just for her?
“So what do you need?” he asked as she turned around.
An extra shot of courage and three more days to prepare were the first words to come to mind. But Sassafras didn’t pronounce them. Instead, she asked Ronan to bring her butter and flour for her pâte feuilletée.
“I’ll help you get it started,” he murmured, and she didn’t argue. The two set to work on the smooth wooden surface at the far end of the kitchen. A station that had last been used by Sassafras’s mother. She could still see Celestine there, mixing the batter for her special cinnamon crêpes and laughing as Sassafras dunked in a spoon, then licked it greedily.
“Petite Flambée!” Celestine would whisper, using the nickname she had bestowed upon her daughter, as she shooed her away. And then Sassafras would skip out of the kitchen and across the grassy dunes toward the beach, stopping only when her mother became a tiny wisp of copper hair behind the pane of glass.
Sassafras snapped back to the present and the buttery dough between her fingers.
“Any chance of him getting back early?” she asked Ronan.
“Nope,” he said. “Weather delayed the flights.”
Wind and rain were on her side. If her father were to show up before the last plate left the kitchen, the result would be disastrous.
The light of dawn soon illuminated the kitchen, then glowed brighter as morning turned into afternoon. Sassafras finished turning the puff pastry dough, patted it and set it aside for later. The staff trickled in: a commis chef, the kitchen porter, another commis, the sous-chef. They gave Sassafras a peck on each cheek, knowing very well who she was and why she was there. The presence of these four men—five including Ronan—comforted her, and soon she turned her back to them and focused on her menu.
This particular menu hadn’t been served in her father’s restaurant for the past decade. It had been formally banned. As a way to erase the pain. But as Sassafras had learned, pushing aside the good memories never cleared away the bad. It only caused them to linger and take hold. So, far from this kitchen, and in the calm of her best friend’s house, Sassafras had recreated this meal she loved over and over. And she created many more meals, using the techniques she learned from everything that unfolded right here, in the kitchen of her heart. How many times had she tucked herself into a quiet corner and secretly watched her father, the head chef, work his magic? Too many to count.
Tonight’s menu would be cauliflower vol-au-vent with cream, roasted pork belly with camembert and those flambéed cinnamon crêpes that would set the air ablaze with sweetness.
It was as she sprinkled cinnamon over her crêpe batter, and as the clock struck five, that a curse escaped Ronan’s mouth. He’d returned to his usual pastry chef duties and had been preparing a fragrant chocolate sauce that perfumed the kitchen when his voice rang out.
“Paul is laid up in Room 4 with a migraine.” The sous chef. The one who would be working alongside Sassafras. No. Who would no longer be working alongside Sassafras. She hadn’t even noticed that he’d disappeared.
A shiver ran through her in spite of the warmth from the burners. Her eyes locked with Ronan’s. His silent question: Can you do this? Her answer: Hesitation, and then, Yes, it’s time. It is finally time.
“There’s one thing, though,” he said, approaching. The others clustered, forming a circle around her. “We’ve got a last-minute reservation. And it’s high profile. A violinist on tour and her entourage of ten. They were looking for something cozy, and we’re it. Emile is going to be pissed about missing this and even more pissed when he finds out that his fifteen-year-old kid is running the show.” Ronan looked pointedly at Sassafras who blanched more than the carrots sitting in the pan at her elbow.
She panicked. She had counted on bringing the spirit of her mother back to this sad old kitchen and warming her father’s heart, which had turned cold since the loss. And she had counted on showing her father that she belonged in this kitchen. That she had what it took to become a chef and should go to cooking school.
Instead, she found herself facing a recipe for disaster.
Sassafras took a deep breath and considered her options. But there was only one option, really.
“Let’s cook.” Her voice sounded gritty, and she was glad.
Ronan smiled as an ally would and wordlessly took the spot at her side as she went through the running order. She glanced at him, in her mind thinking: What about all those desserts he has to prepare?
“I’ll be your sous,” he said, as if reading her mind. “For dessert, let them eat crêpes…”
She released her first giggle of the day, her first moment of being just a teenager once again.
Soon, the sounds of sizzling, whisking and boiling filled the kitchen, along with the scent of cinnamon.
~~~~
Eight o’clock. Sassafras peered through the glass, her breath steaming up the window to catch a glimpse as the violinist, Margaret something-or-other, and her party swirled into the restaurant in a spiral of black and white velvet and tinkling laughter. And the dining room was filled with other customers as well. Ronan pulled her by the arm.
“While you were daydreaming, your sauce almost boiled.”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” She wiped a sweaty strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand, hurried back to the pots and pans and the bubbling and the hissing, then shouted out a string of orders. What had first seemed awkward now seemed almost natural. She was in survival mode in the kitchen. She pushed sentimentality to the back burner.
The two waiters hurried back and forth, and Ronan, Sassafras and the commis choreographed a complicated but (mostly) efficacious routine so that each vol-au-vent was light and airy, each portion of pork belly tender and each crêpe crisp and warm. The first customers were delighted, even though Sassafras found herself in the middle of various near misses and mini disasters behind the scenes. A vol-au-vent that fell to the floor, a flambée that flamed too high, a plate that smashed at her feet.
And then the violinist’s table placed their order. Everyone wanted the menu of the day. Sassafras didn’t allow herself to bask in a moment of pride. There was no time for it. The routine continued. She tried to forget about the importance of her mission. Celestine’s words were suddenly in her head: Food is about joy. Joy to be shared. Renewed energy carried her.
What time was it? Sassafras hadn’t a clue. The final crêpe made its way out the door when a familiar voice boomed through the kitchen. She snapped to attention and glanced quickly around her. Why did Ronan and the others look so calm? Then she remembered: They were used to their boss throwing his w
eight around this place.
“What’s going on in here? Where’s Paul?” Emile’s green eyes, a reflection of her own, flashed with anger as he surveyed the messy floors and then his daughter, sagging against one of the counters. The kitchen porter calmly continued washing pots and pans, the rush of water the only other sound in the room.
A waiter stuck his head in the door, unaware of any drama, and announced, “They’re leaving. Loved it, Sass! Said the dessert was the best they had in ages!”
Sassafras bit her lower lip, then smiled proudly. She would not be intimidated by her father. She was here to prove herself. And she’d done it. Whether he realized it or not. The waiter disappeared, and Ronan, at Sassafras’s side, opened his mouth to speak. He would defend her. She read it in those eyes that no longer looked at her as if she were a child, and suddenly her heart soared, buoyed by feelings she couldn’t yet describe.
Her gaze returned to her father, pulling her back to this grimy spot in the kitchen. She wouldn’t allow Ronan to defend her, to risk her father’s wrath. This wasn’t Ronan’s battle; this was hers. Gently, she touched his arm and then stepped forward.
In silence, she followed her father through the swinging door and into the warmth of the alcove off the dining room. They sat face to face in well-worn red velvet chairs next to the blazing fire. The scent of cinnamon lingered in the air, wrapping itself around her reassuringly.
“What’s gotten into you, Sassafras?” her father hissed. “You were supposed to be at school, and Paul was supposed to be in the kitchen! And the menu! You know how I feel about that—”
“Papa,” Sassafras interrupted. “It was the only way I could get back to the place I’m supposed to be.” Tears filled her eyes, but she refused to stop talking. Her words seemed to jumble together. “You’ve kept me out of the kitchen for ten years. Since Mom died. At least you think you did, because I always found a way. And you wouldn’t allow her recipes? Don’t tell yourself that got rid of the pain because I know it didn’t. It made it worse. Bringing a part of her back to this kitchen, to this place, that’s what can make everything a little bit better. See how it worked tonight? See how it was a success? Everyone still loves her cinnamon crêpes.”
Legacy- an Anthology Page 3