I know a guy, a detective with the LAPD, and I gave him a call. I had to leave a message. I told him I hoped he might swing by and check out Quita McBride.
As soon as I hung up, I regretted having called. I shouldn’t have bothered him. It wasn’t his problem. Besides, he and I had a weird history. Why did I think I should call?
Angry with myself, I got back to work. The wok was placed over high heat, and the oil was now at the correct temperature for frying. I started placing the wonton strips into the oil.
As the wonton skins sizzled, I ran over some of the timetable items with Wes. “We probably shouldn’t start cooking the dim sum until the guests are here. And let’s not dress the salad until the last minute, either.”
“Right.” Wes had been absentmindedly shaking a large glass jar that contained the Chinese dressing we’d prepared earlier. By shaking it up, he freshly mixed the peanut and sesame oils with the pickled ginger and other spices. This salad dressing recipe was complex, mingling ingredients with varying tastes. It contained white scallions, Chinese mustard powder, and shallots for heat, honey for sweet, soy sauce for salty, and ginger vinegar for sour, along with the spicy chili oil for fire. It was a recipe we had borrowed from Wolfgang Puck and had changed a little over time.
Wes held up the drink Holly had taken from Quita.
“Ugh,” he said, eloquent as always.
“It’s Quita’s version of a Singapore Sling,” Holly said.
He took a tentative tiny sip. “Ack! I’m poisoned.”
I looked over at him, arching an eyebrow. Wes was deadly serious about every recipe.
Ray entered the kitchen. “What up?”
“Ray, my man. C’mon over here.” Wes waved him to the sink. “I’m going to teach you how to make a real Singapore Sling.”
“Excellent. They love that shit in the ’hood.” He gave us all a sly grin.
“Naturally.” Wes grabbed one of the boxes with our liquor supplies for the party and he and Ray set the bottles up on a table next to the sink.
“Oh, hey. Show me how to make one, too,” Holly said.
As Ray moved over and made a space for Holly, Wesley picked up what was left of Quita’s colorful concoction and poured it down the drain.
Wes was our resident mixologist. “Probably no mixed drink has been as mistreated as the Sling. The only thing most bartenders know about the Singapore Sling is that it’s supposed to be pink.”
“Ah.” Holly looked on as he rearranged the liquor bottles on the table.
“Singapore Sling,” Ray said, smiling. “Pleasing groins.”
“What?” Wes said, looking up.
Holly gave Ray a wicked grin. “Interesting fantasy life.”
“It’s an anagram. Pleasing groins is an anagram for Singapore Sling. Really.” He was all teeth. “Betcha didn’t know that, Holly.”
She was staring at him. “An anagram, huh? How’d you know that?”
“It’s just something my brain does naturally. I got the gift.”
“You’ve got the anagram gift.” Holly looked from Ray back to me. “Is he messing with me, Maddie?”
I began to laugh. “I always knew Ray was special.”
“Thanks, Madeline.” He winked at me and turned back to Holly. “Pleasing groins, see? Now you’ll have something to chitchat about with the guests tonight while we’re serving these fancy drinks.”
She burst out laughing.
“As I was saying…” Wesley waited for his students to settle down, then continued. “The drink was created in 1915 by a Hainanese-Chinese bartender named Mr. Ngiam Tong Boon. Originally, the Singapore Sling was designed to be a woman’s drink, hence the attractive pink color. Tonight we’ll prepare an adaptation of the original recipe from Raffles Hotel in Singapore.”
“That sounds authentic,” Holly said, pushing back her bracelets.
“It is. Now look. It’s perfectly simple.”
We all looked.
Wesley had set up a line of bottles, garnishes, juices, fruit, barware, and ice. “First fill a shaker with ice.”
“Okay,” Holly said.
She was wonderful. Although she’d never had formal cook’s schooling as I had, or had restaurant kitchen experience as both Wes and I had, Holly was a sponge and was always in a hurry to learn.
“Good,” Wes said, checking both his students. “Add six tablespoons of pineapple juice and two tablespoons of gin.”
“Which kind of gin?” Ray asked, looking at all the varieties we stock.
“Boodles is good.”
Side by side, Holly and Ray mimicked Wes’s actions as they built the drinks together. Each of them proceeded to measure the proper ingredients. As Wes instructed, they squeezed two tablespoons of fresh lime juice, and added one tablespoon of Cherry Heering. They measured one tablespoon of grenadine, one-half tablespoon of Benedictine, and then a dash of Triple Sec and three dashes of Angostura bitters.
“Got it?” Wes asked, watching Holly as she finished up counting her dashes. “Now shake for a minute and then strain it into a tall glass filled with ice.”
Ray and Holly shook their cocktail shakers with one hand while setting out twelve-ounce Collins glasses and filling them with cracked ice with the other.
In unison, they poured out their authentic rouge-toned Singapore Slings.
“Then you garnish with a flag made out of a lemon slice and an orange slice and a cherry on a toothpick, like so…” Wes demonstrated, and Ray and Holly did their best to follow.
He looked at their work.
“Wait,” Ray said, studying Wes’s artwork on a stick. “Now how’d you do that?”
“Never mind. I’ll make up a lovely pile of fruit garni for you to use later.”
“Thanks, man.” Ray twirled his sad skewer of fruit.
“Okay, then. Let’s see if they’re any good. Bottoms up.” Wesley said.
In unison they each took a tentative sip.
“Ah.” Wes put down his glass, satisfied with his work. “A taste of the exotic East.”
“Ah!” Holly took another gulp, pleased with herself and enjoying the taste of her first authentic Sling.
“Ah…shit!” Ray put his glass down with a grimace. “Man, that stuff is nasty. I mean, that stuff is sweet. And it’s…pink.”
You had to laugh.
Ray caught my eye and shook his handsome bald head. “I suggest that this right here is the prime reason why the nation of Singapore will never be a world superpower.”
“Wussy drinks?” I asked, giving Ray’s cocktail-political thesis some thought.
“Well?” he asked. “Am I wrong?”
We all told him, “no.”
With his head for world politics and anagrams, Ray was sure to go far.
“I’ll stick with beer, Wesley,” Ray said.
“Well, there’s simplicity in that,” Wes agreed. “And for those at the party who share your simple tastes, there’s a case of Tsingtao on ice.”
“Hey, I’d better get to squeezing up some couple dozen limes or I’m gonna be killing myself come show time,” Ray said.
Wes and Ray discussed where to set up the bar in the party room and they huddled together packing the liquor bottles and accessories back into the cartons. Ray easily lifted two cartons at once. And then Wes turned to me.
“Madeline. I was just thinking, do we have enough cash to pay the staff?”
Ray, who was almost at the door, stopped. “No problem,” he said. “We took care of it.”
Holly said, “Maddie always has enough cash to cover the payroll. That’s why she’s the queen.”
It was true, I usually had that stuff wired. Earlier that day I had sent Ray to the bank to pick up the cash we’d need for the party. He brought back a stack of twenties. In fact, I had to talk to him for defacing the bills. He had drawn a tiny frowny face in the corner of each twenty. I showed him my frowny face and he apologized, promising to keep his Bic capped in the future.
I tried to
explain. “I had an unexpected expense, Holly.”
She looked at me, intrigued.
“I just gave Quita McBride a hundred dollars a little while ago. That’s all.”
“One hundred and sixty dollars, actually.” Wes could be very literal.
“Yes, well, she was a human in need. I just tried to do her a favor. She said she couldn’t use her credit cards and she didn’t have cash handy and…And now I guess I am going to run a little short tonight. Damn. No good deed goes unpunished.”
“You’re kidding.” Holly looked amused. “Quita McBride who could probably buy and sell us, not to mention she’s got a rich boyfriend who’s our client? You gave Quita a coupla hundred bucks?”
“Didn’t Mad tell you about our night?” Wes asked.
Holly looked at me, and her green eyes narrowed. “Maddie.”
I hadn’t wanted to upset her, so I hadn’t mentioned our bizarre evening at the Wetherbee house. Honestly, all I wanted to do was focus on the party ahead.
Just then, my cell phone rang from the bottom of my toolbox. I reached down quickly to catch it before the call was lost.
“Well, aren’t you going to tell me?” Holly asked, indignant.
“Toss the salad,” I instructed. Despite fumbling with the clasps, and rustling through the mess below, I managed to grab my phone and press the answer button just in the nick of time.
“Hey, Mad. It’s Arlo.”
Oh. See. Just when you think you are keeping all the grenades in the air, one goes thud, hiss, boom. Hearing Arlo’s name didn’t used to make me tense up. Things had not been going well between us for a long time.
“You working?” he asked. Arlo never seemed to be able to quite remember what I was doing when.
“Is that Arlo?” Holly asked, looking over at me, mouthing the words.
I nodded.
She pantomimed cutting her throat.
Lucky for me, my friends never try to meddle in my personal life.
“So what do you say we get together later?” he asked.
“I say I’ve had a rough day.”
“Great. Then you’ll need a chance to unwind,” Arlo steamrollered on.
I added one more item to my mental to-do list, then quickly got off the phone.
Chapter 9
The weekly site of the Sweet and Sour Mah-Jongg Club—the game room at the back of Dubin’s house—was dazzling. I stopped at the doorway on my preparty inspection. The room, large and elegant and dripping in high-price-tag Asian fillips, appeared ready to be photographed by Architectural Digest. It was a spotless re-creation of a luxe, 1920s Art Deco mah-jongg lounge. The success of the room’s decoration was a tribute to Buster Dubin’s eye for set design, his sense of whimsy, and his deep pockets.
The ebony-stained hardwood floor was a mirror-polished sea, atop which three exquisite Oriental carpets floated. Exotic dark wood paneling covered the walls and absorbed the soft glow of many hanging Chinese lamps. Scattered in a symmetrical pattern, four matched rosewood card tables awaited the night’s amusements. David Bowie’s voice sang out from a state-of-the-art digital music system. “China Girl”—what else?
Over in one corner was the bar, a big, flashy roaring twenties antique. It was completely mirrored, including all the intricate Art Deco zigzag details. Reflecting wildly from its many polished surfaces were the bottled and bowled ingredients, which had been set out in readiness for the evening’s featured drink. In mirror upon mirror upon mirror, endless reflections of cherry liquor red and pineapple juice yellow dazzled the eye, multiplying our potential Singapore Slings to infinity and beyond.
In addition to the hard liquor, the bar’s minirefrigerator was also stocked with Chinese and domestic beers and several current brands of water. Next to the bar, a large buffet table had been laid out to display the gourmet snacks, upon which starving mah-jongg players were wont to nibble.
Yes, I know it could be effectively argued that Chinese Chicken Salad was hardly an authentic Asian recipe. But please remember whom we serve. Our party guests were the denizens of L.A., after all, and like all of the city’s thin and hip, they were serious salad junkies. No Southern California caterer would go broke pandering to this city’s intense cravings for mass quantities of gourmet roughage and bottled water.
I checked out Holly’s finished salad, rearranged the golden chopsticks, and admired a few of the other bowls and platters. An abundance of fresh fruit, sliced and beautifully arranged, was heaped on a large ornate Chinese platter. Amid Buster Dubin’s valuable Chinese carvings and his astonishing collection of Chinese magic gizmos, the display looked perfect.
This is it for me: this brink of high adventure, this special time of fresh expectation, of careful preparations completed, this greedy anticipation of pleasures to come. I love this time right before the party begins. Everything clean and ready, everything beautiful and expectant.
In this brief pause before show time, I was alone. Ray had stepped outside, no doubt to grab a smoke. Back in the kitchen, Wes was beginning to prepare the dim sum with Holly’s assistance.
Footsteps echoed up the hallway. I am pretty good at recognizing gaits and footfalls. Call it a little-appreciated talent. So, expecting Wes, I turned.
Lieutenant Chuck Honnett walked into the room.
“I told them I’d find you.” He stood in the doorway to the party room and gave me a look that was almost a smile.
My heart did a funny little half gainer with a twist. I was actually a little annoyed with my heart. I guess that’s why they call it an involuntary muscle.
“Honnett.” It was not my most original opening.
Remember how I feel about surprises? Hate ‘em.
Chuck Honnett seemed to look me over without moving his eyes too much. He saw me as I appear when I’m working a casual party, my hair pulled back into a clip, wearing a pair of slim black pants and a sleeveless white T-shirt. I felt his eyes take in the deep V of my collar.
“Hi,” I tried again. “I guess you got my message.”
“Yeah. What happened to you out in Santa Monica today?”
“Well, I feel silly asking you to come all the way out here. It’s just that there’s this woman. Her name is Quita McBride.” I rambled on a bit, nervously, and told him about our weird encounter and her insistence she was in some serious kind of trouble.
Honnett stood there, listening to it all. Then he said, “Madeline, technically it’s not our jurisdiction, Santa Monica.”
“I know. I know. This is silly, right?”
“But I called out there, and they faxed me the officer’s report.”
I looked at him, hopefully.
“Sorry to say, they have no leads and nothing new. They did send some of those tile things to be fingerprinted, and I didn’t see that they had any matches. But really, I wouldn’t be too upset. These things happen. There are people ready to grab anything that looks valuable. It’s pretty sad, but there it is.”
“Yes. I know that. But this woman, Quita McBride,” I said, looking toward the door, worried she’d walk in on us and have a fit that I’d invited a cop to her party. I told him the rest, how she was sure someone would want the red-leather book, Dickey McBride’s unpublished novel, that she was looking for.
I looked up and recognized Honnett’s expression. Incredulous is the word that came to mind.
“So,” I said. “You don’t think she’s in big trouble.”
“No.”
“And you don’t think she should have some kind of protection?”
“From what?”
“And you think I’m an idiot for giving her money so she could get a decent night’s rest.”
“No. I think you are a good friend.”
“Well, she’s not my friend, actually,” I said, feeling uncomfortable.
“You’re a good person, then.” Honnett had blue eyes. Deep, deep blue. “But I’m not sure why you have to get yourself mixed up in stuff all the time.”
He stood t
here, across the party room, looking at me, trying to figure me out. Well, that might take the man quite a while. I stared back. Honnett had the look of a transplanted Texas man, just off the range, with that sort of outdoor skin and long legs that look good in jeans, and the kind of hard body that came from real work, not workouts.
“So, Maddie. How’ve you been?”
Honnett and I had a history of botched opportunities and lousy timing. He and I had had a few possibilities, a while ago. We’d flirted up and back with pretty much nothing to show for it. Nothing ever got to the interesting point. Maybe it was because both of us were more comfortable not knowing each other better. Now that was a sad little thought.
Or maybe it was because I was going with another guy. Honnett’s job and my relationship with Arlo were enough to cool things down. My life is forever on the verge of resembling One Life to Live on a bad day.
“I’ve got to get back to work now,” I said, “if you’re sure there’s nothing that can be done.”
“No. The problem you had on Third Street is being handled by Santa Monica, so there’s nothing to do there.” His eyes squinted. “And your friend, McBride, if you’ll pardon me saying this, sounds pretty flaky.”
“Yeah. But you know, her husband was a big star. And he died not too long ago. Something may be weird about that.”
“There are lots of old stars in this town. Some of them die. We can’t go digging one up just because something he owned goes and gets itself snatched and his ex-wife is feeling antsy. Right?”
“And you don’t want to just talk to her? She’s here, somewhere.”
“If it makes you feel better, give her my card. Tell her to call me if she has evidence of any other crime, okay?”
I nodded, taking his card, knowing Quita would never call him.
Honnett’s voice changed, softened. “And as for that mugging, you sure you’re okay?”
I nodded again.
Honnett said, “Because maybe I should keep an eye on the case, as it develops. When can you and I get together?”
Dim Sum Dead Page 7