by Peter King
“Interesting job.”
“It is.” I had, in fact, described part of my job accurately but I hadn’t given Chester a business card because I didn’t want the word detective to upset him. It affects some people, mostly those with something to hide, but also others who have exaggerated ideas about their privacy. It intimidates some people but this was not one of those occasions. Chester didn’t seem to be in any of these categories. From this point on, though, I had to stray a little from the truth.
“People who write books sometimes have me do a little research for them. Right now, there is interest in a book that describes the families who have built up the great restaurants in this country. I was given your name as a man who could tell me something about the Belvedere family.”
Chester cocked his head on one side and regarded me.
“What kind of a book?” he demanded warily.
“Describing the family’s achievements, how they built up a restaurant dynasty, why it survived through several generations, the secrets of its success, where it’s going in the future.”
“The latest in the line, Ambrose, he’s going to reopen the restaurant. You know that?”
“That’s what I’ve heard. Another book would be a different angle—a great restaurant closes down then reopens.”
I wanted to keep chatting, get him in a cooperative mood. He seemed cautious and I wondered why.
“You were chef there for how long?” I asked.
“Ten years, till they shut down.”
“You must have known Eli Richter.”
His expression lightened. “You know Eli?”
I shrugged. “Oh, not that well.”
That helped. Chester told me a few stories about Eli and we both chuckled. “And now he’s leading the cruising life,” I said.
“Yeah, guess so. Feeding two thousand people a day, four meals. Must keep him busy.” We both laughed at that, silently agreeing that it was a different life from the one inside a restaurant kitchen, but to each his own. “I worked on cruise ships for a while,” I told Chester.
“You did?”
I told him a few of the routes and the ports and he raised his eyebrows. “Man, you’ve been around.” We were on the same wavelength now and I was ready to ease him into the information zone.
“So tell me about the Belvederes, just overall, you know, how were they to work for, any little peculiarities, that sort of stuff.”
“Well, Ernesto Belvedere was running it when I worked there. His father came in a few times but he was pretty far gone by then.”
I feigned ignorance. “Far gone? Drink, you mean?”
“Mind. It had been going for a while. They got fancy names for it today, Alzheimer’s, Creutzfeldt-Jacob and whatever. It ran in the family.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Arturo—he’s the one started the business—had the same thing. So did his son, Edgardo.”
“The whole family? That’s terrible. What about Ernesto?”
Chester hesitated. “Him, too. Wasn’t too bad when I started there but it got worse fast. See, that’s why young Mr. Ambrose, he wanted to get away, have nothing to do with the business. So with Ernesto gone and his son wanting no part of it, the place just faded.”
“But now Ambrose wants to reopen it.”
“Surprised me,” Chester admitted.
“Ernesto’s symptoms must have interfered with the smooth running of the place when you were there.” I tossed out the comment like bait on the water.
“Ernesto was forgetting. He’d give orders to somebody then forget and tell somebody else to do it. He’d insist he wanted to order supplies himself then he’d forget. He’d insist on answering the phone, take a reservation, then forget to enter it in the book. He’d get mad at us for practically no reason at all. He’d scream and yell. He’d get crazy ideas about new dishes. Got to where the place was like a ship outta control, going too fast, heading for the rocks.”
“Terrible,” I said, and meant it. “How long did the restaurant continue after Ernesto began behaving that way?”
“Let me get you some more coffee,” Chester said, and did so.
“Great coffee,” I told him; he grinned.
“A year at least,” he said in answer to my question. “The staff all covered up for him. Made it difficult to operate but they managed. They were all loyal. All good people.”
“Did you know his father, Alfonse?”
“No, I didn’t. Heard a lot about him, of course.”
“You said he went the same way.”
“Yeah. Guess it’s common for it to happen in several generations.”
“That’s awful. Fortunate that great strides are being made with that kind of disease today,” I said. “Pity that progress is too late to save all those great chefs of the Belvedere family, though.”
“Right enough,” Chester agreed.
“What do you think made Ambrose change his mind and decide to reopen?”
“Lotta people wonder about that. Haven’t seen him myself since he decided. Don’t know him that well anyhow. When he was in college, he used to come in the restaurant occasionally but he never showed any real interest in it.”
“You think the Restaurant Belvedere can get back to the rating that it had before? Back up there with Commander’s Palace, Brennan’s and Antoine’s?”
I threw the last name in, expecting him to comment on it first. He did. “Well, Antoine’s ain’t quite what it used to be … It’s a tough business—I don’t know.”
“Is Ambrose going into it alone? Does he have any partners?”
“Haven’t heard of any,” said Chester.
“Business or financial?”
“Not that I know of.”
His face, somewhat lugubrious to begin with, looked long and sad. Clearly he felt for the family that he had worked for so long and, I had no doubt, industriously.
“I’ll bet you put in a lot of hours there.”
He gave me a flash of a grin, acknowledging the understanding of someone who had experienced the same kind of life. “Bet I did. Loved it, though—every minute.”
We discussed food, especially Creole and Cajun food. Chester had supervised the cooking of all the fish dishes and we talked about Gulf fish, especially the ones not found elsewhere.
When I left, we were chatting like old friends. I walked away, saddened to think of such a great restaurant dynasty felled by such a terrible disease. I wondered what hope Ambrose had of reviving the family tradition and bringing back greatness to the Belvedere name.
Another thought struck me: Did Ambrose face a dark future from the same mental affliction that had ravaged the earlier generations?
I had to walk a few blocks through the residential area and away from the river to find a likely place for a taxi. I spotted a shopping mall and one of the shopkeepers showed me where a taxi rank was located. It was a quiet day, the cabbies reading newspapers and making bets on some upcoming sporting event. A smart-looking young fellow was first to be willing to forgo the sporting life and offer me a ride.
We turned in the direction of the nearest bridge to cross the river back toward New Orleans. The cabbie was a good, attentive driver and I was just sitting back, relaxing and looking at all the craft plying the river when he called out, “Got somebody mad at you?”
“Not as far as I know,” I said almost automatically.
He looked intently into his rearview mirror. “Car behind us. Think he’s following us.”
I looked back but the car appeared ordinary to me.
“Make a few turns,” I said. “See if he is.”
The driver did so. A few minutes later, he said, “Sho’nuff. He’s on our tail and no mistake.”
I sighed. Not again …
“You ain’t FBI,” the driver said conversationally, “otherwise, you’d be followin’ him. Am I right?”
“Sounds logical,” I agreed.
“Whaddayou think, then?”
“K
eep driving. Go slower. Let’s be sure.”
A few minutes later, he glanced at me through the mirror. “Still hangin’ in there. He must want you real bad.”
“I think you’re enjoying this,” I told him.
He grinned and showed two rows of fine white teeth.
“Makes a change. Bit of excitement. What now?”
I wasn’t sure what now. Stop and try to find out who was in the other car and why it was following me was one alternative, but I set that aside for the moment. Try and lose him was another possibility but that way I would learn nothing.
The dilemma was solved almost immediately. Along a quiet street, two large tour buses had pulled up and were discharging lines of passengers. A uniformed woman was holding up the traffic until they were all out.
“Where are they going?” I asked my driver.
“Place where they build the floats for the Mardi Gras. Getta lotta tourists here.”
“Big place, is it?”
“Yeah, real big. Interestin’, too, everybody says. Never been there myself but lotsa people—”
I thrust a couple of bills at him and climbed out on the curbside. I slipped between the two lines of discharging passengers and headed for the entrance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I PAID MY EIGHT dollars and fifty cents and hurried into Mardi Gras World. I used the lines of tourists coming off the buses as cover. They were from Madison, Wisconsin, they told me and were members of a seniors group who made quarterly visits to various sights around the country.
“Went to Branson last trip,” one lady who declared herself an octogenarian told me. She had snow-white hair and a purple jacket with ski pants. “Ever been there? You should go,” she went on, without waiting to find out if I had been there or not, “it’s great.”
This was the first visit to New Orleans for many of them and they were all agog at the sights and sounds. “Went on the Haunted History Tour yesterday,” said another lady of about the same age. “Saw the home of Anne Rice, you know, writes the vampire stories, and the house where Jefferson Davis died.” Another elderly member of the group made her contribution: “Lafayette Cemetery—that was the best,” she piped up. “That’s where Anne Rice’s vampires are buried.”
As I was sure that Anne Rice wrote fiction, I could only conclude that some clever PR was at work here, but an even older member with a cane that he wielded like a swordstick joined in. “Wouldn’t want to be there at night. All those tombs and vaults. They’re all aboveground, you know.”
During these conversations, I was watching the entrance to see who came in other than the Wisconsin Leisure Tour group. I could see no one suspicious. There were a couple of families with several children each, and a couple speaking Dutch, then a class from a local school. I didn’t want to subject any of them to stray bullets but I didn’t think it would reach that extreme and they all created such a convenient cover.
Who was following me, though? Larry Mortensen seemed like the only possible culprit. Had he learned something new that had made him suspicious of me all over again? I looked for his easily noticeable figure and his untidy brown hair but could not see him.
I followed the tour. We went first to a greeting area where we were told about the King Cake, the traditional brioche with a sugary filling, then we were served a slice. A short briefing video was next. I carefully waited until the viewing theater was full then stood near a door where I could spot latecomers.
The efficient guide system kept stragglers away, however, and all looked serene. We embarked on the tour of the huge warehouse complex and, despite my vigilance, I found myself being carried away by the magnificence of the floats and the dedication and skill of the people making them. This was only days after the Mardi Gras and already they were hard at work building the floats for the next one.
From Michael Jordan and General de Gaulle to Elvis and President Reagan, faces bigger than a person grinned or glowered, perfectly captured in acrylic painted Styrofoam. Mermaids, pirates, robots, Revolutionary soldiers, fairies, munchkins were all here. In the really big areas were King Kong and sixty-foot-long floats representing Mississippi River boats and various other concepts from the imagination of Mardi Gras World’s own technicians putting into three-dimensional reality the demands of the Krewes.
When I emerged at the end of the tour, I made sure I was in the middle of a number of tourists. I had woven in and out of the friendly folk from Wisconsin and we were chatting as if we shared decades of memories together. “Come to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras?” asked one older man who said he was a dairy farmer.
“I arrived the day after,” I told him.
“You should have been here,” he said reproachfully. “Over a million people.”
“Sounds like quite a party.”
I came out of the building slowly, carefully checking every person and looking for any loiterers. All was normal and nothing seemed out of line.
There was no taxi rank, most people were arriving by bus. A normal-sized limo was stationary with a driver standing beside it. The name of Mardi Gras World was painted on the side, FREE TRANSPORT, it said underneath.
The driver looked at me. “Want to go to the ferry?”
“When are you leaving?”
“In a few minutes.”
I nodded and waited. The driver asked me if I wanted to sit inside but I preferred not to be trapped. I stood by the vehicle, and in five minutes no one had looked suspicious and only a young couple with a baby wanted the ferry. “Let’s go,” the driver said.
I watched as we pulled out, but saw no one following. The ferryboat was a competent little operation, nonlabor-intensive. As it was free, too, there was no delay; the crossing of the river took only minutes and then we bumped against the dock, almost next to where the Delta Duchess had departed.
I walked quickly past Harrah’s Casino and up Canal Street. Taxi ranks were nowhere in sight, in fact the city cab service seemed to operate from cruising cabs only. I watched a few go by, then, at an intersection, one stopped and unloaded. I half turned my back as it was about to pull away from the curb, then took some quick steps and jumped in. “Jackson Square,” I said to the driver.
I looked out the back window. Another cab was coming and a couple got out. I was about to settle in my seat, satisfied that I had shaken off any pursuit, when a man hurried into view—I wasn’t sure from where.
He was a little under medium height, dark hair, and he had a small black mustache. He was wearing a dark suit. Who the blazes was he? He jumped into the other cab. My driver was looking at me in his mirror.
“Where you want to be on the Square?”
“Just head for it,” I told him. “I’ll make up my mind when we get there.”
We went through a knot of traffic and when we came out, I looked back again. The other cab was still there. My driver was a young-to-middle-aged fellow with a sallow complexion. Some Latin blood in his heritage. He drove competently and without the urgency that many taxi drivers show.
“Worried about that cab that’s following us?” he asked.
He must have noticed my anxious looks behind. “Some of your New Orleans ladies seem to have jealous husbands,” I told him.
“That what it is?” I wasn’t certain but there might be a tinge of skepticism in his voice. Still, I thought it was a good subterfuge and I wasn’t going to abandon it too easily.
“You look like a man about town. You know how it is.”
“Want to know for sure?” he asked.
“Okay.”
He was a good driver. He didn’t make it obvious that he was trying to shake off pursuit but he increased and decreased speed in a way that could have been simply using gaps in the traffic and he made a couple of turns and reverted to his original route in a way that any experienced driver would use to avoid possible delays.
When traffic smoothed out, he glanced in his mirror. “He’s still there.”
“Do you know the driver of that cab?�
�� I asked.
He looked back, shook his head. “No. I know a lot of them but I don’t know him.”
Who could be following me now? I was baffled. I had been convinced that it had been the unpredictable Larry Mortensen, either intent on avenging his brother’s death or following some mysterious path of his own. But someone else? Why was I making so many enemies in New Orleans? It seemed like such a nice city.
We made a few turns to accommodate the one-way system that the city favors so strongly. The other cab stayed back but kept a steady distance.
My driver had a slightly amused smile on his face. He was enjoying this, dam him. I was racking my brain for a solution. Well, two could play at this game.
“When you see a chance, pull into a street parking space,” I said. “Let him go by then follow him. See how he likes it.”
My driver grinned, showing even white teeth. We continued on an even course for a few blocks then he swung sharply into a parallel parking space and stopped on the proverbial dime.
The cab went on by and though I strained to see inside it, I could not make out anything more in the backseat than a silhouette of a figure that meant nothing.
“Good, now follow him,” I said.
We did so for about two blocks then he peeled off violently, inches in front of a vegetable truck that stopped with a screeching of tires, effectively blocking us from following.
My driver uttered a few choice words, accentuating them with angry thumps on the steering wheel. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “Where are we now?”
“Business District. Be in the French Quarter, five minutes.”
“All right. Carry on. Let me know if you see him behind us.”
It wasn’t long. “There he is. Son of a bitch is good.”
“Okay. As soon as we get in the French Quarter, find a place where you can squeeze in and let me off. Somewhere busy and packed. Make it difficult for him to get close. By the time the guy gets out, that’ll give me time to merge into a crowd.”
I counted out three tens. Eric Van Linn’s expense account could stand it. My driver did a good job. He turned into a narrow alley, vehicle-negotiable but only just. I didn’t see the name of it but for New Orleans that was par for the course. I scanned the building fronts: It was mostly restaurants, a few looking fairly classy but also quite a few of the others, ethnic and no doubt fun places to eat.