Basil Instinct

by Shelley Costa

  Vera chose this moment, as I handed her three plates of Scallop Fritters and shooed her away, to announce that she was going to learn mah-jongg. As she turned, beaming, back to the dining room, to serve a beautiful appetizer that wasn’t going to yield us so much as a cent, it struck me that this Belfiere gig was pretty much a way for members to get some free chow on a regular basis. So, I might have to reconsider my position on just how crazy they were.

  Then it happened.

  A break in the madness.

  All the appetizers were being served, Maria Pia and her mah-jongg club were happily buzzing, Choo Choo must have wandered off to the john, and Landon and I had the Miracolo kitchen very much to ourselves. Our eyes shot to the back door: clear shot! With a now-or-never kind of desperation, we dashed to the freezer, steeling ourselves for dealing with both cold and corpse, and slipped inside. “Hurry! Hurry!” Landon pushed me.

  “All right, all right!” I whirled and flapped at him.

  The plan was simple.

  There was no plan.

  I kind of liked it, to tell you the truth.

  Out the back door with Georgia, that was all we had.

  Prop her up at the farthest table on the patio, maybe stick a drink in her hand.

  Prop her up behind the compost bin, maybe stick a drink in her hand.

  Prop her up in the front seat of Landon’s BMW, maybe stick a drink in her hand.

  I was feeling positively creative, and very nearly lighthearted. We were actually going to pull it off, postponing any dealing with death until after this meal for the Psycho Society. I was so happy envisioning just driving Georgia to the ER and explaining with so many Italian shrugs and hand gestures that she just up and died, that the roadway seemed strewn with more goodies than the Candy Land game board.

  However, by the time Landon and I passed the chicken breasts, the short ribs, and the flank steaks, we found a hitch in any of the loose plans to prop up the problem somewhere for just another two, three hours, max. One thing nice about a commercial-grade walk-in freezer: it’s frost free. But at that moment in my life on Friday, June 20, it was also Georgia free.

  She was nowhere around.

  Landon and I let out a wail.

  7

  Within five minutes Landon and I had eliminated all other hiding places—short of the Miracolo dining room, which was just too painful to consider—in this game we were apparently playing with the dead but nevertheless elusive Georgia Payne. We dashed by each other in the back hallway. Landon slowed just long enough to whisper, “Office is clear,” and I shot back, “So’s the storeroom.” And off he went to check out the customer restrooms while I pushed open the door to the staff restroom, which was empty of Georgia but not of Choo Choo.

  When Landon got back and shrugged his findings, we huddled by my Vulcan stove. “Look at it this way,” I said with sudden insight, “this is actually good news.”

  He nibbled a nail. “Explain.”

  “She’s nowhere inside the restaurant.”

  He tapped the tip of his nose while this idea sank in. “Someone else has achieved what we have failed to do.”

  “This is so.”

  “Still, I’m troubled.”

  “Is it your whole competitive thing?”

  “No, no, no.” He waved away the very idea. “Although I’m”—his voice dropped as he talked to my shoulder—“relieved that Georgia is not likely to be an obvious problem while Nonna’s psycho sorority is here, I’m troubled that we’ve only eliminated hiding places inside the restaurant.” His voice dropped even lower as he talked to the side of my neck. “If you catch my drift.”

  It was a reasonable point of view. “I see,” I said gravely as Jonathan swanned into the kitchen to announce that the Scallop Fritters with Chioggia Beet Carpaccio was a big hit. Although this was excellent news, my knees clacked together kind of uncontrollably—truly, I believe, from the stress over the problem with the dead Georgia Payne’s whereabouts.

  But at that moment I mistook Jonathan for some kind of savior. All I wanted to do was hear his full report from the battlefield, but only after I flung myself sniveling into the poor lad’s arms. I think Landon was wishing he had thought of it first. Tough. Jonathan pried me off his shoulders and smiled so sweetly, telling me it was all going just perfectly and I shouldn’t worry. I was hoping he would add your pretty little head, but he didn’t.

  As I sank onto the stool with Lee Way stenciled on the back, and my whole face was trying to work up the energy to blubber, two things happened. Neither of which included Georgia Payne miraculously reappearing. One, the servers started trooping into the kitchen with appetizer plates, and two, the Sestri Salad with Grappa and Fig Vinaigrette was supposed to get plated.

  While I blubbered softly, fingering one of Jonathan’s shirt buttons, and he regaled me with stories about how the mah-jongg ladies were out there happily disagreeing about the last winner on Top Chef Masters . . . and Maria Pia consulted with Mrs. Crawford about whether a little “Three Coins in a Fountain” would be amiss, and learned that it would be . . . and Dana Cahill had pressed her nose up against the front window, but Paulette lowered the blind . . . the back door opened.

  And in walked Joe Beck.

  I pushed myself to my feet with as much dignity as any woman could whose face had recently been featured on the side of a building doing highly suspicious things with Italian pastry. I straightened my shoulders, I straightened my toque, I straightened my bra strap as I pushed my way through the obstruction called L’Shondra Washington (who was giving Joe a crocodilian smile) and over to my lawyer. Landon and Choo Choo, whose combined twenty fingers were furiously arranging sweet butter lettuce on gold-trimmed glass plates, called out a hi to the man who had been an old Angelotta family retainer for all of three weeks.

  “Hello, Joe,” I said, sounding all world-weary in a Lauren Bacall kind of way.

  Joe smiled, like he’d forgotten all about my beating a hasty retreat at lunch the other day, and looked around, his blue eyes taking in the activity. I folded my arms and winced a smile back at him, because I for one had not forgotten his upcoming date supreme with my maddening cousin. He was wearing a lightweight blue-and-brown plaid shirt over his cargo pants, and his close-cropped blond hair caught the summer sunlight that irritated me no end by coming in the windows at just that angle. And truth be told, he smelled like citrus soap and all my very best dreams.

  Behind me, Corabeth was chuffing and wheezing and I couldn’t tell whether she was asthmatic or turned on. “Don’t you have salads to serve?” I fluttered my eyelashes at her because, well, I couldn’t flutter them at Joe and still respect myself in the morning.

  Then she joined the fray, which Joe watched for about twenty seconds—just enough time to take in Choo Choo, Landon, Paulette, Vera, Jonathan, Li Wei, Corabeth, and L’Shondra—and then turned to me. “Controlled chaos?”

  I placed a hand on my chest. A cheap tactic, agreed. “In Miracolo?” Aghast.

  “No chaos in your restaurant.”

  “No,” I had to own up, “no control.”

  He eyed me. “You’re looking fine tonight.”

  I crossed my arms. “I bet you say that to all the clients.”

  “Only the ones who pay me top dollar.”

  I laughed a little and then we stood there in silence. I scuffed at nothing on the pristine floor. “Well . . .” Shame about this man, I thought.

  Joe Beck jerked his head to the kitchen doors, which L’Shondra was shouldering open like she was doing a house-to-house check in Kandahar. In floated a new entertainment from Mrs. Crawford, whom nobody out there seemed to be paying attention to, and I recognized a combination of the “Toreador Song” from Carmen and “I’m a Little Teapot.”

  “Is that the Belfiere group out there?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  Then
he gave me a little nudge. “See,” he said, “they seem to be behaving themselves.”

  “They’re eating.”

  “Well, they’re not flinging the dishes.”

  “No, I think we can leave that to L’Shondra.”

  “So maybe you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  If you don’t include the odd corpse.

  I made a noncommittal noise.

  Joe went on: “Well, I’m here to pick up a couple of bottles of an Argentine Malbec that Jonathan special-ordered for Landon.”

  I gave him a cool, appraising look. I could have given him a hot, appraising look but I didn’t want to confuse the issue. “Pricey stuff.”

  He grinned and tipped his head. “Strictly special occasion.”

  Here I muttered something, and I’m pretty sure I bit the tip of my tongue senseless so I couldn’t utter the word Kayla, and I told him Jonathan had put the whole order in the back of Landon’s BMW, out behind the courtyard. At which point I saw Landon’s keys—he’s used the same metal rainbow key ring for years now—on the counter by the back door. These I grabbed and handed to Joe Beck. Our fingers touched briefly.

  Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of Corabeth Potts starting to rubber-band her short hair into spiky little ponytails that reminded me for some reason of Shrek. Maybe the stress of the Miracolo dining room was getting to her. “No, no!” I called out. As I headed over to her—her shirttails were also flopping on the outside of her black pants—Joe told me he’d bring the keys right back.

  When someone says “right back,” you figure you’ll see him again in . . . what? Fifteen minutes? Twenty, tops? As I was just starting to warm to my lecture to Corabeth about blah blah appropriate attire and blah blah personal grooming, Joe Beck slammed open the back door, where he teetered, backlit by the sunlight. Landon and Choo Choo were suddenly arguing about whether the strawberries in the Sestri Salad get sliced lengthwise or diagonally (Vera suggested crosswise and was met with murderous looks), so the reappearance of Joe Beck didn’t grab them.

  It did, however, grab me.

  In fact, he grabbed me, by the shoulder, by the upper arm, by whatever his shaking hands landed on, which, I must say, I found sadly devoid of imagination. “Something?” I said. “What?” Somewhat impatiently. After a day that featured dangerous graffiti artists and dead sous chefs that make their own travel plans—not to mention the cabal of culinary cutthroats presently enjoying our signature Grappa and Fig Vinaigrette topped with a mangle of strawberries, I was really not in the mood for the latest from the Beck Dramatic Society.

  “What, Joe?” I sighed. “See a little possum out back? You can outrun him—”

  He gurgled at me. Finally, he managed, “Eve!”

  Choo Choo was calling for me to referee the strawberry wars.

  Joe Beck discovered some reserves of what I can only call manic determination. Looking back at the others several times, he planted firm hands on my back and arm and steered me right out the back door. “Hang on!” I yelled to Landon and Choo Choo. Then, thinking maybe my lawyer was impulsively taking me somewhere interesting and far away, “Diagonal!” I shouted my professional decision. Choo Choo blustered his strong disapproval, calling it a major culinary misstep and a crime against fresh fruit.

  How Joe Beck managed to keep me so close to him while pushing me forward seemed quite a trick—reminding me of a memorable cast-party tango with my dance captain, Tony Treadwell, but that’s another story—and I have to say I think he was pushing the lawyer-client privilege thing a little far. You’ll note I made no objections.

  He weaved us through the patio tables, skirted the compost bin by the back fence, and danced the two of us out the gate. The sun was low in the sky over the back alley and this was the best company I had had all day. “Joe?” Still Lauren Bacall but a little less world-weary. Fitting nicely up against a new guy is always cause for celebration.

  Landon’s black BMW was parked close to the fence just up the way. As alleys go, it’s not traveled much except by the garbage truck once a week. The asphalt could use some repair, and weeds pushed up through the cracks. Joe angled me alongside the car, and when we got to the trunk, we stopped. He motioned to the trunk in a sweeping gesture—twice, wordlessly— that has no correspondence in Italian.

  I set my hands on my hips and shot him a rueful look. “For a lawyer, you’re not so much with the words.”

  He gritted his teeth, turned a key in the lock, his chest heaving. Then he shoved open the trunk like a ringmaster introducing the next act. So I was guessing there was a problem with the special-ordered Malbec and he was holding me responsible.

  I looked over the side. “Georgia!” I cried.

  * * *

  While Joe staggered backward, away from the trunk, pulling me with him, certain things became clear. The choice of a car trunk I could definitely put down to Choo Choo Bacigalupo, who had a taste for wise-guy movies and moves. Choo Choo, who was afraid of spiders and allergic to most laundry detergents. Maybe he had moved poor dead Georgia Payne first to the freezer, as a kind of temporary spot, until he could sling her over his massive shoulders and tiptoe out the door. Or maybe somebody else was responsible for the interim move to the freezer, where Choo Choo discovered her.

  “Eve!” Joe said urgently, his hand rubbing his chest like Li Wei had just landed a spin kick. “ ‘Georgia’?” He was quoting me. I nodded matter-of-factly. “ ‘Georgia’?” he said again.

  Heaving a sigh that didn’t even cover my opinion of Friday, June 20th, I explained how I had discovered poor Georgia dead in the foyer of the restaurant that very morning.

  He grabbed my arms and pulled me close. Right in my face, he asked, “Who is she?” Barely daring to glance back at the trunk.

  “That I can answer. Well, limitedly.”

  He waited, his eyes locked with mine, his fingers pointlessly tapping the air between us. “Go on,” he said in a strangled sort of way.

  I explained how Georgia Payne was our temporary sous chef, just to help us through these few days before Nonna’s big Belfiere event. Oh, and she was one of my students in the Quaker Hills Career Center cooking class. “Had I known she had a serious heart condition,” I added reasonably, “I would have had to go in a different direction, but . . .”

  Joe started grappling with Georgia’s body, and he was coming across as a little more ham-fisted than I had hoped, should he ever be grappling with mine. Although, to be fair, she was a deadweight. With a grunt, he managed to get out, “Why didn’t you call 911?” Then he toggled his head. “Although I’m sure you have a perfectly good Eve Angelotta reason—”

  I reached into the trunk to give him a hand. I must say, I wasn’t warming to his attitude. “In fact,” I got out through clenched teeth, trying to get a grip on Georgia, “I do. Georgia may be a goner, but Maria Pia’s biggest day of her entire cooking life is not. Landon and I decided just to, well, postpone doing something about—”

  “Eve!” Joe Beck said, letting go of his half of Georgia and standing up straight. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve got to put her back.”

  “Put her back?” I cried, thrusting my hands in the general direction of Miracolo, which sent Georgia tumbling back into the trunk. The bottles of Argentine Malbec rattled. “Joe, they haven’t even got to the Saffron Risotto alla Milanese!”

  “This woman died under suspicious circumstances. Can’t you—”

  “Suspicious circumstances?” I stuck my hands on my hips. Both of us became aware of a police cruiser heading slowly down the alley, of all the timing. “She locked up, she keeled over, end of story.” Together we prudently lowered the trunk door and raised our hands in greeting as the cruiser rolled by, taking the ruts with complaining squeaks from the shocks.

  Joe Beck brought his face close to mine, which enabled me to appreciate a handsome scruff that was just b
eginning. “How do you know?” he asked softly.

  Easy one. I ticked off on my fingers: “No blood, no obvious wounds, gunshot or otherwise, no—”

  He gave me a squinty look as he reached back inside. “Oh, excuse me, you’re such an authority on violent death. Come on, we’re getting her out of here.”

  I crossed my arms. Every drop of sheer Angelotta stubbornness—not to mention Camarata bloody-mindedness—marinated me but good. “We are not putting her back until after the Granita di Caffè con Panna.”

  He asserted himself, which was not necessarily unattractive. “We’re doing it now.”

  I gave him the Italian hand gesture—very close to what you may know as the touchdown signal—that translates as Your head is the size of a Coleman cooler and is filled with three-day-old polenta. “What am I supposed to do with fifty dangerous cooking ladies who haven’t had their entrées yet?”

  He was ignoring me, all busy with Georgia. With the zest he was showing, you’d think it was Kayla. “Send them out the back.”

  “Through the kitchen?” I planted my feet. “Are you out of your mind? Have you no sense of decorum?”

  “Decorum? You stash a human being in a car trunk. What are you, Tony Soprano?”

  I sucked in one shocked and lengthy breath, hard. Then I got indignant. “How dare you!”

  “Oh, please.” Georgia was putting up quite a fight.

  “It’s not like she couldn’t breathe,” I yelled. Perhaps a little too loudly.

  “Let’s hope not,” he yelled back, “because she sure isn’t now.”

  “For your information,” I said, tugging at my cuffs, “Landon and I carried Georgia to the storeroom.”