Dying for a Taste

by Leslie Karst

  “I never pegged you for an environmentalist, Tony,” I said with a smile. But I was thinking, Ohmygod, could Tony be the one who wrote those letters? They did mention farmed salmon, after all. No way, I decided. He wouldn’t even have a clue what a farrowing crate was. Or would he?

  Remembering the Seafood Watch card in my pocket, I took it out and showed it to him. “I found this at Letta’s house this morning. Did you give it to her, by any chance?”

  He shook his head. “Not me. I know about those people, though. I used to think they were all a bunch of left-wing reactionaries, but now I’m starting to think maybe they have a point. I mean, when me and my brother used to go out fishing as teenagers, there was always salmon in the bay, every year—boatloads of ’em. And now they’re talking about closing the fishing again next season because the numbers are so low? Something has gone the hell wrong. If that makes me a goddamn environmentalist, then so be it.”

  His expression softened. “It’s funny,” he added. “Letta used to tease me about the same thing. Must be in your family’s genes or something.”

  “You know, I wanted to ask you something about Letta . . .”

  Tony finished off the burrito and said, mouth full, “So you’re still trying to help that Mexican, eh?”

  “As a matter of fact, what I want to ask does have to do with Javier.”

  “Ask away. I’m happy to help however I can. You thinking he might be the one who did it? Stabbed Letta?”

  “Well, you yourself said before that you didn’t think him capable of it.”

  Wiping his hands, he crumpled up his napkin and dropped it onto his plate. “Yeah, he does strike me as pretty much a wuss. But I gotta say, after the way he went at me at the repast at your dad’s restaurant . . .” Tony shook his head. “I dunno; maybe he’s not such a wimp after all.”

  “So what? You think now it could have been Javier?”

  The question seemed to take him by surprise. Leaning back in his chair, he folded his arms, frowned, and thought for a moment, staring out at a young man with frizzy hair who had taken up the ranter’s former position in front of our window and was strumming a guitar. A plush-lined case sat open at his feet, a couple of dollars tossed in as seed money. “I don’t know,” Tony finally answered. “Maybe.”

  He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward on the table. “Was that what you wanted to ask me?”

  After having screwed up the courage to ask my question, I was now starting to lose my nerve. What if he blew up or totally freaked out? But we were in a public place, after all, so he couldn’t react too badly, could he?

  Do it, Sally—Miss Marple wouldn’t be so chicken.

  “No,” I said. “I wanted to ask about something Javier told me the other day. About Letta. About what he told you about Letta.”

  Tony was looking at me, but I couldn’t read his expression. He waited for me to go on.

  “He said he told you about a woman Letta was involved with.”

  Tony frowned. “I thought that might be where you were going.”

  “Javier said you got really mad and slugged him.”

  “Guilty as charged.” He held his wrists up together as if ready for handcuffs. “But in my defense, the little shit deserved it, using Letta like that to get at me.”

  I was surprised at how calm he appeared to be. So I pressed on, to see if he, like Kate, might be provoked. “You mean to tell me it didn’t bother you that your fiancée was having an affair with someone else? With a woman?”

  “Of course it bothered me.” His voice was testy now, and he was starting to get fidgety and shift around in his seat. The subject was clearly making him uncomfortable. “But I sure didn’t need Javier sticking his nose in our business. And I let him know what I thought in no uncertain terms.” The handcuffed wrists became boxing gloves as Tony took a couple mock jabs at the air. But the levity seemed forced.

  “So you already knew about her, about Kate?”

  “Sure. You really think Letta would tell Javier before she told me?” Tony glanced around the restaurant, suddenly conscious that his voice had been rising. “Look,” he said more quietly, “we’d already worked through it all before he even found out. Letta had told me about the affair, and yeah, we did have a fight about it. A big one. I was pretty pissed if you want to know the truth. But she told me it had just been a fling, ‘an experiment,’ she said. And she also promised me she was breaking it off, that she’d realized it was me she wanted to be with. That’s when she agreed to get married, as a matter of fact.”

  “Oh.”

  He stood up. “I’m sorry, Sally, but I’ve actually got to get going. I’m supposed to meet a buddy at eleven to help out with an electrical problem at his house.” He took his plate and can and deposited them in the bus tray and recycling bin, and we walked outside. “Hey, you want some sanddabs? My truck’s just around the corner, and I’d be happy to give you a couple. I sure can’t eat a dozen myself.”

  I never turn down freshly caught fish, so I gladly followed him to his truck, where he took out a cooler and showed me his day’s catch.

  “You want me to scale and clean ’em for you?”

  Having grown up in a fishing family, I of course would have been able to prep the sanddabs myself, but it’s a messy business, so I was happy to let Tony do it for me. He pulled a thin-bladed boning knife from a kit stowed behind his seat and deftly slit open the belly of one of the fish and removed its guts. Next, he used the flat of the knife and went backward, against the grain, to remove the scales. He made it look easy, but I noticed that the scales were flying all over the place, onto his clothes and into the gutter. “When I’m at home,” he said, noticing my look, “I always scale fish under water in a dish pan—it’s a lot less messy.”

  As he worked on the second sanddab, Tony told me how he prepares them. “I like to panfry ’em whole in some butter, with some garlic and maybe a little lemon and parsley. You don’t want to overwhelm their flavor, which is pretty mild.” He dropped the two fish into a plastic bag and handed it to me. “You want some ice?”

  “That’s okay. I’m on my way to work; we’ve got plenty there.”

  I followed Tony’s advice about panfrying the sanddabs, and as I savored the delicate fish that night, accompanied by boiled red potatoes and a simple green salad with a Dijon vinaigrette, I pondered what I’d learned from him.

  Not much, actually, when I really thought about it. In my mind, I’d built up this whole soap opera backstory about Tony and his reaction to finding out about Kate. So hearing his anything-but-dramatic account of it all was kind of a let-down.

  Assuming he was telling the truth, of course.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “There’s one; there’s a space!” I gestured frantically toward a car pulling away from the curb on the left side of the street.

  “It’s green,” Eric replied.

  “But it’s Sunday. It doesn’t matter if it’s green or not.”

  Ignoring what I considered to be an astute observation, he drove on by the space, turning right once more onto Shattuck. I gazed glumly at the restaurant as we passed it for the third time, noting a group of people heading through the door with paper sacks in their arms.

  “We’re going to be late,” I whined.

  “No, we’re not.” Eric glanced over his shoulder, did a quick U-turn, and deftly pulled into a spot right across the street from La Récolte. “See?” With a smug smile, he switched off the engine and opened his door.

  “I hate it when you do that.”

  Eric retrieved our brown paper bag from the back seat. “What did you decide on?” I asked. The website for the event had directed folks to bring Bordeaux-style wines, or Cabernets or Merlots, in order to match the menu. I’d deferred to Eric for the decision, knowing he had a cellar full of fabulous wines, despite his government-lackey salary.

  “Two of the same thing,” he said, pulling one of the bottles out and holding it up for my inspection: a 2007 Sto
rrs BXR.

  “Sounds like the name of a dirt bike,” I observed.

  He gave a condescending shake of the head. “It’s a Bordeaux-style blend, my dear. And, might I add, it’s going to kick the asses of the Napa Meritages these Bay Area wine snobs will no doubt bring. I thought I’d show them just how good our Santa Cruz wineries can be.”

  We started across the street. “Now remember,” I said in a hushed voice, “don’t let on, when we see Kate, that I expected her to be there.”

  “Don’t worry, I got it.” Eric grabbed my arm as a car sped around the corner right at our feet. “We’ve been over it all ad nauseum. I’m not going to blow it.”

  The plan, which, I admit, we had spent a fair amount of time discussing in the car, was that I was going to pretend I’d found the tickets to the dinner among Letta’s papers and had thought it would be a shame to let them go to waste. I’d act surprised to see Kate, gambling that she hadn’t noticed her e-mail blunder and told Ted about it. That way, I could chat him up without him suspecting I knew about his secret identity.

  And if Kate had noticed that she blew it with her e-mail message and if she figured out why I was really there? Well, then I’d just have to play it by ear. But I was really hoping that wasn’t the case, because I totally suck at improv.

  We walked in the door and were greeted by a woman seated at a card table. I gave her my name and, after locating me on the list, she handed us blank name-tag stickers to fill out. I scrawled “Sally Solari” as legibly as I could and handed the pen to Eric.

  “You sure you want to use your full name?” he asked. “That Ted character will know who you are right away.”

  “That’s the idea. As long as he doesn’t know that I know who he is, I’m thinking he might think he’s being really smart and try to get information out of me. Which could in turn give me information.”

  “Clever. I guess.”

  We turned to survey the room.

  La Récolte—which I learned from Eric means “harvest” in French—had that stereotypical bistro feel. You know, with the black-and-white checkered floor, tables draped with white tablecloths and set with heavy flatware, lots of red plush and brass fixtures, old posters for Suze and Pernod, and a curved, zinc bar. It was almost too cutesy, but not quite.

  Two long tables had been set up that ran the length of the dining room. It looked like they were expecting about forty people for the dinner. Along the far wall was another long table where folks were placing their bottles of wine and pouring themselves glasses. A waiter in a black vest and white apron was busy opening the bottles as they were set down. Spotting several platters of appetizers at either end of the table, I went over to investigate. Eric followed and set his wines next to the others.

  “I was right. Just look at all these Napa wines: BV Reserve Tapestry, St. Supéry Élu, Ramey . . . Oh wow.” He picked up a bottle to examine it more closely. “A 2011 Chimney Rock Elevage, Stags Leap District. I’ve been wanting to check this out,” he said and grabbed a glass to pour himself a taste.

  I was more interested in the food. Wanting to save myself for what I was hoping would be a scrumptious dinner, I hadn’t eaten any lunch, and my stomach had been complaining all the way up to Berkeley. There was a terrine of some kind of pâté en croûte and a basket of toasted bread rounds to go with it. Next to that sat a platter heaped with roasted vegetables: white and green asparagus, porcini mushrooms, spring onions, red and golden beets, fennel, and carrots in several flaming hues.

  And finally, there was an enormous woodblock covered with different cheeses. Each one had a little sign stuck in it with a toothpick. I bent to examine them: Red Hawk and Humboldt Fog from Cowgirl Creamery, a blue from the Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company, San Andreas from Bellwether Farms, and Hollyhock from Garden Variety Cheese—all from Northern California, the signs noted. I cut a wedge from the Humboldt Fog and laid it on a piece of bread. It was a creamy white with a bright-white rind and was bisected by a layer of ash.

  “Oh, yum!” I said to no one in particular.

  “Have you tried the Hollyhock? It’s from down in your neck of the woods.” I turned, and there was Kate standing next to me, a glass of wine in her hand.

  “Kate!” I was so startled to see her there that I didn’t have to feign any surprise. “Wha . . . what are you doing here?”

  “I helped organize this event. It’s a joint effort between the Berkeley and Marin chapters. The better question is, what are you doing here?”

  I saw Eric eying us. He had finished his taste of the Chimney Rock and was moving on to the St. Supéry.

  Time for my story: “I found the tickets to the dinner in Letta’s papers the other day and thought it would be a shame to waste them, so—”

  “Tickets? There weren’t any tickets to this dinner, at least not that I know of.”

  Oh boy. “Not tickets. I didn’t mean tickets. I meant the, you know, the receipt thing you get when you register online and print it out . . .”

  “Oh, right. Sorry, I didn’t mean to jump on you. It’s just that we’d talked about the idea of doing paper tickets, and I was sure that it had been nixed—to save the postage and paper. So I got confused when you said that, is all.” Kate smiled at someone across the room and waved. “I didn’t know Letta had been planning on coming to this. She hadn’t told me. You said tickets, plural?”

  Think fast, Sal. You know she’s wondering if Tony was going to be her date. “Uh . . . I think she may have been planning on taking me, actually. She did mention something last month about a Slow Food dinner.” I was amazed at how quickly the lies were springing from my tongue.

  “Well, I guess it’s good that you came tonight then,” Kate said and finished off her wine.

  I exhaled. It didn’t seem like she was on to my game, and she sure wasn’t acting like she was aware of her e-mail screw-up. But then again, I suppose you wouldn’t know you’d sent a message to the wrong person unless you happened to check your sent e-mails folder, or the person it was intended for was expecting it and said something about it not arriving.

  “Yeah, it seemed appropriate that I come.” I reached over the pâté for a wine glass.

  “You here alone?” Kate asked.

  “Try the St. Supéry—it’s fantastic,” a male voice cut in. Eric had come up next to us at this last question as if on cue.

  “No, to answer your question. This is my . . . friend, Eric.”

  He bent his head in salutation. “How do you do. Would you care to try a bit of the St. Supéry . . . uh . . . ?” Eric squinted at her name tag, pretending to read it.

  “Kate,” I said. “Sorry. This is Kate. Now where are my manners?” Sheez. Just because I knew Eric knew her name didn’t mean she knew he did. Thank goodness he, at least, was doing his job.

  At her nod of assent, Eric poured a taste of the wine into Kate’s glass. I held out my glass, and he did the same for me.

  “So how do you two ladies know each other?”

  I would have kicked him had it been possible to do so without being observed. Kate saved me, however, from having to decide how to phrase an answer.

  “I sell produce to Gauguin.” Simple and truthful—what a concept.

  “Ah. And is any of this beautiful produce yours?” Eric plucked a tiny purple carrot from the platter and bit off its end.

  “As a matter of fact, it is. As will be the vegetables served with dinner.”

  He made a show of smacking his lips and swallowing with relish. “Delectable,” he pronounced with a boyish smile.

  I stifled a snort. Eric could be such a flirt. But I didn’t think his charms would have much of an effect on Kate. He poured himself another half glass of the St. Supéry, killing the bottle. “Good thing we got here early,” he said. Setting the bottle on the table, he turned back toward us, facing the now rather full room. “Hey, I think I know that gal over there. Will you excuse me a moment?” He strode across the room and struck up a conversation with a woman with
short, red hair and a dress to match.

  We’d agreed in advance that he’d make sure to leave me alone with Kate so I could ask her in private about the photo. But his chatting up hot, young babes—I knew he didn’t really know her—had not been on the official agenda.

  Whatever. I turned back to Kate.

  “So since I’ve got you here, I wanted to ask . . .” I burrowed in my bag and came up with my wallet. I removed the picture of Tony and handed it to Kate. “Is this, by any chance, the guy who drove up to your farm that day?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. The man in the Camaro, or whatever it was, was heavier set as I remember, with a broader face. And his eyes were different: more bug-eyed than this guy’s.” She studied the photo again and then looked at me. “So who is he, anyway?”

  When I didn’t answer immediately, she shook her head in disgust. “It’s Tony, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kate handed the photo back. “I knew it. Yuck. Now forevermore, I’m going to have this picture in my mind of him—of them, together . . .”

  It had been a good impulse to crop Letta out of the picture. “Sorry,” I said. “I just had to make sure it wasn’t him who came to the farm that day.”

  “Understood.”

  “So what else can you tell me about what he looked like?”

  “As I said before,” she answered with a hint of peevishness, “he had dark hair, was stocky, fiftyish, maybe older. I think he was wearing a T-shirt, but he didn’t get out of the car, so I’m not really sure exactly what he was wearing. Oh, and that blue Giants tattoo on his left forearm—I saw that because he had his elbow out the window.”

  “Blue? Are you sure? ’Cause the Giants colors are orange and black.”

  “I’m pretty sure it was blue. A bright blue. But I’m not into sports at all, so I never really thought about it, whether the color was right or anything.” Kate glanced over toward the door, and I saw her catch someone’s eye. “Look, I gotta go relieve Patty at the door,” she said. “But I’m glad you could make it. Are you a Slow Food member? If not, you should think about joining, especially now that you’re the owner of a restaurant.”