by Elaine Fox
His voice became clearer. “No, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” He cleared his throat and she relaxed a tense breath. Not being irritated when awakened by a ringing phone said a lot about a person. “What’s up?”
“Could you, uh, could you come down to the restaurant? Soon, I mean?” She suddenly wasn’t sure calling him first was the right thing to do. She should call the police. What was wrong with her?
She could hear what sounded like him rolling over in bed and a cool mist of perspiration broke onto her forehead.
“Sure.” He cleared his throat again. “Yeah, sure. Is something wrong?”
Yes, yes, yes! Something was wrong, that’s why she was calling. Not to give fertilizer to her already unmanageable sexual urges.
She mentally took hold of herself. “It seems we’ve had a break-in. The window on the back door is broken and things in the kitchen look…disturbed.”
“What?” His voice was crystal clear now. She imagined him sitting up straight in bed. “Somebody broke in?”
“Yes, I—”
“Stay right there. I’ll be right down.” The phone on the other end clattered and went dead.
She exhaled. He was awake now, she thought, as she pressed the OFF button on the phone and looked at it a moment. She should call the police. She’d need a police report for the insurance. Not to mention that she didn’t want whoever did this to come back.
Had they found what they were looking for? There hadn’t been any money in the place. That had been deposited yesterday morning. They hadn’t even been open for business yesterday, so there was no reason to think there would be any money.
It had to have been the cook. Or the busboys. It had to have just been someone wanting to scare her, or make a point. There wasn’t anything here worth stealing. Nothing that would get you any money, that you could get out the door in the dead of night, anyway. She’d like to see the thief who could steal a steam table or a walk-in freezer. If they’d been thieves who knew anything about kitchen equipment they would have stolen some of those knives, not just scattered them around the workstations.
She pulled the phone book from the desk drawer and looked up the non-emergency number for the police. After all, it wasn’t as if there was a theft in progress or anything. She didn’t need to call 911.
Her finger landed on the number and she’d just picked up the portable again when a noise in the kitchen caught her ear. She had just enough time to think she’d been a fool not to call 911, because the thieves could still be in the building, when Steve appeared in the office doorway.
She heaved a sigh of relief.
“Are you okay?” His face was sober, but it was his sleep-rumpled hair and disheveled clothes that caught her attention. Never had a mere bartender looked so good.
Roxanne shook her head against the thought. Lord, one sex dream and she had completely lost control. This was just Steve, she reminded herself, her inherited employee.
She looked down at the phone book. “I’m fine. A little surprised, maybe, but fine. I was just calling the police.” She held up the phone in illustration.
He came toward her and gently took it from her. “Your hands are shaking. Here, let me call P.B.”
Her hands were shaking, she realized, just as her knees were. She sat down in the desk chair and watched him dial the phone.
“Yeah, Peter Baron,” Steve said into the receiver. He gave her a grim smile.
He’d obviously come straight from bed the instant she’d called. She couldn’t even tell him how grateful she was. Not that she couldn’t have managed this on her own. She could have, and would have, if she hadn’t thought he might know something that would help. Still, she had to admit she was glad she didn’t have to do it alone. Starting this restaurant by herself was scary enough. To think someone might want to sabotage it made everything seem that much harder.
“Hey, P.B. It’s Steve.” He ran a hand back through his hair, making a vague, halfhearted effort to straighten it. “Listen, we’ve got a situation here at Charters. Someone broke in last night…” His eyes slid over to Roxanne and his lips turned up wryly. “She’s sitting right here and she looks fine. Are you all right, Roxanne?”
She gave a strained laugh. She could just imagine the he-man way P.B. had put the question. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah, she’s fine. Hmm. I don’t know.” He shifted the receiver down away from his mouth and addressed her again. “Anything missing?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. But things have definitely been disturbed.” She pointed to the floor behind him. “Look, someone even pried up one of the floorboards.”
He turned to look, taking a step closer to try to peer inside. “P.B.? Yeah, things are definitely messed up, but we’re not sure if anything’s missing yet. What?” He looked back at Roxanne. “Was there any money taken?”
She shook her head. “It was all deposited yesterday morning. There was nothing here.”
“No,” he said into the phone. “Yeah, okay, good.” He hung up. “He’s coming right over.”
She sighed. “Thank you, Steve.”
He leaned one hip against the desk and looked down at her. “No problem. Hey, I know these things can be unnerving. Me? Snakes are what get to me. I can handle anything but snakes.”
She shifted her eyes to his. “Snakes, huh?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what it is, but they make my skin crawl.” He shivered once, apparently just thinking about it, then wandered over to the pried up floorboard and squatted beside it, adding, “You got a snake problem next time, call somebody else to deal with it.”
“Sure. But…” She raised her chin and looked at him. “I could have handled this on my own. I wasn’t hoping you would ‘deal with it’ for me. That’s not why I called you.”
He issued a short laugh and gave her a look that seemed to say, Sure you could, little lady. “I didn’t say you couldn’t.”
He poked a couple fingers into the age-old, lintlike insulation filling the space below the floor and stirred it around a little.
“Can’t imagine they found anything in here,” he murmured, wiping his hand on his jeans.
She studied him. Was he being condescending or did it just seem like it? “Listen, the reason I called is because you came home last night right about the time I think this happened.”
He turned to her, his eyes widened. “What? How do you know when I came home last night?”
“Because I heard you coming up the stairs.”
He stood up. “Really? How do you know it was me?”
She threw a hand out. “Well who else would it be?”
“I don’t know.” He looked around with exaggerated wonder. “An intruder, maybe?”
She shook her head. “No, smart guy, it was you. I saw you through the peephole.”
At that he seemed to color. “You saw me through the peephole. Great, now I’ve got a spy living below me.”
“I wasn’t spying. How paranoid are you? You think I’ve got nothing better to do than wait for you to get home from your girlfriend’s house? I was looking to be sure it was you. If it wasn’t, I would have called the police, because you’re the only one other than me who should be on those stairs.”
“So you sit up nights guarding the stairwell by looking through the peephole?”
“Oh please. I just happened to wake up and hear you—”
“At three o’clock in the morning?” He looked incredulous.
“That’s right.” She glared at him. “What are you insinuating?”
He moved back into the office. “I’ve said what I was insinuating. What are you insinuating? You think I had something to do with this?” He spread his arms wide, his face indignant.
She stood up, angry at being deliberately misunderstood. “No! I’m not accusing you of anything, Steve. I just thought you might have seen something.”
“Like a broken window? You think I’d just go on to bed if I did? What kind of idiot do you think I am?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Why are you being so defensive?”
“I’m not being defensive.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I just want to know what the hell you think I did.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s much better.”
He just looked at her. “Look.” She steeled her voice and gave him a hard look. “I woke up last night about three because I thought I heard glass breaking.” There was no way on earth she was going to tell him about her dreams. “Then I heard you coming up the stairs. This morning, when I found this,” she indicated the mess around them, “I thought maybe you might have seen someone in the alley, maybe a suspicious car or something. That’s all I thought, okay?”
His expression went from belligerent to wary.
“So? Did you see anything?” she asked.
“No.”
He didn’t even think about it.
She was so mad she could spit. He was so damned secretive he couldn’t even take the time to think whether or not he might have seen something suspicious last night. Either that or he thought she was so desperate for company she had stayed up late to spy on him. Either way, he wasn’t very concerned about getting at the truth.
So, all right then, fine. He’d be the police’s problem. She’d tell them what she just told Steve and let them take care of it.
“Forget it.” She shook her head and moved past him toward the office door. When he didn’t move she turned back. “Are you coming? We should probably wait in the dining room. Make sure we don’t touch anything in here.”
Slowly, Steve turned and followed her out the door, through the kitchen and into the dining room. When they reached the bar, the front door opened and a tall, distinguished gentleman with thinning dark hair and an ebony cane entered.
Roxanne took a deep breath and forced a smile. “Sir Nigel.” She moved toward him, looking at her watch. “You’re early.”
“Good morning. I wanted a chance to examine the dining area before beginning,” he said in his precise British accent.
He was perfectly turned out, in a three-piece suit complete with watch chain and French cuffs. She’d forgotten how tall he was, nearly six foot three, and she wondered if his cane, which he did not appear to need except as an accessory, was extra long.
Roxanne suddenly became acutely aware of her untamed hair and jeans.
He took her hand in his and bent over it with great formality. He smelled just faintly of cologne. “Lovely to see you, madamoiselle. I trust everything is in readiness for today’s training.”
“Well, actually…” She glanced over her shoulder at Steve. He lounged idly on one of the bar stools, looking like he’d just done the very thing he had: rolled out of bed. “We have a little problem this morning. Someone broke into the kitchen last night.”
“Good Lord,” Sir Nigel exclaimed, if saying the words in the same even tones of his clipped Oxford accent could be called exclaiming. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No, it was nothing like that. Just a little breaking and entering.”
Sir Nigel’s hawklike eye moved past her to spear Steve with a haughty glare. “I see you’ve caught the culprit. Good show. Have the authorities been called?”
Roxanne strangled half a laugh. “No. That is, yes, the police are on their way. But this is not the culprit. This…” She turned and held a hand out toward Steve. “Is our bartender. Steve Serrano. Steve was the bartender at Charters but he really knows what he’s doing. Steve, this is Sir Nigel Wallings.”
“Our bartender?” Sir Nigel said incredulously. “The bartender for our elegant little French restaurant with renowned chef Marcel Girmond—this…person?”
Steve didn’t rise. Instead he fixed Sir Nigel with a look of thinly veiled hostility and said, “Nice to meet you, too.”
Roxanne clasped her hands together in front of her and slowly exhaled. With a tight smile at no one she said, “Well, this is getting off to a great start.”
5
Bar Special
Sidecar—have one when three’s a crowd
Brandy, Cointreau, lemon juice, with a twist
P.B. sidled up to Steve near the bar. “So, how’s she doing?” He jutted his chin in Roxanne’s direction and donned a concerned expression.
Steve, still slumped on a bar stool and wishing he’d gotten more sleep, looked up and said, “She’s fine. Look at her. She’s her own pit bull. You don’t need to worry about her.”
They could see Roxanne through the kitchen doors, which were propped open, looking over the shoulder of the fingerprint guy. Steve would bet she was pointing out places he missed.
P.B. turned to him. For some reason, P.B., in his blues, always looked about twice his normal size. Maybe it was the gun.
“You seem a little pissed, big guy. What’s up with that?” P.B. leaned a square hand on the bar. “The burglars didn’t make off with anything of yours, did they?”
Steve shook his head, gazing at Roxanne. She thought he had something to do with this, he was sure of it. She and her pompous pal Sir Nigel. They were the purebreds and he was the mongrel, so it had to be him to blame for the mess on the floor.
“Let’s just say I’ve been robbed of my dignity.” Steve turned on the bar stool and reached across the bar for the bag of pretzels he knew was on top of the cold chest.
He unfolded the plastic bag, relishing the loud crunchy sound as it went a small way toward drowning out the pompous Sir Nigel’s voice in the dining room, droning on about show plates and fingerbowls, guéridons and réchauds. He was accompanied by Rita, George, Pat and some French chick whose sole purpose seemed to be demonstrating the proper way to open a wine bottle.
Tomorrow, Sir Nigel had threatened, Steve was to get a lesson in Armagnacs. As if Steve needed anyone to tell him about brandies. He lived brandies. Hell, he bathed in brandies. Brandies were his life. He didn’t need to spend an afternoon with Sir Nigel’s ebony cane up his butt to serve Armagnacs to a bunch of French-restaurant-bar patrons who were probably too old to tell the difference between brandy and Listerine.
P.B. laughed and slapped him on the back. “Get over it, buddy. You never had much dignity to speak of anyway. Besides, that’s what women are all about. They bust your balls just to see if you’re strong enough to stand up to them.”
Steve stuffed a pretzel in his mouth and looked at P.B. “And if you are? What does that mean? You argue with them, walk away or just keep taking their shit?”
“You let their shit roll right off your back, my friend. Don’t even listen to it. They don’t mean it anyway. They’re just exercising their control muscles. Let them spit it all out, pay them a little lip service, then forget about it.”
“I can’t believe you actually think that’s good advice. Is that what you do, P.B.?” Steve raised a skeptical brow. “Because if you keep talking like that, you might have to turn in your male chauvinist membership card. Sounds like you let women walk all over you.”
P.B. wagged a finger at him. “I let them think they’re walking all over me. Then I do whatever I want.” He dug into the pretzel bag and pulled out a handful.
Steve settled back in the stool. “I guess I have to say that’s probably the right tack to take with Roxanne. She likes giving people an earful, if my experience with her is any indication.”
“What do you mean?” P.B.’s eyes were suddenly alert. He almost looked like the detective he was supposed to be right now. “What’s your experience with her?”
Steve chewed his pretzels and smirked. “Ooh, down boy. I didn’t mean that kind of experience. I just meant having to try and work with her. She’s tough as nails, even when she doesn’t have to be.”
“Hm.” P.B.’s eyes trailed back to Roxanne and his mouth took on a little smile. “Fiery. I like that.”
Steve grunted. “Positively searing.”
“Listen, I’m going to ask her out. How do you think I should do it?”
Steve shook his head. “Very, very carefully.”
“I think that’s a great idea. Because she probably doesn’t spend enough time in restaurants.”
P.B. put a hand to his chin. “Good point. Hmm. Then again, maybe she’d like to check out the competition. I was thinking that new pizza place on King. You know the one?” Steve looked up at him with his first truly delighted smile of the day. “Are you serious?”
P.B. scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah. Why?”
“Pizza,” Steve confirmed.
P.B. drew his chin back, defensive. “Yeah.”
Steve shrugged. “Okay. I guess she might like pizza. I mean, really, who doesn’t?”
“Exactly.” P.B. looked at him warily. “What?”
Steve pulled another pretzel out of the bag, but hesitated before eating it. He turned his eyes from the snack to P.B. “Well, considering she’s putting everything she’s got into opening a top-drawer, chi-chi, you-better-own-a-tie type place, I’m thinking she might like a restaurant that doesn’t rely too much on plastic knives and forks.”
P.B. looked into the dining room, where Sir Nigel was demonstrating the proper way to align a white linen tablecloth.
Steve ate the pretzel.
“Yeah, maybe…” P.B. brooded.
“Not to mention,” Steve continued, “she’s not striving for the pizza market, so that wouldn’t exactly be her competition.”
P.B.’s tongue found the side of his mouth as he deliberated. “So, you’re thinking…French?”
“I’m thinking expensive.
“P.B. narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. “What’s that little place on Washington Street? You know the one I mean? Isn’t it French?”
“Yep. And way out of your budget, Pretty Boy.”
He dropped his hands to his hips. “Hey, I make a good living.”
“Oh yeah. I forgot you’re the consummate, upstanding professional. The guy with a future.” Steve let his eyes linger sardonically on P.B. a minute. “Then sure, that’s the kind of place I’m talking about. Go for it.”