A Taste of the Nightlife

by Sarah Zettel

  “I always did like Surio.” I grinned, and changed the subject as abruptly as any blog. “You remember that fang tease from Saturday, the one who helped start this mess? What table was she at?”

  “Two up front. She had the pumpkin soup.” Suchai grimaced.

  “That much I remember. Thanks.” He wanted to ask me what was going on, but being Suchai, he just nodded and took another swallow of beer.

  “Did you see them come in?”

  Suchai shook his head slowly. “I was making sure everyone knew we had Anatole Sevarin in the house, and then I had to help Terry with the service on fifteen. You should ask Robert.”

  “It’s on the list.” I looked down the neck of my beer bottle.

  Suchai nodded again. “Listen, Chef, I hate to have to ask this—”

  “I know. I know.” I waved his words away. “You need to know when we’re reopening. I’ve got no answer. If you’ve gotten a job offer, I won’t blame you for taking it.”

  He looked down the neck of his beer bottle too. I’m not sure what either one of us thought was in there. “We’re all right for a while, but I’ve got the kids now . . . you know how it is.”

  “Believe me, Suchai, I’m trying to get answers as fast as I can.”

  “Sure. And if there’s anything I can do, you let me know.”

  “I will.” There was a pause I did not want to spend any longer than necessary in, so I reverted to giving orders. This was my kitchen, after all. “You take off, and say hi to Surio and the pups for me.”

  “You got it, Chef.” Suchai got to his feet and joined the others heading for the lockers. I put my beer bottle on the counter and walked over to the desk in the corner that served as my office.

  My computer is old, and cranky, but it is also has a (painfully slow) WiFi connection to the other computer out front, where Robert enters the reservations. I sat down and tapped at the keys, calling up the date, time and table. Of course, Detective O’Grady had already dug out this information, but he wasn’t the one I wanted it for.

  The problem was, the system showed no reservation for table two at eight p.m. on Saturday. We enter the table number after the reservation is seated. It’s a bookkeeping measure, and one way we track how busy we’ve been. Besides, you get the occasional customer who wants their “regular table,” and it’s good to have a record of what that table is. But table two at eight p.m. last Saturday had no reservation, not for Pam Maddox or anybody else. I swore and scrolled down, then up again. Maybe Pam and her nebbish-date had just walked in off the street. But no, that couldn’t be. We’d been booked solid on Saturday. I remembered because it had been our first time as an absolutely full house, and we’d been elated, even before we knew about Anatole Sevarin.

  All the other reservations were there—at least, it looked like they were—but as far as the reservations list was concerned, table two had been free.

  My first thought was that someone on the Paranormal Squad had deleted the reservation. But that made no sense. They’d need it for evidence, wouldn’t they? My next thought was that Chet had deleted it. I waited for guilt to show up, but it didn’t. What came instead was a fifty-pound sack of further disappointment.

  My crew were coming out of the changing area with their jackets on and waving at me as they filed toward the back door. I waved back and told myself there was more than just me and Chet to worry about. People counted on me. This had to go away. All of it. Whatever it was.

  Suchai paused and looked back at me. “You coming, Chef?”

  “You go on.” I hit a couple keys and blanked the screen. “I can lock up.”

  “You sure?” Marie leaned out from behind him.

  “I’m sure. I’ll call tomorrow as soon as there’s news.”

  We said our good-nights and I listened to their footsteps, and how the back door opened and closed again. But instead of silence, I heard another pair of hard-soled shoes crossing the tiles, and getting closer. I automatically sat up and shoved my hand into my pocket for my cell phone.

  “Ah, Chef Caine. I’m glad I caught you.”

  Robert Kemp rounded the corner and I let out a long, slow sigh of relief.

  Running a successful restaurant is all about the little things. Decor, table arrangement, and lighting all matter as much as the menu. Every detail affects the guests’ response to the space, starting with the person who greets them at the door. The maître d’ is the famous first impion, and despite all his troubles, Robert Kemp was one of the best in the business.

  Tall and trim and hawk-nosed, he had waving white hair swept back from a clear forehead. Robert dressed in suits made-to-order from Savile Row when he could afford them and the closest Hong Kong copies when he couldn’t. His shirts were always crisp, and I’d never seen him without cuff links. Along with the cultivated accent, he had faultless manners, and by the time he handed guests off to their table captain, they felt as if he’d mistaken them for minor royalty.

  “Thanks for coming in, Robert. Please.” I pushed a chair toward him. He thanked me and sat. I happened to know Robert was closing in on seventy, but his back was still straight as a poker.

  “I’ve been talking to some acquaintances about Mr. Shelby,” he said.

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Some. He came to New York about fifteen years ago with a business degree from Ohio State and apparently a strong desire to make his mark as an impresario. He managed to get a job at the Clientele. . . .”

  “I know that name.”

  “It was on the A-list for a while, but it closed after five years when it was found that the owners had been laundering money for some Russian oligarchs.”

  “Heavy.”

  “Quite. Mr. Shelby was gone before the federal agents moved in. He already had a new job, in fact, managing Le Bon Nuit.”

  Now that was definitely a name I knew. Le Bon Nuit pioneered the whole concept of haute noir cuisine. That I shamelessly imitated some of its concepts when drawing up the plans for Nightlife is not something we need to discuss. Not all its concepts, of course, because it turned out some of them were really bad ideas, like the casual attitude toward standard accounting practices. “Didn’t Nuit have some trouble with, like, not paying their taxes?”

  Robert nodded. “But again Mr. Shelby was gone by the time the IRS decided to take an interest. A similar situation occurred with his next management position, at Turcell’s.”

  “So, Shelby’s timing is either really bad, or really good.”

  “It would seem that way, yes.”

  “These are all seriously high-end places.” And some pretty high-priced white-collar crimes. I mean, nothing to impress Bernie Madoff, but still a long way up from, say, robbing the tip jar or, as much as I hated to admit it, stealing my menu wholesale. “If this is Shelby’s level of scam, what’s he doing running a bite-easy for the young and hopelessly gothic?”

  “The general opinion is that Mr. Shelby was too close to too much bad luck and started having difficulties finding work at the best establishments.” Robert examined his fingernails, which looked like they’d been given one of Jess’s best treatments.

  “Yeah, but if Shelby had been setting up the problems and skipping out before the roof came down, he’d either be rich enough to retire somewhere safely out of town, or he’d be . . . in really deep trouble.” Nobody likes the guy who gets out with clean hands, especially not the ones who have hired him to do the dirty work.

  “It’s also strange that he’s the owner, is it not?” remarked Robert. “That’s never been the case before, not even on paper. Previously, he’s always just been a manager, and not the top manager either.”

  “Huh. Yeah. That is strange.” Worry stirred inside. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe this was the best Shelby could do on the straight and narrow. And it wasn’t so bad either. Post Mortem had been around for, what? Three years now? Four? For a New York club that was reason to celebrate.

  On the other hand, with a work history like this,
Shelby surely had some . . . widely varied connections. Which Detective O’Grady would know all about, wouldn’t he?

  This assumed, however, that Little Linus was even looking at Shelby and Post Mortem. After all, they weren’t the ones who had come up with a dead body in the foyer, and I hadn’t called yet to tell them about being attacked in PM’s alley. That was beginning to feel like a major mistake.

  “Chef Caine?”

  “Hmm?” I realized I was staring across the now empty kitchen. “Sorry, Robert. It’s been a long day.”

  “I understand. But a word of advice?”

  I waved my hand for him to go ahead.

  “I’ve been around long enough to see several waves of immigration into this city.” His slightly protruding gray eyes were unfocused, looking inside to his deep memory. “Every wave brings new variants on old problems. There are always shifts in the money flow, whether it’s the clean money or the dirty money. This also brings shifts in power. The rise and fall of small-minded men like Shelby tends to be closely tied to those shifts.”

  “You think Shelby’s in on the start of something?”

  “It could be.” He looked straight at me. “I just hope whatever it is, it stays away from you and Mr. Caine.”

  This was a hint that even I couldn’t miss. He was warning me to stop asking questions, because of those little shifts in the power structure he was talking about. That power was in the hands of people I didn’t want to know about, and shifts could be measured in lost lives.

  “I hope so too,” I told him. I really didn’t want to ask the next question, but I had to. “Robert, the night we had the . . . incident. The couple at table two—they didn’t have a reservation, did they?”

  Robert’s flicker of hope died, leaving resignation behind like ashes. “No. Mr. Caine had asked me to keep an eye out for them.”

  “So he knew they were coming?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he waiting for the man or the woman?”

  He hesitated, and my fingers curled up, looking for something to hang on to. I did not want to have to deal with Robert lying to me.

  “The gentleman,” Robert said at last, and I knew this was true. “They seemed to be friends. I got the impression this was his first time meeting the young lady.”

  “Okay,” I said, even though it wasn’t. “Thanks again, Robert. I appreciate it.”

  “Anything I can do, Chef Caine.” He stood, brushing his suit coat down and straightening his tie and cuff links. “I look forward to hearing from you about the reopening.”

  We said our good-byes and he let himself out. The back door closed firmly and I sat staring at my computer screen for a long time.

  I didn’t like what Robert had told me. None of it. Unfortunately, it made sense out of the vamplette attack. If Shelby thougt I knew something about whatever extracurricular activities he was setting up at Post Mortem, that might justify assault with intent to drain. It also meant he might be willing to create dead bodies, or work for those who did.

  So had Cousin Dylan come to be one of those bodies? If Brendan was to be believed, he was nothing more than a lovesick puppy determined to bring his wayward cousin home (again I say, “Ew!”). Except Cousin Pam didn’t seem to want to come home, and Pammy’s squirmy-vamp escort knew Chet well enough that Chet gave him a table without a reservation. Chet also knew Shelby well enough that he got Taylor Watts a job at his suddenly complicated-looking club.

  “God Almighty,” I whispered to my empty kitchen. “What does he think he’s doing?”

  And what did Anatole Sevarin have to do with it? There was a logical explanation for Brendan’s involvement in this mess. This was his family, and he was a security expert. Of course he was trying to find out what was going on. But Anatole . . . what was going on with Anatole?

  I felt my jaw tighten. I didn’t want anything to be going on with Anatole. I wanted things to be just the way he said—he wanted this mess cleared up before the antivamp crowd started getting restless. But the possibility that Anatole Sevarin had been up front with me was starting to feel vanishingly small.

  I had to call Chet. Break time was over. I had to have it out with him once and for all. I turned to pick up the landline, and another thought struck me hard enough to make me pull my hand off the receiver. I swiveled back to the computer. A few more clicks and I was through to our employee records. We hadn’t deleted Taylor Watts’s contact information yet because we still owed him his last paycheck. I thumbed his address and contacts into my cell phone.

  With Robert’s informal background check on Bert Shelby, we had clearly increased the potential level of stupid that Chet could have gotten himself into. I was going to have to handle this differently. This time I really couldn’t just confront my little brother and use a good hard glare to get him to talk to me. This time I would get at least some facts into my own hands so he couldn’t weasel out on me.

  I dialed the number and listened while the phone rang once.

  “Yeah?” came Taylor’s voice.

  “Hello, Mr. Watts.”

  “Chef Caine.” I could hear my ex-barkeep’s oily smile. “Bert said you were looking for me.”

  “Somehow I thought he’d let you know. Heard from Chet recently?”

  “He told me you’d ask that. Communications breakdown in the family, honey?”

  Ignore it. Ignore it. “Right now, you’re the one I need to talk to.”

  “So talk.”

  “In person.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you’ve got all kinds of things you want to say to me and I’ve got your paycheck.”

  The silence on the other end stretched out a full thirty seconds.

  “Say I felt like doing you a favor later. Where?”

  “Nightlife. Come in by the back door.”

  “Maybe.”

  He hung up. But he’d be here, and I knew it. He n’t pass up the chance to gloat at me over whatever-the-hell stunt he thought he was pulling off. Plus, while Taylor might or might not be working for some flavor of the underground, he clearly wasn’t at the point where he could say no to $934.22 after taxes.

  I sat alone in my office with my paperwork and my old computer, looking out onto my clean, quiet kitchen. Before long, Taylor Watts was going to walk through the door. In the back of my mind, I opened the mental walk-in fridge where I keep my personal pride, cut out a large slice and swallowed it.

  Then I made two more phone calls.

  14

  “Well, snap, Chef C. You must be moving up in the world.” Taylor Watts leaned his pretty-boy butt against my clean counter and folded his arms. “You got yourself hot-and-cold running bad boys.”

  My ex-bartender was a bulked-out predator, dressed to lounge with in a black jacket and a scarlet shirt with the top three buttons undone. He waxed. No hat, of course, so you could see that his chestnut hair was in fact perfect.

  Of course, he had stiff competition in the good-looking-predator department just then, because Brendan and Anatole stood by the cold prep station. They’d both agreed to be my backup for this meeting, and I’ve got to admit they had the whole menacing-look thing down cold.

  I’ve also got to admit neither of them had been entirely thrilled to see the other.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t think I could handle your bartender,” said Brendan.

  This made Anatole smile. “While I can easily understand that oversight, I find it difficult to believe you did not think I would be able to handle your ex-bartender.”

  “Put away the macho, guys.” I sighed. “If Taylor thinks I need a warlock and a vampire to handle him, he’ll get cocky. He’s that kind. And if he’s cocky, he’ll talk.”

  So far, Taylor was proving me right. Instead of getting nervous when he saw Brendan and Anatole taking his measure across a room full of knives and kebab skewers, Taylor puffed up.

  Cue obnoxious sexual comment.

  “So,” he drawled, “you guys d
o her separate or together? Or is she the kind that just likes to watch?”

  Anatole looked at Brendan, and Brendan looked back at Anatole. A mental game of rock-paper-scissors was clearly being played. Anatole won.

  “Mr. Watts, Chef Caine invited you here for a polite talk. A civilized exchange of information and views. I would suggest you remember that.”

  “Or what? You’ll say nasty things about me in your little vamp column?”

  Anatole smiled and the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. “That is one of many, many possibilities.” He raised his hand, and Taylor flinched. So did I. I had to hope Taylor didn’t notice.

  The vampire inspected his clean, well-kempt fingernails. I was surrounded by clean-nail fanatics. He and Robert could exchange manly manicure tips. “So many possibilities,” Anatole murmured.

  “Look, Taylor, this does not have to be complicated.” I pulled the white envelope holding his paycheck out of my pocket. “All I want to know is why’d Chet get you a job with Bert Shelby?”

  “Why don’t you ask Chet?” Taylor snapped his fingers. “Oh, that’s right. Because you’re trying to clean up Baby Brother’s mess all quiet-like.”

  But as with his previous snark, I’d been expecting something like this. Taylor didn’t get hired because he was any kind of original.

  “So enlighten me, Taylor. Explain to me what I don’t know.”

  “Why should I? Like you’ve got anything on me you could take to the P-Squad.”

  Now what made you mention the P-Squad? Taylor reached for the check and I snatched it back. Then and there, I decided on a gamble. Taylor liked to think he was in the know. Taylor the Player, he called himself when he was trying to bullshit the more naive waitresses. Brendan had said there was a turf war of some kind going on. Robert said there was a power shift happening, and Shelby had more than once had his digits deep in bad money. Taylor was taking himself a walk on the wild side, and maybe I could work it. Not too hard, just enough for Taylor the Player to get all kinds of wrong ideas.

  I’d just have to hope my “bad boys” would pick up and play along.