“Mr. Scald,” he said in a Mike Tyson voice. “I'm Archie Mellina. Welcome to Gargano's. I named this place after my mother's paternal grandfather. That man could cook.” Mellina held his fingers to his mouth, kissed, and let fly. Poof!
“I'm the owner of this humble establishment. If there's anything I can do to make your stay more pleasant, please don't hesitate to ask.” Mellina turned to Dyson and stuck out a large pink hand adorned with several gold rings.
“Archie Mellina.”
Dyson set down his beer and took the hand. Their hands trembled with grippiness. Their knuckles turned white. They let go at once, grinning. “Dyson Hoskins, how ya doin'?”
Scald cleared his throat. “Mr. Mellina, I wish you hadn't introduced yourself. I do everything in my power to insure that my restaurant reviews are fair and impartial and that obviously depends on your treating me like any other customer.”
Mellina held his palms out, fingers up. “Absolutely. No one has said a word to the wait staff. You're right. I shouldn't have introduced myself. Please forget this encounter ever took place.”
“'Eyyyy,” Dyson said. “Fuggedaboudit!” He barked like a dog.
Mellina raised his eyebrows. “Gentlemen.” He withdrew as silently as he had come. Scald sank a little further in his seat.
Michelle returned with the appetizers. She placed the scallops in front of the gobstruck Dyson and a steaming bowl of bouillabaisse in front of Scald, as well as a tureenlike spoon. “Gentlemen, have you made up your minds?”
“How ‘bout your phone number, snooks?” Dyson said.
Michelle favored him with a dazzling smile. “My police-officer boyfriend might object.”
“'Eyyyyy,” Dyson intoned. “I was just kiddin'. Fuggedaboudit!”
“Ouch!” Dyson exclaimed as Scald kicked him.
“I'll have the sea bass,” Scald said. Dyson ordered the elk medallions. Michelle smilingly withdrew.
“What'd you kick me for?”
“I told you not to come on to the waitress. It could affect service!”
“I was just kidding,” Dyson pouted, reaching for a scallop.
Scald applied the same principles to the bouillabaisse as he did to wine. See, smell, sip, and savor. And swallow. One must not forget to swallow. Tooling up the very generous spoon, which he liked, Scald inhaled the essence of a simple Italian dish that had become a symbol of Italian cuisine. Flakes of succulent white fish floated on the root beer-colored surface.
Scald decanted the spoon into his mouth. A hard object nearly broke a tooth. Scald froze, feeling the metallic shape resting against his bottom palate. It was smooth with a curving surface. Using a napkin to shield his actions, he leaned into the darkness and removed a brass cylinder. He brought it close to his eye. Written in curving letters on the base was “9mm Luger.”
Scald was dumbfounded. What was a bullet casing doing in his soup? How slipshod was a kitchen that allowed such things? How was it even possible? He realized how.
Dyson was so heavily invested in his scallops he didn't notice until he looked up. “What's wrong, Unk? You look like you swallowed a mouse,” he barked.
“Nothing, dear boy. Nothing at all. How're the scallops?”
“Excellent.”
Scald wasn't listening. Cupping the casing in his hand, he whipped out his BlackBerry and did a LexisNexis search on the Lucci rubout. The Daily Post had the details: five 9mm slugs removed from Lucci's skull. Scald felt empowered. He'd resented the assignment to begin with. He now had license to let loose in a manner he hadn't done since he'd been editor of The Dartmouth lo those many years ago and had inveighed against faculty, deans, policies, and curriculum in a manner most harsh.
Scald rubbed his hands at Michelle's approach, hoping his meal would be awful. There was nothing as liberating as writing a scathing review.
Michelle set down the elk medallions and the Chilean sea bass. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
“Michelle, my dear,” Scald said, reaching into his vest pocket. “I found this in the bouillabaisse. Would you be so kind as to call your boyfriend the policeman?”
Michelle stared dumbfounded at Scald's cupped hand. Her mouth formed a perfect “O.” She covered it with her hand. “I'm so sorry, sir. I'll notify the manager right away.”
“Don't do that. Call your boyfriend. Get him down here.”
“I don't know if he can come—he might be on duty.”
“Try. And if he can't make it, call some other cops.”
Dyson watched, contentedly chewing elk. Michelle hurried away.
“Whatcha got, Unk?”
Holding his hand below the table, Scald showed the cartridge casing to his nephew. Dyson reached for it but Scald quickly closed his hand and withdrew.
“You found that in your soup?”
Scald nodded, eyeing his dish. Unfortunately, it smelled divine. Slipping the cylinder back into his vest pocket, Scald took up the fork. It was the best sea bass he'd ever tasted, flavored with a hint of coriander and cilantro.
“How's the elk?” Scald said between mouthfuls.
Dyson could only nod and chew. He made the “perfect” sign with thumb and index finger. Scald looked down on the main floor. Michelle huddled with Mellina, who nodded in understanding.
Shit.
Scald reached for his BlackBerry. Problem. Should he dial 911? It wasn't exactly an emergency. The proper thing to do would be to notify the police through non-urgent channels. He didn't even know what precinct they were in. He dialed “0.”
“Hello and thank you for calling Trans-Global Communications. Please listen carefully to the following options as our menus have changed. Si se habla Español, empuja uno ahora.”
Scald looked up. Mellina loomed. Next to him stood a tall waiter in white jacket, face pockmarked like the moon, staring at Scald from beneath a unibrow that stretched from cauliflower ear to cauliflower ear.
Mellina held out his hand. “Give me the casing.”
Dyson watched with interest, stuffing his mouth with potato.
Scald shrugged. “What casing?”
“Don't play around with me, Mr. Scald,” Mellina said softly in his high-pitched voice. “You're not leaving this restaurant until you hand it over.”
“Aren't you concerned with what I might write?”
“You're not going to write anything with a dislocated shoulder,” said the unibrow.
Dyson's fork, on its way to his gaping maw, stopped in midair. “Are you threatening my uncle?”
Mellina slowly shifted his gaze to Dyson, as if spotting steak sauce on the carpet. It shifted back to Scald. “Nobody has to know about this. Your meal is on the house. Forget about the review. I'll give you five thousand dollars for that cartridge right here, right now.”
Scald sat up straight and crossed his arms over his chest. “Dyson, we may require your assistance.”
“You got it, Unk.”
Dyson demonstrated why Sherdog had ranked him among the top twenty light heavyweights. He wasted no time. It looked as if Dyson were shunting himself under the table like a child after dinner. His right leg shot out, the heel connecting solidly on the waiter's knee. There was a cracking sound like a breadstick and the pockmarked waiter fell to the ground screaming and clutching his knee.
Like some sinister Whac-A-Mole, Dyson popped back up from beneath the table, stepped on the seat, sprang once on the table, and flew through the air, planting his fork, whose grip he had never relinquished, in the side of Mellina's tree-trunk neck.
Mellina staggered back with a disbelieving expression, reached for the fork, and yanked it out. Blood followed.
“HEY, RUBE!” bellowed the maitre d', watching with keen interest from the top of the stairs. “THE BOSS IS IN TROUBLE!” Two waiters on the main floor deposited their trays on the nearest empty tables and ran for the stairs. A Chinese chef wearing a toque and carrying a cleaver rushed from the kitchen.
Dyson kicked Mellina in the balls and
the big man doubled over. Dyson pumped a fist in the air. “I live for this shit!” Dyson leaped over the writhing waiter and rushed to the head of the stairs as the maitre d’ judiciously withdrew. First up was one of the waiters, a pretty boy with long brown hair in a pompadour clutching a set of tongs.
Dyson caught him with a spinning round kick that lifted the waiter into the air and deposited him at the foot of the stairs as the second waiter and the chef approached. The second waiter pulled his pal to one side. The chef pointed up the steps at Dyson with his left hand and flipped the cleaver with his right. It sailed end over end, right over Dyson's ducked head.
“Come on, Unk! Let's blow this popsicle stand!”
Scald used this diversion to dip his mitt into a créme brulée on the dessert tray, crude, but odds were they wouldn't be serving for the rest of the evening.
The thugs were wary. Mellina and the pockmarked waiter were hors de combat. Customers on the main floor hurriedly decamped, save for an elderly couple in a banquette who calmly ate spaghetti while watching the floor show.
The two waiters and the cook arrayed themselves in a semicircle at the bottom of the stairs. Dyson reached over the handrail, seized a heavy china dinner plate, and sailed it Frisbee-like at the chef, who goggled in disbelief and so forgot to duck. The plate made a G-flat as it struck the cook between the eyes and shattered. The cook sat down hard on his ass.
The waiter rushed. Dyson faked a punch and went low, sweeping the waiter off his feet, shoving him toward the front of the restaurant, and throwing him at a vacated table. Fruit cart! The waiter upended the table, sending lobster, salad, and linguine flying.
Scald made a beeline for the door. At the last minute the maitre d’ blocked his way, wearing a set of brass knuckles. “No you don't, Mr. Scald.”
Where was Dyson? His nephew altercated with the kitchen crew.
Smacking the brass knucks into a palm, the grinning maitre d’ said, “Give me the cartridge.”
Scald whipped off his rug and threw it in the maitre d's face. The maitre d’ staggered back, groping futilely, smacked into the plate-glass front door, and broke through in a shower of shattered shards.
A police car whooped. Lights went on in the street directly in front of Gargano's as the cop shop did a U-ey, pulling up in front of the shattered front door.
Scald followed his nephew like a Miata following a snowplow. As Scald stepped over the door frame into the street, Dyson said over his shoulder, “Holy shit, Unk. I didn't know you were a skinhead! Ahmina buy you a tat!”
Scald pulled out his ostrich-skin wallet and laid a Benjamin on the greeter's station. “For the meal.” He heard the sound of boots on wood, the tinkle of breaking glass from somewhere in the kitchen.
Two cops pushed by them and went through the door. Another cruiser pulled up behind them.
Scald approached one of the new arrivals, a cocoa-colored bear-shaped man wearing rectangular glasses. “Officer, I'm Bill Scald, restaurant reviewer for Metro Plus."
“Yeah? What happened?”
“I found this in my bouillabaisse.” Scald dipped into his vest pocket and proffered the 9mm casing.
“You what?” the cop said.
“I nearly lost a tooth on it. It was in the seafood chowder.”
The cop held out his mitt. “May I?”
Scald deposited the shell in the cop's cupped hand. “I will be happy to testify as to how that casing came into my possession.”
“I'm gonna need an ambulance,” yelled a cop from the deck. “Fred, you wanna come up here, you ain't gonna believe this.”
The cop turned to Scald. “Wait here.” He headed up the stairs. Scald followed.
On the raised deck a skinny cop stood next to the fallen waiter, who moaned and clutched his knee. “It's Numbnutz Farina.”
Fred did a double take. “Numbnutz! We been lookin’ all over for ya! Where ya been?”
“Right here,” Numbnutz moaned. “Can I get an ice pack? That son of a bitch broke my knee.”
Fred rounded on Scald. “I thought I told you to stay downstairs.”
“Officer, before I became restaurant reviewer I held the city desk at the old Telegraph. I was a crime reporter for twelve years and I can still turn a nice phrase. What did you say your name was?”
Fred dipped into a pocket and smiled. “Okay, wise guy, here's my card. Question is, how did the casing get in the chowder?”
“I have a theory about that,” Scald said.
Fred held up his hand. “I got the same theory.”
The police declared the restaurant a crime scene. Of those who had not fled, four were illegals with lengthy criminal records. Only the elderly couple emerged untainted, with warm memories to share with their grandchildren.
Archie Mellina flew the coop. In the kitchen, ultraviolet revealed enough blood to drench a Roman spa. The restaurant closed its doors that night. When the police finally let Scald and Dyson go, Scald headed straight home to write his review.
The new Metro Plus hit the street three days later. Scald had three bylines.
“HOW I SOLVED THE LUCCI KILLING,” by Bill Scald, exclusive to MetroPlus.
“WHY I FLIPPED MY WIG,” by Bill Scald, exclusive to Metro Plus.
“GARGANO'S STANDS TALL, FALLS FAST,” by food reporter Bill Scald, exclusive to Metro Plus.
“First, the good news. Gargano's in the Village is—was one of the premier Italian eateries in the city, with a seafood bouillabaisse that is literally to die for. . . .”
Copyright © 2012 by Mike Baron
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Passport to Crime: THE MAN WITH THE FACE OF CLAY
by Paul Halter
* * * *
* * * *
Paul Halter's stories featuring his celebrated character Dr. Twist have appeared several times in EQMM, and now his prize-winning Twist novel The Fourth Door is available in English on Amazon and for Kindle. The Halter novels The Lord of Misrule and The Seven Wonders of Crime, featuring hisother detective, the Edwardian Owen Burns, are also available in English on Amazon. Burns, who believes murder to be an art form, stars in this story.
Translated from the French by John Pugmire
The ease with which Owen Burns solved even the most complex puzzles was a source of irritation to many, not least to myself, Achilles Stock, his most loyal friend. He made no effort to hide his superiority complex: his certainty that he was the most accomplished detective of his generation. With his affected style, the haughty tilt of his head, his caustic humour, not to mention his considerable height and girth, one could readily form the impression that no problem was too difficult for him. Which is why I had been secretly hoping for a stunning setback in one of his investigations and now, on the afternoon of a singularly depressing winter day in 1912, I was reasonably hopeful. Having got wind of a quite extraordinary business, I had taken the step of inviting one of the principal witnesses to visit Burns in his St. James's Square flat and we were now awaiting her arrival. My initiative seemed to have unsettled him. With his hands behind his back, he paced back and forth across the drawing room, stopping occasionally in front of the window, as if to contemplate the rain which had been falling since morning.
“You seem on edge, old boy,” I observed languidly from the depth of my armchair, my nose buried in the day's newspaper. “Could the rain be affecting you?”
“Yes,” he grumbled, after a moment's thought. “It's behaving too timidly. I want it to rain cats and dogs, to inundate the streets with vengeful floods, and to wash away all the sins of this decadent world.”
“In short, you're hoping for a deluge?”
“You've found the mot juste, for once.”
“Your prayers may soon be answered. I believe a deluge plays an important part in the tale our witness has to tell. She should be here any minute.”
Shooting me a withering glance, Owen replied tartly: “Frankly, Achilles, you could have asked me first, or at lea
st warned me earlier. You knew perfectly well that we had a very busy day, and may I remind you that we have tickets for tonight's performance of The Flying Dutchman at the Royal Opera House, which is one of my favourites, as you well know.”
“What's the matter? You'll solve the puzzle in ten minutes, with your customary flair. Adding half an hour for telling the story and twenty minutes for the social niceties, the whole business won't take more than an hour. That leaves plenty of time for dinner and the grandiose flights of Richard Wagner. And, what's more, I thought you'd be pleased. The weird kind of puzzles you crave don't come along very often, so I thought this was a godsend.”
“I suppose so,” he conceded grudgingly. “By the way, what's this woman's name?”
“Miss White.”
“Miss White,” he repeated thoughtfully. “That doesn't ring a bell, but it does make me think about Snow White. Is she young and pretty?”
“I haven't met her, so I don't know. But she's definitely under twenty-five. I heard of her story from a friend of her father, who's one of my best customers.”
“Ah! Just as I thought!” exclaimed Owen, throwing his arms in the air. “Commerce rears its ugly head. Is your Wedgwood porcelain business in such dire straits that you have to satisfy your customers’ every whim?”
“No!” I replied indignantly. “It's going incredibly well, in fact, so much—”
“I hope she's pretty,” Owen went on. “You know I can't stand ugliness, particularly in women.”
He stopped suddenly, his face pressed against the misted windowpane.
“That must be she. I can see a delicious white umbrella on the doorstep.”
He nodded his head with satisfaction when the doorbell rang, and left hurriedly. A few moments later, he returned in the company of the visitor. Judging by his gallant manner and the exaggerated courtesy he showed while relieving her of her coat and umbrella, she met with his approval. A trimly fitting bolero and skirt accentuated her slender waist. Luxuriant auburn curls graced the curve of her neck. Her embroidered white blouse emphasised her freshness, and rosy cheeks contrasted with innocent blue eyes. One of those naive beauties in whose hands my friend inevitably turned to putty.
EQMM, July 2012 Page 6