As we went through the steps, Alain changed some of the processes to make them faster and easier. Kitchen skills seem so simple, but watching a pro slice and dice made me feel like a klutz.
When all the ingredients were in the giant pot for the mole, I sought out Jürgen and found him experimenting with different spices in the breading for the pork cutlets that would become the schnitzel. I hadn’t thought of that. He was busy and enjoying himself, so I left him alone and went to check the food drier, only to find Masoot had unloaded it and was grinding the dried chipotles with sugar in a mortar and pestle.
Juan was de-stemming and de-seeding jalapeños. Deschutes was filleting trout in preparation for smoking. Maria was making piñon and apricot pesto. Helen Mure was working with potatoes. Rafael had left to search for a source of Verdolagas.
Everyone except me had a task to perform and was busily and enthusiastically performing it. I had invented schnitzel con tres chiles, but I wouldn’t be the one cooking it. Susannah had given me the idea of stuffing mole into a potato dumpling which, when you think about it, hardly rates up there with inventing the wheel. Rafael, by comparison, had come up with three outstanding ideas and had the wherewithal to implement them. Masoot was off and running with the new chipotle sugar crème brûlée. Alain was making mole faster than I could and no doubt better.
Even Scruggs ran me out of the scullery when I went to talk with him. “You got everybody cooking out there, Shoes. That’s good. Gives a lot of work for me and the boys.”
I started to reply, but he yelled, “Step aside,” and I moved just in time to avoid being run over by a kid with a pile of greasy pans.
I went to the bar and sat on a stool. Kaiser Wilhelm II was so impressed with Escoffier’s cooking that he said to him, “I am the Emperor of Germany, but you are the emperor of chefs.” I was not the emperor of food. I wasn’t even a general of gastronomy. More like a peasant of provisions.
No one missed me. My brief flirtation with professional chefdom had come to an end. I wondered what I would do if by some miracle the plan succeeded. What if Chile Schnitzel became a money-making restaurant? What would my role be? I was no professional cook. I had no clue about waiting tables. I lack the personality to be a bartender. I’d probably be a poor pot scrubber, and I didn’t think Scruggs would want me anyway.
Maybe I could be a greeter like they have at Wal-Mart, I thought to myself in comic relief.
Then it came to me. In addition to being a treasure hunter – aka pot thief – I was also a merchant. I had a business degree and had worked briefly as an accountant. I could be the money manager.
If we made any. If we gave the money to Molinero, he would probably just waste it on things like rent and back expenses. What we should do with it was purchase supplies and pay the staff. They were enthusiastic about Alain’s plan, but you can’t eat enthusiasm. Eventually, they would have to be paid.
But how? Most diners pay with a credit card, and our machine would funnel the money into an account controlled by Molinero. It sounded like a job for Tristan.
Scruggs called dinner at five. It was like a smorgasbord because we had samples of all the new dishes. No one had come up with the third new entrée, but we had more than just the three appetizers and the two entrées because various renditions had been prepared for comparison. Maria had drawn up a scoring sheet and someone had stuck numbered sticky notes on the dishes.
There was an air of excitement as everyone tasted and commented. Even Helen Mure put aside her attitude, and no one was upset when someone suggested a change to another person’s dish.
As we were finishing up the crème brûlées, Alain stood up and read us the text of an advertisement he had placed in the newspaper.
“This is to announce that the restaurant formerly known as Schnitzel has been attacked by an alien chile from Roswell. It is holding the staff hostage and forcing us to add Southwestern flavors to our dishes. Please join us for our Grand Re-opening on Thursday night as Chile Schnitzel, the world’s first Austrian/Southwestern fusion restaurant.”
Jaws dropped. People glanced at each other. After a few seconds of silence, Jürgen roared with laughter. “He is joking.”
“But of course,” said Alain, “the Grand Re-opening is Wednesday, not Thursday.”
42
I walked to La Fonda and entered the bar.
Curiosity about all the new dishes had caused me to overeat.
I needed a digestif.
The problem was I had no idea what one is. It sounds like a drink to settle your tummy. Maybe it’s a brand-name, I thought.
But when I asked the bartender for a digestif, he asked which one.
“Surprise me,” I said, and he brought me a small glass of Campari. It tasted like something that would cause digestive problems, not ameliorate them.
“Something not so bitter,” I told the barman when he noticed I had stopped drinking the Campari. He brought me a Fernet-Branca. I have no idea what it was made from, but it was peppery and sweet. Better than the Campari, but not something you could sip all evening.
The next one was grappa. It was not something I ever plan to drink again, but it cleared my sinuses and encouraged me to try again. Francisco – we were on a first name basis at this point – suggested Lillet. It was lighter than the others with a pleasant citrus tang, but it was basically wine. I don’t like wine unless it has bubbles.
Next came pastis. If it had been the first drink of the evening, I would have hated it. I don’t like licorice. But after the others, it was strangely smoothing. I actually drank the entire glass.
I should have stopped there. Actually, I should have stopped at the bar door and never entered.
But my buddy Francisco insisted I try Cynar. By this time, distilled pickle juice would have tasted like the nectar of the gods. Cynar, on the other hand, tasted like tarnished pennies. It wasn’t so much a taste as a sensation, a fibrillation of the muscles in the throat.
I shook my head and blinked my eyes. I rolled my head around my shoulders like someone with a stiff neck.
Then I took another taste and identified the flavor.
Artichokes.
“I’ll have another,” I said.
I went to my room, but the key wouldn’t open the door. Then I remembered Molinero saying I could have the room through the Grand Opening, so I went to the desk and charged the room on my credit card. I was in no shape to drive back to Albuquerque, and I was not going to sleep in the Bronco and risk ending up dead as another person.
Strange thoughts run through your brain after six digestifs.
I awoke the next morning around nine with a fiery stomach and a pounding head.
I bought a bottle of Mylanta Extra Strength in the gift shop, chugged some down and went directly to the French Café where I drank three cups of strong coffee to kill the taste of the Mylanta and soothe my headache. When I reached into my pocket for a tip, I came out with my bar bill from last night. Seventy-three dollars.
Which was small change compared to my room bill. When I went to the front desk to drop my key, the clerk gave me an invoice for $3,986.72.
“There must be some mistake,” I said, pushing the paper back to him.
He studied it for a moment. “No, sir. It is correct. Twenty-one nights at $175 a night plus tax and bar charges.”
I have to cut back on my drinking, I thought to myself; those bar charges really mount up. Then I realized he had said twenty-one nights.
“But I charged only last night. All the previous nights were charged to Schnitzel, the restaurant I’m working for.”
He stared at his computer screen. “Yes, the record says billed to a third party, but the bill has not been paid, so when you presented a credit card, the entire amount was automatically charged to your card.”
“But I only intended to pay for a single night.”
“Perhaps you can get your employer to reimburse you.”
Fat chance. I argued with the clerk briefly. He was
a friendly and able chap but unauthorized to reverse charges. He gave me the manager’s card and suggested I contact him when he returned to work the next day.
I drank the rest of the Mylanta.
43
I stopped by Schnitzel and saw Alain on a ladder over the front door painting the word ‘chile’ next to the word ‘schnitzel’ above the lintel. My font suggestion had been ignored.
The Austrian flag to the right of the door remained, but the one on the left had been replaced by its red and yellow New Mexican counterpart.
After ascertaining I was even more useless to them than I had been the day before, I drove to Albuquerque, stopping at Gruet for more champagne in order to have enough to serve for the Grand Re-Opening.
But which I didn’t come away with because my credit card was rejected as being over the limit. Gina the manager was friendly, competent and apologetic, but of course it was the bank’s fault, and there was nothing she could do. Actually, it wasn’t the bank’s fault; it was Schnitzels’ fault. Then, after reflecting on it and facing the ugly truth, I realized it was my own fault. Everyone had warned me about restaurants, Susannah even urging me to get paid in advance.
The next hour was spent on credit card matters. First I called Tristan. He said he could probably reprogram our credit card machine. Then I called my own credit card company. After almost an hour and a dozen attempts at navigating their phone menu and pushing buttons, I got a guy with a thick Bengali accent who agreed to note on the record that I was contesting the charge from La Fonda. That didn’t make me feel any better, in part because I figured nothing would come of it, but also because La Fonda deserved to be paid. I just didn’t want to be the one doing the paying.
I was in a foul mood at that point, so I took Geronimo for a long walk. His company and the burned energy perked me up.
But my mood deteriorated when I found Whit Fletcher at my door at the end of my walk.
He didn’t even let me unlock the door before he waved a paper in my face. “This here’s a warrant for your arrest for the murder of Barry Stiles.”
Suddenly my four thousand dollar hotel bill seemed like a minor issue. “I was afraid of this. Duran wants to force me to finger Dorfmeister, and since I won’t do that, he makes me the suspect.”
“You got a pretty low opinion of Duran to say a thing like that.”
“Why else would he accuse me? I have no motive for killing Barry. I hardly even knew the guy.”
“I guess they’ll try to figure out the motive later. Duran tells me this here warrant was issued on the basis of means and opportunity.”
“Opportunity? Stiles being found in my vehicle isn’t opportunity. The window was open. Everyone in Santa Fe had as much opportunity as I did. As to means, how does that relate to me? I don’t even know how he was killed.”
Maybe you have an inkling of the means if you’ve been paying attention, but I didn’t until Whit looked down at his little notebook and asked, “You know anything about a chemical called barium carbonate?”
I knew a lot about it as an ingredient in glazes. And I immediately figured out something else I knew about it; namely, that the container of it I used in Santa Fe did not have a leak or a loose-fitting lid as I had surmised when I saw the level was lower than I remembered. It was lower because someone had used some of it to poison Barry Stiles.
“Well?” Whit prompted.
“It’s a chemical used in pottery glazes.”
“I guess that would give you the means, you being a pottery guy.”
“I still say Duran is trying to pressure me. Barry died three weeks ago. If Duran thought the barium carbonate made me a suspect, why did he wait so long to get a warrant?”
“He just found out about it. They found a fresh needle mark when they did the autopsy on Stiles and a bump on his head that the coroner said was from a blow that was probably strong enough to knock him out but not enough to kill him. So they figured someone conked him on the noggin and shot him full of poison. Trouble is, the toxicology scan didn’t show any poison. There was evidence of a heart attack, so the coroner was thinking about going with that old standby, natural causes. Then Duran got an anonymous phone call on Sunday telling him Stiles died from barium carbonate poisoning. Seems barium carbonate is not one of the chemicals the toxicology scan tests for. That was pretty sharp of you, Hubert, to use a poison they wouldn’t find. If your accomplice hadn’t ratted you out, you would’ve gotten away with it.”
“Accomplice? I didn’t have an accomplice.”
“You done it all by yourself?”
“I didn’t do it at all, by myself or with an accomplice.”
“Think about it Hubert. Like you say, you got no reason to kill Stiles. Dorkmaster and Stiles had some sort of a run-in at the restaurant, maybe argued about whose silly hat should be taller. So Dorkmaster—”
“Dorfmeister.”
“Whatever. He decides to get you to help him. I can’t see you sticking a needle in anybody, so he probably just asked you to supply the poison, knowing you would get blamed.”
“But I didn’t get blamed. Nobody did. Since the coroner ruled natural causes, why would Jürgen implicate me by tipping Duran about the barium carbonate?”
“The coroner hasn’t filed his ruling yet, so your friend was still waiting for the shoe to drop. He got tired of waiting and decided to speed things along by calling Duran. But the good news is that if you tell Duran what really happened, you can probably get off with just accessory before the fact.” Then he apparently had a brainstorm. “Matter of fact, you could just say he borrowed some of that barium stuff, and you had no idea what he wanted it for. You might walk on this one.”
“I’ve got a better story. The barium carbonate was stolen from me, and I had nothing to do with the murder. And the best part about that story is it’s true.”
He looked disappointed. “Now when did truth ever have anything to do with it? What matters is what a jury believes. You try your story and you come off as a guy trying to wash his hands of any responsibility. But you say you were duped by a friend, and you get the sympathy vote.”
I told him I preferred to stick to the truth, and he told me I could call someone to look after Geronimo before going to the police station.
44
I called Layton Kent.
Layton would be a poor choice as a dog-sitter. He would worry about getting dog hair on his suit.
He is, however, the perfect man to call if you need a get-out-of-jail card.
He showed up at the police station in a dark blue wool suit tailored to fit his three-hundred pound body perfectly. There was a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket and a Patek Philippe Sky Moon Tourbillon watch on his wrist which probably cost him more than the gross national product of Nicaragua. His hair was slicked back without a part, his face unblemished, his fingernails freshly manicured. He always has an air of royalty about him, although it is his wife, Mariella, who is said to be descended from Don Francisco Fernandez de la Cueva Enriquez, Duque de Alburquerque, the man after whom our fair city is named, minus a now famously missing first ‘r’.
Layton is the most prominent attorney in town and Mariella the most prominent socialite.
His law practice is devoted almost exclusively to crafting documents that allow one to avoid taxes, and his clients are the people most in need of such services. That would be the fabulously wealthy. The rest of us would not benefit from his services because the fees he charges exceed the taxes we pay.
He stoops to practice criminal law only when a current client needs it, and – undeservedly – I am one of those clients. Indeed, I have required his assistance in so many criminal cases that he would have dropped me long ago were it not for the fact that Mariella is a collector of traditional Native American pots from New Mexico’s pueblos, and I am her personal dealer.
We were shown to an interrogation room and left alone, a treatment those represented by a public defender probably do not receive.
&n
bsp; “Well, Hubert. It has been almost six months since you were charged with a murder. Since none of my other clients have run afoul of the law in the interim, I was beginning to fear my criminal defense skills would atrophy. I suppose I should thank you for giving me an opportunity to stay at the top of my game.”
The pompous jackass part comes with the great attorney part, so I just ignored it and told him the entire story, during which time he had his eyes closed and his fingertips formed in a temple and resting gently against his lips. He insists on every detail no matter how small or seemingly unimportant, so it took me almost an hour to tell it all.
He remained still after I ceased my narrative. Had I not known him so well, I would have thought him asleep.
“Barry Stiles worked at Café Alsace,” he finally said, making me wonder why he noted that particular fact. “I ate there when it first opened. The food was unpalatable.”
Layton fancies himself a gourmet.
“Arliss Mansfield, Rafael Pacheco, and Wallace Voile also worked there,” he said. “Are you certain no others at Schnitzel were previously at Alsace?”
“Yes. Since Rafael is now at Schnitzel, I’m sure he would have recognized any former Alsace employees. He said just those three.”
“And the food was also bad at Schnitzel.”
“It will be much better when they re-open tomorrow,” I said.
He waved a hand dismissively. “Stiles’ death is likely rooted in something that happened at Alsace. But that is a matter to explore at trial in order to argue that other potential perpetrators are more plausible than you. Those would be Arliss Mansfield, Rafael Pacheco, and Wallace Voile. Means never trumps motive. And I would wager one of them has a motive. Furthermore, everyone working at Schnitzel had as much access to the barium carbonate as you did since your work area had no door and you were frequently not in it.”
The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier Page 14