He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
He unlocked the door and pushed it open. It swung back towards the frame but did not quite close. He walked to the desk and looked down at his open ledger.
“Why were you looking at my books?”
“I wasn’t,” I said in a voice that even I didn’t believe. “Like I said, I saw the—”
“Yeah, yeah. You saw the window gone and wanted to check the safe. And you came to look for your missing watch when no one was here.”
He reached into his jacket and came out with a gun. I don’t know anything about guns, but I knew everything I needed to know about this one; namely, it was pointed at me.
“Sit down,” he ordered, motioning with the gun barrel toward his office chair.
I sat.
He looked at me and laughed. “You of all people. I knew there was a risk someone would figure it out, but not you. Never you. You know nothing about restaurants. How did you do it? How did you figure it out?”
I tried to make a hasty calculation. Should I continuing to play the innocent or should I admit I had figured it out? Which would make him less likely to use that gun?
“You made a mistake,” I said.
“What was it?”
“When you left my shop that first day, you said, ‘You won’t regret this, Mr. Schuze’.”
“So?”
“You introduced yourself as Santiago Molinero, but all I said to you was, ‘I’m Hubert, but people generally call me Hubie’. Yet you called me by my last name as you left.”
“So? I could have known your last name before I entered the place.”
“Obviously, you did know it. But you pretended you needed to use the bathroom and picked my shop only because it was empty.”
He seemed to be weighing options. “You did look at the books, right?”
I nodded.
“And?”
“They are strictly on the up and up,” I said.
“But you knew there had to be another set. That’s why you were trying to open the safe.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said with more bluster than I felt. “There’s no way I could open that safe. Why would I even try?”
“Because you’re a dreamer and a fool.”
That stung, even considering the source.
“I did know who you were,” he said with a cocky expression on his face. “I knew a lot about you. You were almost perfect for my purposes. I could run up expenses by having you make special chargers. And you’ve been charged with murder before, so I figured if I had to get rid of anyone, your record would make you a good suspect, especially if I used one of your glazing chemicals for rodent control.”
“And the rat was Barry Stiles,” I said.
“He recognized me. He threatened to expose me if I didn’t fire Kuchen.” He gave a short raspy laugh. “Can’t have rats in a restaurant.”
He aimed the gun at me.
“Why ‘almost perfect’?” I said to keep him talking.
“What?”
“You said I was ‘almost perfect’ for your purposes. Why almost?”
“I knew you had been an accountant. That worried me a little, but I figured all you were going to do was make chargers. I had no idea the staff would cook up this hare-brained idea of an Austrian/Fusion restaurant and even less that you would get involved.”
“Why did you let them go through with it?”
He shrugged. “I guess it won’t hurt to tell you at this point. As you saw in the meeting, I was opposed to it at first. But I was thinking while that idiot Billot was talking. I figured if I refused to let them try, they might attempt to track down the investors and get them to approve the plan. The staff seemed determined, and I didn’t want them snooping around. But the best reason for me to let then go forward was I thought they would make the failure story even more complete. I still can’t believe those idiots are making money.”
“So when they started turning a profit, you tried to undermine them by making an anonymous call to the police telling them to check Barry Stiles’ body for barium carbonate.”
“Yeah, that was me. What else?” he asked.
“You got Wallace Voile to picket.”
His eyes narrowed. “You know too much.”
“I know you swindled the investors,” I admitted, “but I have no interest in that. I just want to get out of here and forget the whole nightmare.”
“If you’re not interested in the swindle, why were you poking around in my office?” He waved the gun at me. “And don’t tell me any crap about a burglar being here before you arrived.”
“O.K.,” I said, “here’s the truth. I was trying to get into the safe to get back my five thousand dollars.” I told him about the advance I had made to pay the staff the morning after the Grand Re-opening. Or Second Opening. Or Second Coming. By whichever name, I wished it had never happened.
“Forget the five thousand dollars,” I said. “Use it to fix the window I cut. Just let me walk away. I’ll never say anything about the swindle.”
An evil grin curled his lips. “You’re forgetting about Barry Stiles.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” I bluffed. “I barely knew him.”
“Which is why the cops let you go. That and the fact they think Dorfmeister it.”
I shrugged. “Maybe he did.” I felt like a rat saying it, but my life was on the line, and I could always apologize to Jürgen later. Unless he turned out to be the accomplice.
A light seemed to go on in Molinero’s eyes. “What the police need is stronger evidence. Like a confession. And you’re going to write one. Pick up that pen.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I shouted.
He was manic now, his face pulsing through a rainbow of orange and red shades. “I know that, but the police don’t. Write this: I killed Barry Stiles.”
“There’s nothing to write on.”
“Use the desk blotter, you shrimp.”
“Don’t you think the police will wonder why I broke into your dead-bolt-locked office to write a confession? Maybe they’ll figure out you forced me to do it.”
“Write it on a piece of paper. I can plant it somewhere else.”
I started to open the top right-hand drawer.
“No tricks,” he said. “Open the drawer on your left.” He said he knew a lot about me, but he obviously didn’t know I’m left-handed.
The drawer on the left was just under the plastic tub of jalapeño juice. My heart was pounding and my hand shaking, but I managed in one continuous motion to grab the jug and sling its contents in his face. The jalapeño juice wasn’t useless after all.
Molinero yelped and bent over in pain when the stinging liquid hit his eyes. I raced around the desk before he could regain his composure and pushed him to the ground. I flung the door aside and ran headlong into the chair I had placed on the kitchen side of the door.
Which was a good thing because that was probably why the bullet that whizzed by missed me. I rolled to the side to escape Molinero’s line of fire. But when I started to get up, I saw M’Lanta Scruggs running at me with a pistol in his hand.
The first thought that ran through my mind was I was right about him being the accomplice. He had been first on my list because of his being able to get into Molinero’s office.
My second thought was I am about to die.
He raised the pistol. I closed my eyes. Another bullet whizzed by. I heard a scream from behind me and then a thump. I opened my eyes and turned to see Santiago Molinero sprawled on the floor, his gun in his hand. His ochre face had streaks and blotches the color of normal Caucasian skin.
Shaking uncontrollably, I turned back to see Scruggs walking calmly towards me, gun in hand. There was nothing I could do. Even if there had been, I was too scared to do it. He stood over me like a black Goliath. He opened his jacket and returned the gun to a shoulder holster. Then he reached into his coat’s inner pocket and pulled out a leather folder. He extended
it down with his long arm and flipped it open to reveal an impressive shield.
“Charles Webbe,” he said, “Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
56
I held my glass up to the light. “Nopalitos,” I said
“What about them?” asked Susannah.
“I just realized it. Margaritas are the same shade of green as nopalitos.”
She lofted her glass. “You’re right.”
Angie materialized next to us. “You two wanting a refill?”
“Just admiring the color,” I said.
“But since you’re here,” said Susannah, and Angie smiled and left to get refills.
“So what was the big break-through you were about to explain?” Susannah asked.
“I was sitting in court while a senile-looking judge, Layton, and a woman named Rincon from the D.A.’s office discussed my future. The longer they talked, the more nervous I became. I felt so... helpless. It was my future, but I had no say in it. I was a piece of driftwood on the river, a cog in a wheel. I was being ground by the wheels of justice, I—”
“Cut the metaphors, Hubie, and get to the point.”
“Right. I was in a mill. ‘Mill’ – that was the key word. I thought of the Moulin Rouge because moulin means mill in French. Then I realized it’s a cognate with the Spanish word for mill, molina.” I looked at her. “That’s not as common as you might suspect. French and Spanish are both romance languages, but they don’t share—”
“Hubert, I’ve got class tonight. Can you get to the point? I won’t be able to concentrate if you leave me hanging about this mystery.”
“Sorry. So molina took me to molinero, the Spanish word for the person who operates a mill.”
“A miller.”
“Right. And then I remembered Rafael listing all the people he remembered from Café Alsace.” I did a little drum roll on the table. “One of them was Jim Miller, and he was the manager.”
She stared at me.
“Jim, get it? Short for James. Which in Spanish is Santiago.”
She stared some more. Then she said, “So Jim Miller and Santiago Molinero had the same name in two different languages? That’s the big breakthrough clue?”
“No, they shared more than just a name. They are – were – the same person.”
“There must be lots of people named Santiago Molinero and even more named James Miller. That doesn’t make them all the same person.”
“Of course not. But these two were.” I hesitated. “Or this one was? I don’t know how to talk about two people being one. Anyway, there were other clues pointing in that direction, but I didn’t see them until I thought about the two of them being one.”
“Such as?”
“In the order in which I saw them—”
“Or the order in which you missed them,” she said. We both laughed just as Angie showed up with our refills.
“I guess you’re glad to see me,” she said.
After Angie left, I continued my explanation. “It might be a coincidence that there was a James Miller at Alsace and a Santiago Molinero at Schnitzel, but for them both to be the manager is a double coincidence. That was enough to start me wondering.”
She perked up. “You were right to start wondering. The hardest part about an alias is remembering it. You decide to call your self Frank Smith and then the next day, you introduce yourself to someone as Fred Smith or Frank Jones and blow your cover.”
“Really?”
“Sure. It happens all the time.”
“How many people have you ever known who adopted an alias?”
“Dozens. In murder mysteries, Hubie.”
Here we go again, I thought.
“So,” she elaborated, “what they do is choose something based on their real name. Like Richard Franklin might become Frank Richards.”
“And James Jesse might become Jesse James,” I added.
She cocked her head to the side. “I didn’t know he used an alias.”
Neither did I.
“So what was the next step?” she asked.
“His skin was a weird color. At first, I just thought it was odd. But when I started speculating that Molinero might be Miller, I figured it must have been that rub-on instant tanning lotion. Turns out I was right, and guess what?”
“What?”
“Jalapeño juice is a solvent for that stuff. The parts of his face I splashed the jalapeño juice on turned back to his normal skin color. It was weird looking at his face there on the floor—”
“I don’t need to know what he looked like dead. Maybe he just wanted that outdoorsy look a tan gives you.”
“But he also had a beard.”
“Lots of people have beards. And lots of people with Hispanic last names have light skin, so he didn’t need to color his skin to appear Hispanic.”
“But he wasn’t trying just to look Hispanic. He was also trying to look different. He needed not to resemble his former self because he knew some people who applied for jobs at Schnitzel might be from Café Alsace or one of the other places he’s started.”
“There were others?”
“Schnitzel was his sixth restaurant, all colossal failures.”
She shook her head in amazement. “I don’t get it. Why would someone who failed so often keep… Oh my God! He wanted to fail. It’s like that movie, The Producers, where the accountant teams up with a Broadway producer to deliberately produce a flop. They raise more money than they spend, so when the play closes, they pocket the surplus. The investors figure everything is gone and don’t even pursue it.”
“Exactly. And remember the name of the musical they produced?”
“Who could forget it? Springtime for Hitler. But audiences decided it was a spoof, and the play became a hit.”
“So no failure and no unspent money to pocket. See a parallel here?”
She slapped the table and laughed. “Schnitzel was the restaurant equivalent of Springtime for Hitler, a restaurant doomed to failure.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And it became Chile Schnitzel and began to succeed like Springtime for Hitler. So he had to undermine the restaurant.”
“Let me guess,” she said. “He’s the one who called the police about the poison being your glazing chemical.”
“Right.”
“And he somehow got Voile to take the wait staff out on strike.”
“Right.”
“And then he sicced the D.A. on you for larceny.”
“He must have, although he didn’t admit that one because I didn’t ask him about it before the shooting started.”
She brightened. “And I’ll bet he told Voile to flirt with Rafael so he wouldn’t be thinking about Molinero and possibly recognize him.”
“I hadn’t thought of that one.”
“That’s because you date two women at once.”
“I don’t date…” I saw she was laughing and cut short my reply.
“Anything else that made you suspicious of Molinero?”
“Yeah, when I took him the glazed sample and the drawing of the edelweiss overlay, he approved them with barely a glance.”
She was seeing it all now. “He had insisted that you had to do the work in the restaurant. You thought it was because he wanted oversight and control.”
“Right.”
“But what he really wanted was for the glazing chemicals to be there in case he needed to poison someone.”
“He said it’s important to have rodent control in a restaurant.”
She shuddered. “Any other clues that Miller and Molinero were the same guy?”
“No, but there was one that should have made me realize he probably wasn’t Hispanic. Remember me telling you that during the meeting about restarting the restaurant, Molinero stopped opposing the idea and ask for a show of hands of those in support of the fusion idea?”
“Yeah, but why did he do that? He must have known the vote would be in favor.”
“Of course. But he thought C
hile Schnitzel would be an even bigger failure than Schnitzel. He thought we were unwittingly advancing his scheme. So he allowed the vote and appeared very magnanimous in doing so. But when he called the vote, Juan asked him to repeat it in Spanish for the benefit of the staff who didn’t speak English. So Molinero said, ‘Si les gusta este nuevo plan, levanten los manos’.”
“So?”
“He said it incorrectly. It should be las manos, not los manos.”
“I thought Spanish words ending in ‘o’ were always masculine.”
“Almost always. But mano is one of the few exceptions.” I raised my eyebrows in anticipation.
She eyed me warily. “O.K., I’ll bite. Why is mano an exception?”
“Because mano is derived from the Latin manus which was a fourth declension feminine noun.”
She rolled her eyes. “Four years of Latin and all you got from it is a chance to show off once in a while.”
“Not true. Father Groas and I occasionally exchange Roman greetings.”
57
Charles Webbe showed up at Spirits in Clay promptly at ten as we had agreed. He wore a dark blue suit, a starched white shirt and a regimental tie. His black shoes were polished to a gloss.
So was his head. He had sheared the dreadlocks and shaved what remained, including the beard.
I led him to my kitchen where he accepted my offer of fresh coffee. I had put away my usual cheap brand in favor of New Mexico Piñon Coffee.
“How do you take it?” I asked him.
“Black,” he said. “Like your girlfriend.”
We both laughed. I offered him a cuerno de azucar. He managed to eat it without a single grain of sugar flecking his clothes.
I looked him in the eye, something that was harder to do than it should have been.
“You saved my life.”
He shrugged. “It’s what we do. The Director gets out of sorts when we lose a civilian.”
“I owe you an apology. I thought you were going to shoot me.”
“No need to apologize. I generally have the same feeling when someone is running at me with a gun.”
“But I thought you were Molinero’s accomplice.”
“Because you saw me in his office.”
The Pot Thief Who Studied Escoffier Page 19