Or maybe she hadn’t forgotten it so much as repressed it. Just thinking about the article annoyed her. It had annoyed her when it had come out, and it annoyed her now. The thing was nothing more than a big puff piece lauding Pearl’s prestigious clientele, her menu, and the excellent quality of her food. It ended by quoting Pearl’s slogan, “My Palate Is Your Assurance.”
“Assurance of what?” Bernie asked herself.
A passerby looked at her, and she realized she’d been talking out loud, something she did when she got upset. But the truth was Pearl’s food was awful. Not mediocre. Not slightly off. No. It was really, really bad. For heaven’s sake, Libby had spit out the chocolate pudding she’d bought there, and Libby never refused anything chocolate.
In fact, when Bernie had tasted the pudding she could have sworn it tasted just like one of those packets you get in the supermarket. Which meant to Bernie that despite what people said, yes, you could fool all of the people all of the time.
Bernie hadn’t shown Libby the article at the time it had come out because she hadn’t wanted to listen to the tirade she knew was going to follow about the uneducated palates of her fellow Americans. Actually, the only thing Bernie had wanted to know when she’d read it was who Pearl’s publicist was and could they get him too?
Oh well, Bernie thought as she took a last glance at the piece before she turned and hurried down the street. She wasn’t stopping here. There was no point. No one would talk about their employer when they were working in her store. Not if they wanted to keep their job. That was a given.
But she had found someone to speak to. Someone who was no longer working for Pearl Wilde. He was now employed as a bar back in a place called Sail on Seventy-sixth Street between Second and Third Avenues. It had taken her the better part of the morning to get that information.
Willie, a New York City food guy, notorious gossip, and hypochondriac had been more than usually grumpy, and it had taken the promise of two pumpkin cheesecakes to get Willie to give her what she wanted—to wit, the name of a disaffected worker from Pearl’s shop—without telling him why she wanted it.
“I’ll tell you the whole story when I can,” she’d promised him.
“Which will be when?” Willie had demanded. “Remember, I might not have that long to live.”
Since Willie had been saying that since her mother had introduced them over twenty years ago, Bernie had felt no compunction about replying, “Fine, I’ll bury the cheesecakes with you.”
“Very nice,” Willie had said. “Very nice way to talk.”
Bernie had laughed.
“Your mother wouldn’t have approved,” Willie said.
“Yes, she would, you old pretender and you know it. Now tell me what you’ve heard about Pearl Wilde.”
“Does this have anything to do with Hortense’s show?”
“Willie,” Bernie had said.
“Fine. Fine. I haven’t heard anything about Pearl’s operation.”
“That’s not like you,” Bernie had told him.
“She’s very secretive.”
“Most caterers are secretive,” Bernie replied, thinking of Libby.
“Well, her cooking crew works at night, and she mostly employs people whose grasp of English is, and I’m being charitable here, minimal.”
“So this guy Vasily you were telling me about doesn’t speak English.”
“No. He does. Just don’t ask him anything complex.”
Bernie wondered exactly what Willie had meant by that as she glanced at her watch. It was a little after two—Willie had said Vasily could talk to her between two and three. Before that, Sail had the lunch crowd and happy hour started around four.
Bernie walked hurriedly down the street, stopping now and then, despite herself, to glance at a particularly well-decorated window. She especially liked the candy store that had put a chocolate cathedral in the window. A sign next to it stated that it was available by special order. No price was given. But that didn’t surprise Bernie. In this zip code if you had to ask, you couldn’t afford it.
She didn’t know what Vasily could tell her about Pearl, but hopefully it was worth the drive down here, not to mention the money it was costing her to park her car in the garage. She was thinking about how expensive it was to live down here when she arrived at Sail. Bernie tapped her fingernails against her front teeth. She’d been here a couple of times five years ago when she’d been going out with the piccolo player. Then it had been an Irish pub. Not anymore.
The sign was gone. So was the old wood façade. Now it was gray slate. The only way to identify the place was by the neon sailboat in the window. If that’s what it was. Bernie squinted her eyes and cocked her head first to one side and then to the other. It kinda looked like a deranged triangle to her. As she stepped inside, she decided that she hated this new tendency of places to hide themselves away. Only the terminally hip need apply, or as Rob would have said, this place was too cool to survive.
Bernie nodded to the bartender and walked over to the back.
“Vasily?” she said to the guy stocking the shelves.
He looked small and muscular and had a large nose and a mop of black hair.
“Da,” he said.
“Hey, he’s got work to do,” the bartender called down. “You want anything, talk to me.”
Right, Bernie thought. Just what she needed. Another person to contend with.
Bernie walked back up and flashed the bartender her best smile. He seemed unmoved.
“I’m Vasily’s cousin—”
“No, you’re not,” the bartender said, cutting her off before she could even get the rest of her sentence out. “You want something from him, you have to go through me.”
Terrific, Bernie thought as she reached inside her pocketbook for her wallet. This was turning out to be an expensive afternoon.
“What will twenty bucks get me?” she asked.
“Twenty minutes.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
The bartender shrugged.
“But I’ll take it.” And bill Bree, Bernie said silently as she slid a twenty-dollar bill across the counter with the tips of her fingers.
“Fine,” the bartender said as he picked it up and put it in his pants pocket. He leered at her. “Sixteen cases of Sam Adams just came in, and your boy Vasily there has to stack them in the cooler, so don’t tire him out.”
“Sixteen cases is a lot,” Bernie noted, ignoring the innuendo.
The bartender smoothed down his hair. “The drinking and eating season is upon us.”
“And how.”
Bernie had read somewhere that most eating and drinking establishments made anywhere from ten to fifteen percent of their year’s income between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. She knew it was certainly true for A Little Taste of Heaven.
Bernie took a few seconds to check out the decor as she walked over to Vasily. The new owners had gutted the place. The whole thing was chrome, with colored back lights that highlighted the bottles of liquor on the call shelves.
The barstools were arranged in groupings of two and three. What happens if someone wants to sit by themselves? Bernie wondered as she surveyed the back, which was filled with low black leather furniture. Fascist decorating, Bernie thought as she approached Vasily.
Vasily nodded. She nodded back.
“Willie Wiggins said you speak English,” she told him. “He said you would help me.”
“Ah. My English not so good.”
“It seems good enough to me.”
“I understand. I no speak.”
Bernie took a twenty-dollar bill out of her wallet and held it in front of him. “How’s your English now?”
He shrugged.
She took out another twenty. “And now?”
“Now is better,” he said, reaching for the money.
Bernie laughed. There was no point in getting angry. “Half now, half later.”
“Is good,” Vasily said as he pocketed th
e twenty Bernie had handed him. “I used to ride horses in the big circus,” he told her. “But then I do this. I think I go home soon and ride horses again. So what you want to know?”
Bernie told him.
“So why you want to know this?”
“Private reasons,” Bernie told him. She watched Vasily think over her answer for a moment.
“She not nice lady,” Vasily said after a few more moments had elapsed. “She not nice at all.”
“How come?”
Vasily made a rolling motion with his hands. “She was always yellings. Yellings about this. Yellings about that.”
“I can imagine,” Bernie said, thinking about the way Pearl had rearranged the bagels and the muffins in the green room.
“She not nice. She fires me.”
Bernie fought down an image of Pearl circling Vasily with a lighter. “For what?”
“For taking this cheese, but I think she throwing it out, you know?”
Bernie nodded.
“I only take two slices.”
“Two slices isn’t much.”
“That is what I say. She no let us eat.”
Bernie shook her head. Now there was a rule that was impossible to enforce. At A Little Taste of Heaven, she and Libby encouraged whoever was working there to eat what they wanted. It was one of the side benefits of working in a job like that.
Vasily put his hand up and made a screwing motion near his head with his finger. “I think this lady a little nutty in the head.” Then he pointed to his breast pocket. “We go outside and I smoke, okay?”
“Okay,” Bernie said.
Bernie followed Vasily outside.
“You want?” Vasily said, motioning to the pack of cigarettes he’d taken out of his pocket.
“No, thanks,” Bernie told him. She’d quit three years ago, and she didn’t want to start again. “So what was it like working there?” she asked Vasily after he’d taken his first puff.
“How you mean?”
Bernie shrugged. She didn’t know what she was looking for. Actually, to be honest, she couldn’t imagine Pearl killing anyone—too messy—but she’d said she’d do this and so she was.
“I mean, was it busy? Were you always working?”
“I don’t know about busy. I only work at night.”
“At night?” Bernie asked.
“Yes, ten clock to three in the morning. I no like working like that. My system get all confused.”
That was kind of strange, Bernie thought. Most catering places started their prep work at four or five in the morning.
Vasily took another puff of his cigarette.
“So what did you do there?”
“I mix things.”
“Like what?”
“Like I take a big box and put in bowl and add water and mix and cook on top of the stove. It look a little like snow, but snow tastes better. In my country we don’t eat things like this.”
Bernie thought about what it could be. “Rice?”
Vasily shook his head. “We make Vodka with it.”
“Potatoes?”
Vasily nodded excitedly. “Yes. Yes. This is it.”
“Instant mashed potatoes?”
“Exactly,” Vasily replied.
My god, Bernie thought. People are paying twelve dollars per pound for instant mashed potatoes.
“Sometimes we play joke,” Vasily said.
“What kind of joke?” Bernie asked.
“Sometimes we put in much, much salt. Other times we put in the flavoring that you bake with …”
“Vanilla?” Bernie asked.
“Yes, vanilla,” Vasily said.
“But didn’t Pearl know?” Bernie asked.
Vasily took a last puff of his cigarette and flicked it onto the pavement.
“No. No. This lady cannot taste.”
“What do you mean?”
Vasily stuck out his tongue and pointed. “She no have these things.” And he pointed to the bumps on his tongue.
“You mean taste buds?”
Vasily nodded.
“Are you sure?” Bernie asked.
Vasily nodded again.
“Person in charge taste all food. Anyway, it all come in boxes. Just add water and mix. This is funny country where people pay people like that to make food for them.”
“It certainly is,” Bernie agreed.
Well that visit had been worth every penny, she decided as she walked back out onto the street. She called Libby and told her what she’d found out. I only hope my visit to the liquor store proves as fruitful, she mused as she stepped off the curb to hail a cab. Of course, Bernie reflected, Hortense could have used any liquor store, but she had a feeling Hortense had stayed close to home, which was why she started her inquiry with Harolds', the store closest to Hortense’s house. That didn’t pan out. The second place didn’t either. But Bernie hit pay dirt at Ye Olde Spirit Shoppe.
According to Fred, the liquor store owner, Hortense drank. She drank a lot.
“How do you know?” Bernie asked.
Fred put his hands together and touched his lips with the tips of his fingers.
“Simple,” he said. “You see,” he continued, “whenever Hortense had a party, she’d order cases of Grey Goose. I mean cases. That’s an alcoholic’s trick. They order five cases for twenty people. Now you know that twenty people aren’t going to drink that much. Believe me, she had a lot of parties. And that was a problem because my delivery boys didn’t want to go up there. I had to do it myself.”
“How come?” Bernie asked.
He leered. “She was always groping them. I would have been happy if some lady had done that to me when I was their age, but kids are different now—and not for the better either.”
“I guess that depends on your point of view,” Bernie told him.
Chapter 13
Libby put her knife down. She’d been in the middle of chopping up chicken for her curried chicken salad when Bernie called. They’d already sold out of it, and she wanted to get another batch ready before she had to leave.
“Say what?” she said when she heard what Bernie had to say.
“I know,” Bernie replied. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
It certainly is, Libby thought. “Maybe this Vasily guy is lying.”
“Maybe he is,” Bernie agreed. “But I don’t think so.”
Libby was stymied. How could Pearl do that?
“You can’t cook if you have no taste buds,” she noted. “That’s like a musician who’s deaf composing.”
“Beethoven did,” Bernie reminded her.
Libby cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear and went back to chopping chicken. “That’s true.” She couldn’t help thinking about how horrible life would be without the tastes of coffee and orange and vanilla. “It would be a terrible way to live.”
“It would be, wouldn’t it?”
“I can’t even imagine,” Libby replied. And she couldn’t. Libby heard some static and then Bernie’s voice came back on.
“From what Vasily said, I’m guessing Pearl is using packaged foods in her place.”
Yes! Libby said to herself as she did a little dance. “Remember I said her chocolate pudding tasted like a mix and you said no.”
Libby could hear Bernie sigh. “Okay. You were right. I was wrong. Satisfied?”
“I wasn’t asking for an apology,” Libby said. Always be magnanimous in victory. “Well, I wasn’t,” she said when Bernie snorted. A thought occurred to her. “That must be why her kitchen crew doesn’t speak English and why they work late at night,” Libby mused.
“My thinking exactly. That way they can’t tell anyone, at least anyone that matters, and no one sees what they’re doing.”
“Of course,” Libby continued, picking up her sister’s conversational thread, “lots of places use meat loaf mix and instant mashed potatoes.”
“But they don’t charge what Pearl charges, and they don’t have their taste buds insur
ed by Lloyd’s of London,” Bernie pointed out.
“True.” Libby scraped the chicken off the counter into a bowl with the edge of her knife. “If this were common knowledge—”
Bernie finished her sentence for her. “She wouldn’t have a business.”
“Exactly,” Libby agreed. She paused for a second to inspect the chicken to make sure she’d cut all the pieces into roughly the same size. It was a tiny detail, but in this business tiny details mattered. “I still don’t believe it. If that’s the case, how was she going to do the contest?”
“Now that,” Bernie said, “is an interesting question.”
Libby threw some golden raisins into the bowl along with a couple of handfuls of toasted chopped almonds. “Why is she even on the show? I mean, why would she subject herself to that kind of aggravation?”
“Another even more interesting question.”
“How can she possibly win?”
“She can’t. Unless the contest is rigged.”
Libby looked at her watch as she added the mayo and the curry powder to the chicken salad and stirred the whole thing around. She wiped a dab of mayo off of her finger, covered the bowl with Saran wrap, and stuck it in the frig.
“Have you gone to Reginald’s place yet?” Bernie asked her.
“I’m pretty much out the door,” Libby lied.
She hung up before Bernie could ask her exactly how much out the door she was. Because the truth was, Libby had no idea what to do about Reginald. She wasn’t good like Bernie with stuff like this. She really wasn’t chatty. She didn’t like to go up to people who she didn’t know and start a conversation. Bernie could talk to anyone, but she couldn’t.
Libby got some dough out of the fridge and cut it into three portions. At least she could make the crusts for the sweet potato pies while she ditzed out. She knew what Bernie would say, but baking helped her think. Should she go to Reginald’s store and talk to him? Should she talk to his vendors? If she did, what should she say to them? “Excuse me. Do you know if Reginald Palmer had a reason to kill Hortense Calabash?” Especially since people weren’t supposed to know that Hortense was dead. That certainly didn’t help.
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