A Brisket, a Casket

by Delia Rosen

  The truth was that Murray didn’t have it within him to consider what he would do if his musical career fizzled. He’d have pursued his dream at a full gallop even if it meant hurtling straight over a cliff into the abyss…and never, ever in a million years had gotten the idea to buy the property that Royce Ramsey was so eager to get his big, fat, groping entrepreneurial mitts on. It was Artie who’d kept suggesting he open a restaurant as a fallback, Artie who kept his eyes and ears open for the right location, Artie who’d helped my uncle secure the venture capital for getting the deli off the ground…

  And Artie, I thought, who’d always kept track of his financial affairs.

  “Well,” I said, sitting at my desk. “Here we are.”

  “Yep, Gwennie,” he said, clearing his throat. “We definitely are here.”

  We looked at each other. He’d picked his briefcase up off the floor, set it on his lap, and started fiddling with its handle.

  “Artie,” I said, “it’s good to see you. I mean it. But you are making me uptight.”

  “I am?”

  “Extremely,” I said.

  He stared at his hands as they played with the briefcase handle. They suddenly froze as if having been caught in an act of insubordination. “Sorry,” he said. “I get fidgety.”

  So I’d noticed. “Artie?”

  “Yes?”

  “I asked what was wrong over the phone.”

  “Right.”

  “And you answered that you wanted to discuss it in person.”

  “Yes…”

  “Which is why you came,” I said. “Isn’t that so?”

  Artie looked at me. “Definitely, definitely—”

  “Well, then, let’s discuss.”

  His eyes were on mine. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened and closed it again, swallowed. All without a peep.

  “Artie…”

  “Murray was having money problems,” he said, finally getting out the words. “His personal spending was well in excess of the income he drew from the restaurant…and it had put him in a spot.”

  “A spot.”

  “Right,” Artie said. “A tight one.”

  “Tight meaning…”

  “His mortgage, credit cards, taxes…he was behind in all his payments. Months and months behind.”

  I considered that a second. It wasn’t breaking news to me that Uncle Murray lived larger than he could afford. When I was a kid, my dad was always on his back about it—and about his fondness for betting on sports. “Artie, I understand about the spending,” I said. “But as far as the restaurant…I thought that was where you came in. That you kept a lookout over its finances.”

  “I did,” he said. “To the extent that I could manage.”

  I tried to digest that. “What are you saying? When Murray would call me in New York—I’d hear from him like clockwork every year on my birthday—he always seemed proud of how well this place was doing. I only ever heard him gripe when he talked about catered events.”

  “That old bugaboo,” Artie said. “So he’d give you earaches about them too, huh?”

  “It wasn’t like he’d bring it up all the time. But, yeah, he’d complain sometimes.”

  “To you and me both.” He gave out with a wistful chuckle. “Kosher Karaoke night was a pet peeve.”

  “Did he ever explain why?”

  “His grumbling wasn’t always logical from my perspective. As best I could follow, it had something to do with the discount rates and the type of food and drinks he’d have to provide.” Artie spread his hands. “Engagements, wedding receptions, showers, anniversaries…and then your corporate parties, of course…Murray tolerated them because they’d bring in potential new customers. But he felt special events in general were loss leaders.”

  “Would the earnings versus expense lines reflect that?”

  “I never knew for sure. The online payment system didn’t help. Not with the way Murray kept his records. In fact, I’m missing a bunch of those catering files…which is to say I never got hold of them. My guess is they’re buried somewhere in here.”

  I shook my head. “This is so confusing,” I said. “His estate lawyers led me to believe the deli was turning a solid profit.”

  “And it should have been.” He made a kind of broad, inclusive gesture at the office around us. “This place is so far beyond a shambles I don’t have words to describe it. Accounts payable, accounts receivable…do you really think your uncle, God rest his soul, was capable of staying organized?”

  “Not as most members of the human race know and understand the word,” I said. “It’s the reason I figured you’d done it for him. That you wrote stuff down in nice, ruled columns for pedestrian types like us who actually need to see it on paper.”

  “I did.” Artie sighed. “Getting him to follow my procedures was another story, though. I just couldn’t convince him. He had no clue who he owed money. By the same token, he had customers running up house tabs that were years past due. Running a successful business isn’t just about what you take in. It’s about cash flow. And he was totally neglectful.” He paused. “You know about the shoebox under the counter, right?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Murray was the softest touch, Gwennie. Especially when it came to struggling performers. Maybe because of his own past experiences, he couldn’t resist anybody trying to make it outside the nine-to-five world. Musicians, artists, athletes…you’d never hear him say no when they came to him for help, or even insist on being repaid within a reasonable period.”

  “And where does the shoebox come in?”

  “There’d be at least five hundred dollars in it on any given night, and I can tell you that’s an absolute minimum,” Artie said. “Murray kept it on the shelf below the cash register, and if a musician he knew said he needed a hand—whether because he couldn’t afford to string his guitar or pay his rent and utilities—you can bet your uncle would reach into the box. Add all that generosity to his operating expenses and his debts became unsustainable.”

  Artie fell silent and went back to fooling around with his briefcase handle. It occurred to me that his expression was now out-glumming mine by a wide margin.

  “How’d he manage to stay afloat for so long?” I asked. “It beats me that he could’ve done it without paying attention to what was coming in or going out.”

  Artie shrugged his shoulders. “I guess you could say he had a knack,” he said. “You’re probably too young to appreciate the comparison, but he reminded me of the plate spinners I used to watch on the Ed Sullivan Show. One guy, an Italian circus performer, I remember he’d have a high, narrow pole balanced on his forehead, another two on his shoulders, a bunch more on the floor. There’d be plates whirling on top of them, and when one started to wobble, he’d give it a fresh spin, then move to the next one, and the next, and the next after that…and somehow, don’t ask me his secret, he’d manage to keep them from crashing down around him and breaking into smithereens.”

  I sat there shaking my head. The picture Artie was drawing was worse than I’d expected. “Do you have a financial workup I can see?” I said.

  He nodded and started to open his briefcase. “I figured you’d want one. I’m told you’re no slouch in the accounting department.”

  “You mean it?”

  Artie paused with his hands on the latches. He seemed confused. “Sure…why do you ask?”

  “I’ve gotten the feeling that people around here don’t know or care anything about my background. Thomasina seems to think I was shipped straight from the pampered princess factory.”

  “Don’t let her fool you.” He flapped a dismissive hand. “Murray would always brag about your Wall Street consulting work. To hear it from him, you should’ve been put in charge of the national treasury. And if I heard it, she did too. Probably more because they spent so much time together.”

  A smile touched my lips. “I suppose,” I said, and stuck my chin out at his briefcase. “What is it you wer
e just getting from in there?”

  He looked back down at it as if suddenly reminded, snapped open the lid, and removed a large brown padded envelope. “I copied my charts,” he said, holding it out. “I have paper printouts, a CD, whatever you prefer.”

  I took the envelope from his hand. “Thanks, Artie. I’ll give them a look.”

  “The account listings are grouped by assets and liabilities,” he said. “It’s pretty basic stuff compared to what you were used to evaluating in New York.”

  I set the envelope down on the desk between us and sat there in silence awhile. Then I noticed him shifting around on his ad hoc stool. “That pile of boxes looks really uncomfortable,” I said, glancing at my watch to discover it was already lunchtime. “You sure you don’t want to join me for coffee downstairs? Or maybe a bite to eat? It’s fresh cholent day in case you forgot.”

  “How could I? My back’s achy but my nose is working fine,” Artie said with a grin. “Much as you’ve tempted me, I have a full plate of things to do this weekend…you’ll forgive the expression.” He stretched a little, massaging the base of his spine. “Guess all those years I’d sit hunched over a drum kit took its toll.”

  Smiling faintly again, I got up, walked Artie through the obstacle course of cardboard boxes between us and the door, then accompanied him into the short hall off the second-story landing.

  He was sharing some parting thoughts when I found myself momentarily distracted by something on the floor below. Or rather by its absence.

  “Gwennie, you okay?” he asked.

  I snapped, my attention drifting back to him, embarrassed. “Sorry, I’ve been a total scatterbrain since last night.”

  Artie made a sympathetic face. “Don’t apologize. I realize I’ve dumped a lot on your shoulders, and that you had enough of a load beforehand,” he said. “I have to ask, though…have you considered what you’re going to do next?”

  I shrugged. “Dunno, Artie. Buy a dozen lottery tickets maybe?”

  It was a joke, people. I repeat, a joke. Not that hitting the million-dollar jackpot wouldn’t have solved a great many of my problems.

  Artie smiled, and I smiled back, neither of us looking too amused as we turned to go our separate ways.

  Chapter Eight

  Artie had no sooner turned into the kitchen than I decided I’d head down to the restaurant too…though I guess he must have left through the side door, because he was gone before I reached the bottom of the stairs.

  I’d lied moments earlier when giving him the reason for my divided attention. It had nothing to do with being scattered noggin-wise, and everything to do with the silence below us. Thanks to Murray’s cholent, Saturday always had been the busiest lunch day of the week, filling the place to capacity. That typically meant waves of noise from rattling dishes, clinking glasses and silverware, and most of all customers enjoying themselves.

  Silence never boded well in an eatery. And it seemed an even more ominous sign in view of the morning headlines about Buster Sergeant.

  Taking a deep breath, I pushed through the kitchen doors and stood looking out over the empty dining floor.

  Empty, that is, aside from a very disconsolate staff headed by Thomasina Jackson. Frowns on their faces, they were all staring at the deli’s entrance like wax figures in some mournful abandoned gallery. Old Vernon, the waiter, was the only one who was remotely animated, if you could use that word to describe his rubbing a rag over an already spotless tabletop.

  “Lucky thing this bunch here can eat bigger than horses at hay time…me excluded,” Thom said, turning to face me from where she stood near the door. “Would’ve been a shame if Newt’s cookin’ went to waste ’cause nobody else in town has any kind of appetite.”

  “For our food anyway,” Vern said without raising his head. “Unless, I suppose, all Nashville’s gone on a strict calorie count today.”

  “Yeah,” Thom said. “How about we call it Buster Sergeant’s Drop Dead Diet?”

  I frowned. “That isn’t funny,” I said.

  “Who’s jokin’?” Thom said. She gestured toward the front door. “What do you see when you look outside, Nash?”

  Regardless of whether she’d meant it to be rhetorical, the question needed no answer. The bright, beautiful early summer morning had turned into an equally perfect day, and Broadway was hopping with foot traffic.

  “Maybe we ought to get the exhaust fan blowing out of the kitchen so people can smell the food,” Luke said. “I hear that’s a good way to bring them in off the street.”

  Thom scowled. “Well, Luke, aren’t you a genius? I’m thrilled you finally got that trick figured out. I mean, now that we been doin’ it ever since you was wigglin’ around your nursery room in skintight diapers—”

  “Okay, enough, give it a rest.” I chopped my right hand against my left palm. “This bickering won’t help if there’s a problem.”

  “If?” Vern had finally raised his eyes from the tabletop, a hangdog look on his face. “We gotta face facts, Nash. The restaurant is doomed.”

  I turned to him, my mouth gaping open. “Doomed? How can you say that? Just because one man passed away here last night…”

  “A famous man everybody round this way knows, loves, and respects.”

  “Okay, granted,” I said. “To qualify, just because a man I will freely concede everybody in Nashville is crazy about happened to die here…”

  “Under suspicious circumstances,” Vern interrupted again. “Which, I heard on my car radio, might have to do with our meat bein’ spoiled.”

  I looked at him. Spoiled, no way. Injected with outlawed coyote poison? Eh, maybe. But if the police were right about that, and Buster Sergeant had been specifically targeted for murder, it only went to confirm there was nothing wrong with our quality control. And that anybody whose name wasn’t Buster was probably good to go for lunch. “Vern…do you actually believe it could happen a second time?”

  “What he thinks don’t count,” Thom said. “Neither does what you, I, or anyone else in this place thinks.” She jabbed her chin in the direction of the busy sidewalk. “It’s whatever they think out there that counts enough for all of us put together. And I can hardly blame them for stayin’ away. Folks hereabouts have managed to get over your uncle bein’ gone. But when worse news piles on top of bad news, and every bit’s associated with Murray’s deli, it’s natural for ’em to seek out another place to eat.”

  I was shaking my head in frustration. “This is unbelievable,” I said, looking around at my staff. “My God…what are we, a bunch of quitters?”

  “Quitters this, quitters that…and would you please stop usin’ His name in vain?” Thom said. “Like Vern was tellin’ you, we got to face reality. And from what I can see—”

  “Hola!” Medina Ramirez blurted in Spanish. A short, dark-haired woman of generous proportions, she’d stood quietly near a booth, her arms folded across her middle. But now she was suddenly gesticulating past me at the door. “Is foxes!”

  Is foxes? I had trouble deciphering Medina’s broken English even when she was calm and making nominal sense. But right at that moment I had no clue what she was talking about.

  I turned toward the front of the restaurant, looking straight up the center aisle…and all at once felt something on my face that had been missing in action since before the karaoke disaster—namely a smile. And not just any smile, but a big, unrestrained, happity-hap-happy highbeam of a smile. Foxes, of course! With everything that had been on my mind, it was no wonder I’d temporarily forgotten about them.

  Still grinning from ear to ear, I hurried toward the door to welcome my diners. Happity-hap-happy, yahoo!

  Chapter Nine

  “Why’s everybody so down in the dumps?” asked Mary Ann Fox, leading her group through the door. “I didn’t see a sign in the window about a wake!”

  I should mention that a group of foxes is properly called a skulk, though I’m not sure Mary Ann would have been enthused with the term,
being that she and the women who’d arrived with her definitely weren’t accustomed to skulking around anywhere. On the contrary, they came, they saw, and they strutted.

  Also, while I’m on a language kick, there’s also no righter time to clarify that Medina had meant to use the term “Silver Foxes”—as opposed to just plain “foxes”—when she’d been pointing excitedly at the door a few seconds before. Besides being a brutal syntax scrambler, she was a habitual word whacker.

  Mary Ann Fox, then, was the founder and leader of the Silver Foxes. A group of women rather than bushy-tailed animals of the sort Johnny Weir occasionally sported on his shoulder while skating.

  I won’t harp on my inability to understand half of what left Medina’s mouth. Her grasp of the language was shaky at best, but as a Mexican immigrant she had a natural excuse. More so than A.J., for instance, who wasn’t too understandable herself most of the time…and she’d been born and raised in the great American state of Tennessee.

  Now I took a quick head count of the women behind Mary Ann and saw that over twenty had accompanied her. They included the rest of the club’s core four—Somerset Vaughn, Frances DePaul, and Loretta “Lolo” Baker, all of whom had introduced themselves to me at Uncle Murray’s memorial service.

  Twenty, I thought. The size of the roster pleasantly overwhelmed me.

  “Mary Ann,” I said, walking up to greet her. “I had no idea your group was coming in.”

  “Isn’t it Saturday, darling?”

  “Yes…”

  “And didn’t I tell you at Murray’s sendoff that we hold our weekly luncheon here every Saturday?”

  I nodded. The funeral was largely a blur, but I did recall it. “We’re really delighted to see you,” I said, hoping she hadn’t mistaken my surprise for something negative. “It’s just that, well, we…”