Feast or Famine td-107

by Warren Murphy

  Smith read this with a visible sign of relief washing over his lemony face. Remo. He had made it out of Yugoslavia. No doubt there would be a NATO security team waiting to take him into custody once he reached Kaszar.

  Smith picked up the blue contact phone and placed a call to a U.S. Army major attached to NATO.

  "This is Colonel Smith. Pentagon," Smith said. "The hijacked aircraft due in from Sarajevo has been commandeered by a U.S. security agent returning from a sensitive mission. He is to be granted safe passage on a Military Airlift Command flight home."

  "Yes, Colonel. Where is he going? Specifically." "Wherever he wants to," said Harold Smith.

  "Understood, Colonel."

  Hanging up, Smith turned his cracked leather executive's chair. Long Island Sound danced under the noonday sun. The first sails of spring were ghosting across its blue expanse. For more springs than he ever imagined back in 1963, Smith had looked out through the picture window of two-way glass.

  How many more would Harold W. Smith, who had devoted his life to his nation's security, enjoy before he finally laid his aging bones in the rocky soil of his native New England?

  Heaven alone knew.

  Chapter 4

  As opening days went, this one was going to be a bitch.

  "It's going to be a bitch," Perry Noto muttered.

  "I still think it's a risky idea."

  "We had to reconcept. We were going down the tubes," he said as he walked through the deserted restaurant with its French-provincial decor.

  "We did better than that last reconcepting of yours."

  "The novelty wore off. You can get people to try braised alligator or buffalo steak, but they get tired of it. Our clientele was getting bored. They want excitement. They want adventure."

  "They want a decent meal for under forty bucks. Why can't we go nouvelle cuisine?"

  "That's too eighties."

  "Japanese is still popular. And with the small portions, we could make a bundle."

  "Insurance would kill us. Those damn knife juggias flipping and flinging those heavy blades in the customers' faces-before long, someone'd lose a nose and we'd lose our restaurant. No, this latest reconcept will work."

  "People are finicky about what they put in their stomachs."

  "Hey, they eat blue cheese. And blue corn is big now. Whoever heard of blue food? Show me something edible that's naturally blue. People eat Indian cuisine. That stuff tastes like rat in goat sauce. And Indian desserts might as well be sweetened rabbit pellets. Yet people flock to Indian restaurants."

  "People also understand the four basic food groups."

  "I thought it was five."

  "Four. They learn in school that you need so many grams of cereal grain, fruits, vegetables and meat."

  "Dairy products. That's the fifth basic food group. Not that anyone drinks dairy anymore."

  "Five. Five basic food groups. I stand corrected. It's five. Not four. Not six. But five." She held up five fingers.

  "Well, we just discovered the sixth."

  "People will not pay to eat bugs, Perry."

  "Not bugs. Arthropods. Or maybe insects. Don't say bugs. You say bugs, you might as well say snots. Or boogers."

  "Might as well say boogers. That's what we're serving up."

  "No, we are serving fried grasshopper on a bed of romaine lettuce. Chocolate-covered fire ants. Sweet-and-sour crickets. Yellow jacket au jus. Perfect grazing food. We are not serving anything people don't eat in other countries. This is L.A. We knock down cultural and culinary barriers every month. We'll sweep east with this revolutionary restaurant reconcept, and by the turn of the century, we'll be overseeing an empire of-"

  "McRoaches."

  Perry winced. "Don't say roach. Add it to the taboo list. We don't serve roach in our restaurant. That's going too far."

  "Maybe we should put that at the bottom of the menu in Florentine script. 'Positively no roaches served.'"

  "Not funny, Heather."

  "Not appetizing, Perry."

  Perry Noto looked at his wife, Heather. She was not hard to look at. Not after the tummy tuck, the boob job and butt lift. Her face had been spared the multiple plastic surgeries. It was a clean, sunscrubbed face and would be presentable for another three or four years even under the California sun. After all, Heather Noto was only twenty-six.

  "You could be blonder," he said, trying to change the subject.

  "What?"

  "Your hair. It could be blonder."

  "The next-lighter shade is platinum. Platinum blond went out with Jean Harlow."

  "Blonder."

  "Look. I've been ash blond, champagne blond, honey blond-all the way down to summer blond. I'm stopping here. My follicles can't take all this dying and rinsing."

  "Image is everything. Especially in our business."

  "If we don't imagine up a name for this latest wild hair of yours, our image will be guacamole."

  "I got just the thing."

  And from a shelf of New Age books-a relic of their failed macrobiotic plunge-Perry pulled down a red paperback, and opened it.

  "What's that?"

  "Thesaurus."

  "My question stands."

  "It's like a dictionary, except it shows you every possible variant on a word. Right now I'm looking up 'food.' "

  "You're on the wrong page. Try 'bugs.'"

  "Shh."

  Suddenly, Perry Noto's eyes flew wide. They became two white grapes under pressure with their seeds squeezed out.

  "I got it! I got it!"

  "What?"

  "Grubs!"

  "Grubs!"

  "It's perfect. 'Grub' is a synonym for 'food.' And a lot of perfectly scrumptious insects start off as grubs. We're serving them up before they get out of the larval stage."

  "Why not just call it McMaggots?" Heather asked bitingly.

  "Will you cut the shit?"

  "Who in their right mind would pay forty dollars an entree to eat in an eatery that calls itself Grubs?"

  "It's cute."

  "It's death." And with that, Heather Noto went to her own office bookshelf and took down a yellow book with a plastic cover.

  "What's that?" Perry asked suspiciously.

  "French dictionary."

  "We're not opening a French fucking restaurant."

  "And we are not opening a goddamn Grubs. Maybe a French name will take the sting out of the concept."

  "Sting. Good choice of words. What's French for 'grubs'?"

  "Give me a sec, will you, please?"

  Heather flipped though the pocket dictionary with peach-nailed fingers. "Damn. I mean maudit."

  "What?"

  "A grub in French is larve. Too close to 'larva.'"

  Perry brightened. "I like it."

  "You would." She turned her back on his curious face.

  "Try 'bugs,'" Perry prompted.

  "I am."

  "Well?"

  "'Bug' in French is insecte. Wait, there are synonyms galore."

  "I didn't known the French had synonyms."

  "Shh. Bacille. No, sounds too much like 'bacilli.' Oh, here's something interesting."

  Perry got in front of her and tried to read the page upside down. He got an immediate headache.

  "There's a French phrase for 'big bug.' La grosse legume."

  "I like the 'gross' part."

  "La grosse legume. It sounds like that stuff the French are forever putting in their consomme, legumes."

  "Are those bugs?"

  "No, beans."

  "Let me see that." He scanned the page. "Hey, here's a perfectly good word. Punaise. What do you think?"

  "Well, it rhymes with 'mayonnaise'.

  Perry Noto shifted his gaze to an imaginary spot on the ceiling. "I can see it now. La Maison Punaise..."

  "House of Bugs! Are you crazy?"

  "Hey, who's going to know?"

  "Everyone, once the menu falls open and they see poached dung beetle," Heather said archly.

  "L
a Maison Punaise. That's what we'll call it."

  "I like La Grosse Legume much better."

  "If La Maison Punaise bites the big one, that will be our fallback name when we relocate."

  "If this thing fails, we're not relocating. We're reconcepting. Retro concepting."

  "If La Maison Punaise doesn't go over, we're maggot meat."

  "That better not be on the menu."

  Perry Noto smiled. "I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy."

  LA MAISON PUNAISE OPENED to an A-list crowd of invitees only. The press was there. The stars were there. Most important of all, the food was going down their throats without coming back up again.

  "How are the chocolate-covered ants, Arnold?" Heather asked.

  A Germanic voice rumbled, "Scrumptious. I can hardly taste the ants."

  "What are these?" a famous actress asked Perry, holding up a toothpick on which was speared a blackened morsel.

  "That? Let me see, I think it's Japanese beetle, Cajun style."

  "I love Japanese food."

  "How does it taste?"

  "Crunchy."

  A ditzy blonde sauntered up and, with a serious face, asked, "I'm a strict vegan except for seafood. What can I eat?"

  "Seafood. Seafood," Perry repeated, his success-dazzled gaze wandering the room.

  "Silverfish cakes are coming up in a minute," Heather called over.

  "Oh, thanks so much."

  "Bon appetit, " said Heather, steering Perry aside. "I take back every bad thing I said," she whispered.

  "How's the kitchen?"

  "Busy as a beehive."

  "We're golden."

  "Don't count your honey until it's in the jar," Heather said archly.

  The insects and champagne flowed freely, washing down swarms of cinnamon chiggers and grubs in duck sauce. There was only one problem, and that was when the LA. Times restaurant critic complimented Perry on the popcorn shrimp and Perry had, not thinking, corrected him.

  "Those are locust larvae."

  "Larvae..."

  "Grubs. You know, you're eating grubs. Your grub is grubs. Hee-hee," he added, giggling at his own joke.

  The critic turned avocado and cured his suddenly active stomach by chugalugging a bottle of Chateau Sauterelle '61.

  "Let him go," Heather urged.

  "It's three hundred bucks a bottle."

  "It's a million dollars in free publicity if he's spiflicated when he writes his stupid review."

  In the end, the grand opening was a smashing success. The petty problems, liquor-license troubles and health-examiner payoffs were forgotten by the time the last guest left just after midnight.

  Perry turned to Heather, beaming. "We pulled it off. Admit it."

  "Okay, we pulled it off. Let's see if it lasts."

  "Are you kidding me? Insects are forever. They'll outlive us all."

  At that point, a weird humming came from the kitchen.

  "What's that?"

  Perry smiled broadly. "Tomorrow's profits exercising."

  They went to the vault door and through the traditional swinging doors into the kitchen. The building had formerly been a major bank. Instantly, their noses were assaulted by a plethora of odors. They had learned not to retch. Bugs tasted okay if they were sauced or simmered correctly. But they sure stank during preparation. Hence the vault door to protect the clientele's delicate sensibilities.

  The house chef was stooping over a wooden crate. It was buzzing.

  "What's this?" Perry demanded.

  "Did you order bees?" he asked, frowning.

  "I don't remember ordering bees."

  "This box is filled with bees-if I know the sound of bees."

  "Bees aren't on the menu," Perry insisted. Heather concurred. Bee bodies contained venom that was impossible to clear out. They were worse than Japanese blowfish, which could kill if the wrong portions were ingested.

  "Perhaps someone is making a suggestion."

  "No," said the chef of La Maison Punaise, who was, of course, French. Just in case they had to reconcept overnight.

  "Well, let's open it."

  Remy the chef took a short pry bar off a shelf and attacked the crate. It was held together with black metal strapping. It wouldn't budge.

  Perry found a pair of wire cutters and went snipsnip. The strapping spanged apart and coiled back, snapping at him. A piece of strapping caught him on the cheek, producing blood.

  "Be careful."

  Remy attacked the crate with the pry bar. The lid came off with a sharp screech of nails and the groaning of stressed wood.

  When they got the box open, they all saw that it was empty.

  But it was still buzzing.

  "What the hell is making it buzz like that?" Perry wondered aloud.

  "It sounds like abeilles," said Remy. "Bees."

  "I know it sounds like bees. But it's empty."

  At that point, the drone of the bees that weren't there changed in character. It swelled. It seemed to fill the kitchen with an all-pervasive sound. It was all around them.

  Perry smacked his right ear. It was a natural reflex. The sound seemed to have attacked his ear. Only it was short and sharp, like a mosquito.

  Then Heather slapped her left bosom. It jiggled. And kept on jiggling. Silicone was like that.

  Remy ripped his white starched hat off his head and began swatting the empty air around them and cursing in prickly French.

  The buzzing swelled and swelled, and as it ascended the scale in an increasingly angry drone, adrenaline overcame the Chateau Sauterelle buzz and they all looked at one another.

  "Let's get the hell out of here," Perry said.

  "I'm with you," said Remy.

  They ran for the swinging doors. No problem. The insistent sound seemed to follow them.

  They got to the vault door. It had fallen shut. No problem. Remy tackled the dog wheel.

  That was when the buzzing began to attack them. In earnest.

  They felt it as a pricking sensation on their skin at first. Then as heat. Hot heat. Painful heat. A million tiny red-hot needles might produce such a sensation.

  But when they looked at the backs of their burning hands, they could see nothing except a creeping redness. Like a rash.

  Perry looked up from his red palms to his wife's shocked face. It was turning red, too. An angry, embarrassed blush. Before his eyes, her pouty red lips seemed to twitch. And from one corner dribbled something white and vaguely waxy.

  "I think my paraffin injection is leaking," she said.

  Then she grabbed herself with both hands. "My boobs. They're wet."

  "Oh, God! A silicone leak."

  Remy had his own problems. He was scratching himself like a man with a million fleas.

  "Sacre Dieu! I am undone," he screeched.

  Then they couldn't breathe. They gasped and they began to choke. One by one, clutching their swelling throats, they fell to the stainless-steel floor.

  As his sight darkened, Perry Noto looked to his wife, and his last coherent thought was, She's breaking out in hives ...why is she breaking out in hives?

  THE BODIES later identified as Perry and Heather Noto of Beverly Hills and chef Remy Asticot were found the next night when would-be patrons of La Maison Punaise flocked to the trendy restaurant to sample the delicious popcorn shrimp glowingly described in the LA. Times.

  The L.A. County coroner performed an autopsy and discovered high levels of bee venom in the bodies of the three victims.

  What he didn't find was evidence of bee stings or the tiny barbs usually left in the skins of bee-sting victims. He searched every square millimeter of epidermis for a full working day to discover any hypodermic mark such as a needle might make. There were no track marks.

  Finally, in exasperation, he gave a news conference.

  "The victims would appear to have ingested toxic levels of bee venom during their last meal," he announced. "They died of anaphylactic shock, a condition normally the result of allergic reaction t
o bee toxin, or from massive bee stings."

  "Then why didn't the patrons also succumb?" a reporter asked.

  "Perhaps they didn't eat the same foods."

  "Dr. Nozoki, were traces of bees found in the victims' stomachs?"

  "I am no entomologist," said Dr. Togo Nozoki, "but the stomachs of the three victims were packed with insect materials-including antennae, carapaces, legs and other such matter. Digestion had begun. And bees lack the horny outer bodies of other insects on the menu."

  "Bees usually die after they sting. Why were no bees found in the premises?" another reporter demanded.

  "I can only conclude that the victims ingested every morsel of the bee delicacy that unfortunately felled them."

  This seemed to satisfy the media. And if the media was satisfied, the public was satisfied.

  No one thought very much of the fact that L.A. Coroner Togo Nozoki himself succumbed to a bee sting several hours later. Lots of people were hypersensitive to bee stings.

  Chapter 5

  The Military Airlift Command C-130 Hercules turboprop transport lumbered to a jolting stop at the end of the main runway at the South Weymouth Naval Air Station. When Remo had first moved to Massachusetts a few years before, the location had been chosen because of its convenient access to South Weymouth and its many military aircraft standing ready to take Remo to any spot in the world his missions required. The base had been targeted for closure several times. Each time, Harold W. Smith had pulled his invisible strings to get it taken off the closure list.

  Finally, the pressure to close the base had gotten so strong that the only way to save it was to risk showing Harold Smith's far-reaching hand.

  Harold Smith didn't like showing his hand. So he had allowed it to close. It was still technically open with a skeleton staff during the final environmental cleanup, so when the hydraulic ramp lowered to disgorge Remo, he stepped off the plane thinking that this would probably be the last time he was privileged to fly out of South Weymouth courtesy of Uncle Sam.

  A taxi was waiting for him courtesy of "Uncle Harold," who preferred that Remo be whisked from sight as soon as possible. The taxi took him to a shopping mall, where another taxi took over. Another Smith precaution. If Remo were to leave a trail of bread crumbs, Smith would personally eat them off the ground in the name of security.