If You Can't Stand the Heat

by Robin Allen

  I checked the Statesman’s website and read, “Chef Jailed, Owner Hospitalized” on the home page. As if one caused the other. A better story about Mitch would have been headlined, “Hippie Hits Head, Sings Show Songs.”

  I prepared coffee to brew, then checked in with Nina. Mitch still had low blood pressure and the doctors wanted to run some tests, so he might be hospitalized for another day or two. She told me that Mitch approved of re-opening the restaurant early. “He feels better that you’re out there managing the restaurant for us and taking care of Ursula.”

  I wanted to correct her, tell her that I was doing neither, but she wouldn’t have listened.

  It was late morning when I pulled into Markham’s front parking lot and noticed something odd by the front door. A big something. As I drove closer, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had only ever seen one on television, but the size and swiftness of its appearance would have made a flash flood proud.

  Brightly colored cards leaned against bouquets of fresh roses and daffodils. Photographs cut from magazines rested in heart-shaped frames decorated with glitter. Interspersed were crystal crosses, tongs, spatulas, and old and new stuffed animals, teddy bears mostly, but a few true foodies had hunted down foxes to honor the memory of Évariste Bontecou, the French Fox.

  I parked and approached the slapdash memorial. It blocked the front doors, so it couldn’t stay there, but a lot of it could be recycled. We could shorten the stems of the flowers and put one or two in small vases on each dining table. We could also take the new stuffed animals to a women’s shelter or children’s hospital. I bent down and picked up a few of the cards. “We’ll miss you, Évariste!!!!!!!” “U R the BEST chef in the world.” “Cook one for the Gipper.” Those could be bundled up and sent to BonBon.

  I heard rumbling along the blacktop and saw Amado rolling a large garbage can around the side of the building toward the front. He had started washing dishes for us when he was fifteen years old, and is now in his late twenties with two kids and another on the way. He has seen Markham’s through four chefs, including Ursula, which makes him not only loyal, but tolerant.

  “Buenas dias, amigo,” I said.

  He smiled. “Your accent needs work, gringita.”

  I laughed. “So does yours.”

  He looked at the mess in front of us. “Why these people doing this?”

  We watched a silver pillow balloon bob in the breeze. It had a picture of a black tombstone with R.I.P. on one side and “Look Who’s 40!” on the other. These people couldn’t be bothered with fresh balloons? “It’s a tradition made popular when Princess Diana died a few years ago.”

  He began winding clean white aprons around each arm to act as protective sleeves, then stooped and wrapped his arms around a section of flowers and dumped them into the garbage can. So much for recycling.

  “How do they know this man?” he asked.

  “They don’t know him. I’d like to believe they want to acknowledge that a life was lost, but more likely they’re just following the crowd, doing what everyone else is doing without thinking about whether they need to spend time and money to honor the memory of someone they didn’t even know.” I scanned the empty parking lot. When had Évariste’s fans been here? “They probably hope a television crew will catch them in the act and interview them. There are lots of aspiring actors in this city.”

  He pointed to one of the cards. “What is this word, ‘admirer’?” He used the Spanish pronunciation, ad-mee-rer, emphasizing the last syllable.

  “Admirer,” I said. “It means that someone likes and respects him.”

  Amado spat into the trash. “What is there to like? He is mean and bad. To everybody. If I didn’t herry with a derty pot, he scream at me. He was especial mean to Belize. Gordo cabrón.” He spat again.

  “How was he mean to Belize?”

  Amado stepped on a pink envelope addressed to Chief Bontikoo. “Always she was crying after he talk to her.”

  “Did she tell you what they talked about?”

  “I ask her, but she tell me ‘Nada, nada, Amado.’ Nothing.” He picked up a stuffed teddy bear and tweaked its nose before throwing it into the trash. “Gordo cabrón.”

  A horn beeped and I turned around to see Trevor pull up on his motorcycle. Will’s better idea. Of course—that’s what sous chefs are for, to take over for the head chef when she’s been jailed.

  I usually saw Trevor working in the kitchen, his body covered by a baggy uniform, his hair secured under a hat. That day he was dressed in a wrinkled Metallica t-shirt, colorful tattoos illustrating his biceps and sinewy forearms. He pulled off his helmet, releasing dark blond hair that had grown past his shoulders since the last time I had seen it down. He looked hung over, but the dark circles under his eyes gave him a rakish look.

  “Hey Popstar,” he said, revving the engine, “want to go for a ride?”

  I didn’t want Trevor to end up being the murderer, but knew I would have to keep my personal feelings in check, both positive and negative, if I wanted to get to the truth. “Next time I feel like risking my life.”

  “That a promise?” he asked, revving the engine once more before cutting it.

  I said adios to Amado, then followed Trevor through the front door and into the dining room. The dirty dishes and linens had been cleared, and several waiters and waitresses busied themselves relocating all the tables and chairs into the second dining room so they could mop the main one.

  “Your hair is getting long,” I said.

  “Chicks dig it.” He dropped a white paper bag on the table closest to the door, then sat and pushed out a chair for me with his foot. “Want one? Potato, egg, bacon, and cheese.”

  “You know I don’t eat chicken embryos,” I said.

  “More for me.” He opened the tortilla of one of the tacos, poured a plastic container of hot sauce along the length of it, then pinched the sides together and ate it in three bites. He did the same with another taco.

  “What happened to your hand?” I asked, pointing to a small cut.

  He rolled his wrist. “Huh. No idea. War wound in the line of duty.” He opened another taco. “Have you seen Ursula? How is she?”

  While Trevor ate, I told him about speaking to her in jail. I didn’t mention that Évariste had been killed with her knife. It was always best to let the other player show his cards first.

  “Tell her we’re all thinkin’ about her,” Trevor said as he stuffed the last bite of his fourth taco into his mouth. He wadded up the foil and tossed it at a passing waitress.

  “Hey!” she said, playfully hitting his arm on her way to the wait station.

  Flirting came so naturally to Trevor and I wondered if he’d had a hard time turning it off when he dated Ursula. She demanded absolute allegiance in the kitchen, and I suspected she demanded the same in a relationship.

  Trevor leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers behind his head, revealing more ink on his elbows and triceps. Those had to have hurt going on. “Did you see the reservations for tonight?” he asked. “We’re booked solid. No one can resist a scandal, huh?”

  His attitude fell a long way short of regret. Shouldn’t he be more concerned about his boss and sometimes girlfriend than his paycheck? He had always been like that, I realized. Always looking out for himself. If Trevor killed Évariste, he did it for his own selfish reasons, not for anything noble. And what better reason than to take over as executive chef of Markham’s? I decided to fish a little.

  “Lady Luck is smiling on you,” I said.

  He balanced on the hind legs of his chair, his feet hooked around the table legs to keep himself steady. “Yeah, but can she get a mess of French cheeses delivered to me at the last minute?” He lost his balance and almost fell backward, but grabbed the edge of the table and recovered quickly. “I can’t make everything Évariste had on his menu, but we’ll cook our regular menu and use his dishes as specials.”

  “And when those run out?” I asked.


  “I’ll make my own.”

  It sounded like Trevor had already put a lot of thought into this. Had he worked it all out since Will told him Markham’s would reopen, or had he been planning this for a while? Regardless, Ursula would be out of jail soon and Markham’s would be serving her specials, not Trevor’s or Évariste’s. “Sounds like a lot of expensive ingredients will go to waste,” I said.

  In one smooth move, Trevor pushed back his chair and stood up. “Will knows that. He said to do the best I can.” He pulled a rubber band from his pants pocket and tied his hair into a long ponytail. “Better get busy before my luck runs out,” he said, then headed for the kitchen.

  As soon as Trevor left, Belize approached me. “Excuse me,” she said, pulling out Trevor’s vacated chair. “We need to move the table.”

  “Are you okay, Belize?”

  “Why?”

  “It must have been quite a shock finding Évariste like that.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “What is everyone saying about last night?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking down at her hands resting on the back of the chair. “Some people think it sucks and others think he got what he’s been asking for since he got here.”

  “What do you think?”

  “A little of both, I guess. Évi could be a jerk, but he could also be sweet.”

  “You’re the first person I’ve heard say anything nice about him.”

  Belize laughed and pushed a strand of black hair behind her ear.

  “You also called him Évi.”

  A wall went up around her. “So.”

  She snatched up the chair, but I stopped her before she could walk into the other dining room with it. “Was something going on between you and Évariste?”

  “Like what?” she asked, staring at me.

  “Like a crush of some sort?”

  “A crush?” she asked. “Are we twelve?”

  “Okay, a flirtation, then. Or an affair. Why did you come back to the restaurant after your shift ended? Were you meeting him?”

  “He’s married,” she said quickly. “Was married. And he was short.”

  “Mickey Rooney is short and he’s been married eight times.”

  “That guy on Sixty Minutes?” she asked, hoisting the chair. “Never mind. I don’t really care.” She turned to leave.

  “Amado said Évariste made you cry.”

  She stopped. “Amado is just a stupid dishwasher.” And then she walked away.

  After talking to Trevor and Belize, I had even more questions. Trevor had just become the most important person at Markham’s. And although I couldn’t picture Belize having an affair with Évariste, I got the feeling they had some sort of connection. I needed to talk to Will. A good general manager knows everything.

  I found him in his office. It felt strange knocking on the door to a room I had been raised in, but it no longer looked like the office of my youth. It too had been renovated with cherry wood furniture, soft carpet, and brown leather club chairs.

  Will sat on his executive chair like a king on his throne. But that was far from reality. A restaurant manager’s life is more like a peasant’s. Working every day, even on days the restaurant is closed, making schedules or catching up on paperwork. Late nights reviewing waiters’ checkouts. Never enjoying a relaxing evening at home or a night at the movies. Gaining weight from eating dinner most nights at 10:00 PM or later.

  Will looked up and motioned for me to come in. “How are you holding up, Poppy?”

  “Tired, frustrated, wanting to know who really killed Évariste.”

  He started to speak, then stopped himself, choosing his words carefully. “You don’t think Ursula killed him?”

  “I know she didn’t! Don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s just that the police—”

  “The police are wrong,” I said, immediately sorry I had interrupted him. If I was going to play detective, I needed to get better at letting people talk.

  Will leaned back in his chair. “Of course they’re wrong, but it doesn’t look good for her.”

  “From what I saw that night, Évariste made an effort to tick off as many people as he could.”

  “Évariste did try the patience of much of the staff,” Will said. “He eventually had words with everyone from Mitch to Amado. But he and Ursula fought from day one.”

  “He had words with Mitch?” I asked.

  Will waved off my question. “Just Évariste being his usual self-serving self. My point is that he managed to push a button on just about everyone.”

  “Which of your buttons did he push?”

  Will smiled, displaying perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. “I had to counsel him about food costs, but I’ve dealt with enough chefs to know that when reasoning with them doesn’t work, pulling rank does.”

  “You just described what I do every day during an inspection.”

  Will picked up a sheet of paper from the top of a neat stack on his desk. “Our food costs are reasonable, even with the bunny order.” He tapped the page. “We did very well Wednesday night. In spite of closing earlier than expected.”

  I reached out for the paper, but Will’s eyes stayed focused on the numbers and he didn’t see me. I let my hand drop back to my lap. “Was something going on between Évariste and Belize?”

  The smirk on his face told me he thought the idea absurd. “Not that I know of.”

  “So Évariste never made her cry?”

  He replaced the paperwork on the stack. “She seems to cry a lot, whether because of Évariste, I couldn’t say.”

  Maybe Amado had lied to me. But why? “Thanks for getting her and everyone else in here to open.”

  “I’ve done what I can.” He rolled his chair back from the desk. “Several employees were unreachable or they’re spooked. A couple have quit. We’ll be running a skeleton crew, but I think we can handle it.”

  “Trevor is pretty sure of himself.”

  “Isn’t he always?” We both laughed, then he said, “We could use your help cleaning up today.”

  “Oh, Will, I know it was my idea to open, and I know you’re doing all the work—which I really appreciate—but I need to be somewhere else.”

  “Of course,” he said, nodding toward the door.

  I headed out to do the only thing that brings me true joy in life.

  While it’s much easier to inspect a block of restaurants in the same geographical area, it’s far less effective. After presenting myself at one restaurant, cooks and managers are burning up the phone lines warning each other that I’m in the area, which significantly reduces the most crucial element of a successful inspection: surprise. If they have time to clean up and be on their best behavior, I won’t see how they operate day-to-day. But since I didn’t want to be away from Markham’s for very long, I decided to make things easy on myself and inspect the string of restaurants along Barton Springs Road.

  I had two things that would work in my favor. Showing up in the middle of the Friday lunch rush meant that some of these restaurants would be too busy to stage very much for an inspection, even with advanced warning. And if I hopscotched between the restaurants rather than go from address to address like an evil postman delivering bad news, I might catch one or two off guard.

  I parked near the Shady Grove RV Park and found a spot under a canopy of gnarled Live Oak trees. The temperature had reached the upper-nineties by noon when I arrived at the back door of Mostaccioli’s Italian Grill. I took a moment to inhale the yeasty fragrance of pizza dough mingled with onions and garlic while I pulled out my badge and switched my phone to vibrate.

  I rang the doorbell and looked around the parking lot and dumpster area while I waited for someone to open the door. A cook pushed his arm through the door with his finger already pointed in the direction of the sign on the outside wall that read “No Deliveries Between 11 am–2 pm.”

  I held up my badge. “Surprise.”
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  “Oh, sorry ma’am,” he said.

  I don’t like being called ma’am. People call women of a certain age ma’am. And they had been calling me that a lot lately. “Can we do anything else for you ma’am?” “I’d like to ask you a few questions about the murder ma’am.” “I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am, but you need a new transmission.” I tried to view it as a sign of respect, but knew it was a sign of age.

  “Thirty-eight isn’t that old,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Who is the M-O-D?”

  “The what?”

  “The manager on duty.” He must be new. I would watch him closely.

  “Oh,” he said, tapping his chin with a bare index finger. “Vito, I think.”

  “His name is Vidal,” I said, stepping through the threshold which forced him to move back to let me in. “And you can tell him I’m here after you wash your hands.”

  I had every right to begin the inspection without notifying anyone, and a lot of inspectors did that. But if a restaurant was going to fail a surprise inspection, they failed before I even walked in the door. Plus, I liked Vidal, and he had enough stress managing the lunch rush without happening upon the health inspector examining expiration dates in the walk-in.

  In a restaurant, which is where most people are concerned about contracting food poisoning—if they’re concerned about it at all—patrons are satisfied with making a visual inspection of their waiter and determining whether he’s fit to serve their meals. But that’s a false reading.

  Who they should worry about is the kitchen staff preparing the food. The dishwasher who hasn’t had a proper bath for a week, but thinks it’s okay because he works with soap and water at work. Or the prep cook who was up all night partying with her Goth friends, but has to clock in at 7:00 AM, so she sweats out all of the tequila she drank while she bags pasta and slices mushrooms. And when she nicks her finger and starts to bleed, she wraps a napkin around it because she doesn’t have time to bandage it. The sooner she finishes, the sooner she can take a break before she passes out. And besides, a little blood never hurt anybody. She and her friends drink each other’s blood all the time. Or the line cook with the new flaming skull tattoo on his forearm that’s finally starting to scab over. It’s also starting to flake off into the chipped beef.