Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance

by Nancy Verde Barr

  “I’m starting now,” I said, looking for my tote. Then I remembered that I had packed it in the trunk. “My tote’s in the trunk.”

  “There’s a pad in my backpack on the floor,” Danny said, accelerating to pass three slower-moving cars; they were only doing ninety.

  I unzipped his backpack and stretched the top open to look for the pad. It was clearly visible, right under the photo of Kim the greeter, greeting me from the beach, in a barely there bikini. I glanced up to see if Danny was looking in the mirror before turning the photo over. It was one of those make-your-own-postcard photos, and on the back she had written, “Wish you were here” followed by several X’s and O’s. Just in case that wasn’t tacky enough, she’d planted a lipstick kiss in a totally hideous, cotton-candy shade of pink over the address. I could feel the heat of anger rising and bit my lip to stop the stream of Italian expletives begging to be released. Well, what had I expected? I knew what he was like. We had been together in completely unreal circumstances and I had had him all to myself. That would not be the case back in the real world. I would have to share, and I’m not a sharing kind of person. I decided to say nothing and slipped the photo back into the backpack before taking out the pad.

  “Did you find the pad?” Danny asked without turning around.

  “Got it,” I said.

  AT THE AIRPORT, DANNY talked the young woman at the security gate into letting him take his dear old mother, Sally, to the gate. The guard actually began to bat her eyelashes. As I went through the gate, she was telling the monitor checker that she’d like to be his dear old mother.

  When the plane was ready for boarding, Danny held me back while Sally went ahead. He took out a business card and asked me for a pen. “Here’s my home number in Ireland. Call me. Anytime for anything. I fly from there to New York tomorrow night. Let me know you’re okay.”

  “I will.”

  “And you’ll make sure Sally calls her friend in the FBI right away?”

  “Done.”

  He put his arms around me and pulled me close. “And you’ll make sure you won’t get on that plane and decide to downgrade me to ‘nice’ again?”

  I kept my tone light. “You are nice.” He tipped his head back and squinted at me. I continued, “And sweet and thoughtful. And helpful—”

  “Stop! I sound like the Easter Bunny.” He played with my hair. “You know, our schedules in New York will make it hard to find time to be together.”

  So that’s how he plans to deal with it. Scheduling. I wondered which part of which day he planned to give me. I stepped back from him and said, “Look, Danny, I’ve had a great time with you. It was a blast. But I’m not thinking about going out with you in New York.”

  The frown he gave me made me wish I were facing a Mafia hit man instead. “And just what does that mean?” he asked.

  I gave him a peck on the cheek, a cursory hug, and said, “Danny. It was great, but I have to run. The plane’s finished boarding.” And I started toward the runway.

  “Wait a minute, Casey.”

  “I have to go,” I called over my shoulder. “I’ll phone you from Washington.”

  Boy, I’d handled that well, I thought, and then concentrated on the more immediate issue: getting Sally home safely.

  ONCE THE PLANE WAS in the air, Sally and I both fell sound asleep. For the first time that day, I felt safe. We were out of harm’s way, and I slept soundly for two hours. When I woke up, Sally was still sleeping and I carefully climbed over her to go to the restroom. On my way back to my seat, I saw him. He was sitting in an aisle seat with his legs partially in the aisle. His socks were blue and brown. He was asleep with his hat pulled down over his eyes so I couldn’t see much of his face, but he was young. Hit men are always young. I tried to remember the shoes, the pants; they seemed the same. I asked myself, what were the chances that two different men wearing mismatched blue and brown socks would be in our hotel in Ravenna and then on our plane to Washington? None. Sally was being followed. Correction: we were being followed.

  I returned to my seat with my heart racing and not a clue about what to do. It was a long time before I could think beyond being hacked up and delivered to my parents in a trash bag. Okay, I told myself. Take it slow. Think it through. I figured he couldn’t be armed on the plane, and if his goal was to get Sally, he’d wait until she left the airport. If Sally called the FBI from the airport, maybe they’d send someone to get us and we wouldn’t have to leave the terminal alone. But what if they wouldn’t send someone? Plan F, as in we’re fucked. I decided not to tell Sally about the blue-and-brown-socked man but to convince her somehow to call her friend in the FBI from the airport. I stayed awake for the rest of the flight, enjoying the only comforting thought I had: George Davis getting to the hotel and finding Sally gone.

  WHEN WE LANDED, JUST before six P.M., I tried to keep my eye on the two-socked man but lost him in the crowd. I had never gotten a really good look at his face and the floor was a sea of indistinguishable feet. I stayed close to Sally, and as soon as we cleared customs, I stopped her.

  “Sally, call your friend John from here.”

  “I think we can wait until we get home.”

  “I’m not moving from this airport, Sally. Please call him.”

  “This is foolish, Casey. Let’s go.”

  I sat down on the floor. “I’m not moving.”

  She tapped me with her size eleven foot. “Well, at least move out of the line of traffic. I’ll call.”

  It took Sally a while to connect with John and when she finally did, she told him in an unsteady voice that she had learned some upsetting news about Peter and would like to talk to him about it. She listened a moment and then hung up the phone.

  “He told me to wait here. He’s coming to get us. He said he’d call when he’s at the airport.”

  Twenty minutes later, Sally’s cell rang and John met us at the exit door. He greeted Sally warmly, loaded our luggage into the trunk, and helped us into the back seat. I leaned back and sighed with relief. John slipped into the driver’s seat and fastened his seatbelt—and then he got in. The man with two different socks. John started to drive, and I reached for the door. I knew I couldn’t pull Sally out with me, but I could scream. There were plenty of people around to hear. If the car sped off, I could get the plate number and call the police. The door was locked from the inside. Oh God! Oh God! It would be the trash bag for us. I reached for my cell phone. But who would I call? Could 911 trace a moving car? Could I get out “We’ve been kidnapped from the airport by a make-believe FBI agent and a man with a blue and a brown sock” before they got out the hacksaws? “Stop!” I screamed. “I have to pee!” I was pretty sure I just had, in my pants.

  John slammed on the brakes and turned to look at me. “Okay. But I’m going to have to send Agent Roark with you.”

  “Who?”

  The man with two different socks turned around, and John introduced him. “This is Tom Roark, with the CIA. He’s been following you since Ravenna.”

  “But how did he know to do that?” Sally asked.

  “Let’s wait until we get you home, Sally. We have lots to talk about. Meanwhile, let’s find a bathroom for Casey.”

  “It went away,” I said, having no desire whatsoever to get out of the car with or without Agent Roark’s protection. “By the way, do you have another pair of socks like that at home, Agent Roark?”

  He looked down at his feet. “Shit. I did it again.”

  Chapter 22

  Ready for the times to get better.

  —Crystal Gayle

  Forty minutes later, we pulled up in front of Sally’s house and she let us in. Sally lives in a quintessential Georgetown row house tucked away on a cul-de-sac just a block and a half from the stores and restaurants on Wisconsin Avenue. The three-story brick house had been Peter’s before they married, and together they had renovated it into pure charm. The first floor had an entrance-way, a den, and a guest bedroom that I would occ
upy for the next few days. It was the second floor that blew me away. There was a huge kitchen with a dining table that would seat twenty in a pinch. Sally and Peter had knocked down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room to make it that big. They said they had no need for a formal dining room; if you ate there, you hung out in the kitchen and either helped cook or enjoyed watching the show. At one end of the kitchen, French doors led to a small balcony overlooking the garden, and in the garden was a giant magnolia tree with branches that you could touch from the balcony. It was breathtaking to sit at the table and look out at that tree, especially when it was in bloom. The four of us sat there now, and it was hard to remember what it had been like to sit there and feel cozy and comfortable instead of panicked.

  John asked Sally to start at the beginning and tell them what was going on. When she had finished explaining about Peter selling information to some guy named Boris, about George blackmailing her, about the tapes, and about the trip to Yugoslavia, she was visibly spent.

  John turned to Agent Roark and said, “Tom?” Tom nodded, and John stood up and went over to Sally. He put his arm around her and said, “Sally, Peter was not a traitor. Not by a long shot. He was working for us.”

  “But I saw the tapes of him offering to sell some type of formula.”

  “That was part of the work he was doing. Undercover work. Let me try to clear things up for you.” He sat back down and then turned to Agent Rourke. “Tom, give me the photo of Davinsky.” Tom removed a photo from the file he was holding and handed it to John. He showed it to Sally and asked if that was the man in Yugoslavia.

  She said it looked like him but that he’d had a beard, glasses, and his hair had been darker. Tom handed John another photo, and John held it out for Sally to look at. “Is this him?”

  “Yes. That’s him. A hideously awful, awful—sleazeball.” I guess John hadn’t ever heard her use that expression, because he laughed. “You’re right about that,” he said. “We’ve known for a long time that there was an active black market in weapons operating out of Russia. We’ve been working with the Russians for some time to uncover it, but got nowhere until Peter came across Boris. But Boris was small potatoes and Peter was working him to try to get to the leaders.”

  “All those trips to Russia weren’t for scientific meetings, Mrs. Woods,” Agent Roark added. “Peter was doing some very important, dangerous work for his country.”

  John continued. “Peter had just uncovered Vladimir Chomsky when, sadly for all of us, he died. The Russians picked Chomsky and Davinsky up and Boris agreed to testify against him in exchange for a lighter sentencing. Against our strong objections, the Russians let Davinsky out of jail until the trial, and he disappeared. He knew he was a dead man if the Mafia found him. We’ve been looking for him, the Russians have been looking for him, and several Mafia members are out to kill him. Thanks to you, we and the Russians learned that he was hiding in Yugoslavia and now have him under constant surveillance.”

  “I don’t understand. How did Sally lead you to him?” I asked.

  Tom answered. “When Sally crossed the border into Yugoslavia, the information on her passport was automatically sent to Washington headquarters with the fact that she was traveling to a former Soviet bloc country. That’s standard procedure for anyone related to or associated with a person involved in an investigation, and Peter’s name is still on the file.” He turned to Sally. “I picked you up when you checked into the hotel and have been following you ever since. At first, it was just standard procedure, but when I discovered that you were meeting with Davinsky, the department went into red alert.”

  John took over. “Until you called me, Sally, we had no idea why you were there. We followed you and wired your house the same day. You know, we didn’t know for sure that you weren’t trying to sell him information that you might have learned from Peter. That’s why we didn’t immediately pick Boris up. If you were dealing with him, we wanted Boris’s contacts.”

  “Oh, be real, John!” Sally said, putting her hands on her hips. “Me, a spy?”

  He laughed at her. “Stranger things have happened.”

  “How does George Davinsky fit into this?” I asked.

  It was Tom who responded. “We didn’t know anything about him until he picked Sally up on the other side of the border. I got his name form the rental place and called it in to John. We’re guessing he’s a nephew. We’re tailing him as we speak.” He opened his file folder and held up another photo. “Does she look familiar?”

  The hair was different and she wasn’t as fat, but I recognized her and practically screamed, “That’s Carol Hanger! What does she have to do with it?”

  “Olga Davinsky. Boris’s daughter.” I remembered that Sully had thought that she and George looked alike. No wonder. They were probably cousins, and both lowlifes. “Boris sent her and her mother to live here when Olga was a child, so she was raised here, but she visited her father a few times every year. When Boris disappeared, she did too. We haven’t seen her since.”

  I knew she was one of the bad guys. Just like my father said, you can’t trust a woman with a bad hairdo. “I know where to find her,” I said. “She has pink hair now.”

  John leaned forward and put his hand on Sally’s. “You have been a great help in coming forward with this, Sally.”

  “Why didn’t Peter tell me what he was doing? I wouldn’t have told anyone.”

  “It’s just not allowed, Mrs. Woods,” Tom said. “You never know if couples are going to get divorced and one of them will decide to blow the cover for revenge.”

  “Did you know he was an agent, John?”

  “Yes. Peter and I applied to the CIA together after college. I stayed in for a couple of years and then applied to the FBI.”

  “So Peter was already in the CIA when I met him.”

  “He was,” said John. “He was one of their most effective agents.”

  Sally was quiet. I can only imagine all she was trying to digest. “What happens now?” I asked.

  “Now that we know why you met with Boris, Sally, we’ll pick him up. That will eliminate any of your worries about the Mafia.”

  “What about George?” I asked, relishing the thought of him being carted away in handcuffs.

  “We’ll stay on his tail for a while to locate Olga and determine if she’s involved. My guess is she is, but we need some solid proof. With what Sally has told us, the FBI has enough evidence to convict George of extortion. He’ll go away for a very long time.”

  I thought about George behind bars and couldn’t help myself from singing out loud: “I’ve Been a Long Time Leaving (but I’ll Be a Long Time Gone).”

  “Gene Autry?” Sally turned to me and asked.

  “Waylon Jennings,” responded John, and I smiled at him.

  He sat back and said, “I’m curious how Boris tied Sally to Peter. Peter always traveled under an alias. I’m hoping one of them will tell us. Meanwhile, I have to ask you both to tell no one until we’ve picked up George and Olga. We’re guessing that once George finds out that Boris has been arrested, he’ll return to the States and make contact with Olga.”

  Tom added, “If he calls you, Mrs. Woods, continue to deal with him. Tell him you left Italy early because of a relative’s illness or death. We’ll be watching your house and your phones are wired, so we’ll know if he contacts you, and we won’t let this drag on. My guess is we’ll know all we need to know in a few days.”

  Tom looked down at the notes he had taken while Sally was telling her story. “Tell me about this Danny who filled you in on the Mafia connection.”

  I assumed he wasn’t looking for the bedroom information, so I wouldn’t be held accountable for holding back the personal stuff. I told him who Danny was and how he’d gotten involved.

  Tom clicked open his pen. “I’ll need his name, address, and phone number. You can let him know you’re safe but you cannot tell him or anyone else what we have discussed. Not anyone. Do you understand?
”

  No problem. Who’d believe it anyway?

  I DECIDED TO STAY with Sally at least until Tuesday. I had a live show Wednesday morning and would have to be back for it. I called my parents Sunday morning to tell them. I knew they were disappointed, since they were expecting me to be at Sunday dinner and tell everyone about Italy. Then I called Mae to ask her if she could handle the prep alone on Tuesday. She said she was cool with that and I told her that Sally and Danny would be doing a show together next Monday.

  “That is so totally cool,” she said. “Everyone I know who saw Danny on the show thought he was so hot.”

  “His show’s been getting a ton of mail.”

  “I bet he and Sally will be great together. What are they going to make?”

  “Baked Alaska. The recipe from Sally’s book. I’ll get the script to you in the next few days.”

  “Awesome,” she said, and I hung up and called Sonya’s office. I left a message saying that I was taking Monday and Tuesday off. If she had a problem with that, it would dissolve when she found out that Sally would be renewing her contract.

  Now I had to let Danny know we were safe. By the time John and Tom had left last night, it was after midnight and Sally and I had simply crashed with exhaustion. I decided to ask Sally to make the call, and she was pleased to do it. I gave her his number and when she got him on the phone, she told him that we were safe and then told him how grateful she was for all he had done. They talked a little about Baked Alaska and then she handed the phone to me. “He wants to talk to you.”

  “You must be relieved that it’s over,” he said.

  “Definitely! I mean there’s still some unsettled business.”

  “There sure is. What was that all about when you left me at the airport?”

  “I meant unsettled business with George.”

  “But as long as we’re on the topic of our unsettled business—”