Patrick Sullivan pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I may jump soon. The shark-infested water has never looked better. I have made progress, however. In the beginning, no one would speak to me. Now I can’t get them to stop asking me questions, like how can I live with myself, what do we mean by applying for a patent for a grain, what do we have in mind for taking over the bread market in Mexico from BIMBO. That last question came from a woman bread baker from Spago in Mexico City.”
“Patrick, Patrick, Patrick. It’s hard being the front man for the evil empire. At least you aren’t sitting off in the corner by yourself. By the way, I’m looking forward to the tour of your facility tomorrow. You must admit, the two days this crowd has been in our little town have been action-packed. Surely the demise of the general must have taken the heat off you. By the way, I haven’t been able to be at all the meetings today. What’s the scuttlebutt?”
He shook his head. “I’m not exactly confidante to the bread stars. But I guess you could say yesterday gave them something else to think about for a while, what with Walter Jinks and the general and the incident, as I like to call it now. So far they have behaved more like paparazzi than artisan bakers. They all hit the one-hour photo place and immediately developed their gruesome snapshots of the poor general hitting the dirt.”
Heaven had completely forgotten about the photo she had pinched at the sourdough lecture. She must remember to look at it with her photo eyeglass as soon as she got home. “So, you find their behavior distasteful, they find yours reprehensible. Its a small world, isn’t it? Listen Patrick, we may have a problem.”
“Now what’s happened?”
“I just got a loaf of bread, your bread, stabbed with a big knife, smeared with raspberry preserves to look like blood, and with a note that said STOP THEM. I think they meant your company.”
Patrick Sullivan buried his face in his hands. “First of all, it’s not my company. I’m a chef who loved baking bread just like everyone here. I worked for a hotel, loved cooking. One day I wrote a nasty letter to BIG BREAD, about how they owed the little children something better than these loaves full of air and chemicals that they pretend is bread. They called me up and said why didn’t I come to work for them and do something about it. That was seven years ago.”
“And have you made a difference?”
“What do you think?”
“I haven’t seen any healthier, more nutritious loaves with the BIG BREAD label. But you are in research and development, so maybe those are a year or two away from the supermarkets, eh? I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt for a while. Now onto another question—the silly still life in my van. Did Dieter ask you about the location of my restaurant?”
Patrick shook his head. “Nah, nothing that particular, just what was the food like, the regular stuff. We talked about the party at your place Sunday night, about how we’re looking forward to it, that is, if any of us are still on our feet by then.”
“Don’t jinx it, babe.” Heaven got up and patted Patrick’s arm as she walked away.
Heaven looked around for Dieter, but didn’t spot him, so she went to the bar herself and got a Diet Coke. For the next thirty minutes she schmoozed the crowd. Everyone was in high spirits and the state of shock of twenty-four hours ago had disappeared. It was easy to dissociate from the gruesome scene they had witnessed. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone in ARTOS was responsible, and the possibility that it was an accident made it easy to file away in the back of the brain somewhere. Heaven had trouble getting anyone to speculate about the general’s death. Beer and barbecue were preferable to reality. As the crowd got up to go to their final stop of the night, Heaven joined Pauline again.
“Where’s Dieter?”
Pauline looked around the room. “I don’t know. He brought this beer back for you but I was talking to someone and I haven’t seen him since. Heaven, are you going to Blues and Cues with us? I hear they have a great blues/gospel singer tonight.”
Heaven shook her head. “No, I think I’ll go home early for a change. And you, young lady, don’t forget that you have to go in at the crack of dawn and get the bread going before we go to the hotel for Dieter’s speech. Don’t stay out too late.”
Pauline rolled her eyes. “It’s only ten-thirty. I can catch a set of music and still be home by midnight. Why don’t you come along, H.? You’re usually the last one to quit.”
Dieter walked in the front door of R.G.’s and looked surprised to see the two women standing there.
“Where have you been?” Heaven asked.
“It’s hot and smoky in here. I don’t smoke anymore so the smoke bothers me. I just had to get some air, that’s all.” Dieter looked at his watch. “I want to go to the blues place but I can’t stay long. I have to go over my notes for tomorrow. I’ll go on the bus, then take a cab to the hotel. Come with us, Heaven.”
Heaven looked around at the happy crowd and remembered that she hadn’t asked a key question. “I want to go home and see my daughter. She’ll be leaving soon to go back to England, to college.”
Dieter looked interested. “Ah, yes. Your daughter has a famous father, I hear.”
“Dennis still does make the cover of Rolling Stone once in a while. By the way, speaking of famous, I guess we lost our famous grain guy. I haven’t seen Walter Jinks today, have you?”
Dieter and Pauline both shook their heads. “I hope poor Mister Jinks didn’t get arrested,” Pauline said. “I know he didn’t mean stopping the general like that, or at least, well, I don’t think he meant it like that. Well, you know what I mean.”
They all started walking toward the door. “I know what you mean, Pauline. I’m rooting for Walter to save the world myself. What about Ernest Powell? Did he show today?”
Dieter knew the answer to that one. “He told me yesterday he had a field to plow, and he would come up to the city, as he so quaintly put it, for the weekend. Said he would say his piece after I was done on Saturday at lunch.”
As the bakers headed for the buses, Heaven hugged Pauline and winked at Dieter over Pauline’s shoulder. “Dieter and Ernest. What a program to look forward to. Bye, you two. Be good,” she said as she headed for the van.
Even though she had disturbed the still life and note in her car, she hadn’t thrown it in the trash when she got to R.G.’s. It had seemed like the kind of thing that would attract attention if anyone saw her walking to the Dumpster with it, so she had just left it in the van, to show to Murray or Hank before she threw it away. It wasn’t threatening personally, but it was disturbing.
When she got in the van, she did so cautiously. The dairy case was nowhere to be seen, and Heaven assumed it had slid to the back of the van when she parked. But soon a movement from the back made her realize that wasn’t what had happened. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she stood up and walked to the back of the vehicle to see what had tipped over. Another quick movement made her freeze in place, then stumble and fall onto the passenger seat before just barely grabbing the edge of the armrest to balance herself. Her first scream was already in the air.
The last reluctant bakers getting on the buses paused and looked around, trying to figure out where the screams were coming from. From the second row of bus seats, Pauline recognized Heaven’s voice and jumped off, pulling Dieter behind her. The bus driver and several others followed her charge across the parking lot. When they got to the van, Heaven was sitting on the pavement waving her hands. “Get them out, get them out, get them out,” she screeched. The doors of the van were closed. Pauline headed toward the driver’s door.
“In the back. Get them away,” Heaven whimpered, losing her momentum as more people arrived. She buried her head in her hands. Pauline ran to the side door and jerked it open. Heaven wanted to tell her to let someone else do it but she couldn’t make the words come fast enough. She closed her eyes tight and waited to hear the scream. Right on cue, Pauline screamed and ran around to Heaven, burying her head on Heaven’s shoulder. The re
st of the rescuers were momentarily silenced by the scene.
Someone had added to the bread tableau in the back of the car. A pile of wheat had been tossed on top of the case and the open loaf of bread. And two live rats were having a feast, chowing down on the grain and the bread. Perched on top of the pile, one of the rodents had raspberry jam smeared bloodlike in the darkness on his face. When the side door opened, the rats had tried to retreat to the farthest corner of the van. But their legs were unsteady and they couldn’t scamper down the sides of the plastic dairy case. Instead, they wobbled and collapsed on top of the pile of grain.
The bus driver had run into the restaurant and come out with a broom. He snagged the case and pulled it out of the van, toppling everything onto the parking lot pavement. A new low-fat cookbook, several manila envelopes, and the electric bill for the restaurant, all spilled out along with the bread, the wheat, and the rats. Heaven couldn’t help herself. She got up and moved to the other side of the van, where the debris from the crate landed. The rats convulsed several times and then lay still, apparently dead.
Peanut Butter Shortbread
1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
½ cup cornstarch
½ tsp. salt
2 sticks (16 T.) cold unsalted butter, cut in cubes or slices
½ cup smooth peanut butter
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix dry ingredients by hand or in a food processor. Add butter, peanut butter, and vanilla until the dough comes together. It will be crumbly. Pat dough into a lightly buttered 13 × 9-inch pan. Bake for 35 minutes at 325 degrees. Keeps up to 2 weeks in an airtight container.
Ten
Iris and Heaven sat on the bed together. The television was on but they weren’t really watching it. They had a legal pad and a newspaper and a reference book spread out in front of them along with a tray of snacks. They had been looking up relevant information on how much BIG BREAD’s stock was selling for and on patent law.
“Honey, these cookies are delicious,” Heaven said. “Peanut butter shortbread is Kansas City and London all mixed up together. Did you make this up?”
Iris grinned, proud to have praise for her baking from her Mom. “Yes I did. You know how much I loved peanut butter cookies when I was little. I just mixed their shortbread with my peanut butter. The tea bags love them, even if they are nontraditional. I made a batch of these today at the restaurant. They were going to serve them with the sorbet and ice cream assortment tonight.”
“Do you call the English ‘tea bags’ in front of your father? I bet he has a fit,” Heaven chuckled.
“Oh, Mom, it’s an old rock ’n’ roll term. As you very well know. Dad’s been hearing tea bag his whole life. Besides, I really have to push Dad to get him mad, push him farther than calling him a tea bag, that’s for sure.”
“I know, honey. You can do no wrong as far as your father goes. And as far as I go, of course.”
“Don’t lie, Mom. I know you’ve got my number. And I’ve got yours. I could just kick your butt for driving home by yourself after that horrible rat thing happened. Why didn’t you call? I could have come after you.”
“And I would have come with her,” Hank said as he came up the stairs into the bedroom. He pulled off a pair of work gloves and stripped off his shirt. His hair wasn’t in the ponytail he wore to the hospital, but was flowing free, black and shining. “The car is cleaned up, inside at least. I left your mail down on the table. Some of it is kind of sticky, I guess from the jam. It will dry off. Now I’m going to jump in the shower.”
Heaven got out of bed and gave Hank a kiss, not mushy because her daughter was watching, but at least on the lips. “No one else in the world would have put on their grubby clothes and gone to the garage in the middle of the night and got out the vacuum to clean rat shit and wheat from their girlfriend’s car.”
Hank put his hand in Heaven’s hair and gave her spikes a tug. “You had a terrible scare. I know how you hate rodents, even a little mouse. I’m so sorry. You have had some bad times in that car, H. Maybe its time to get a new one,” he said and then went into the bathroom.
“What’s he talking about, Mom? What else has happened in that van?”
“Oh, someone shot out the passenger window with a gun. No big deal.”
“I suppose you were in the car at the time? Did this happen during that barbeque contest murder?”
“Iris, let’s not rehash something that happened ages ago. I’m here aren’t I, so it couldn’t be too bad,” Heaven said, eager to get off that subject. “And we have to figure out what’s going on right here, right now. This bread conference isn’t over until Monday. Lot’s more could go wrong. Now, why do we think they put that stuff in my van? Why not in Patrick Sullivan’s car or in one of the tour buses? And I can’t forget Dieter coming in from outside right before I found the rats. I’m pretty sure he had a guilty look on his face.”
Iris leaned back and ate a corn chip. “Well, one reason could be that your car was more convenient. Maybe the buses weren’t at the hotel, or the culprit couldn’t recognize Patrick Sullivan’s car in BIG BREAD’s parking lot. The other reason could be that it was meant to scare you off. A few people know you’ve been involved in some crime solving. And Murray went out to Manhattan today. Maybe someone thought you sent him. As for Dieter, he’s only been in this country a couple of days. Where would he get two rats, Mom, and the poison to kill them with?”
“Details, details. I’m not going to rule Dieter out yet. As for me, I haven’t done anything that would single me out, not yet, not this time. I behaved myself when we were in Kansas, didn’t I?”
“Like a Sunday school teacher.”
“I didn’t stick my nose in the police business or lecture all the bakers about how the general had a black tongue and was tripping on LSD.”
Iris sat up straight. “MOM. What are you talking about? LSD? Oh, my God.”
“I’ll tell you everything, but first let Hank get out of the shower. I want him to hear this, too. Let’s have a bottle of champagne. After all, you’ll be leaving soon. We won’t have many more midnight sessions like this.”
“Stop it, Mom. Don’t get mushy on me. We have a lifetime of midnight sessions ahead of us. But it sounds like a great reason for a bottle of…”
“Veuve Clicquot, of course,” Heaven said as she bounded down the stairs.
* * *
As Heaven unwrapped her legs from around Hank’s, she felt a glass at the bottom of the bed. “Boy, it’s a good thing we use restaurant grade champagne flutes at this house. There seems to be a glass in here with us.”
Hank picked up the glass between his toes, grabbed it with the hand that wasn’t around Heaven’s breast, and put it on the table beside the bed. He pulled Heaven over on top of him and kissed her. “I thought you and Iris were going to laugh yourselves sick. When you started telling stories about when she was in third grade, it was very touching.”
“Then Iris went to bed and we turned everything upside down. Most of the pillows seem to be down where the champagne glass was, and the quilt is on the floor. I hope we didn’t make too much noise,” Heaven said as she kissed Hank’s neck.
“You had Yo Yo Ma playing the cello, and Iris had Bob Dylan’s son singing on your respective sound systems. I don’t think we were louder than that. Heaven, you know what’s coming next, don’t you?” Hank said softly as he gathered their bed clothes back to the correct positions.
Heaven was already drifting off but she smiled and put her hand out to Hank. “Say it.”
“Heaven, please be careful.”
“I will if you’ll just look at that list of reasons for necrosis before you leave in the morning. The ones with highlighter are the ones I don’t know the definition of. You’ll probably know them by heart.” Heaven rolled over on her side, cuddling up next to Hank.
“Heaven, if anything were to happen to you, I do
n’t know what I’d do,” Hank said sternly. It fell on deaf ears. Heaven was asleep.
* * *
The next morning, Heaven walked into Sal’s barber shop and went straight to the coffee. It was almost nine in the morning and she had been at the restaurant since seven, getting paperwork done before the crews came in. Sal was always busy on Saturday morning, and this was no exception. Most of the ‘Naugahyde’ and chrome chairs lining the walls were full. Heaven realized she should watch what she said. After all, one of these straight guys could be a BIG BREAD executive.
“What’s up, H. I haven’t seen you for days,” Sal growled.
“I know. This bread conference is very time-consuming. Plus there’ve been a few complications.”
Sal nodded at Heaven in the mirror. “Yeah, I got that from Murray. Just because you can’t be bothered to keep a friend up to date, that doesn’t mean Murray hasn’t.” Sal brandished his scissors with extra flair as he trimmed the sideburns of an Elvis look-alike. Not that the guy was an Elvis impersonator, but he still wore the hair style and clothes style of Elvis in his bloated years.
Heaven took the reprimand in stride, knowing she deserved it. “So we were out in Kansas and these two scientists got into it about how to feed the world’s population, and one told the other he had to be stopped, and then about thirty minutes later, one of them falls off a grain elevator and dies.”
Sal nodded again. “And Murray finds out the dead man was high as a kite on LDC.”
“LSD,” Heaven corrected. She paused and looked around the room for reaction. After the mention of LSD, everyone had either buried their nose in a magazine or was staring in rapt attention at Sal and Heaven. There was no middle ground. “So a local bread manufacturer is involved in this, and they’ve applied for a patent. Iris and I looked it up last night and it said Congress can grant exclusive rights to scientists for their discoveries for limited times, which is seventeen years and that doesn’t sound so limited to me, of course compared to the history of time I guess it is, limited I mean.”
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