“Perhaps that really would be best,” said Marla, with a frosty smile.
I gazed down into the soup bowl. Across the table, Sam Perdue squirmed in his chair.
“Listen, Goldy,” Tony soothed. “This could be a marvelous opportunity for you. We could bring this place public and make a killing. They’ve got a recurring revenue base, which means people come back for the experience of eating soup here. Plus people order breads, salads, and cookies. Comfort on a grand scale. The concept has done extremely well in other locations, except Wyoming. My exit interviews at Sam’s in Denver were fantastic. Am I making sense to you?”
I looked at him and said evenly, “Tony, I would be a much more amenable taster if you would not treat me like a complete idiot.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” he said, with a huge phony smile beneath his manicured mustache. “Okay, listen. Sam’s has plans for new restaurants in more cosmopolitan markets—Colorado Springs and Boulder. You know what an initial public offering is?” He regarded me patiently.
“Why don’t you just give me a dunce cap, Tony?”
Marla gargled with laughter.
But Tony, undaunted, continued sharing his financial expertise. “The company is expanding management to try new markets. Isn’t that right, Sam?”
Sam, who appeared increasingly catatonic, nodded apprehensively.
Tony went on: “After opening locations in the Springs and Boulder, Sam wants to look northward, open a place in Fort Collins, but skip over Wyoming altogether. Try his luck selling soups in Montana—Missoula first, then Bozeman. I want to tell you, Goldy, I expect this is going to make us all rich.”
Or at least recoup a million or two, I reflected.
I picked up the spoon, with its load of Cranky Crab. I sniffed it; the aroma was bland—like a canned clam chowder. I assumed a studious expression. Tony and Marla exchanged an eager glance and leaned forward. Would I pronounce the Cranky indescribable? Luscious? One of a kind? Fortunately, the chef was sequestered in the kitchen. One of the things Mrs. Hardcastle had been at pains to inform me was that the poor chef couldn’t stand the tension. Reportedly, he was anxious to learn my findings. I rolled the soup over my tongue. Sam, Tony, and Marla cocked their heads. What would I say? Its texture is divine! Its taste unequalled! I’ll take two—no—three bowls full!
“Hmm,” I said. You guys are in serious trouble.
Outside of Sam’s, another relentless rain had swept down upon us. Raindrops pelted Aspen Meadow Lake. I swallowed the tasteless, thin concoction, tried to think of how to phrase my assessment, and looked out at the inlet abutting the lake. A group of hardy members of the Audubon Society stood in the downpour peering through their binoculars. According to the Mountain Journal, rotten weather or no, the birders were making daily walks around the lake in hopes of a second sighting of a long-billed curlew.
Sam cleared his throat with a frightened squeak and twisted in his modified Adirondack-style chair. Tony consulted his sculptured nails, gnawed his bottom lip, brushed more imaginary dust off his white shirt, then shot me another questioning look. Clearly, Marla hadn’t been as persnickety a taste-tester as I was turning out to be.
“Goldy?” said Tony. “I like to involve the common folk. A little nine-year-old kid next door told me to buy Clearly Canadian. I did, and made a mint on flavored water. Got another tip from Zane Smythe. Know who he is?”
I nodded. Zane is a local fisherman who teaches fly tying and writes articles on fishing for the Mountain Journal.
“Zane tipped me onto Timberland. I’ve done real well going long on backpacks and water.” Tony lowered his voice. “Things aren’t going so great now, as you know. And in addition to everything else, my taste buds are shot.”
Sam murmured, “Yours and everyone else’s in that firm.” They were the first words he’d spoken.
Marla put a friendly hand on Tony’s elbow. “Honey, if I’d put jalapeño jelly on English muffins every morning for the last ten years, my taste buds would be gone, too. It’s one of the laws of food.”
Tony removed Marla’s hand from his elbow. “Will you stop?” Now he gave me the full benefit of his dark brown eyes. “I need you to be honest, Goldy. If you approve of Sam’s offerings, I’ll round up the cash so he can open two more locations.” He paused. “Actually, you need to do more than approve….”
Marla flapped a hand in my direction. “You need to love it, Goldy. You need to say it’s going to be the next nationwide rage. Like Mrs. Field’s, right. Tone?” Tony shrugged. “Like Starbucks,” she whispered.
I didn’t dare look at Sam. Outside, rain fell. The birders gingerly trod through the soggy wetlands. I lifted the spoon and took another bite; No better. I tried the Big Cheese Chowder; it was lumpy and if there was cheddar in the soup, it was barely discernible. I moved on to Terrapin Tom’s Tomato. My own homemade tomato soup boasts the rich, sweet smell of fresh tomatoes, combined with a thick, smooth texture. Sam’s tomato soup was thin and indeterminately spicy. Well, I had my integrity. I’d finally tasted, and I’d found the soups wanting. I felt Tony’s glare but said nothing. And Marla’s best friend or no, I wasn’t going to taste the chocolate.
I glanced back toward the kitchen, but the chef was nowhere in sight. At this very moment he might be concentrating on his commercial-sized Hobart as it beat ponds of cream sauce with broth into soups that he fervently hoped would make him a multimillionaire. Maybe he believed money would bail him out of being stuck in the kitchen. I doubted both.
Tony impatiently spread his fingers on the rim of the empty dish in front of him. “Look, Goldy. Just tell me. Everybody says these soups are great. Gonna be the next craze. Lowfat, rib-sticking, but …” He chewed the inside of his cheek to find the right word, then brightened. “Lowfat, rib-sticking, but delish. There’ve been articles in local papers. Pretty soon all kinds of venture capital folks will be itching to get in here… Once this thing takes off, it’ll be too late. I want to get in on the ground floor. Know what I mean? Understand? Comprende?”
“I guess I don’t,” I said honestly. Sam Perdue pressed his thin lips together. His terrified expression had turned resentful.
“I may have missed Boston Chicken,” Tony continued insistently, as if I had not spoken. He picked up a three-pronged fork and tapped the table in time with his next words. “And I may have missed Outback Steakhouse. But I am not going to miss Sam’s Soups. So tell me. Tell me that these journalists are right.” He scrutinized my face, the dark mustache aquiver. I took another spoonful of the cheese chowder and closed my eyes. I rolled my tongue over the lukewarm mélange of ingredients. There was a hint of cheese, yes, but the mixture was not smooth, creamy, or light, not to mention redolent of cheese, whether it was fine Swiss or sharp cheddar. Even I had a better recipe for cheese soup than this. I swallowed and sighed. Every muscle in Tony’s taut, expectant face rolled, tightened, and rolled again, like cables on a high-speed ski lift. Should I take another sip of the tomato, I wondered, smile, close my eyes, swallow? Venture a fourth bite? What happened if I frowned and delicately set the spoon aside? Would he really holler at me?
“Well—” I began.
“She doesn’t like it,” Marla interrupted with a fluttering of bejeweled fingers. She put one chubby hand on Tony’s forearm. He jerked away, “Give it a rest, Tony. Come on.”
Sam Perdue, his face a mottled study of anger, scraped his chair back, stood, and silently marched away. Marla’s efforts to mollify Tony were unsuccessful When he made one short, fierce shake of his head, she sent a hopeful gaze around the restaurant.
“I want to lose money,” she said brightly. “I know how to throw away more than we’ve already allowed to slip past. Hey, Tony! All we have to do is invest in a restaurant producing food that Goldy thinks is garbage.”
“Damn it, Marla!” Tony snapped. Then he relented and rubbed her hand. “Don’t get in the middle of this, sweetie. If it’s no good, we’re not going to invest in it. Okay?”
&n
bsp; I could practically hear her purr at his saccharine attentions. Fool! I wanted to shout, but did not. Tony sighed gustily and dipped a clean spoon into the chocolate soup. He didn’t look at me as he put the spoon loaded with dark stuff on my plate.
“Hey Tony, what am I, a kid?” I demanded. “Don’t you think I can feed myself?”
“No, you’re not a kid,” he said quietly, still not meeting my gaze. “In fact, I hear you’re the right-hand woman to the county’s number one investigator.”
“Yeah, too bad he doesn’t investigate soups, right?” I parried. I eyed the chocolate, which was dark and velvety-looking. When the Aztecs had named chocolate “food of the gods,” they’d been onto something. I didn’t want to imagine, much less experience, how Sam’s chef had wrecked it.
“Eat the damn soup, Goldy, and tell me if it’s any good. It’s the last one.” He scanned the restaurant again, and spoke confidingly. “Sam’s had a hard time with Prospect, and he’s ready to go to the newspapers with his tale of how cruel we’ve been to him. The last thing I want is more bad publicity, okay? Victoria didn’t like the soups, Albert got away with a bundle, and Sam’s going to hate the hell out of me if we veto his plans. I do want to try to help this guy expand, if I can.” He gestured at the chocolate soup. “Tell me if anything here has potential.” He exhaled, then spoke with clenched teeth. “I need a successful investment at this time, because of what’s going on at the firm.”
“You’re being a jerk, Tony,” Marla singsonged, winking at some friends and holding up an index finger to indicate she’d be right over.
Tony’s voice was corrosive. “Oh, I’m a jerk? I thought you two saved the term jerk for your mutual ex-husband.”
Marla tsked, rose, and flounced off She wriggled through some tables, poured herself some forbidden coffee, and carried it off to greet her buddies.
Tony smoothed his mustache with his index finger and gave me a blank look. “Eat your chocolate soup, Goldy,” he said coldly.
I watched Marla’s back as she sipped from her coffee cup and chatted with her acquaintances, women who from their expensive clothing looked as if they, too, like Marla, belonged to the nonworking segment of the populace. Maybe they were also signed up for the art appreciation adventure to Italy. The excursion was supposed to be all-female, but maybe the Botticelli and Bernini would be supplanted by marinara and men. Actually, that would have been good for Marla, I mused. Much as I worried about Marla’s health, I worried more about her social life. Not the country club variety, but the intense kind you have with guys. Guys like Tony. Tony who was now giving me the soup-sipping evil eye.
I took a dainty spoonful of the chocolate concoction. It was too thin. And too sweet. “No more,” I said.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Tony cried. “Can’t you at least give me more information than that?” he demanded in a nasty tone I tried to think of as concerned. He wanted to hear sensory analysis, or at least reasons for culinary rejection, straight from the caterer’s mouth. “You realize we’re talking about a lot of money to be made here?” he added in a lower, patronizing voice.
Well. That did it. If the man wanted a bona fide taste assessment, the man was going to get one.
“They’re all boring. They lack creamy texture and depth of taste. They’re too thin. Worse, the seafood and cheese selections are not spicy enough for the American palate. They’re not terrible,” I said wistfully. “Just not … unusual. And I should tell you, Tony, good soups can be extraordinarily labor-intensive. Labor-intensive means lots of money. Plus, soup is volatile. Cook it too long, and it gets like library paste. Cook it too little and it tastes like puddle water.”
He exhaled loudly and put his head in his hands.
Outside the restaurant, the soaking wet Audubon group was breaking up. A tall fellow tentatively raised his head, spylike, and trained his binoculars on Sam’s. No long-billed curlew here, I wanted to call to him, just a few odd ducks. The man watched the restaurant just a moment too long to be credibly involved with the birders. I stared until he folded his body down next to a beat-up Subaru. Oh, Lord: Macguire. Trying to be an investigator. What did he think he was doing? Was he tailing somebody? And who? The teenager was going to give new meaning to the term loose cannon.
Tony caught Sam Perdue’s eye and gave him a sympathetic, sorrowful look. Sam lifted his chin and turned his back. He sure didn’t want to hear analysis of his soup samples from a local caterer.
“This was a mistake,” I said, and meant it. Poor Sam.
“Oh, well.” Tony was already on the rebound, just as he’d been after the scene at the mine party. Apparently things went badly in the venture capital world quite often. “You brought the food for our camping trip?”
“Yes, I did. It’s in the van.”
He smiled mischievously. “Marla says your husband is a big fisherman. Is he jealous of what we’re doing?”
“If you actually catch any trout, he’ll be jealous after the fact.”
Again Tony leaned over and addressed me in an oddly confiding tone. “Has he found my partner yet? Has he gotten any leads?”
“I wouldn’t know. Tom’s off the case.”
He wrinkled his brow and continued to whisper. “Why?”
I shrugged. “Shockley’s the captain, and as you undoubtedly know, his retirement funds are with Prospect. He wants his own people out looking for Albert Lipscomb.”
“But … but … I thought your husband was the best. That’s what Marla says. ‘Tom Schulz is the best.’” Tony’s face contorted with alarm. “Jesus. They’ll never find Albert if Schulz isn’t working the case. What’s the matter with that Shockley? Doesn’t he want to find Albert? What about my money?”
Taken aback, I couldn’t think of a word to say. This possibility had never occurred to me. Tony looked apprehensively in Marla’s direction and said: “Listen, Goldy, speaking of husbands, there’s something more important that I need to talk to you about.” He hesitated. “I’m going to ask Marla to marry me this weekend, when we’re up at Grizzly Creek. Think she’ll have me?”
My heart plummeted. I certainly hope not. “You’re going to ask her to marry you on a fishing trip? Why don’t you just go to the Brown Palace and skip the rod-and-reel routine? I think she’d be more likely to say yes. You’d certainly get less wet.”
“No, no, no,” he said desperately. “This is important, Goldy. I told Marla this fishing trip was going to be a big deal. She thinks we’re trying to catch enormous cutthroat trout. Being by the water is very romantic.” He snorted. “So,” he said as if he were discussing a merger he’d just read about in Forbes, “do you think she wants to get married or not?”
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully, but was prevented from saying more by Marla’s approach. I suddenly had a vision of myself standing up and screaming, Marla, get an ironclad prenuptial agreement! But of course, I didn’t.
“I’ll talk to you when we get back,” Tony whispered hastily. “Save the first weekend in August for us. You can cater the reception.”
I grunted and was stopped from saying Why, thank you, Your Highness, by Marla’s arrival.
“I see you all got your differences straightened out,” she said impatiently. “I just saw Nan and Liz and … uh-oh, there’s Sam!” she hissed. “Did you tell him you didn’t like the soups, Goldy? He certainly doesn’t look very happy.”
That was an understatement. The man looked ready to drown me in his precious soup.
“We need to go,” Tony said curtly, “We still have to pack up all the gear. Is your van locked, Goldy?”
“Come on, guys,” I begged them, “can’t you go fishing another weekend?”
Tony stared at the ceiling. Over the sound of seagull calls, he said, “We need to get moving. Is the food really in your van, or did you forget it?”
“I remembered the food, chill out. Oh, and speaking of which, refrigerate the”—I lowered my voice—“soup until you leave.” I directed my plea at Marla
. “It’s raining. You’re going to get drenched even if it stops—”
“You don’t seem to know who you’re talking to.” Tony’s voice had gone from insulting back to its normal arrogance. “All my stuff is waterproof Goldy. State-of-the-art. And we’ll get up there when all the other fishermen are too wimpy. We’ll catch a lot.”
“That I doubt,” said Marla with a perfumed shrug.
“You won’t say that when I fix you my pan-fried trout,” chided Tony, as he helped her into her shiny white raincoat. “Maybe we won’t even need Goldy’s soup.”
As we left, Edna Hardcastle was condoling with Sam Perdue, who refused to acknowledge our departure. Outside, Macguire was nowhere to be seen. I hoped. rather than believed, that he’d given up his investigative fantasies.
I turned to Marla. But she was making a joke with Tony, something about being smart like fish, something about schools. The old joke.
I didn’t say what was on my mind. Stay home, Marla, I wanted to beg, but I couldn’t say the words. She looked over, wanting me to share in her laughter. Again I tried to speak, but the warning remained in my throat, unspoken.
Don’t say yes.
Chapter 11
It was another slow weekend with no bookings and intermittent rain. Friday and Saturday, I experimented with shrimp curry and grilled tuna with Japanese noodles. After marination in lemon juice and crushed bay leaves, the tuna was delectable. But the curry was so hot even Jake turned his nose up at it. An unusually fierce, windy rainstorm late Saturday night took out our telephones as well as our electric power. We drove through thick fog to get to church, then decided to take Arch and Todd Druckman to a Rockies game, tickets courtesy of the Druckmans’ vacationing neighbors.
The Rockies were playing the Mets. By the eighth inning, the Rockies were ahead by one. In the top of the ninth, with two out and a runner on second, the Mets’ catcher hit a line drive down the left field line. Ellis Burks backhanded the ball on the first bounce and flung it with such force to home that I thought Jayhawk Owens was going to spin a cartwheel when he reached for it. Owens managed to catch the ball, pivot, and tag the runner out to end the game. The crowd went wild.
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